The Writers Guild Strike and Worldwide Pants

Those of you following the strike by the Writers Guild of America know that David Letterman and his production company, Worldwide Pants, have reached an agreement with Guild members that will allow them to return to work on Letterman's program. Howard Rodman writes about why this is a good deal here.

Pakistan's Future

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is very bad news for Pakistan and the world. A short piece that mentions both Bhutto's virtues and flaws was published by the Guardian here. My previous posts on Benazir Bhutto are here and here.

Update: Juan Cole has more.

Another update: More from Juan Cole, here and here.

Still another update: Tariq Ali comments here.

Happy Holidays....

...and as I am a great fan of cats, here's an interesting tale from the New York Times about some of the working cats of New York City. A snippet:

"Across the city, delis and bodegas are a familiar and vital part of the streetscape, modest places where customers can pick up necessities, a container of milk, a can of soup, a loaf of bread.

"Amid the goods found in the stores, there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: their cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons."

Synthetic DNA: An Introduction

Have just caught up with this fascinating piece from the Washington Post, another sign of how science-fictional our world has become. A quote: "The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial -- and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive."

The Writers' Strike: A New Development

The Los Angeles Times discusses an interesting development in the Writers Guild of America strike here. Matthew Yglesias offers this analysis: "The TV and movie studios business models are fundamentally all about controlling the channels of distribution -- the very thing the rise of the internet disrupts. But they still have a massive leg-up in the new medium simply because of all the embedded human capital in the form of relationships with the talent.

"They seem to have decided, however, that the dawning of the digital age is mostly a good time to try to claw back compensation from their workforce rather than a time when good relations with their workforce are becoming more important than ever in a world where control of the distribution channels is becoming less and less important."