Archive for the ‘America’ Category
Apparently you don’t actually need to be, you know, capable of having sex to commit sexual harassment
This is insane:
Randy Castro was not apprehended until he was six, so who knows how long his reign of sexual terror lasted? Sixteen months ago, a school official in Texas accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment after the boy was observed pressing his face into the breasts of a teacher’s aide when he hugged her before boarding the school bus. Fortunately, the school took decisive action and suspended the sick freak. By the way, is that the first recorded use in the history of the English language of the phrase “accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment”? Well, it won’t be the last: In the state of Maryland last year, 16 kindergartners were suspended for sexual harassment, as were three pre-schoolers.
Man, that’s crazy… I mean, how can you commit sexual harassment if your not in any way, capable of being sexualy aroused. And are at such an age where such a concept doesn’t exist?
Billary are helping Obama by engaging the Democrats in Civil War?
At least that’s what this article claims. I have to say, I’m not totally convinced by the argument but it’s interesting…
For one, the frenzied organizing around the country has proved a catalyst for dramatic party building in states that had been Democratically dormant. State after state has reported record turnout, and thousands of new Democrats are registering in advance of each contest. In upcoming Pennsylvania, Democrats have gained a net 200,000 registered voters over Republicans this year; that number is 105,000 in North Carolina.
The party can now take advantage of the infrastructure both campaigns leave behind. The unprecedented level of participation and organization not only reinforces Blue states, it improves Democratic odds in traditional swing states. In fact, the tide threatens to make GOP stalwarts like Texas up for grabs this fall.
The reverberations are being felt far beyond the race for the White House. Democrats are poised to make massive gains at the congressional and local levels for a second consecutive election cycle. They’ve already started: in a March 8 House special election, Obama volunteers helped Democrats capture the solidly conservative Illinois congressional seat formerly held by Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Finally, there’s no denying that the extra pressure has made Obama a better candidate. After living a charmed political life, with nary a serious general-election battle against a Republican on his résumé, he needed to prove his mettle in hand-to-hand political combat. His able handling of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright revelations didn’t just prove his deft political skills to worried supporters like me and superdelegates. It allowed him to address a potentially explosive issue well before November (though it’s a relationship the GOP is sure to exploit).
The big problem I see is that the author seems to leave no possibility that Hillary’s exit will result in a lot of damage to Obama, if by nothing else than taking her supporters with her. But certainly, the article is food for thought.
Democrat says atheists have no rights in America
This story is unbelievable, here’s part of a transcript of the exchange where Democrat Monique Davis attacked activist Rob Sherman after he dared question a million dollar donation from the state to a Baptist Church:
Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–
Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?
Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—
Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
As is pointed out in the article, imagine if that Democrat had said the same thing to a Muslim or Mormon or even a Scientologist. They’d be hounded out of their seat like there was no tomorrow. Anyway, I suspect I’ll be keeping my Atheist beliefs secret when I go to the states for the summer. If not, hell with responses like that I’ll probably be lynched by somebody….
So d’ya know the way that the U.S., Canada and Mexico are actually the one country and are run by the overlords?
I love paranoia:
What record companies say about file-sharing….
… Is really quite irrelevant to reality. But this article on the topic which I found on Steven Grant’s excellent ‘Permanent Damage’ really shows how fucking ridiculous record companies and more importantly, how greedy they are. Talking about H.R. 4279 & SEC. 104. COMPUTATION OF STATUTORY DAMAGES IN COPYRIGHT CASES in the article it is pointed out that:
This provision is one of the most gluttonous in the whole bill. It seeks to expand radically the amount of statutory damages that can be recovered, and in cases where there are zero actual damages. The provision is intended to benefit the record industry but will have terrible consequences for many others; the provision has nothing to do with piracy and counterfeiting; instead it seeks to undo rulings in the 2000 MP3.com litigation, a decidedly non-piracy or counterfeiting case, instead involving the use of digital storage lockers. Under the original MP3.com decision, where a CD had twelve tracks, there was only one award of statutory damages possible. Under the bill, there may be 25: there would be 12 for each track on the sound recording, 1 for the sound recording as a whole, and 12 for each musical composition. Under this approach, for one CD the minimum award for non-innocent infringement must be $18,750 (my emphasis), for a CD that sells in some stores at an inflated price of $18.99 and may be had for much less from amazon.com or iTunes. The maximum amount of $150,000 then becomes three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per CD. Now multiple that times a mere ten albums, and one gets a glimpse at the staggering amount that will be routinely sought, not just in suits filed, but more importantly in thousands for cease and desist letters, where grandmothers and parents are shaken down for the acts of their wayward offspring. These private non-negotiable demands don’t see the light of day, but they have resulted in “settlements” wherein ordinary people have paid abnormal amounts of money rather than be hauled into court and thereby incur costs that will bankrupt them. One only wishes Congress would hold a hearing on this practice.
