News & Media
Avast! The Pirate Bay's Intellectual Property's Been Boarded!
If you haven’t heard of The Pirate Bay by now, you may want to emerge from that cave, wipe the sleepies from your eyes, and start getting caught up on your backed up WIRED magazines in the bathroom. The Pirate Bay (TPB) is a website run by a few Swedish intellectual property anarchists. TPB provides a comprehensive indexing service for BitTorrent files. In plain English, TPB is the backbone of one of the most comprehensive copyright infringement schemes to ever exist. And, TPB isn’t just about “free information,” as it makes a significant income from sponsored ads on its webpage,
Route 60 Hyundai in Vero Beach, Flori-duh, I would like to introduce you to the Streisand Effect
Same old story. Consumer goes to a car dealership. Consumer is unhappy with how he is treated at car dealership. Consumer bitches about car dealership on the internet. Car dealership deals with consumer and makes the situation right calls up attorney. Attorney sends really ill-advised letter to consumer, and then consumer’s complaint about car dealership goes from being heard by 40 people to being heard by 4,000,000 people. (source) Morons. UPDATE: If anyone out there can find a copy of the demand letter, I would love to a) read it, and b) give it a fair critique. The letter is
One man's masturbatory war against idiocracy
The opening sequence from Idiocracy is, imho, one of the greatest pieces of cinema ever created. And it has always seemed to be an ominous and accurate prediction of where our species is headed. With no natural predators to thin the human herd, the process of natural selection seems to have ground to a halt. In fact, given that homo walmartus (example) seems to reproduce earlier, more often, and with greater genetic diversity than homo sapiens, it seems certain that homo sapiens will, one day, be extinct, and homo walmartus will inherit the earth. But then, I read about this
Springsteen on Marriage Equality
Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I’ve been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I’ve long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, “The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is — a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law.” I couldn’t agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers
Criminal Law exam question: What if someone smashed in the ABA's head with a chapati pan?
Most criminal law courses require the students to read DPP v. Camplin . In that case, an older guy by the name of Khan raped a 15 year old boy and then taunted him. So, the boy bashed in Khan’s head with a chapati pan. The court held that in deciding whether the charge should be reduced from murder to manslaughter, how a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would react to such provocation. Well, a number of months ago, the ABA did a real Khan on the legal profession by giving the thumbs up to sending legal jobs to
Former Rep Ted Klaudt claims "common law copyright" in his name to try and suppress news stories about him being a sick child rapist
We sure do see a lot of intellectual property abuse around here. This has to be the best one yet. Former South Dakota State Representative Ted Klaudt claims that he has a “common law copyright” in his name, and thus any news organization or other publication that uses his name must pay him a licensing fee of $500,000. (source) It gets better. Mr. Klaudt apparently started sending notices of his “common law copyright” to news agencies in order to stop them from reporting on the fact that he is serving time for raping his foster daughters. Klaudt was convicted on
Once, twice, three times a loser
By J. DeVoy Straight from the “it could be worse” file, some guy started a facebook group seeking 1,170,000 members so his girlfriend, Caroline, would marry him. While bizarre enough on its own, this is his third and final attempt to win her hand in marriage. He first proposed six months before the group’s creation and again two weeks before starting it. Apparently not taking the hint, Caroline told him she would say yes if he created a facebook group that had 1,170,000 members. What happened next is unclear from timeline of line breaks formed by equal signs and periods.
Rock and Roll, Rest in Peace.
ABBA has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (source) And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is hereby inducted into the Asshat Hall of Fame. Are you yanking my taint? ABBA? A-freakin-Buh-Buh???? Neil Young was wrong when he said that Rock and Roll would never die. Rock and Roll died today. December 15, 2009.
