30 Nov 2004
BarnesandNoble.com loses round in trademark case

Good grief! I want to get a trademark on "10% Off" ... then I can sue everybody that uses that phrase and get rich! There's a distinction in trademark law between a name trademark and a descriptive trademark. Unfortunately, that distinction, like seemingly everything else in "intellectual property" law, is getting blurred on a daily basis.

"Half Price Books" should lose their trademark on that descriptive phrase outright. Pick another name, guys!

Motion for summary judgment dismissed in a case brought by Halfpricebooks.com, which owns the trademark "Half Price Books."

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Nov 2004
Study finds benefits in GM crops

How depressing ... no, not the study, or even it's results, which are perfectly valid. It's just that the scientific community is missing the point: again.

Why would they test a hypothesis that GM crops would reduce weed diversity? Spraying herbicides reduces weeds - not GM crops, although the latter will allow the former to be used in greater strength/quantity. I'd never heard of this concern about GM crops.

The problem with GM crops isn't that they produce poison food, either. That's been pretty conclusively proven. The problem is cross contamination - and this has been conclusively demonstrated in court, of all places. It's not rocket science, it's simple common sense. Once GM crops become the norm, they take over by default. How their success will effect future crops of non-GM'd seed is anybody's guess: but you can bet that the companies responsible for them will be there enforcing their "intellectual property".

Another thing you can count on: when the twenty year patent on these plants expires, they'll get tweaked, like prescription drugs do when their patents face expiration. Or perhaps, if the modification makes the use of herbicides possible, the company will change the herbicide once the patent on the plant expires: they do manufacture both, after all.

This could potentially be the death knell for the small, non-corporate farmer, as well as the naturally developed plant breeds developed over millenia of farmer experiments and plantings. Is this what we really want or need? I don't think so.

A major UK study of genetically modified plants finds no evidence that they harm the environment.

(link) [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Mad cow takes bite from exports

One could logically ask "Dave, you don't export any beef, right? So how does the collaspe of the export market hurt you?"

All that beef that isn't going to Europe and Japan has to go somewhere, eh? And that means somewhere locally, forcing prices paid in markets way down. Mercifully, most of the saving have not been passed on to consumers by the big packing houses, but some of them have. And the law of supply and demand is pretty inexorable: more supply = lower prices. So I've had to lower my expected prices on my beef, and step up my efforts to get consumers to know the difference between naturally raised, grass fed cows and feedlot beef. Which means additional advertising, which raises my costs in a time of declining prices. Wonderful stuff.

In the year since the first case of mad cow disease in the U.S. was announced, the nation's $3.4 billion beef export market has virtually collapsed, taking with it more than $272 million of Colorado's largest agricultural export market.

(link) [Denver Business Journal]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Nov 2004
Small Town Fights Back

I wonder if this will actually work, once the novelty wears off. If it does, it could provide a nifty model for the rest of us in rural America.

Los Angeles Times - ELY, Nev. — Brian Campbell picked through the underwear display while his wife, Kristina, unloaded an armful of clothes on the checkout counter. Over in the footwear department, fifth-graders Shawnee Day and Maria Dominguez were ogling the socks stitched with monkeys and puppies.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

It's Been a Busy Weekend

Well, I missed another day blogging yesterday, but given all that's been going on here, I've got a pretty good excuse.

Tup, the first Blackface sheep we acquired, killed himself Friday morning... yes, sheep do sometime commit suicide, although I'm reasonably sure it's never intentional. I'm pretty sure that he bludgeoned himself to death whacking on the stall wall (or the gate) - at any rate, his neck was broken, and that's what did him in.

There's no way I'm going to try and butcher a "downer" animal, especially when I not 100% sure what killed it - so we had to drag the caracass off to a spot over at Kevyn's dad's house (the Hill) which is sort of a dumping ground for dead animals. Out there, the coyotes and vultures will feast, and hopefully be satiated enough that they'll leave the living livestock alone. Works pretty well, actually. The problem is trying to hoist a 200+ pound (about 100kg) into the back of a truck, and then drive the truck through the mud in the pastures to the spot - and back.

