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Archives for May 2007
Got Bullets?
So you’re a grandpa of a 10 month old. What do you buy the little tyke? A nice stuffy for his room, a baseball glove for catching practise when he’s older, a savings bond for college. Great ideas all but not as special as a 12-gauge Beretta shotgun.
What 10 month old wouldn’t appreciate that? I’m sure Stewie would. 
Little Bubba ( did not make it up ) might not be able to pop off a couple of rounds yet but I’m guessing he has a future in firearms.
Dad even sent in for a firearm owner’s identification card, and the police issued it;
Bubba Ludwig can’t walk, talk or open the refrigerator door – but he does have his very own Illinois gun permit.
The 10-month-old, whose given name is Howard David Ludwig, was issued a firearm owner’s identification card after his father, Howard Ludwig, paid the US$5 fee and filled out the application, not expecting to actually receive one.
The card lists the baby’s height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be.
With some exceptions, the cards are required of any Illinois residents purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition within the state. There are no age restrictions on the cards, an official said.
CBC
You might want to give this kids stroller a wide berth.
Yolanda Denise King 1955-2007
King — an actor, speaker and producer — was the founder and head of Higher Ground Productions, billed as a “gateway for inner peace, unity and global transformation.” On her company’s Web site, King described her mission as encouraging personal growth and positive social change.
King also was an author and held memberships in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — which her father co-founded in 1957 — and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her death comes more than a year after the death of her mother, Coretta Scott King.
She was the most visible and outspoken among the Kings’ four children during this year’s Martin Luther King Day in January, the first since her mother’s death. At her father’s former Atlanta church, Ebenezer Baptist, she performed a series of solo skits that told stories including a girl’s first ride on a desegregated bus and a college student’s recollection of the 1963 desegregation of Birmingham, Ala.
She also urged the audience to be a force for peace and love, and to use the King holiday each year to ask tough questions about their own beliefs on prejudice.
source
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, King was a human rights worker and actress. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. (the official national memorial to her father) and was founding Director of the King Center’s Cultural Affairs Program. She served on the Partnership Council of Habitat for Humanity, was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a sponsor of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and held a lifetime membership in the NAACP. King received a B.A. degree with honors from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, a Masters degree in Theatre from New York University and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Marywood University. In 1978 she starred as Rosa Parks in the TV miniseries King (which was based on her father’s life and released on DVD in 2005).
Falwell Dies at 73
I certainly feel for his family but I can’t say I feel particularly bad at his passing.
Here are some of the highlights of his career
The fundamentalist church that Falwell started in an abandoned bottling plant in 1956 grew into a religious empire that includes the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, the “Old Time Gospel Hour” carried on television stations around the country and 7,700-student Liberty University. He built Christian elementary schools, homes for unwed mothers and a home for alcoholics.
In 1984, he sued Hustler magazine for $45 million, charging that he was libeled by an ad parody depicting him as an incestuous drunkard. A federal jury found the fake ad did not libel him, but awarded him $200,000 for emotional distress. That verdict was overturned, however, in a landmark 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that even pornographic spoofs about a public figure enjoy First Amendment protection.
Days after Sept. 11, 2001, Falwell essentially blamed feminists, gays, lesbians and liberal groups for bringing on the terrorist attacks. He later apologized.
In 1999, he told a evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive. Falwell later apologized for the remark but not for holding the belief. A month later, his National Liberty Journal warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television’s “Teletubbies” show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.
Full biography here
Fair Dealing
On her blog Big Blue Wave Suzanne accuses me of copyright infringement in using a still from the March for Life Youtube video.
I would like to direct her attention to the following most particularly items 1(wherein the still was used as part of a reporting process, 3, (wherein the still was a trivial amount of the video) and 6 (wherein there is little likelihood that my use of the still is going to affect the marketing of the video);
It then establishes six principal criteria for evaluating fair dealing.
1. The Purpose of the Dealing Is it for research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting? It expresses that “these allowable purposes should not be given a restrictive interpretation or this could result in the undue restriction of users’ rights.”
2. The Character of the Dealing How were the works dealt with? Was there a single copy or were multiple copies made? Were these copies distributed widely or to a limited group of people? Was the copy destroyed after its purpose was accomplished? What are the normal practices of the industry?
3. The Amount of the Dealing How much of the work was used? What was the importance of the infringed work? Quoting trivial amounts may alone sufficiently establish fair dealing. In some cases even quoting the entire work may be fair dealing.
4. Alternatives to the Dealing Was a “non-copyrighted equivalent of the work” available to the user? Could the work have been properly criticized without being copied?
5. The Nature of the Work Copying from a work that has never been published could be more fair than from a published work “in that its reproduction with acknowledgement could lead to a wider public dissemination of the work – one of the goals of copyright law. If, however, the work in question was confidential, this may tip the scales towards finding that the dealing was unfair.”
6. Effect of the Dealing on the Work Is it likely to affect the market of the original work? “Although the effect of the dealing on the market of the copyright owner is an important factor, it is neither the only factor nor the most important factor that a court must consider in deciding if the dealing is fair.” A statement that a dealing infringes may not be sufficient, but evidence will often be required.
“These factors may be more or less relevant to assessing the fairness of a dealing depending on the factual context of the allegedly infringing dealing. In some contexts, there may be factors other than those listed here that may help a court decide whether the dealing was fair.”
source
Wolfowitz and the Adam defense
Genesis 3:12
And Adam said, “The woman, whom you gave to be with me, she gave to me from the tree and I ate.”
and now
Wolfowitz added that the chairman of the ethics panel thought that “due to my personal relationship with Ms. Riza, I was in the best position to persuade her to take out-placement and thereby achieve the ‘pragmatic solution’ the committee desired.”
Wolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her “intractable position” in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit.
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