PayPal Cancels WikiLeaks Account

Owned by eBay, by the way.

And a follow-up on Amazon: If I understand this correctly, they never hosted the cables themselves, but an index to the cables. Amazon’s still within its rights to host whatever it sees fit, but golly, that’s craven.

@nojo: The promised dump of Wall Street docs has the corporate overlords shitting their pants.

@SanFranLefty: Chainsaw, too. The rumored target is BofA.

@nojo: I don’t know how much stock to put in anything that comes out of Assange’s mouth, but he implied that using Amazon was a way to shine a light on how information is suppressed and that they barely used the site.

/off to buy converter box/

@JNOV: @nojo: I love the smell of litigation in the morning …

@JNOV: I’ll file that under Clever Spin.

Meanwhile, here’s what I don’t get: Why all the fuss over diplomatic cables? Did they get a pass over the war documents?

@nojo: Diplomatic cables = news gleaned at cocktail parties. There’s your answer.

@nojo: It’s not the diplomatic cables, or the myriad other docs they’ve been given over the past 3 years, it’s what’s coming next.

@SanFranLefty:
I’m looking forward to that.

Re the update: Domain-chasing is kind of pointless, since it’s the IP address that drives the Internet — domain names are a convenience for humans. WikiLeaks can (and has) publicize the numbers instead.

There’s some backstory (I think) that the WikiGeeks left in a huff a few months back. If I were on the crew, I’d advise buying every country-based domain name on the planet. .ch no longer works? Here, have a .ru!

@SanFranLefty: Perhaps it has something to do with who ever thought that Spiderman the Musical was a good idea.

@nojo: They’ve got mirrors that used get you into the old site. Now they just redirect you to the Money PLEASE site, if it’s up.

And, yeah — some left in September because they thought Assange was an ass and dumped too many documents before they could be redacted. I wrote a long comment about the brouhaha, but I can’t find it.

Ah. Found it.

@JNOV: wow

Somewhat vaguely thematically related, I’m watching The Shining for the first time since it came out. (Thanks, Netflix streaming!) I remember what I liked about it at the time — the Big Wheel steadicam/sound, the axe swinging, the general spookiness, Scatman Crothers — but I didn’t realize before how blatantly Kubrick telegraphed the whole damn thing.

I mean, blatantly. Like Indian Burial Ground blatantly.

There must be a thematic reason I didn’t know to look for at the time. But we’re barely one blood-filled hallway in, so I’ll have to be patient.

@nojo: Pet Semetery Indian Burial Ground like?

@SanFranLefty: Yah. I’m not a fan of Assange the guy.

@JNOV: Poltergeist Indian Burial Ground like. Over-the-top horror-movie cliche like.

Stephen King famously hated the adaptation. I’m not a fan of the book, myself. Kubrick greatly improved upon a flawed source.

But Kubrick doesn’t give a shit about making a horror movie. And so I’m wondering now what I didn’t think to wonder thirty years ago, because I was having too much fun: What the fuck is he up to?

What I’m saying is, The Shining is camp. Imagine Kubrick directing Airplane. Or better yet, imagine Kubrick directing Airport.

@nojo: He did something similar with Spartacus and hinted at it with the mad CIA/Russian scientists etc in A Space Odyssey. He had a very sly sense of humor that often seemed to surface as camp genre references.

@nojo: And Amityville Horror like. Scatman was a nice touch. I haven’t seen The Shining since I was a kid. It might be worth another look.

Pet Semetery had some good spots. I think they switched it up some (ha!) and used an ancient Indian ceremonial area rather than a graveyard. The aerial view of the whateveritwas was pretty cool. It was nice to see Herman Munster get some work.

I read King’s books until my 20s, defected to Grisham and Clancy for a nanosecond (loved all the Jane’s lingo), and then I got truly bored. I read the first three Dark Tower books — I think he stopped writing them because he had writers block, or maybe that was when he was hit by a van. I really like King’s Insomnia; it’s probably my favorite. I was disappointed when I saw the movie of the same name that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the novel.

@Benedick: I’m waiting for the chance to stand up in court and say “I am Spartacus.”

@Dodgerblue: Why wait? Just do it! On camera. Then I’ll say, “I am Trumbo.”