Sunday, November 27, 2005

Grand Canyon Skywalk

Dean wants to go. I don’t know. It sure looks scary to me.

UPDATE: Uh oh. Now Dean’s thinking it’s a farce. And doubting Snopes.

Congressmen ok after Iraq wreck

My congressman, Jim Marshall, was in an accident in Iraq last night:

In a phone interview from Baghdad, Marshall explained how dignitaries are shuttled in fast-moving convoys that often take up the middle of the road to deter oncoming motorists.

Shortly after dark Saturday, Marshall’s vehicle encountered an oncoming truck that was not yielding to the convoy, he said.

“Then all of a sudden brakes get slammed on. Then we hit something and go off the side of the road and tip over,” Marshall said.

The congressional delegation was riding in a “box-like” vehicle soldiers call the “ice cream truck,” he said.

“Everybody sort of fell over to the side. There’s no cushion to it. It’s all solid metal with bolts sticking out,” Marshall said. “I feel like a fool. I didn’t put my seat belt on.”

Two other congressmen were in the vehicle. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa. was airlifted to a military hospital in Germany for an MRI on his neck, and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. was sent to a Baghdad hospital for evaluation.

This was Marshall’s sixth trip to Iraq. His is considered one of the House races to watch in the 2006 election cycle.

Graph Paper PDF

Adding on a bathroom, I needed some graph paper to draft my plan. Got it here.

Free. Easy. Totally customizable. Gotta love the net!

Now if only I could find one of these…

Via Cory at BoingBoing.

Chris Wallace has no idea

Think Progress documents how wrong Chris Wallace was when he said today that President Bush never tried to link al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein (video here):

[T]hat specific quote there where you say he couldn’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, he wasn’t saying that they were linked at all. He was saying one was as bad as the other, and when he said in that same answer something about that Saddam Hussein would like to use a terrorist network, he wasn’t saying that they would like to use al Qaeda. So you’re making a link there that the President never made.

Yea, right.

Which reminds me of my favorite Chris Wallace quote. During his February Booknotes appearance he was asked how long ago he had the idea for his book. He answered:

[I]t was a kind of collaborative effort. My—a fellow, an agent, Bill Adler (ph), came up—called me up and said, Have you ever thought of writing a book? And I said, yes, but I never have had an idea.

He got that right!

Via Atrios.

Matthew Yglesias, Atrios, Copyfighters!

When asked why copyright exists, a friend in New York - who once was a successful record company attorney - replied without hesitation, “to protect the copyright holder’s property.”

A dyed-in-the-wool hardcore liberal, I would have expected better from him (though Matt Stoller has set us straight on that again and again).

I argued the “Progress Clause” was to promote progress and that the expansion of “limited time” to the point where it is virtually an unlimited time and the restriction of “fair use” to the point where it is of virtually no use inhibits progress. He remained unmoved.

Today Atrios underscores the importance of this from Matt Yglesias’ Friday post:

Record companies and their movie studio allies have managed to convince a shockingly large swathe of opinion that the purpose of intellectual property law is to prevent copyright infringement. In fact, the purpose is to advance the general welfare of society.

Reacting to Yglesias’ commenters - too many of whom prove Matt’s point - Atrios quotes the constitution, Section 8, Clause 8, giving Congress the power:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Atrios:

The key phrases being “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” and “ securing for limited Times.” A lot of the commenters seem to side with Disney et al who, after having made tons of money ripping off fairy tales without paying any royalties, seem to think that copyright law should extend out to time infinity.

The business centered discussion of these and related issues often serves to obscure the point of certain institutions. For example, antitrust law exists solely for the protection of competition for the benefit of consumers, not to protect competitors. It’s a seemingly subtle distinction, but it makes a world of difference in how we think about it.

Right on Matt! Right on Atrios! Let’s move this issue up the Democratic agenda.