I'd forgotten how refreshingly loud British government debates could be. Prime Minister's Question Time is a classic opportunity for any MP to question and challenge the Prime Minister directly. I wonder how the US congress or senate would handle such a debate. If CSpan was this much fun, it would be prime time TV. [viaAndrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish]
According to the MPAA the fair use provision in our copyright laws is flawed and needs to be qualified. During the continuing DCMA hearings they have again surfaced the claim that ripping a DVD shouldn't be allowed, since the teacher can copy the video using a video camera pointed at the TV screen. Seriously! That's as ludicrous as requiring that teachers may only copy from a photocopy, and not from the original book! They even created a video to demonstrate the process. Anyone concerned about fair use and copyright should be aghast at this blatantly stupid, but well financed, attack on rights. This 'process' is not only more cumbersome and time consuming (but teachers have loads of free time, right?) but also significantly more costly (you need a camcorder, tapes, and a tripod - in addition to the equipment you already have). MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo. via [Ars Technica] video after the fold
I was browsing the interwebs when I saw an ad that said "Ann Coulter Free". thought - that's good - this must be an idiot free zone! Then I saw it was an ad for her blog, which is free! They should pay you to read it - the resultant therapy bills must be quite high. Although I'm certain that reading Ann Coulter would free your mind - more than few paragraphs and I'm certain mine would be running for the hills.
Frank Lutz, in yet another sterling example of Republican doublespeak, calls on the GOP to 'support Healthcare Reform". Only one problem with that statement - the GOP has absolutely no proposals to reform healthcare. Not one! The only perspective he offers is how to sound like you are for reform, yet offer no proposal of your own. From the article:
“You simply MUST be vocally and passionately on the side of REFORM,” Luntz advises in a confidential 26-page report obtained from Capitol Hill Republicans. “The status quo is no longer acceptable. If the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless. “Republicans must be for the right kind of reform that protects the quality of healthcare for all Americans. And you must establish your support of reform early in your presentation.” Instead, Luntz says Republicans should warn against a “Washington takeover” of health care, and insist that patients would have to “stand in line” with “Washington bureaucrats in charge of healthcare.”That would be instead of standing in line waiting for a 'for profit' bureaucracy to determine your fate. As it currently stands, the current proposals are too limited, since none of the current proposals on the table include single-payer, as used in most of the developed world. In fact, at recent senate hearings physician activists in favor of single payer were removed from the chamber and arrested for interrupting the proceedings, while the committee went on to hear solely from industry lobbyists in favor of industry-based solutions. [via Politico]
Would you like to monitor our government at work? What if there’s a really interesting court proceeding in Massachusetts, but you live far from Massachusetts? But you’d really like to hear the court proceeding live, because this case is about some of the lawsuits that record companies have been bringing under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 501, alleging that individual defendants (many of whom were students) were copyright infringers—that they had illegally used file-sharing software to download and disseminate copyrighted songs without paying royalties. The Plaintiffs were a large group of record companies including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records, Inc., Atlantic Recording Corporation, Arista Records, LLC, and UMG Recordings, Inc. In a case styled In re Sony BMG Music Entertainment, 2009 WL 1017505, 7 (1st Circuit, (Mass) 2009), the Court of Appeals recently ruled that I don't have the right to listen to court deliberations over the Internet, at least in the First District. In the trial court, Joel Tenenbaum (one of the persons whom the record companies had sued) moved to permit Courtroom View Network to webcast a non-evidentiary motions hearing that was scheduled for January 22, 2009. Presiding Judge Nancy Gertner, citing the keen public interest in the litigation, granted his motion over the objection of the record companies. She thought it would be a good idea to permit webcasting of the motion hearings. She thought that anyone interested in the exercise of the Court’s power should have the opportunity to listen in remotely through a computer. On April 16, 2009, however, the Court of Appeals struck down Judge Gertner’s decision, holding that it was inappropriate to make the inner workings of the private PUBLIC courts easily accessible to the public. The Court of Appeals said something that a sarcastic lawyer might paraphrase like this: No more of that webcasting nonsense, Judge Gertner!