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If a FOI request results in a court order, doesn’t a completely redacted document represent a contempt of court? Or does it only result in a court order if someone objects/refuses?

10 days ago on Justice Department follows the letter of transparency law with a completely redacted 50-page document 1 reply 9 recommends

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One dimension…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Seriously though, I am talking about fictional Federation rather the actual US, though you have clearly moved in that direction. I think the combination of a bloated military and a sense of self exceptionalism is perfectly valid.

Do you think people in the middle east or Asia will watch a show where a bunch of (nominal) Americans fly around the galaxy blowing things up and don’t make any connection at all to the events of the last 50 years. Imagine a show where a bunch of socialists fly around the galaxy saving people from their corrupt, oppressive elites. Would that be a big seller in the US?

19 days ago on Is Star Trek an American taste? 1 reply 2 recommends

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What is ‘uniquely American’ about equality and peace?

I would say Star-Trek is uniquely american because it represents a romantic, fictional version of America’s relations with the rest of the world writ on a galactic scale. A society dominated by a combination of a martial fetishism and a it’s own vast military industrial complex (which in the traditional fascist mode appears to have subsumed nearly all of the societies cultural and economic activity). Constantly expanding it’s influence and at war with any competing society which refuses to conform to it’s own culture and rules, yet claiming to be the most peaceful, just and humane society of the lot.

We come in peace. Phasers set to the max.

PS: Before you get too dewey eyed about ol’ Gene’s utopian future, take a look at some the Nazi propaganda material about Jews and tell me with a straight face that those aren’t Ferengi.
PPS: < BOOM! >

20 days ago on Is Star Trek an American taste? 3 replies 5 recommends

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I love this from http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/README.html

‘If you write your own hypertext and make it available by anonymous ftp or using a server, tell us and we’ll put some pointers to it in ours. Thus spreads the web…
Tim Berners-Lee’

23 days ago on First ever website brought back to life at its original URL 1 reply 10 recommends

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Thank you Micheal Bay for making the prospect of non-stop explosions and giant robots fighting monsters actually boring. I’m off to watch Game of Thrones, Homeland, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, 30 Rock, Arrested Development…

Cinema is dead. Long live TV.

24 days ago on New 'Pacific Rim' trailer shows off even more of Guillermo del Toro's giant monsters and robots 2 recommends