Leaving the District
This is not intended in any way to minimize the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq. It is intended to make a point. Things in Iraq could be worse -- they could be as bad as things back home.
one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.Slip. Op. at 1 (emphasis added). On its face, that language seems pretty good for the industry, but consider the Court's broader language near the end of its discussion of the legal principle:
[M]ere knowledge of infringing potential or of actual infringing uses would not be enough here to subject a distributor [of a Grokster-like product] to liability. Nor would ordinary acts incident to product distribution, such as offering customers technical support or product updates, support liability in themselves. The inducement rule, instead, premises liability on purposeful, culpable expression and conduct, and thus does nothing to compromise legitimate commerce or discourage innovation having a lawful purpose.Slip Op. at 19-20 (emphasis added). Earlier in its opinion, the Court draws attention to MGM's request that the Court:
add a more quantified description of the point of balance between protection [of copyright] and commerce when liability rests solely on distribution with knowledge that unlawful use will occur.In other words, MGM wanted rules for the future -- a future in which Grokster-like software is distributed by an intelligent corporation that neither says nor does anything to advertise the potential infringing uses of its product or suggest that infringement is the intended use of the product. The court ostensibly refused to hang flesh on Sony's bones:
It is enough to note that the Ninth Circuit's judgment [in favor of Grokster] rested on an erroneous understanding of Sony and to leave further consideration of the Sony rule for a day when that may be required.Slip Op. at 17. The Court's decision in this respect is hardly surprising; the court doesn't decide issues it does not necessarily need to decide. What is interesting, though, is that the Court did exactly what it said it would not -- it fleshed out Sony. Indeed, as the second block quote above makes abundantly clear, the Court has, for all practical purposes, made the rule of Sony into a per se rule that no liability for infringing use can attach to the marketing of a product capable of infringing use so long as (1) the product has non-infringing uses and (2) there is no direct evidence that the distributor intends infringing uses of the product. The Court can not be more clear than it is when it says "mere knowledge of infringing potential or of actual infringing uses would not be enough here to subject a distributor to liability."
Of course, in the absence of other evidence of intent [that the product be used to infringe], a court would be unable to find contributory infringement based on a failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement, if the devide was otherwise capable of substantial non-infringing uses. Such a rule would tread too close to the Sony safe harbor.Slip Op. at 22, n.12. Of course, this is the same safe harbor the contours of which the Court earlier suggested it would leave for another day.
According to a new study published in the American Political Science Review, being politically conservative is, in part, a matter or genetics.
I've long wondered how an otherwise seemingly rational person could adhere so strictly to stilted ideologies; how they could be so consistently willing to smother a sense of social well-being.
It's merely a matter of having been dumped in the shallow end of the gene pool.
As for the kick in the chops, Lileks performs the metaphoric service:
"It's merely a matter of having been dumped in the shallow end of the gene pool. They're sorta like the puppy who piddles in the middle of the floor: They just don't know any better."
Okay, and people who want higher marginal tax rates are like babies who like to defecate in their diapers because it gives them a nice warm feeling. There you go! Argument settled, opponents infantilized, everyone go home. Drive safe
According to the report, the systemic problems plaguing Ohio's voting process included: voter suppression, negligent and poorly trained election officials, long lines, problems with registration status, polling locations, absentee ballots and provisional ballots, and unlawful identification requirements at the polls.
Dean suggested the report backed up his claim that Republicans worked actively to suppress the African-American vote.
Here's what I don't understand. Follow me. By and large, black voters vote Democratic and, by and large, black voters live in Democratic precincts. Who runs elections in Democratic precincts? Well, it's certainly not the Republican Party. Thus, if there were "negligent and poorly trained election officials, long lines, problems with registration, polling locations [and] unlawful identification requirements" it would be whose fault? That's right. The Democrats. In short, Dean contends that Republicans are responsible for the ass-backwards manner in which the Democratic Party runs its elections -- "it's your fault we can't run our elections." If blacks had to stand in long lines (woe and ill-tidings) it is the Democrats' fault.
