I'm kinda desperately offline these days. So many emails to send, and no internet at home. I keep winding up at the local wirelessly enabled cafe.

Anyway, linkage:

Michael Bérubé talks about the new Harry Potter. Just kidding. He talks about Harry Potter in general, and how it helps kids (specifically, his own child - who has Down syndrome) understand narrative, and become better readers. He hasn't read the new one.

Acephalous has a review of Sicko, the new Michael Moore film, here, to which Michael Moore himself might actually have responded (check the comments for the username "Kaye"), saying, among other things, that he wants people to pirate the film and show it to as many people as possible. A video of the first hour of Sicko is here. I'm trying to download the rest off eMule, but it's impolite to download big things on an unsecured wireless unless it's your own. So I don't do that much, here, at the Café Sans Wîré. But soon, soon.

Sicko, for the first hour, at least, seems to be an excellent piece of propaganda, as usual. (And I mean propaganda in the nicest possible way.) Near the end he gets into an attack on the irrational fear of socialised government programs, which is a big problem even in socialist-democrat countries like Norway. Unfortunately, that's where the video cuts off. I'd like to have seen the continuation.

I like what Moore is doing, and suspect that he may do more to advance the cause of socialism

(cue Russian marching band music, Red Army Choir singing in background, huge armies walking in lockstep across parade grounds, grain, tractors, happy farmers, ICBMs, social "realist" murals, etc.)

across the US and Europe. Nudging a whole lot of people closer to accepting some socialist programs. Like, y'know, welfare, universal healthcare, etc. And once we get there, it's only a matter of time before we start talking about the avantgardistic elite taking over the management of the state, temporarily of course guaranteed minimum income and education reform.