Another strange White Stripes video (“The Denial Twist”) directed by Michel Gondry, guest starring Conan O’Brien. Gondry makes two kinds of videos: 1) the kind that experiment with photography, film, and story; and 2) the kind that experiment with the intersection of sound and video (which I tend to prefer over the first kind). This video is of the first kind, but it’s still worth seeing.

Today’s an interesting day for the Berkman Center (my employer). After releasing an OpenNet Initiative report that details how the Tunisian government censors, filters, and controls Internet information, a couple of Berkman fellows (Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon from Global Voices) are hosting a session called “Expression under Repression” at WSIS – and the Tunisian authorities aren’t happy about it.

I caught Jarhead this past weekend. If you stretched the first half of Full Metal Jacket into two hours and transported it to the desert, you’d have something very much like Jarhead – and that’s a good thing. Both films capture the comraderie, the humor, the arbitrary discipline, the suckiness, and the testosterone of an all-male military outfit, but Jarhead removes the battle scenes and adds in the endless boredom and waiting that constituted the first Gulf War.

Last night, I watched the first part of PBS’s American Experience two-part series on Las Vegas. The episode covered the history of Vegas – the booze, the gambling, the gangsters, the growth – up until around the 6o’s, but also followed some personal stories of modern residents such as a gambling addict and a prosperous family woman brought here as a child by show business but finding success in real estate.

Conservative paper reporting that Bush is showing signs of mental breakdown in the White House, and is even becoming estranged from his father. They cite anonymous sources, so who knows if this is true, but why would a known conservative publication report this? Are they setting up a Bush or Cheney resignation? Both could be “explained” by health reasons. (via kevin drum)

The Simpsons have finally been introduced to the Arab world as Al Shamshoon. Omar Shamshoon no longer loves beer since it is forbidden in Islam, but he does have an obsession with soda. Evidently, some English-speaking Arabic bloggers who have seen the American version find the Arabic version completely stripped of the original’s humor – but I bet that the Arabic versions of the past 7 or 8 American seasons can only be funnier.

Eyepatched resident Norm! writes that the Las Vegas production of Avenue Q at Wynn hasn’t been selling too well. Says a letter to the editor: “A semi-puppet show about a rundown neighborhood in New York is definitely not something for Las Vegas audiences.” I just hope I can see it on the cheap before it leaves town.

Wired has a neat article about an absinthe distiller who has discovered the art of making an absinthe that Toulouse-Lautrec wouldn’t be ashamed to drink – and who proves that it’s not as dangerous as some naysayers think. Ever since absinthe became legal in the EU in the late 80’s, it’s been available there mostly in a lesser, bottom-shelf form. I thought I was cool when I had some in Edinburgh in 2001, but now I realize I quaffed a phony concoction.