I teach a course on conservative and libertarian intellectuals in U.S. history (yes, the students learn the differences from day one).

Here is a group email I sent to my students, who invariably are a very bright bunch, regardless of politics (probably due to self-selection after the others see the heavy reading list):

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Subject: HIST 455: Kate Winslet's Breasts: Libertarian and Conservative Guides to Movies, Etc.


I hope the subject line passed your spam filter. :-)

Several of you discussed pop culture and conservatism/libertarianism with me out of class.

For those interested in libertarian film reviews and libertarian themes in TV/movies, check out:

http://www.missliberty.com/

As for the conservatives, they had cleanflicks online until a Supreme Court case ruled that such companies could not take Hollywood movies and cover breasts, etc. (the Supreme Court actually discussed Kate Winslet's breasts before ruling that such bowdlerizing violated intellectual property rights!). If you don't know bowdlerize, it is your word for the day. LOL CleanFlicks et al. v. Kate Winslet's Titanic Breasts. [They aren't so titanic; this is a reference to the movie]

BTW, in case you think I make this stuff up, go to

http://www.reason.com

(Reason is the most popular glossy libertarian magazine).

As for other conservative guides, National Review (the glossy conservative magazine) has periodically come up with NR's Guide to Rock Music, Top 100 Conservative Films, TV Shows, etc.

see, e.g., http://www.nationalreview.com

or http://tinyurl.com

(Tinyurl is a great firefox extension that takes long web site addresses and makes them "tiny" and permanent).

Jonathan J. Bean - 2/2/2007

Well, I've used it for 2 years with no problems. The link suggests that evil people might use it for spam purposes and that we cannot know if it will be permanent (as in forever and forever). Hell, web addresses aren't forever! And I don't spam, so I'll keep using...

In respectful disagreement,

j.b. ("tinyurl" Jon?!).

Andrew D. Todd - 2/1/2007

I don't know if this is exactly relevant, but I don't know if you've ever heard of IBM OS/2 Warp. It was a program, about fifteen years ago, which modified the then-current version of Microsoft Windows (3.1) in certain ways-- but it did so at the last possible moment before use, so that the modified product was ephemeral, and immediately ceased to exist after use. It performed certain checks to make sure it had the right kind of Windows, and the whole process was completely automated. As far as the user was concerned, the practical effect was nearly the same as distributing a modified copy of Windows to people who could show their copy of the unmodified Windows. Presumably these CleanFlicks people could use a similar system, though admittedly that was on the far side of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Mike Linksvayer - 2/1/2007

does shorten long URLs, but it cannot make them more permanent. Rather, Tinyurl just adds another point of failure. Tinyurl has many other disadvantages, please read http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2006/02/tinyurls-are-evil-urls.html