War on Cursing and Other Randomess

Also, 'Cuss' Isn't a Word, You Ignorant Half-Wits

Curses!
So there's a town in California that really, really wants to feel my wrath, assuming I ever get any.

What the @$%#? This community on the edge of Los Angeles has become a cuss-free zone.

So if you're headed to South Pasadena this week, be sure to turn down the volume on that Snoop Dogg CD, and, if the little old lady from Pasadena cuts you off in traffic, don't even think about flipping her the bird.

Not that police will slap cuffs on you and haul your sorry, er, butt off to jail in light of the proclamation passed Wednesday by the City Council. But you could be shamed into better behavior by the unsettling glares of residents who take their reputation for civility seriously.

Define 'better'. Is it better to use the non-word 'cuss' than to curse, an integral part of the English language since before there WAS a proper English language?

What kind of numbskull would think that this intrusion, meaningless as it is, of government into private speech is a good idea? What sort of slope-foreheaded nitwit would waste public time and money with this tripe? What kind of inbred, demi-human, chromosomally deficient mental defective?

Oh, this one.

"That's one of the purposes of this," Mayor Michael Cacciotti said of his city's proclamation designating the first week of March as No Cussing Week. "It provides us a reminder to be more civil, to elevate the level of discourse."

The proclamation will be in effect until Friday, and then the first week of every March hereafter.

Ahh, public officials.

Sometimes they make you long for a brutal autocracy, just to teach people the value of liberty.

Speaking of people who need time to learn, we have a whole slew of these whackos. The leader in South Pasadena, in particular, should pay more attention in school.

South Pasadena, a tranquil city of tree-shaded cottages at the base of a mountain range eight miles north of downtown Los Angeles, isn't the first to try to rein in potty mouths. Earlier this year, the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Mo., proposed banning swearing in bars. Last year, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons called for an industrywide ban on racially and sexually charged epithets.

But what's different about the latest push to stop saying in public the words that Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton recently discovered we still can't say on television is that it was proposed by a 14-year-old boy.

"My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them," said McKay Hatch, the founder of South Pasadena High School's No Cussing Club, during a recent break between study hall and tennis practice.

"I've cussed before, I'm not gonna lie to you," Hatch quickly added. "But I try not to cuss any more."

I'm not gonna lie to you, kid. You're a goddamned retard.

He was in junior high school when he became fed up with all the blue language around him.

He understood why his friends use foul language: "They just want to fit in like everybody else and they don't know how. They figure if they cuss maybe it's an easy way to do that."

But it wasn't for him.

"I finally told my friends, `I don't cuss.' And I said, `If you want to hang out with me, you don't cuss.'"

It took a couple of years, but enough friends finally came around that Hatch formed a 50-member club, handed out fliers and called the group's first meeting, held June 1.

Nine months later, the No Cussing Club has a Web site, claims a membership of 10,000 and boasts chapters in several states and countries. Hatch considers his greatest achievement, though, to be getting his hometown of 25,000 to become a cuss-free zone.

Cacciotti, the mayor, isn't surprised that South Pasadena started the movement. He noted that the city broke off from its much bigger neighbor 120 years ago when residents unhappy with the saloon trade in downtown Pasadena voted 85-25 to go their own way.

This is how temperance movements start, folks. Some kid with no friends starts a movement for other kids with no friends and no lives and the next thing you know, the Mob's running Chicago because the rest of us aren't legally allowed to have a good time.

For his part, Hatch hopes his No Cussing Club will lead to cuss-free zones in other cities. He believes it could be a quality-of-life issue, and that there may be less violence if people behave better.

"You have to start with the little things," he said.

Yep. Prohibition typically brings about a reduction in violence. That's why prohibiting alcohol lead to the Golden Age, and the War on Drugs brought about the earthly nirvana we see today.

Oh, wait a second.

FUCK NO!

Source: Raw Story

Oh God, Here We Go
So the governmental body that pays out damages to people injured by vaccines has cut a check to one girl's family, after a vaccine apparently triggered a pre-existing metabolic condition and ruined her brain.

Autism anti-vaccine fanatics start raving in 3, 2, 1...

Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in a Georgia girl, and that she should be paid from a federal vaccine-injury fund.

Medical and legal experts say the narrow wording and circumstances probably make the case an exception — not a precedent for thousands of other pending claims.