Well Said…
And restrained… I think that putting the rights of minorities on the ballot and allowing the forces of intolerance to spend an unlimited amount to demonize and marginalize a population is … unsavory.” So said DC City Council member, David Catania, when interviewed about why he opposes placing marriage equality on the ballot in the District of Columbia, which is expected to legalize same sex marriage this week. (source)
Court slaps down school's punishment for off-campus pwnage
By J. DeVoy From Boston.com: LOS ANGELES – One morning in May 2008, an eighth-grader walked into Janice Hart’s office at a Beverly Hills middle school crying. I love it when stories start that way. Many of my real-life hypotheticals relate to crying, so naturally I love when the mainstream media brings it up. Call it the Eric Cartman effect. At the heart of the matter, a group of eighth graders posted a video to YouTube where they described the upset classmate as “spoiled,” a “brat,” and a “slut.” In response, the school issued a two-day suspension to the girl
Florida Criminalizes Arts & Crafts
By Dr. Marty Klein Remember playing with photos and scissors as a young teen? You’d make collages: your scrawny face on a caveman’s body, your friend’s body with the head of a dog, you and a movie star on a beach in Hawaii. Silly adolescent stuff, harmless. Now what about putting your head on a movie star’s nude body? Or your neighbor kid’s face on your body? Still harmless, right? When does this kind of stuff become illegal? John Stelmack of Lakeland, FL found out the hard way. He allegedly cut out a Xerox copy of a girl’s head, taped
"Twenty-Something Arrested at Twilight Movie" or "State Law Copyright Enforcement?"
by Jason Fischer Earlier this month, 22-year-old Samantha Tumpach was arrested exiting a showing of the new douchey-little-vampire-kid movie, The Twilight Saga: New Moon. No, she wasn’t detained for a psych eval, as anyone over the age of 16 should be for watching that movie. (The only problem with implementing that policy is that state mental health facilities would be choked with nearly every female American between the ages of 17 and 45 — my sisters, my wife, and all of their friends included.) It seems that she was arrested because theater employees saw her operating a video recording device
Some days, I really really really love my job
Like on the days I get paid to write stuff like this. Link courtesy of Xbiz.
Pat the Patriot busted in sex sting
Can the Patriots catch a break this year? Apparently not.
A Satyricon Christmas Carol
Happy muthafuckin holidays, magic space zombie jew eaters. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VzZG81HuDo]
"Cyber Civil Rights" Prioritizes Civility Over Rights
By J. DeVoy In Danielle Citron’s paper Cyber Civil Rights, which she discussed at Denver Univeristy’s “Cyber Civil Rights” Symposium (summarized by Eric Goldman here), her contempt for existing First Amendment freedoms could not be clearer. Though anonymous speech can shock and offend people, Citron proposes eliminating it completely. First, Citron advocates the elimination of § 230 immunity under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 as it applies to certain claims against Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Additionally, she envisions a regime where ISPs must keep records of the IP addresses assigned to their subscribers in perpetuity. Second, the reason for
Biurny Peguero Gonzalez: Rape "victim" comes forward and admits lie, could face 7 years
On the advice of her priest, my ass. New Jersey resident Biurny Peguero said she was visciously gang-raped by three men in a van after a night of drinking in upper Manhattan. Her testimony sent William McCaffery to jail despite a lack of DNA evidence linking him to the crime. Now, on the advice of her priest, Peguero has admitted it was all a hoax. (source) I wonder if Hallmark makes a “sorry I’m a lying piece of shit who got you sent to jail for four years for gang rape” card. The court papers say she invented the rape
The Janitor has to be lying (or we have to revoke the janitor's Man Card)
A Brooklyn high school is all abuzz after its Spanish teacher and French teacher, Cindy Mauro and Alini Brito, were allegedly caught naked together in a classroom by the school’s janitor, who turned them in. They are now suspended from their teaching duties. (source). Get this… they’re both totally hot. Now lets walk through the story…. let’s say you’re the janitor… Nothing against high school janitors, but I think that even the janitor’s union would agree that none of its members have actually gotten a whole lot of breaks in life. I’m willing to bet that the number of high
USA Technologies gets bitch slapped by EFF
USA Technologies, based in Malvern, Pennsylvania ought to see its stock price drop a little more once the world gets wind of what kind of morons run the company. A couple of message board posters commented about the company’s plummeting stock prices and the over-compensated executives at the consistently unprofitable company. So, USA Technologies’ crack team sprang into action, fixing the problem. Ha, just kidding. They did what every moron does, pretend the problem doesn’t exist, but sue the commenters for defamation. (Complaint – courtesy EFF). They then issued a subpoena to try and unmask the anonymous commenters, and SPLAT!