Category: Wall of Fame Assholes

More on Righthaven

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a nice write up on the recent copy-right troll factory known as Righthaven. They’ve been going around suing everybody they can find who’s used any text from any story in a news article they own the copyright to. The main problem is Righthaven is doing several things different than other copyright holders. The two things I have the biggest issues with are the following:

Righthaven lawsuits are demanding that courts freeze and transfer the defendants’ domain names. Imagine if a single copyright infringement on Huffingtonpost.com or Redstate.com could result in forfeiture of the entire domain. Effectively asking for control of all of a website’s existing and future content — instead of only targeting the allegedly infringing material — is an overreaching remedy for a single copyright infringement not validated by copyright law or any legal precedent. This also indicates that the attorneys are willing to make overreaching claims in order to scare defendants into a fast settlement.

Righthaven goes straight for litigation. Righthaven isn’t sending cease and desist letters or DMCA takedown notices that would allow the targeted bloggers or website operators to remove or amend only the news articles owned by Righthaven. Instead, Righthaven starts with a full-fledged lawsuit in federal court with no warning. It’s sue first and ask questions later, which smacks of a strategy designed to churn up legal costs and intimidate defendants into paying up immediately, rather than a strategy aimed at remedying specific copyright infringements.

Yeah screw the whole idea of being nice and first requesting any infringing material be taken down. Going straight to a lawsuit is obviously the best idea out there. Seriously they are total douche bags.

Punishment is Overrated Anyways

I’ve mentioned a little laptop spying case that had come down upon a now infamous school district. In case you haven’t been reading that long I’ll recap.

The Lower Merion school district gave out laptops to each of their students. On every laptop was software that granted the ability for certain school officials to turn on the built-in web cam and see what was going on in front of the laptop. One of these school officials turned the camera on and saw what he or she thought was a kid doing drugs and tried bringing down the ban hammer. Bringing said hammer down revealed the fact that these laptops were being used to spy on kids. This feature was never actually mentioned to the students or parents whom received these laptops. This is where the shit storm started.

So what horrible punishment awaits the school officials whom were using these laptops to secretly spy on unsuspecting high school students? Absolutely nothing! It’s nice to see the justice system still works as it always has, in the benefit of the government.

I know what you’re thinking, at least the school will remove the said spying software from the kids’ laptops. Well that isn’t happening either. The school is going to openly admit they have the ability to spy on kids and their Scouts’ Honors they’ll only use it when absolutely necessary. You have to love this quote:

The measures require students and their parents to acknowledge the policies and consent in writing to any tracking, or give them an option to not participate in the laptop program. They also mandate expanded training about privacy and technology for teachers and staff, and will include information sessions for parents.

So you either put up with Big Brother or go without a laptop. That seems fair… so long as you get a tax refund for the percentage most likely being used to fund this program. The damnedest thing here is these spy programs don’t actually accomplish much as any thief with two brain cells to spare will just reformat any stolen computer to begin with. Logic of course has no place in our modern education system hence the promise from proven corrupt school officials is enough to shut the huddled masses up. Oh you also have to love this:

The district has already spent nearly $1 million in legal fees and expenses on the case.

Yes that’s right the school district has spent almost $1 million of tax payer money defending itself against tax payers. Government is the only entity where you sue them and have to pay for both your legal fees and the legal fees of those you are suing. Brilliant little scam right there! And just because it disgusts me here is another quote:

The meeting, at Penn Valley Elementary School, drew barely a dozen community members, and none who asked to speak about the policy.

Every fucking parent with a child in that school district should have been there and raising all levels of Hell. Fire and brimstone should have rained upon the school officials for spying on children. In any other capacity what those school officials did would have been labeled voyeurism and at the very least a massive invasion of privacy. Fuck that single sentence pisses me off to no end!

Let this story be a lesson, if a school gives your child a laptop tape over any built-in web cam and reformat the entire thing before your child uses it.

Edit 2010-08-18 11:16: Spelling and grammar, I don’t haz it. But I believe I’ve corrected the more glaring problems in the post.

Freedom of Speech so Long as It’s My Speech

I found an editorial over at Engadget that just makes me shake my head and weep for liberty. Apparently one writer there is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that he was able to find Nazi themed applications on the Android Market. Hell he’s not only shocked he’s pissed off and demands censorship rights now!

Here’s the thing the Android Market is pretty open. There aren’t many restrictions in place unlike Apple’s iTunes Store. This means you are far more free to post what you want. Combine the fact you have an open platform and a freedom of speech in this country and you’re going to get things on there you don’t like. Of course the first thing a “progressive” liberal will want is censorship. I, on the other hand, want no censorship and instead realize that the price of the first amendment is having to encounter things I don’t like.

Let us look through some of the writer’s statements:

And here’s where we have to take a hard look at what censorship really means, and what kind of role it can (and clearly should) play in the new frontier of app marketplaces on mobile devices (and elsewhere). Let’s be clear about this right off the bat — an app store isn’t the internet. It’s not a free-for-all, it’s not an open venue where any type of wares might be hawked.

