The response from Iraqis is jubilant; today has been branded National Sovereignty Day. The Guardian has a few choice quotes:

Baghdad’s river-front parklands, which have been reclaimed this year after being deserted during the height of the insurgency and sectarian war, were last night transformed into outdoor dance venues, where audiences of around 3,000 – almost all of them men – danced to the strains of a recently returned Iraqi singer, Salah Hassan, exiled in Dubai for the past five years.

One reveller at an outdoor concert in Baghdad’s zoo, Tamader al-Waeli, 25, said: “It has been a long time since the last big celebration. We have now got rid of the occupiers and will not see them again on Iraqi streets. Baghdad needs the peace of its past life back again, we want to regain what we had, but at the same time the security forces now have extra duties and responsibilities and I hope they carry them out.

Another man at the concert, Ahmed Ebrahim, 35, said: “No words can describe how I feel. The occupation stayed in Iraqi hearts for six years and this is a big occasion that deserves to be a permanent national day in future. The occupiers put me in Bucca [an American-run prison in Iraq]. But now I am free and so is Iraq.”

Good luck, Iraq.

You’ve already heard everything I have to say about this war, but I’ll just reiterate that this was my primary reason to vote for Obama*, so my big payoff is today. The rest of his presidency is frosting.

* and if you think this withdrawal would have happened anyway, read the alternative.

How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it’s just one — if that one is Michael Jackson. The biggest showbiz story of the year saw the troubled star take a good slice of the Internet with him, as the ripples caused by the news of his death swept around the globe . . .

. . . Twitter crashed as users saw multiple “fail whales” — the illustrations the site uses as error messages — user FoieGrasie posting, “Irony: The protesters in Iran using Twitter as com are unable to get online because of all the posts of ‘Michael Jackson RIP.’ Well done.”

The test itself fascinates me. First of all, it doesn’t make any claims about quality or fairness, or even sexism per se; the two women could be delivering cliche lines about tax law while wrestling in mud. It’s also frightfully easy to make a movie that passes the test; just stick in a few minutes of mud-wrestling tax chat and proceed with the rest of your film as-is. (Yes I am looking at you, Star Trek.) It also shouldn’t be construed as an ultimate benchmark of feminism, because it’s possible to make a film that doesn’t pass but still treats women as first-class characters.

That said, the subset of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy films that would pass the test is an amazingly short list. Some of the dropouts (like 2001 and Moon) have few or no female characters, and some (like Star Wars and The Princess Bride) don’t have any conversations between women. In fact, finding a single genre favorite that passes starts to challenge my memory. Brazil? Nope. Raiders? Nope. Back to the Future? Nope for all three. Lord of the Rings? Heh.

Then I get to Serenity. OK, here we go. Joss Whedon, strong female characters, more than one on screen at a time. A cinch, right? Well… I’m trying really hard to remember a conversation between any two women in the film, and it just isn’t working. I’ll probably go through the script scene-by-scene just to check, but it should just pop to mind, right? Reverse genders and it’s obvious: Mal talks to the Operative on more than one occasion, Book and Mal share a nice moment, the Operative shares exposition with that functionary guy–and then impales him, but it still counts.

I’ve heard tell that the Alien movies qualify, but I must admit that I haven’t seen them. As for the rest of my list… well, I guess there isn’t one yet. I can’t think of a single genre film I’ve seen that passes the Bechdel test. Can you?

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.

Of course, Clay Shirky understands what’s going on. He gets it so thoroughly that he described exactly what we’re seeing now, in fascinating detail, a month ago. Appropriately, TED gives a video record of his prescient talk:

Shirky presents the idea we’re all getting a crash course on this week: it’s nigh impossible to censor media if everyone produces it for instant distribution. It’s the flipside of the social phenomenon The Onion has poked fun at so well. Now that we’re all capable of reporting, everyone is always sharing everything, whether we like it or not.

You might recognize the awful dialogue from The Last Domino, my cursed time-travel screenplay from Script Frenzy a couple years back.

On the left, Lucas surrounded by a ton of stuff from the first Star Wars trilogy, which ended with 1983’s Return of the Jedi. On the right, Lucas surrounded by the only object that mattered in his second Star Wars trilogy, finishing with 2005’s Revenge of the Sith: A green chroma screen.

I’ve been thinking about this in terms of television shows lately. On the one hand, using CG and green screens is so much cheaper that it allows shoestring indie productions to look as good as big studio stuff. (See the indie-to-SciFi show Sanctuary for an example.) On the other hand, green screens make it harder for actors to get involved, and there are lots of ways to get the visuals subtly wrong.

So here’s my question: do we actually need the green screen anymore? There seem to be lots of “extended super special restored director’s cut” editions of existing shows and movies now, and plenty of YouTube remasters of even the crappiest pre-digital video. None of that stock had green screens or motion dots or matchmove data, so why can’t we shoot new video without all those things?

As an intermediate step, would it be possible to dress a set the way you might for a stage play, then fill in the screen-quality props and sets digitally? Can actors look out a cardboard window at a black cloth with stars painted on it, but viewers see a porthole with galaxies whizzing past? That way, you don’t have to make the decision between the on-stage prop and the virtual one until you’re in the editing room. Who knows? You might just decide to leave the cardboard in.

Don't Panic!

From Wikipedia (which, I remind all students, is NOT a source!):

Towel Day is celebrated every May 25 as a tribute by fans of the late author Douglas Adams. On this day, fans carry a towel with them to demonstrate their love for the books and the author. The commemoration was first held in 2001, two weeks after Adams’ death on May 11, 2001.

From the example, it looks like the Livable Streets Initiative would be a good first step for cities to take toward the carfree ideal. The changes they propose are inexpensive, leave room for lots of small iterations, and can be carried out by local groups almost as easily as local governments.

Streets can and must be more than just a place for the movement and storage of private motor vehicles. The urban street of the 21st century will be a “complete street,” accommodating pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders alike. At the Livable Streets Initiative we are helping citizens re-envision streets as great public spaces.

The magazine even sponsored a contest to see who could Photoshop their way to the best livable-street makeover. Of the winners, my personal favorite is this amazing re-do of a street in Milwaukee. (Click through for an interactive before-and-after view.)

Individually, the changes are almost trivial. A corner expanded here, some cobbles laid down there, a few trees planted. Only one major change would be necessary: narrowing the street to one lane in each direction. The overall effect is amazing, though; a crumbling undifferentiated gray surface becomes a cheery, purposeful street. I can easily imagine businesses, shops, and city-dwellers feeling drawn to this place after the change.

(via John Tantalo)

Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

Sound familiar? It’s the “car-lite” mode suggested by my favorite urban design manual, Carfree Cities. I’m glad to see communities implementing these principles in the real world; hopefully we can learn more about how to make places like this more common.

The city also looks well-placed as a destination for my upcoming (someday) architectural tour of Europe. Now if we could just get this silly dollar back up to its former value…

Gay marriage is to be permitted in the US state of Maine after a bill was passed by both houses of the state’s legislature and signed by the governor.

Maine will be the fifth US state to allow gay marriage, after Connecticut, Masschusetes, Iowa and Vermont.

A number of other states, including New Hampshire and New York, are also due to consider proposals to legalise it.

Well done, New Englanders! Um, and Iowa. (Still having a hard time coming to grips with that one.) Oh, and Prop 8? Your days are numbered.

UPDATE: John notes that for those keeping score, there’s a nice map of marriage and civil union status in all US states over at Wikipedia.