What Dean is really railing against is the disparity created by the fact that Republicans do their electoral jobs so much better than Democrats. He would apparently prefer a world in which all were equally incompetent -- if the lines are long for everyone, it's fair; if everyone is equally 'disenfranchised', no one is.
Well, maybe instead of tossing around specious charges of disenfranchisement, the Democrats should actually fix what's broken in their problem precincts. If they don't, there's one sure way for blacks and other urban populations to ensure a smoother voting process -- vote for their local Republicans. The next election can easily be the last election in which anyone needs to wait in a long line to be helped by a negligent and poorly trained elections official.
After a steady drumbeat of criticism from Republicans, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, apologized Tuesday for likening American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."Two things: First, there was no mistreatment -- none at all. The left and its media mouthpiece may not like the tactics, but that's tough. In truth, the tactics are just fine with them, the left is just upset that another group is employing them. Would they criticize a Democratic administration? Well, we know they did not. As with everything, it all comes down to power, or, more specifically, the lack thereof, with that bunch. Just because the Times calls it mistreatment doesn't make it so. And why is it that the Times is making such judgments? I thought their job was to report the news, not make it . . . (Related to all this 'mistreatment' crap, see Scrappleface for a parody that, but for being on Scrappleface, could fool almost anyone). Second, the "steady drumbeat of criticism" was joined by many from Durbin's own party (e.g., Mayor Daley of Chicago) and numerous traditional Democratic allies (e.g., the Anti-Defamation League). News of intra-party "pummelling" is, I suppose, unfit to print.
Emphasis mine. Hear ya go, Dick:The senator from Illinois' comparisons are as tired as they're grotesque. They add nothing useful to the debate. But around the planet, folks naturally figure that, if only 100 people out of nearly 300 million get to be senators, the position must be a big deal. Hence, headlines in the Arab world like "U.S. Senator Stands By Nazi Remark." That's al-Jazeera, where the senator from al-Inois is now a big hero -- for slandering his own country, for confirming the lurid propaganda of his country's enemies. Yes, folks, American soldiers are Nazis and American prison camps are gulags: don't take our word for it, Senator Bigshot says so.
This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing; it's about senior Democrats who are so over-invested in their hatred of a passing administration that they've signed on to the nuttiest slurs of the lunatic fringe. It would be heartening to think that Durbin will himself now be subjected to some serious torture. Not real torture, of course; I don't mean using Pol Pot techniques and playing the Celine Dion Christmas album really loud to him. But he should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done -- in a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies. Shame on him, and shame on those fellow senators and Democrats who by their refusal to condemn him endorse his slander.
Dick Durbin (Ass-IL). Dick again proves that one can look all grown-up yet still think and behave like the smallest child. The depth of his treachery leaves me unable to summon a sufficient insult. I'll simply say, Dick, you are . . .
Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for “paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry”. He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was “close to that of unpoliced conversation”.Unpoliced conversation!?! Good grief, can't have that. Idiot . . .
"a lot of [Republicans] have never made an honest living in their lives."
Based on polling of voters before and during the [mid-term 2006] voting, according to political consultants for both major parties, the electorate clearly was expressing its revulsion at Bush Administration policies; voters said the key issues affecting their votes were their anger at the lies undergirding the Iraq War, now in its fourth year, the condoning of torture as American policy, and the current economic crisis.
These factors presumably led to the sweeping votes for Democratic (62%), and Green (8%), candidates around the country. Many of those voters, an estimated 20%, described themselves as "conservatives" who had supported Bush in 2004.
* * *
After the 2004 election, it was widely believed that Republican-corporate control of the mainstream media had guaranteed a permanent Republican "lock" on the federal government. Not so. Soon thereafter, the public finally began to wake up to the fact that it had been lied to by the media and, just as important, that it had been denied vital information about the misdeeds of the Congress and the Administration.
* * *With the collapsing economy, the loss of media credibility, the continuing bad news from Iraq, and the re-emergence of investigative journalism, the public became more receptive to the idea that the 2000 and 2004 elections were fraudulent and thus that both Bush administrations were illegitimate.