Actually it is exactly all of those things if the company running it chooses it to be. If Google wants to let anything into the Android Market then they can do that.

The whole point of these app portals is to provide a controlled service to your users that has guidelines and rules that make getting software onto your phone relatively easy and safe. Whether or not you have stringent policies for what you’ll accept (Apple), or few (Google), no one should pretend that this isn’t a siloed service that must have rails to operate.

No the whole point of an application store is to have a central place where store customers can easily find applications to run on their platform. This in turn is used to make it easy for those running said platform to find useful tools which encourages them to purchase that platform in the first place.

So the question becomes: what are your limits? If you say absolutely no censorship, does it apply to hate-speak?

Yes. The definition of absolutely no censorship is exactly that; absolutely no fucking censorship. In case the writer is unaware here is the dictionary definition of absolutely:

completely and without qualification; used informally as intensifiers; “an absolutely magnificent painting”; “a perfectly idiotic idea”; “you’re perfectly right”; “utterly miserable”; “you can be dead sure of my innocence”; “was dead tired”; “dead right”

I guess that word doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

If you say yes to porn, does it mean yes to Hitler themes that appear when you search for seemingly unrelated terms? Does being open mean accepting everything? Or do we have to set some reasonable limits for what we will and won’t tolerate?

This man is obviously a “progressive” liberal. Why do I say that? Because he wants to set some “reasonable” limits on a right. Now since Google runs the Android Market they are free to do as they please include censor things but it appears they aren’t doing so. Personally I’m quite happy about this fact because it means, for now, Google is respecting my right to free speech on their platform store. But unlike the writer of this article I realize that freedom of speech means in turn for my right to say what I want other people get the same right. I don’t get a say in what other people say.

Think of it this way: app stores are kind of like privately owned bookstores.

Yup and with any privately owned store the owner can chose to respect patrons’ rights or not.

The owner of the bookstore doesn’t have to carry the art book of nudes or the pro-Nazi thesis.

But they can if they chose to.

In most situations, it doesn’t have to carry everything because there are plenty of other places to get those books.

Not if the writer had his way there wouldn’t be.

That concept is especially true for Android — users can sideload any applications they want onto their devices. No one is going to tell you that you can’t install a Nazi theme on your phone, but we’re pretty sure that Google shouldn’t make it so easy, and it shouldn’t subject a large portion of its users to content that rightfully deserves to sit on the fringes, not in the center.

Google isn’t making “it so easy.” They are simply providing a service where developers can upload their applications without having to worry about being blocked by arbitrary rules.

So ultimately, what’s the answer?

Shut the fuck up and let Google run their store as they please. If you don’t like it get an iPhone and be happy with Apple’s censorship.

But the part that’s confusing is the part that’s essentially a lie — that keeping certain pieces of content out of systems like the App Store or the Android Market equates to censorship… because it doesn’t.

Fuck back to the dictionary:

the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts : details of the visit were subject to military censorship.

Once again that word doesn’t mean what the writer thinks it means. Removing things you find objectionable or unacceptable is the very definition of censorship. The writer is a stupid little prat. I wouldn’t be so mad if he wasn’t lying and using misinformation. If he simply stated that he was offended and wanted the applications removed that would be one thing. But going on a tirade about how these applications should be removed and doing so isn’t actually censorship is twisting the meaning of words to build popular support for his crusade.

Look I despise Nazism as much as most people but that doesn’t mean I have the right to censor them. I also despise the Ku Klux Klan, Black Panthers, RIAA, MPAA, The Brady Campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, SCIU and a long slew of other organizations. Do I want them silenced? No. They have a right to spew their bullshit as much as I have a right to spew mine. If any of those organizations made an application for the Android Market I wouldn’t demand a take down, I’d thank Google for allowing the first amendment on their store.

Sadly if this article gains any traction I know Google will most likely remove all the offending applications. Anyways I want to close out by saying fuck the author or this article for using standard “progressive” liberal tactics to justify his desire to only censor things he doesn’t approve of.

Righthaven LLC Going to Town on Lawsuits

Yesterday I posted about Righthaven suing The Armed Citizen blog. Well that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently the lefties are talking about legal actions against Righthaven because they appear to be unfairly targeting left leaning website. Of course it doesn’t appear to be a left-right issue as Righthaven is suing everybody.

These assholes are going crazy.

Send Out the Lawyers

So apparently Professor John Abraham of St. Thomas college put up some kind of online rebuttal to a person who I’ve mentioned previously, Christopher Monckton. The rebuttal is over Mr. Monckton’s presentation on Al Gore’s Apocalypse, which is actually very interesting to watch (I have a video of it embedded in the previously linked page). Well being British and still being willing to sling insults (however childish it may be but alas I haven’t watched either Professor Abraham or Monckton’s rebuttal to that video). Apparently according to the Red Star (which means you need to take it with a grain of salt) Monckton said the following:

For his part, Monckton has fired back in a YouTube interview clip, calling Abraham “a wretched little man,” the University of St. Thomas “a half-assed Catholic bible college,” and its president, the Rev. Dennis Dease, “a creep.”

