Archive for February 27th, 2008
Flags
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008[Quote:]
The winner of the 2005 print Epica d’Or was Foote Cone & Belding, Lisbon, for the Grande Reportagem “Flags” campaign.
Two of the winning flags below, the rest at the link.
Head of Guantanamo trials resigns
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008[Quote:]
“I said to (Haynes) that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis was quoted as saying about an August 2005 meeting the two men had.
“At which point, his eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? . . . We’ve got to have convictions.’”
The Pentagon has disputed Davis’s recollection of the conversation, and denied there is any connection between the Nation article and Haynes’ resignation, which takes effect next month.
Bumper sticker in Texas
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Iranian Shoppers Riot Against Modesty Police
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008[Quote:]
This is apparently what happened over the weekend. Sources have told PJM of a major public uprising over the weekend in Tehran – an account corroborated by other reports on the Web.
This is the story they tell: at approximately 7 pm on Saturday, February 23, the Ershad patrol, modesty police assigned to enforce clothing regulations, accosted and attempted to arrest a young woman at Goldis Shopping Mall, located in western Tehran, presumably because her dress was not sufficiently modest.
In recent weeks, the police squads charged with enforcing modesty have become more rigorous in their enforcement, with thousands of women detained, questioned, and arrested for violating hijab standards.
Instead of meekly submitting to her fate, the woman fought back. A young man - it is unclear whether he was accompanying her - came to her defense and joined her in fighting the police. In an attempt to subdue – and humiliate him - the police grabbed the young man and threw him into the garbage can nearby.
That was when the large crowd, predominately made up of young people, rose up against the police and attempted to liberate the young woman themselves.
Faced with a full-blown riot - complete with angry crowds with garbage cans being set on fire - the frightened police jumped into the van and fled the scene, except for one unfortunate officer who was left behind. The policeman was reportedly attacked and beaten by the mob.[..]
The incident documented by cell phone video that was uploaded to YouTube. While the quality of the video is extremely poor, the Farsi narration and background voices were intelligible and translatable.
If IP Is Property, Where Is the Property Tax?
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008[Quote:]
A solution to determining which works are in the “Mickey Mouse” category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable “oral rehydration therapy” class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to “public domain” and become available to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of “stealing” as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights’ significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
How about this: You have some IP you want protected. You file for something to protect it (new patent, trademark, copyright, whatever). You claim a value. You make up the value - whatever you want to say it is. You are then taxed on that value. The only caveat is that if someone wants it from you they can buy the whole damn thing from you for the price you claimed it was worth - UNLESS you immediately raise the value and pay a penalty for undervaluing it.
It also makes it a lot more clear what “value” you can claim from copyright infringement.
Cartoons
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
