Word of the Day
Pestilence (n.)
A fatal epidemic disease. Bubonic plague pops up in most of the definitions I found, which seems odd. No other diseases? Do they not qualify as pestilence? They aren't pernicious evils too?
Gif of the Day
Subtle motionSpinningTunnelsLike a record baby, right round
Link of the Day
Drew McWeeny on Sony pulling "The Interview"
Recap time. Last month, Sony Picture Studios was hacked by a group that calls themselves the Guardians of Peace. The GOP stole a huge amount of confidential docuemnts and placed them on file-sharing networks, which journalists have shamelessly been downloading. The GOP have long been suspected to be North Korean, and the State Department confirmed that yesterday.
The hackers demanded that Sony stop the release of "The Interview", a comedy about two fluff journalists who go to North Korea to interview Kim Jong Un but are conscripted by the CIA into assassinating him. The movie was scheduled to be released on Christmas, and the hackers threatened 9/11-style attacks if the film was released.
Sony, faced with this Sophie's Choice, opted to pull the film indefinitely.
I had no plans to see "The Interview." Those plans have not changed. But the caving by Sony is deeply concerning, as Drew McWeeny explains:
While I am outraged because we are now allowing someone to use fear to cancel the release of a motion picture, this is a larger moment than that, more important than that. If Sony decides that they deem this a credible threat and they will not chance further action, then what's to stop the next strike being against a bank or a military contractor? If this is how policy is going to be decided, based on the threat of computer strike, then the balance of world power just shifted, and in a way that I'm not sure anyone is prepared to deal with. Forget about whether or not North Korea is a nuclear power… they don't need to be if this worked. They can just use their keyboards to terrorize, without ever needing to kill anyone.ArtFreedom of speechCyber warsSony HackNorth KoreaDrew McWeeny