The Great Blackout of 2012

Today if you went to Wikipedia, you discovered it wasn't there. Why? Because they, like tens of thousands of other sites, were protesting copyright bills in Congress that basically would allow anybody to take down any web site at any time (via redirecting their web site's domain name in the global name registry so that you get a FBI warning instead) by making a spurious claim that said web site was "hosting or encouraging the hosting of copyrighted material". No trial. No jury. No recourse to get your domain name back other than suing the person or entity who made the complaint, which isn't practical for most people, since it's generally law firms out to extort money from ordinary civilians that will be engaged in this sort of conduct (that's true in Germany where such a law is already in place, and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be true here too).

In short: We're talking about a law that would be good only for lawyers, not for anybody else on the planet. It wouldn't even be good for the Hollywood studios pushing it, since all that happens if the global domain name service goes black for accused copyright violators is that alternate distributed name services that are much harder to shut down will go into service, much the same way that the shutdown of the centralized Napster service led to the current Bittorrent decentralized system.

Lawyers. That's the only people who will benefit. Bah humbug!

-- Badtux the Practical Penguin

So what's your favorite banned book?

Via the General, it's Banned Book Week. So what's your favorite banned book? Mine is To Kill A Mockingbird, it has one of the more unique heroines in literature and tackles some of the toughest themes of our time.

UPDATE: Got an upset email from World Nut Daily. They're upset that many of the banned books on the ALA list feature gay people (the prototypical one being of course "Heather Has Two Mommies") and whine that the ALA shouldn't have put them on that banned books list. Because, y'know, if it's a book about gay people, it's not *really* banned if it's banned. Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Literary Penguin

Taco meat filling

I wasn't going to comment on Taco Bell's "beef" tacos, which turn out, according to a lawsuit filed recently, to be only 36% actual beef with the rest of the "taco meat filling" being, well, fillers. I mean, okay, so their "beef" tacos are actually only beef-FLAVORED tacos. Is that surprising? And do I care, really, given that I live two blocks from a real taqueria where I can get *real* tacos where they slice the meat off a big hunk of real beef right in front of my eyes? If there's any surprise, it's that Taco Bell's "taco meat filling" has sufficient beef in it that beef comes first in the ingredient list.

So color me bored... until Taco Hell releases this statement:

'At Taco Bell, we buy our beef from the same trusted brands you find in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods. We start with 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. Then we simmer it in our proprietary blend of seasonings and spices to give our seasoned beef its signature Taco Bell taste and texture. We are proud of the quality of our beef and identify all the seasoning and spice ingredients on our website. Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later — and got their "facts" absolutely wrong. We plan to take legal action for the false statements being made about our food.' Greg Creed President and Chief Concept Officer Taco Bell Corp

What the fuck?! Let me get this straight. People are reporting the allegations of a lawsuit... a genuine news story... and this dumb fuck is threatening to sue them over it? And why am I calling him a dumb fuck? Well, it's simple. He just turned a simple lawsuit, one of undoubtedly thousands filed against Taco Bell every year, into a 1st Amendment issue. Someone starts threatening to sue folks for reporting the news, that gets my feathers ruffled, yo.

So that's what turned it from a "Yawwwwn!" food quality story that I had no intention of covering to a First Amendment story that's got my attention. Because when some dumb fuck corporate fat cat tries to bully the news media into not covering a genuine news story about a lawsuit against his company, that's a genuine *story*, yo, and Mr. Greg Creed just made it one where before there wasn't.

-- Badtux the Censorship-sniffin' Penguin

BTW, can Taco Bell sue over allegations made in a court of law? No. The whole *point* of the court of law is to determine whether the allegations are true or not. You can file a lawsuit alleging that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim Nigerian in a court of law and there's fuck all that Obama can do other than file a motion for dismissal based upon lack of evidence. He can't sue the people reporting on the lawsuit either because of that whole 1st Amendment thingy. In short, if Mr. Creed had consulted his attorney rather than jerked his knee, he would have realized that he's making an idiot out of himself with these nonsense threats. But then, you don't get to be CEO of a major corporation nowadays by being the brightest bulb in the chandelier, you get there by being the most venal, back-stabbing sales lizard on the planet...

Apple is evil

Apple censors Pulitzer-prize-winning cartoonist, prohibits Mark Fiore from publishing his cartoons via the iPhone/iPad store.

Apple's control of the distribution channel for iPhone apps has always disturbed me. Apple wants a monopoly on iPhone apps -- if you want to put an app on your phone, you have to buy it from Apple (and then Apple, through the generosity of its heart -- hah! -- sends a pittance of the money onwards to the application developer). Apple has tried their hardest to prevent "illegal" applications (i.e., those not sold through the iPhone Store) from being installed upon their devices. This gives them unlimited ability to censor any content they wish according to what Chairman Steve's whims be.

So anyhow, apparently Apple has determined that political satire is not "appropriate" for their devices. After all, it might make it hard to sell their devices into North Korea, and we couldn't have that, could we? ;). I just wish there was any other phone out there that did what the iPhone does, I'd buy it in a minute...

-- Badtux the Geeky Penguin

Stupidity not America-only trait

Australian minister says gamers are scarier than bikers. Because those gamer bars are such terrifying places. Why, you go into one of them, and you see all these pale geeks with huge bulging mouse-clicker muscles hanging around ready to, err, frag you. In a virtual world. In real world, speak harshly to them and they might piss their pants.

Seems to me that South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson is going to have some up close and personal encounters with irate outlaw motorcycle gang members real soon now. Because calling a bunch of hairy malcontent outlaw bikers accustomed to getting into fights in bars and who would sooner knife you than say hello less scary than a bunch of computer geeks with all the muscle tone of a bowl of jello whose sole weapon is a mouse clicker can't be flattering to the hairy malcontents...

Or maybe the jello-muscled geeks actually are scarier than the hairy violent outlaw bikers. In some universe. In some universe where unicorns are real, and fragging can be accomplished merely by shouting Lightning bolt! at the top of your lungs...

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Mood: Curmudgeon.

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