Anti-war protests in SF, about 6 blocks away from my old flat.

Helicopter Pictures of SF Demo : SF Indymedia

] Mickey's own reaction to the decision was less
] enthusiastic. Telling his keepers that he was going on an
] "ice run for the boss," the mouse made his way to a dive
] bar a few miles outside Disneyland, where he gave reason
] an exclusive interview.

Look like pretty much every article that has a unfavorable view of the Eldred decision is pushing the civil disobedience line.

Time to turn up the heat..

Reason: Mickey Mouse speaks out

] So out of despair some might see civil disobedience --
] hacking and freely distributing songs and films over
] digital networks -- as the only remaining response to the
] excesses of the copyright regimes and the hold they have
] over courts and Congress.

It is. Has been for awhile now. Its better to concentrate on creating new ways of doing things out in the open though. Be ready to educate your peers about these issues when they start to effect them. Etc..

] While disobedience might be more fun, the power of civil
] discourse remains. In fact, the ruling gives public
] interest activists both motivation and ammunition in the
] continuing battle against the excessive expansion of the
] power to control information and culture.

And thats the key.. These IP issues trample way into the territory of economic policy. The courts and congress are reactive to this type of thing. They will walk right up to the edge of an issue, step 2in back, and wait to see what happens.. Rince, repeat, give a decade or two..

The angry mob is only going to grow..

Salon.com Technology | After the copyright smackdown: What next?

] Public Knowledge is a public-interest advocacy
] organization dedicated to fortifying and defending a
] vibrant "information commons" - the shared information
] resources and cultural assets that we own as a people.

A very slick new public domain oriented political group.

Public Knowledge

] Peace in a country like the Ivory Coast is a myth. It's
] tribe vs. tribe, religion vs. religion, till one side
] wipes out the other. And if that never happens, then the
] sneak attacks and small-time massacres will just go on and
] on. And if that seems terrible to you, try this thought on:
]
] Maybe they LIKE it.

An informative if also informal brief on the basic problems in Africa.

eXile #157 - War Nerd - Live from the Skeleton Coast - by Gary Brecher

] Cool, yet slightly disturbing.

Running totals of the world's total population, births, and deaths. And yes, it's a very odd sensation to watch the numbers change, and contemplate the human realities that are occurring each second. Speaking personally, it gives me an intensified sense of just how *many* different people and families and societies and cultures are on this planet at any given moment.

For some reason, this page totally peaks my CPU..

Worldometers

] "Arnold Kling, in his article, Content is Crap, writes,
] 'While there are many Net-heads who share Dan Gillmor's
] [and Larry Lessig's] enthusiasm for Creative Commons, I
] do not. It has little or no significance, because it is
] based on a strikingly naive 60's-retro ideological view
] of how content intermediaries function.'

I recommend this for two reasons. First, and a minor observation, here Slashdot attempts to assemble a thread between a number of bloggers. If all of these people were using MemeStreams, the thread would already be organized and would be much easier to follow. :)

Second, Kling is wrong for all the right reasons. He argues that the Creative Commons License is useless because its simply a way to end run around the publishing industry, and the publishing industry is very important as a filter for the the mass of information available to us. However, and it is probably well understood by the readers of this site, the publishing industry is not a very good filter. They don't find the content we really want, because its too risky or too expensive or because it threatens them in some fundamental way.

We need to put the power to filter in the hands of the people, as we have put the power to elect a government in the hands of the people, and for exactly the same reasons.

And with the power to filter in the hands of the people there is a need, a requirement, for looser copyright restrictions. Artificial Scarcity, in this environment, it what prevents people from getting a hold of your ideas, not the thing that incents you to make those ideas available. And for this reason I think systems like Creative Commons may be quite important.

You're not selling artifically scarce "copy" for cash. You are giving copy away for reputation. Reputation is attention, and you can turn attention in cash.

Slashdot | Carping Over Creative Commons

I saw Bumfights about a week ago and its been itching at the back of my skull since. I can honestly say that Bumfights has made me more _angry_ then anything else I have seen in quite awhile. To the best of my memory, I have not seen another video that made me feel like I needed to shower repeadly after watching. I had trouble sitting through it. I'm not even sure why I didn't stop it half way thru. I wanted to. Maybe it was because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Or that I needed to see and end to it, possibly something redeeming might happen.. Or at least I might gain some understanding or perspective about this evil shit I was seeing..

And I am a sick fuck, ask anyone I know. Its hard to offend me. Very hard. I like art that confronts me. But this has really got me going.. In an effort to get this out of my head, I must rant.

For those of you who are not familar with this pile of shit (which I refuse to link to on my blog), its the clearest example of an act of class warfare you will ever see. In Bumfights, you get to see homeless people paied to beat the hell out of each other, run into walls, spray painted while sleeping, and generarly abused for your "entertainment". But wait! thats not all! If that was all, it would be _so_ bad..

Between the footage of street bums being abused, you get to see white rich kids beat the shit out of each other around their backyards and their hot cars. You get to see several segments called "Bumhunter" where an idiot imitates Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) as he wrestles and ties up homeless people trying to sleep in alleys and under bridges. You get video segments of crack dealers ranting about how cool crack is, how cool selling crack is, how great doing crack is, etc.. And through the entire video, the people making it do a pretty good job of obscuring most of their identies, rendering them faceless pricks who are clearly concerned with people coming after them. This includes the segment where the "Executive Producer" beats the shit out of someone labeled a "random crackhead".

This is crap. Now, if it was simply people running around paying homeless people to fight each other or do dumb stunts while they film it, it would be one thing.. Jackass stuff.. Thats tasteless, but not this far over the line.. Its the thrust of this video thats its poison. The contrast between the abuse of the homeless, the glorification of violence between stupid white rich kids, and the downright exploitative elements to it... Its clearly trying to drive a wedge between the poor homeless and the white middle-class youth, saying something to the effect of "they are different, they are less then human.." There was defintally a white/back thing in play here, along with the prementioned poor/rich thing.

Its reminiscent of Hitler Youth style dehumanization. It strikes you within 10 min that you are watching the propaganda of the new American fascist youth. At least, I ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

] The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Wednesday a law
] extending copyright protection by 20 years, delaying when
] creative works such as Walt Disney Co.'s Mickey Mouse, F.
] Scott Fitzgerald's novels and George Gershwin's
] compositions become public property.
]
] The 7-2 ruling was a victory for the U.S. Justice
] Department, large media companies and song publishers
] that argued the longer term was needed to protect a vital
] industry that contributes more than $500 billion to the
] U.S. economy.

Damnit.

Reuters | Eldred case lost

] A man demonstrates to prospective buyers the new video
] game, called 'Bin Laden versus USA,' which shows the
] faces of the prime terrorist suspect and U.S. President
] George W. Bush at a street stall in Baguio, northern
] Philippines, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2003. The China-made
] version of the current craze Game Boy's gameplan is
] for the player to defend the twin towers from being
] bombed by Bin Laden's suicide bombers by using American
] anti-terrorist weapons. It sells for 250 pesos (US$5).

AP Photo - Bin Laden vs. USA video game