Even limiting claims to 12 tracks, this equals a minimum award of $9,000 per CD. Is there any doubt that $9,000 per CD will be demanded and described as a metzia sparing parents and grandparents from the far greater expenses of litigation? It is no answer to say, well, we are only talking about those involved in file sharing, they’re bad people who deserve to pay; when was proportionality abandoned as a principle of law? During a death penalty argument in 1981, Justice Rehnquist suggested that the inmate’s repeated appeals had cost the taxpayers too much money. Justice Marshall interrupted, saying, “It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn’t it?” Imposing the death penalty on a few file sharers might discourage others, but that hardly forms the basis for sound policy, nor do statutory damage penalties that will result in economic death.
While the article talks about American law, given that American law is the default in this topic and that you can be prosecuted through similar mechanisms in many other countries I think it’s well worth a look.
18,750 dollars per album, I mean, bloody hell….
Update:
Re-reading this article there are a few other paragraphs that are just astonishing Read the rest of this entry »
Man, I really want to see Mike Gravel as U.S. President
This video is absolutely insane but is quite entertaining - love the ‘military-industrial complex’ speech bit at the end too.. It seems to be quite legit given that Gravel has it on his webpage:
You are NOT the father!
Man, this show looks SO shit but this clip is just hilarious! Also, the Wikipedia page for this is absolutely brilliant, as it’s really badly written:
Usually, when the man is shown to be the father, the woman gets up, chases the man, victoriously declares that she told him so, and does the “give me yo money” dance which includes cash hand gestures. Then she challenges him to follow through on his claim that he will provide support to the child; there is usually no follow-up to see if this actually happens, possibly due to the rather large number of cases that appear on the show monthly. Upon such confirmation, most men accept the fact that they are the father. Conversely, when the man is proven not to be the father, it is common for the men to celebrate by performing dance steps or running in to the audience to high-five audience members while the women walk or run backstage crying, often collapsing (or sometimes even diving) to the floor into the fetal position. In such cases, the man rarely receives an apology.
Is Garfield Dead?
Came across this ‘Garfield is dead’ flash movie somewhat randomly today.. its a flash movie that is based off a series of ‘garfield’ strips form 1989… they’re rather dark as the feature Garfield being left alone in the house after everyone has moved away, which one would assume resulted in Garfield starving to death…
Interestingly enough,it’s lead to a group of people believing that given that the strips end with Garfield retreating into his imagination that it implies that all the Garfield strips since about 1990 (when Garfield would have starved to death) are now the result of Garfield’s ghost which is trapped in the house and refuses to realise that he’s dead.
Which is a load of bollocks really, but it’s a cool idea. And the strips are wonderfully dark….
While the strips I’m uploading are in colour, the b&w one’s that the flash movie uses are somewhat better so I’d advise people to take a look at that first…
And while we’re on the subject of depressing comic strips - this is actually worse I think and this is another great example of ‘is that actually real and written by the real author’ style comics where Walt Disney has Mickey Mouse trying to kill himself
UpdateThis site has a lot of the information about the strips as well as a really cool animation that is very similar to the actual strip and its story Read the rest of this entry »
Thrill to Hillary and her action movie lifestyle!!
Fucking hell, I love how she assumes everyone is a complete idiot…