aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Monday, March 28, 2005
Tort hypocrisy
Wampum’s dug up the goods on some Republican politician’s personal commitment to tort reform:
Republicans want to limit the right of others to recover for torts but are quick to sue when they, or members of their family, have been harmed....Perhaps lawsuit abuse would not be holding back our economy and costing us so many jobs if Republican politicians did not file so many of those suits they deplore.
President Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay…
TiVo sold the fast forward button
Long rumored, it’s apparently here. From PVRBlog:
I’m still not sure what became of that planned feature, but Jeff Sprankle wrote in with a report of something similar happening on his TiVo:
This morning, I started watching Ghostbusters 2 on Comedy Central and, as I always do, paused it for a while so I could FF through commercials. At the first commercial, I used my trusty FF button only to see an ad for The Interpreter smack dab in the middle of the screen. Seems Tivo has started placing ads on your TV when you FF or RW live TV. To me, this is quite obnoxious because it takes up most of the TV screen!
UPDATE from Thomas Hawk:
This is incredibly short sighted for TiVo and will hurt them in the long run. Their advertising revenue represents such a minor amount of profit for the company. I can’t believe that they don’t see that this strategy will only hurt them in the end.
I couldn’t agree more!
Nader’s nadir
I was once a big fan of Ralph Nader:
Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, author of the award winning book “Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America” call upon the Florida Courts, Governor Jeb Bush and concerned citizens to take any legal action available to let Terri Schiavo live.
Commenter Ken Cope catches the fact that the Nader press release, featured in the
, and the fellow he has partnered with in condemning the Schiavo decisions, both emanate from The Discovery institute, home of crackpot, creationist drivel.
Wesley J. Smith wrote a couple of consumer books with Ralph back in the early 90’s but has since made quite a career fopr himself as a self-anointed bioethicist and expert in “life” issues. (He also has a sub-specialty in knocking the “dangerous” animal rights movement.)
MGM v Grokster
The New York Times has a good background story on the MGM v Grokster case that will be heard this week by the Supreme Court:
The case, M.G.M. v. Grokster, is in many ways the culmination of five years of escalating legal, technical and rhetorical attacks against file-sharing systems and their users by the music industry. It is being eagerly followed by a range of media and technology companies because the court may use this case to redefine the reach of copyright in the era of iPods and TiVo.
But no matter how the court rules, both music executives and file-sharing advocates...agree that it will probably always be possible for fans to find loads of free music with a few clicks of a mouse.
Still, the case will determine whether file sharing can continue to be promoted by companies like LimeWire and Sharman Networks, which makes Kazaa, that operate in public and earn profits from advertising and software sales, or whether the software will be written and distributed by shadowy players on the fringes of the law.
The article appears on the same day as a wrong-headed editorial, which is effectively rebutted by Ernest Miller:
There are lots of technologies that deprive people who create of making money for their creation. The VCR, for one. The VCR is used to infringe copyright, which it seems, automatically takes the money out of the hands of creators. Should the evolution of the VCR have been stopped? Brilliant editorial New York Times, bravo. Cheap rhetorical tricks, unsubstantiated statistics, and complete lack of an actual solution. Is there any error that wasn’t made?
Via CopyFight’s Donna Wentworth who points to a wealth of information on the case.
UPDATE: In this post Wentworth looks at the research on the impact of P2P music sharing on CD sales:
In addition to a lack of negative effects, the study argues, there is evidence for a positive correlation between sharing music and purchasing more new music.
Stop the itch
From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools:
Zanfel is very expensive, it’s true ($38/oz). But it’s worth every penny to anyone suffering with a poison ivy (or oak) rash. Within 30 seconds of treatment, the itching stops. Really. It’s the only product I know of that chemically binds the urishol which is causing the problem.
Via BoingBoing.
DNR
This article made me remember that in my experience we were more concerned about doctors intervening when we didn’t want it. We weren’t talking about the need for a living will; we were talking about the need for a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order):
For years, when families and hospitals fought over how to treat critically ill patients, families often pressed to let their loved ones die, while hospitals tried to keep them alive. But in the last decade or so, things have changed. Now...even families who say they believe in removing life support may find that position untenable when their own relatives are involved.
“About 15 years ago, at least 80 percent of the cases were right-to-die kinds of cases,” said Dr. Lachlan Forrow, the director of ethics programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who handles 50 to 100 end-of-life conflicts a year. “Today, it’s more like at least 80 percent of the cases are the other direction: family members who are pushing for continued or more aggressive life support and doctors and nurses who think that that’s wrong.”I still don’t have a living will. It’s clear that if I want my wishes carried out, rather than those based on the hopes, fears, beliefs and emotions of my family, I must make one. (And, for the record, for me a feeding tube will count as a prohibited extraordinary measure.)
UPDATE: PoliBlog on the feeding tube as medical intervention. Via Outside the Beltway.
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