Tup had eaten well on Thursday - and his stomaches were all quite full. Not only did this add to the weight, but the contents of his rumen would spill out if we allowed his head to fall lower than the rest of his body. Ever smelled the aroma given off by a paper mill? That's got nothing on the contents of a sheep rumen! Both of us were huffing, puffing, gagging and straining (and Kris almost barfed ...) but we finally managed to get him into the little truck and over to the Hill.

Once this was done, we tried to clip off his horns: they're a very nice set - double curled - and we ran into an immediate problem. Because of the curl, we couldn't get the horn nippers around them! I'm afraid we probably ruined one (and thry're worth about $50 each) trying. Bummer. I've gotta get over there and cut them off with a saw, which I would've done yesterday, but it was pouring rain all day, and besides, we had other tasks to keep us busy and exhausted.

We went to the Lebanon sale barn yesterday morning and stood in a cold downpour to buy some hay. We'd not had the cash heretofore to purchase any, and we'll need 3 or 4 hundred bales over the winter. We got 100 very nice bales yesterday, and at a very good price. The seller was happy to deliver, which was a good thing, as Kevyn had the trailer up at the tree farm setting up his petting zoo. But unloading 100 bales in cold rainstorm is no fun, and it's even less fun to then carry each bale to the loft. We couldn't toss in the upper hatch because we couldn't get the trailer around thru the mud to the correct position, so everything was heft and carry.

I went to bed about 9:30 last night, and didn't wake up until 8 am.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Nov 2004
Got Robot? Dairy Farmer Sees 'Milking Parlor' as Tourist Stop

Nothing wrong with a little agri-tourism ... although I daresay that showing an "old fashioned" milking parlor would have been somewhat more educational.

Los Angeles Times — For decades, as his own industry struggled, seventh-generation dairy farmer Clark Hinsdale II watched visitors flock to the nearby Shelburne Museum to admire its vast American art collection.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

India pioneers the webcast cremation

Folks in the West will no doubt giggle a bit at this, but only because they fail to understand the really deep family connections that permeate Indian society. This is one part of Hinduism that's not changed much since the first waves of Indo-Europeans swept over the subcontenient: it's a modern attempt to obviate time and space to maintain a connection to the ancestors.

An Indian crematorium is planning to give grieving but time-strapped relatives the chance to send their dear departed into the next world via live webcast.

(link) [The Register]

00:00 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

25 Nov 2004
Fake Saudi Princess Countersues AmEx (AP)

Yep, she's crazy all right. Like a fox ....

AP - A woman who was sued by American Express over an alleged scam where she posed as a Saudi princess to steal thousands has countersued the company, saying she was mentally incompetent when she opened her account and the company should have known it.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Nov 2004
Army Guard misses recruiting goal

I'm shocked to hear this: why could folks possibly be passing up this opportunity? Perhaps it has something to do with the way we're using the Guard - not as a reserve or a militia, but as an active combat component. It's one thing to ask a young man (or woman) to join up for a weekend a month and service in the event of a national emergency: it 's quite another to ask them to join up for the regular military. Regular Army recruiting hasn't suffered (yet), but the regular Army doesn't have enough men for the mission the political leadership is requiring of it. Hence we need to use our reserves.

But there's another message here, for those who can read between the lines:

The chief reason for the shortfall is a downturn in recruits with military experience, men and women who leave the active-duty Army but sign up for Guard duty that usually involves a weekend a month and two weeks during the summer. In past years, these "prior service" soldiers accounted for about half of all Guard recruits.

Losing the prior service people does two things. It forces the Guard to run more of it's recruits through basic training, which costs more money and time. And it dramatically decreases the the number of veteran NCO's available. An army may march on it's stomach, but it marchs at all only because it's sergeants tell it to march. This really hurts unit readiness.

Our political leadership has really painted themselves into a corner here: they've foresworn the draft, yet insist on continually projecting power around the world: this leads to shortfalls in troops, and to longer deployments, which leads to recruiting problems ... isn't the circle a wonderful geometry?