The one thing I really do like about the British are their insults. So what is the rebuttal to that onslaught? Well St. Thomas is calling in the lawyers:

St. Thomas officials have defended Abraham’s efforts, and the school’s lawyers have gone beyond that. In a letter to Monckton, St. Thomas attorney Phyllis Karasov threatened legal action if Monckton does not “immediately cease and desist making any further disparaging or defamatory comments about the University of St. Thomas, President Father Dease, Professor Abraham, the Archdioceses of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, or anyone else associated with the University.”

This is the reason I’m so skeptical about this whole Al Gore’s Apocalypse thing. If somebody criticizes the “science” (and I use that term very lightly) behind global warming climate change lawyers are called out. Also it appears as thought St. Thomas University doesn’t understand the first amendment and the freedom of speech. For instance I can call St. Thomas University a shitty Hell hold that would be better off turned into a crater in the ground that continue to be used as a college. I can also say all their administrative staff are total assholes and can go sodomize themselves with retractable batons. It’s called the freedom of speech and insults are covered under it.

What to Do if You’re Company is Failing

Sue somebody! Sharp as a Marble let us know that the good guys over at The Armed Citizen are being sued by a Las Vegas newspaper for “willfully copying content.” Translated into laymen terms that means The Armed Citizen blog reported news by sourcing a newspaper who is failing to make money and has no other business plan in place.

The main kicker here though is the fact the newspaper sued several blogs before even contacting them. Well I’m all for contacting people so here’s how to contact the Las Vegas Review Journal:

Las Vegas Review-Journal
1111 W. Bonanza Road
P.O. Box 70
Las Vegas, NV 89125

Main phone number:
702-383-0211

Newspaper office number:
702-383-0264

Let them know hos much you appreciate their news business strategy. Personally I recommend they put up a pay wall. That way us dirty bloggers can’t use their content and they’ll lose enough money as to fall into irrelevancy. Two birds meet one stone.

Finger Pointing at It’s Finest

Let’s say you’re a multi-billion dollar technology company who puts out a phone almost everybody seems to want. Now let’s say you release a new phone which has a slight problem, it drops calls when being held in a user’s left hand. What do you do? Well you could recall the phone or offer an in-store hardware fix.

Or if you’re Apple you could point the finger at everybody else and claim you’re phone is still good because everybody has similar issues. I guess I do like one thing about that page, it shows the Jesus Phone isn’t actually better than other phones on the market. Apple zealots always claim Apple makes hardware that’s far better than the competition but in actuality that’s just a total pile of shit (yes they make nice hardware, but so do many other companies).

Obama is Smarter than You

At least according to CNN. Jay over at MArooned brings the fact that we’re all idiots compared to the Obamessiah. According to CNN:

President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Yup you’re too stupid to understand his brilliance. So sit down and shut up you stupid surf. Don’t criticize him, because you really have no fucking clue what he’s talking about you moron. Here’s one of the examples they cite:

He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: “That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy.”

Yeah I’m sure a huge majority of Americans have trouble with large words such as scientists, engineers, challenge, and Nobel Prize-winning. Yup those are some complicated words all right. Woowee our president is a smart man.

What a bunch of pandering nitwits CNN’s analysts are.

AT&T Decides You’re Not Shafted Enough on Data

AT&T likes to prove HK isn’t the only company that thinks you suck and thus hates you. They just announced changes to their data plans. First and foremost they are finally going to allow tethering on their oh so precious network. They are only going to gouge you an additional $20.00 a month for the tethering option.

But that’s on top of their new data plan options. The first one comes in at $15.00 for 200MB of data and the other comes in at $25.00 for 2GB of data. If you go above the cap on the first plan you have to pay an additional $15.00 for each 200MB while the second plan charges $10.00 for each additional GB. That means if you want to use 5GB of data you’ll be looking at $55.00 a month. Ouch.

Oh and as a final note that unlimited data plan for the iPad, it’s not unlimited anymore. Nope that plan was moved to the $25.00 for 2GB a month plan. Sweet deal huh?

With customer service like that I’m glad I’m not a customer.

More Bad Ideas from New York

Seriously that state is fast becoming the bad idea capital of the Union. Tam found another bad idea brewing the in the state mostly run by a single city. Meet the “minimum force” bill:

Under present NYPD training, cops are taught to shoot at the center of their target and fire their weapon until the threat has been stopped.

Which is how it should be done. You aim for the largest target that also house organs which the human body stops without. It’s pretty much a win-win area to target. Well that makes too much sense so:

This legislation would require officers to literally shoot the gun out of someone’s hand or shoot to wound them in the leg or arm.

So this legislation would require the police to do the impossible (shoot a gun out of the criminal’s hands) or aim for very small targets that, when hit, won’t incapacitate the criminal in most cases. I’m all for restricting police powers and limiting the use of deadly force to when it’s needed. With that said the gun generally comes out when deadly force is needed and when it’s needed it’s needed. If a criminal is endangering the life of another the quickest way to stop the situation should be taken which is almost always shooting the punk until he stops. A punk will stop a whole lot faster if bullets enter critical areas like the head or chest as opposed to limbs which the human body can very well survive without.