Freespace

Early termination fees for cell phone contracts illegal?

A California judge has ruled that state law bars cell phone companies from imposing early termination fees in service contracts. This decision will have enormous ramifications if it stands. HT:RWK

More on Huell Howser's puff piece about eminent domain

Larry Gilbert spoke to PBS TV host Huell Howser about why he would produce a 14 part miniseries about the supposed successes of redevelopment in California without any discussion of its failures and its costs.

When I asked him to include redevelopment stories that were not successful, or to mention that they are not all a success story as defined by the CRA, Huell stated “they (CRA) are underwriting the series…they are paying me.” So much for fair and balanced topic coverage.

Read the rest...

The Atlas set

I re-watched the classic film The Sting this weekend, and it occurred to me that when they make the Atlas Shrugged movie, it really ought to look just like that. When I picture the world Rand creates in that novel, it always seems to me a sort of alternate-universe 1936. One marvelous thing about The Sting is how beautiful the sets are and how everything looks so perfectly mid-Depression. I think it would be a mistake to try to set Atlas in the present time.

John Mayer in Marysville

The Sacramento Bee has a brief review here of the John Mayer concert in Marysville on Friday that Erin and I went to see. The blog Try JM has more, including photos and video showing Mayer’s newly shaved head. The show was excellent; I knew Mayer was a good guitarist, but I was not aware how good. His energy and creativity were on full display. His performances of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallen,” Talking Heads’ “Burning Down The House” and his own “Gravity” were very good. But my favorite was a long, saturating blues, called “Mercy.”

In the middle of the concert, Mayer took a moment to dedicate a song to the late Randy Pausch, who died earlier that day. “I never met him but he touched my life as much as anyone can that you’ve only seen on the Internet,” he said. “ I hope when I’m 47, I know half as much about life.”

Friday art on Saturday

Sorry about no Friday art yesterday. We went to see John Mayer in concert in Marysville, and I was tied up with other things all day.

This is Dawn by Charles Leonard Hartwell

c/o Sandra Shaw, herself one of my favorite sculptors, who has other wonderful images as part of her lecture series.

Beeker's Ode to Joy

What can I say, it's the best thing ever.

PZing them off

Sometimes you've got to love PZ Myers.

Adam Smith monument

Admirers of Adam Smith have completed their task of erecting a monument to the author of Wealth of Nations. It is not the first ever such monument, however. Private institutions, appropriately enough, have often created monuments to Smith. One such institution is Chapman University, which has a bust of Smith, along with busts of Washington, Madison, Lincoln, and even Milton Friedman. C/o David Boaz, who has more.

Fields of Gold

By the late, great Eva Cassidy.

The "terror lexicon"

At a time when Americans are dying overseas to protect us from barbaric theocrats who believe God will reward them for murder, the Department of Homeland Security has been undertaking to eliminate the words "jihad," "jihadist," "caliphate" and so forth from government statements, because those words offend some Muslims. Congress barred these efforts recently, but as Counter Terrorism Blog points out, it was only over the no votes of a large number of Democrat Congressmen. This sort of absurd, self-lacerating political correctness ought to be laughable by now, but it isn't.