It seems Carrie Prejean has landed a book deal. It will be called “Still Standing” released in November of this year. I’ll skip the obvious literacy references, Sara Palin allusions, and comments about pop-up books and get to the heart of the matter.

I really don’t care what her position is on gay marriage, and I can’t understand why some people are upset that she holds them. It’s a free country after all, and she was asked her views and stated them rather congenially. In the end, she didn’t lose her crown because of her opinions, but because she failed to show up when and where she was supposed to. I don’t even begrudge her the fifteen minutes of fame that was rightfully hers.

Nope. The only thing that annoys me about this whole affair is that is being framed and reported as a violation of little Miss. California’s free speech rights. Only in America can people with so little so say go on so many TV talk shows to promote a book about how their free speech is being restricted.

I love my Amazon Kindle. I’ve been a bit annoyed with the cost of the e-books and the lack of a proper PDF reader, but overall it’s a wonderful toy.

Last week, however, Kindle users felt the long, strong arm of Amazon’s DRM system. It seems that Amazon mistakenly sold a version of Orwell’s 1984 that it should not have. The morning after they discovered this, purchasers of the book awoke to find that The Ministry of Trust (aka Amazon Customer Service) had remotely deleted the books from their Kindle.

Since Amazon never mentioned that they had the ability to reach into our library and take our books, Kindle users were shocked. Amazon spokesheads said it was all a misunderstanding, the matter was handled poorly, and that all affected parties would have their money refunded.

They also reluctantly admitted that they did see some irony in the fact that this happened with 1984 of all books.

There was no accident here, of course. The fact that Amazon had the confidence to pull such a move means that this “feature” was designed into the kindle, tested and documented.

Cronkite died yesterday. Watching the current news coverage and maudlin commentary from the reports really drives home how far the US news media has fallen since the time “the most trusted man in America” was at the helm.

It would have been simply unthinkable for Cronkite to call a guest a “pinhead”, yell at or insult an interviewee, or to cut a guest’s mic when they say something with which he disagreed.