First, here's a great quote, from a thoughtful blog post that questions the wisdom of letting Hollywood's "legal arm" dictate to the justice system: Surely Hollywood wouldn’t try to suspend due process, would they? Or create a parallel enforcement system? Or take away citizen recourse if they were unfairly silenced? They wouldn’t imagine the possibility of a longer jail term for streaming a Michael Jackson video than Jackson’s own doctor got for killing actual Michael Jackson? Would they? That was written in response to this NYT blog entry, in which the author makes a few somewhat valid points about there being two ...
Archive for January, 2012
Modern Entertainment Industry Logic
Saturday, January 21st, 2012Pointless
Friday, January 20th, 2012I recently went to the DMV to renew my driver's license. Going to the DMV has always sucked, but somehow or another, the fine folks at the DMV always manage to make it worse with every experience. Actually, getting driver's licenses has never been a problem, it's always been getting vehicle registration that's sucked. The last time I did this wasn't too bad at all - I walked in and breezed out, with a new license, in 20 minutes, and the employees there were both intelligent and respectful. This time, they were neither. OK, admittedly, the last time was before the ...
Modern Legislative Logic
Friday, January 20th, 2012Reuters reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday "in light of recent events." I don't know what a "test vote" is, but it definitely reinforces the perception I already have that Congress wastes a lot of time. "The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," [The main Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.] said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries "who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content ...