News & Media
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 it to a printout of an adult female’s body, and Xeroxed it again. According to one of his attorneys, “It
"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 (source). Did the FBI come swooping in to put an end to this flagrant violation of Federal Copyright Law? No.
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 this shift in policy arises from the reported victimization of women by online harassers. Can’t men be victims too? I’ll
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 to cover for a fight she had had with some of her women friends. The fight had been so fierce
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 school janitors who have gotten to watch two hot girls do it, LIVE, is about zero. So you walk in
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! Their dipshittery smacked head on with California code of civil procedure § 1987.2 The EFF describes this statute as follows:
Take it From Me: Elites Just Don't Understand
Marc likes to post about the worthlessness of legal education yet never outright addresses the underlying reason it is worthless. The reason is simple: Legal academia is run by and large by the elite. And the elite (for the most part) are completely worthless as lawyers. Here’s why: Elites are beholden to hierarchical power structures For a profession that is supposed to champion egalitarianism and free expression of ideas, I have never met so many who are unwilling to challenge accepted power structures. Associate. Assistant. Professor. Emeritus. The inherent idea behind these titles is that you can use them as shorthand for whose ideas are better than others. I love the disdain that rolls of the tongues of the tenured
Even Gold Paint Guy has publicity rights
Patrick Tribett is the poster boy for pwnage. Tribett had a pretty bad addiction to huffing spray paint to get high (never tried it, but that does not sound like fun). He was such a mess that he walked in to a Bellaire, Ohio general store looking for another round. The owner called the cops, who came to the scene. They suspected Tribett of unlawful abuse of inhalants. Of course, the investigation didn’t take too long — given the gold paint all over his high as a kite face. His mugshot made The Smoking Gun (never a good thing) and the ensuing hilarity made Tribett the “gole paint guy” — yep, Tribett became his very own internet meme. Even after
Avvo recognizes awesomeness
Well, its been a hell of a good year… it seems that our friends at Avvo think awfully highly of the Legal Satyricon. We’re one of their 10 favorite legal blogs. I don’t want to spoil the fun by telling you the other 9 (you can go read them yourself), but I will say that I’m honored to be on the list with the other 9 they picked. Thanks Avvo! My only critique: Popehat really should have been on there, and Rex Gradeless should not have been.
Newdow … again
Sometimes, even I wish that Michael Newdow would give it a rest. He was dead right in his Pledge of Allegiance case. He’s just going nutty with this one.
Hockey in Fenway Park
Interesting. If there is one thing that I learned growing up in New England, it is that you can never count on the weather. Well, that and you can never count on anything going right at Fenway.
Extreme Makeover – Nazi Edition
Flori-duh, the place where due process goes to die, is paying for John Allen Ditullio’s makeup artist so that the jury doesn’t think ill of the boy. On March 23, 2006, Pasco authorities say, he put on a gas mask and broke into a neighbor’s home, where he stabbed a woman in the face and neck, then attacked a teenager. Patricia Wells was slashed in the face and hands but recovered from her injuries. Kristofer King, who was 17, died. (source) It is alleged that Mr. Ditullio was motivated by his rage at Ms. Wells for having a black boyfriend and a gay son. Not a good combination when you also live in a Flori-duh trailer park next door to
Turnabout is fair play
The recording industry may be getting a taste of its own medicine. This is a Canadian case, but interesting nonetheless. H/T Evren Seven.
American legal education – scientifically proven to be worthless, law professors jam heads up asses in response
I have written previously on the Worthlessness of American Legal Education. That ruffled a few feathers among legal academics who didn’t like being called a “circle jerk.” In response to that critique, legal academics decided to disband the circle jerk and actually focus on practical training of lawyers in both business, law, and ethics. HAAAA…. had you going, didn’t I? No, the legal academy didn’t give a shit about my piece (well, I did get some crybaby emails from do nothing blowhards, but nobody did anything but bitch). And now… Bob Ambrogi brings us a report that shows: Sixty-five percent of law students (and 90 percent of lawyers) say law school does not teach them the practical business skills they
USPTO Jumps in Line to Provide "Green" Initiatives, Ignores Climate Gate
by Jason Fischer “Awe! Come ON! I made a movie about it. That proves it’s true.” Director Kappos, of the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), writes on his blog this week about how the Office intends to fast-track the examination of patent applications that deal with so-called “green” technologies. Great headline for a month ago, when the popularized position was that anthropogenic climate change (formerly known as “global warming”) was a *proven* phenomenon. However, recent developments have put those findings in serious doubt. In case you haven’t been keeping up, as Director Kappos clearly hasn’t, emails were leaked last month from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit – a world-renowned climate change research center – which
Healthcare reform legislation to include government subsidies for voodoo, zombie repellent, and werewolf patrols
Okay, not really… but this is just as preposterous. The “Christian Science” church teaches that we should forget about all that silly medicine stuff. Asking our imaginary buddy, Jesus, to heal us is all the medicine we need. There was a time when Christian Science paraded its children off to the graveyard, rather than admit that dancing around a fire, chanting “ugga bugga” was not the most effective means of treating diabetes or a blocked intestine. (source). Christian Scientists seem to have, at least when their children are involved, accepted that they maybe ought to give medicine a chance. But, now the witch doctors want strands of garlic, wooden stakes, and holy water to be covered by health insurance. Leaders
