Random Items of Interest

Presenting random items of interest from my f-list for people who may have missed them the first time around:

LJ is having a permanent account sale next week:
Now, to kick off the summer properly, we're starting with a 24 hour permanent account sale. A permanent account is the ultimate prize for a LiveJournal addict, comes with 50 user pictures and all of the current paid features, and has the added convenience in never having to pay for your account again. Considering that we've added a lot of features since our last permanent account sale two years ago, we've bumped the price up to a fair $150 USD. The sale starts Tuesday, June 7th (midnight EST) and will last until Wednesday, June 8th (midnight EST). That's a lifetime for 6 year's subscription fees.

They are also updating ToS:
In housekeeping news, our lawyers have informed us that everyone needs to agree to the new Terms of Service. We were supposed to do this in January when we got acquired, but we forgot and now we can't put it off. If you login, post a comment, or post an entry after next Wednesday (June 8th), you will also be asked to review and agree to the new Terms of Service.

Conservative Blog Names the 10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries
The Kinsey Report is #4 ("The reports were designed to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy.") and The Feminine Mystique is #7. (They don't actually give a quote I can use against the book here, as their blurb solely complains about Ms. Friedan's politics and choice of partners.) The original site is here, but the original cite on nemo_wistar's LJ is worth the reading for the comments. Note that uncommented (dis)honorable mentions include The Descent of Man, Origin of the Species, Unsafe at Any Speed, and Silent Spring, just to count the "biology and protection are wrong" books. And under "women are eeeeeeevillle," there's a listing for The Second Sex.

And a great deal less Earth-shattering:
Plan 9 from LJ
There's a spate of posts in plan_9_from_lj, the community for MST3King bad movies. I want to put in a quick plug for my recap of the Bollywood classic Maine Pyar Kiya, Parts 1, 2, and 3. Love, corporate espionage, shoulder pads, moonwalking, and a pigeon.

My $.02 on the Deep Throat furor

Who knew that anyone could really keep a secret in this town? Particularly an explosive one like the true identity of Cigarette Smoking Man Deep Throat? Turns out there are three people: Woodward, Bernstein, and Felt.

Woodward and Bernstein swore they'd keep the secret until Felt died, and they were well on their way to keeping their word until Felt himself stepped forward.

Which would be fine by me, except for the fact that this doddering old guy has handprints in his back. Y'see, he didn't come forward due to his own conscience. His daughter outed him, saying she needed to he could "make enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the children's education".

The debt SHE ran up. She chose to have the children. She chose to spend money she didn't have. And now she's chosen to sell her father for 30 pieces of silver. (Money she probably won't even get.) We can - and will - argue for months over whether Felt himself is patriot or traitor, but as far as I'm concerned, Joan just bought herself a front-row ticket in the lowest circle of Hell.