Quick Hits

MPAA Failed the Class in Statistics

The MPAA has suddenly retracted the stastistic that said an astonishing 44% of piracy losses came from college students. These inflated numbers have been used as a crutch for the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, which is currently pending a vote in congress. The folks over at Ars Technica say it better than I can:

With most of the Ars staff having backgrounds in higher education, the MPAA lobbying drive to turn universities into copyright cops touches a raw nerve. The fact that one of the key data points in this lobbying for the last two years was overstated by a factor of three is bad, but the fact that it came from a secret report just makes it all worse. After all, this is exactly opposite the approach taken by most of the academic world (and the open-source community) when it comes to research, and there’s a good reason why findings need to be open and repeatable and scrutinized by other experts before gaining acceptance. Or before guiding US law.

BFG BBQ

Only in Texas would we have a BBQ cooker made in the guise of an old six-gun. Sometimes, I just absolutely adore my adopted state. (Seriously!) I’m thinking something like this needs to make an appearance at the annual “Eat Meat with Pete” event.

New Xfiles Movie

If it’s about a werewolf, then I’m going to be somewhat upset. I need more alien colonization mythology! Gillian Anderson is still as hot as she ever was, though.

Donde esta tu green card?

The Border Patrol is returning to its roots by patrolling the Mexican border with horses. Why does this suddenly sound more appealing to me than working as a Chemist?

Mounted units in the busy smuggling corridor south of Tucson frequently arrest groups of 15 or 20 illegal immigrants, and sometimes more than 100 a time. Agents say their horses’ imposing size gives them a good view over the uneven terrain and helps them establish control.

Clash over moon mission

Slashdot has the report that the Planetary Society (composed of former mission managers and astronauts) disagrees with the current plan to use the moon as an intermediate step in a quest for a manned Mars mission. I don’t have enough information to have an opinion here, but I’m not comfortable with NASA’s direction in the past decade. Perhaps these guys have a point. Where is our audacity and our pioneer spirit?

On the filp side, we need a viable, permanent presence on the moon, if only to deter the growing space might of China, Japan, and India.