I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Downfall YouTube phenomenon, and the recent content ID blocking put in place by YouTube, ostensibly at the behest of the copyright owners, preventing existing parodies from being viewed and new ones being uploaded. You may also be aware that a number of parodies have been uploaded in the past week which offer commentary on these events.

I recently pointed out Harper’s communication strategy on the Afghan detainee scandal: any discussion opposing Conservative defense policy is equated with attacking the troops. I couldn’t have asked for a…

I went to a political rally yesterday: the anti-prorogation rally. I’m very frustrated about the current political climate in Canada, and, perhaps like most Canadians, feel powerless to do anything about it. Sadly, I didn’t feel that much more empowered after the rally, for reasons I’ll get into below.

Heist (2001) is a daunting subject for analysis, as is its writer and director David Mamet. It is an example of what I call “semantic screenwriting,” in that it demonstrates that you can put pretty much any nonsensical line into Gene Hackman’s mouth and tell him to spit it back out as if it is the cleverest thing anyone in the room has heard all day, and people will likely assume that it is in fact a juicy bon mot that they just didn’t get.

The Steve of the Web Podcast is back! Subscribe on iTunes or download the latest episode at steveoftheweb.com/podcast. Leave your comments on Episode 03 here. And as promised, further information…

5. National holidays marred by injuries resulting from celebratory gunfire 4. Police academy successfully besieged by terrorists 3. The druglords who convinced your police force to leave town are routed…

In the infinite immutable wisdom of millenia upon millenia the human body decided that an appropriate response to hostile viral takeover is to clog all available breathing passages with goo….

I’ve been known to get cranky about how Canadian news gets overtaken by US election coverage. I don’t mean to suggest that the subject is of absolutely no interest to…

Apparently it’s da Vinci Code week on the History Channel. It’s their answer to Shark Week, I suppose. I’ve still managed to avoid both the movie and the book, though I did accidentally read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, one of whose co-authors appears in this evening’s greasily compelling conjectumentary Beyond the da Vinci Code.