There are only two ways out of this: stop playing world policeman, or increase the numbers in the military. Politically and militarily, something's gotta give, eventually.

USATODAY.com - The Army National Guard has fallen significantly behind its recruiting goal one month into the military's new fiscal year, continuing a downward slide that began in 2003 and could make it harder for the Pentagon to find enough troops for the war in Iraq.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Porn Site Sues Google Over Linked Images

Apparently these porn purveyors don't understand how the Internet works. Google links only those pages which it can get to, and it's bots respect robots.txt files pretty scrupulously. Go Google isn't going behind their password protection to link the images, they've placed the images where they can be reached sans passwords!

Furthermore, they don't understand the role of the search engine: this is like a shopkeeping suing his sign for directing people into his store! They also expect Google to do their copyright enforcement: if there's an illegal mirror of their site, they are responsible for finding it and taking it down (and they've got plenty of powerful tools to do it with, too).

And suing because Google finds sites that talk about password "hacking"? Whew, that's a reach, even for a copyright lawyer.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Google is being sued for copyright infringement by a Los Angeles-based porn site. The complaint revolves around Google's Image Search, which allegedly displays copyrighted pictures and links to unauthorised mirrors. The complaint also alleges that Google Search is providing 'links to password hacking sites that provide ways to gain illegal access to [the complainant's] website.'

(link) [Slashdot]

Update: Overlawyered has more on this, including the litigation track record of Perfect 10. It's a long post...

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Nov 2004
A Kinder, Gentler Copyright Bill?

The new copyright bill didn't turn out to be nearly as bad as expected. It seems as though squawking loudly can still have some effect, even on a lame duck Congress.

The Senate passes a copyright bill that is not as bad as digital rights activists had feared. The bill drops language that would have banned tech that would have allowed people to skip commercials. By Katie Dean.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?

This belongs in my humor category - "erototoxins", indeed - except that the effort is deadly serious. This has to qualify as possibly the most outrageous bit of nauseous bullshit that I've ever heard of: if you're down on porno for religious (or other) reasons, just say so and be done with it. Don't go around inventing chemical causes for moral "failures" - that road leads to perdition.

Researchers tell a Senate hearing that internet porn is more addictive and harmful than street drugs. One calls for government-funded research into the 'erototoxins.' By Ryan Singel.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Studios Sue Pixar: Demand Bad Movie

It was bound to happen ...

The eight major Hollywood studios have filed suit against CGI animation company Pixar for its consistent record of quality movies.

(link) [Dateline Hollywood]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Nov 2004
SPAM Gets Religion

I've gotten one or two pieces of this tripe, but it's not become a torrent, like Viagra or Rogaine ads. I think I'm seeing more and more of the surreal SPAM's, though. It's hard to tell: my message filters work so well for the commercial pitches, that maybe I'm just noticing the really "off the wall" ones more. They usually get through.

And I was apparently right on my characterization of those Dadaist rants as "legal", too. It's not illegal if you're not pitching a product or service. "Salvation" doesn't count, and neither does "Joe Blow For Senate". According to MessageLabs:

The antispam company has intercepted a large number of spiritual e-mails in the last month. The company says the e-mails are legal because they don't plug products, just religious ideals.

Great! This oughta open the flood gates all over again.

E-mail recipients are increasingly being offered religious salvation through bulk, unsolicited e-mail.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Conservatives Urge Closer Look at Marriage (AP)

Watch out, America! Banning gay marriage is just the start of the "reform" these guys have in mind, according to Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University professor who writes frequently about family issues.:

"If those [gay marriage] initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated — if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness — then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."

So "deliberate childlessness" is now destroying the institution of marriage? And the government is going to begin to dictate who can live with whom? Hold on to your hats - the conservative agenda has yet to reach full flower!

AP - "Protection of marriage" is now the watchword for many activists fighting to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying. Some conservatives, however, say marriage in America began unraveling long before the latest gay-rights push and are pleading for a fresh, soul-searching look at the institution.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link