The government "has not conceded that vaccines cause autism," said Linda Renzi, the lawyer representing federal officials, who have consistently maintained that childhood shots are safe.

Oh, it doesn't matter what the FACTS are, Renzi. They'll say you did anyway.

Studies repeatedly have discounted any link between thimerosal and autism, but legal challenges continue. The issue even cropped up in the presidential campaign, with Republican John McCain asserting on Friday that "there's strong evidence" autism is connected to the preservative.

The girl has a disorder involving her mitochondria, the energy factories of cells. The disorder — which can be present at birth from an inherited gene or acquired later in life — impairs cells' ability to use nutrients, and often causes problems in brain functioning. It can lead to delays in walking and talking.

Federal officials say the law bars them from discussing the case or releasing documents without the family's permission. However, The Associated Press obtained a copy of the concession by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials.

According to the document, five vaccines the girl received on one day in 2000 aggravated her mitochondrial condition, predisposing her to metabolic problems that manifested as worsening brain function "with features of autism spectrum disorder." In the 1990s, the definition of autism was expanded to take in a group of milder, related conditions, which are known as autism spectrum disorders.

So the girl had some crippling condition with her mitochondria, and vaccines that are harmless to healthy people triggered them to malfunction.

Tragic. But that doesn't make the vaccines the cause of autism unless all autistic kids have this exceedingly rare condition, and even then, they're not really the cause, any more than sugar causes diabetic comas; rather, it TRIGGERS a malfunctioning system that's already in place.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, which is in charge of the fund, said: "HRSA has maintained and continues to maintain the position that vaccines do not cause autism."

A Portuguese study suggested that 7 percent of autistic children might also have the mitochondrial disorder, versus one in 5,000 people — or 0.02 percent — in the general population, said Dr. Marvin Natowicz, a Cleveland Clinic geneticist.

So what this really says is that, maybe, 7% of autistic kids aren't really autistic; they have a mitochondiral disorder. And perhaps, MAYBE, vaccines contribute to that disorder worsening.

Maybe.

The other 93%? Completely unrelated.

This is why disease definitions getting overly broad can be such a nuisance.

Reported cases of autism have been rising in the U.S., even after thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines. However, some experts believe the rise is due to an expansion of the definition of autism and related conditions, and a desire to diagnose children so they qualify for special services and aid.

Enough said.

Source: Raw Story

And With Strange Aeons, Even Death May Die
This story's been around a lot the last week, but for posterity:

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

The really sad thing is, this officially ends the old legal riddle, 'What is the only crime for which there is no punishment?'. Until now, suicide worked as the answer.

But thanks to a small town in France, there's an exception.

Source: Yahoo News

Eat Circuitry
Nom nom.

Death of English Culture
Yes, that greatest symbol of England is under attack.

No, not the Queen.

According to the British Beer and Pubs Association, 27 pubs a week closed in 2007 – seven times faster than the previous year and 14 times faster than 2005. This means that four pubs a day are closing.

The figures have been released a week before The Budget. The Government has run out of money, and the pub industry is anxious that the Government does not put up beer taxes. "Beer sales in pubs – the backbone of the trade – are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s," says the BBPA. "

IT CANNOT BE!

Apparently white wine and health consciousness are doing what the Gerrys could not.

Pubs without the room to provide an attractive outside areas for smokers, and those that are not big on food have faced particular difficulties. The move towards spirits and wine has hit the beery pub. Research shows that there has been a marked trend in the rise of "pre-loading", where drinkers, young adults mostly, buy booze from a shop and down it at home before groggily wandering off to a pub or bar, thereby spending less money on binge drinking.

But perhaps the clincher is that we seem to be drinking less overall, not just in pubs but everywhere from the park bench to the House of Commons. Although the Office for National Statistics cannot be sure that people are being truthful about how much they say they drink, it thinks alcohol consumption peaked in 2000 and has fallen every year since. According to the BBPA, average consumption is down 15 per cent on 2000.

What a sad, sad state of affairs.

What is the Government doing?

With heavy drinking placing a burden on the police and hospitals, there is no early prospect of a "save our pubs" campaign from Downing Street.

Curse you, Governmental Inaction!

It's time to promote heavy beer drinking once more!

Source: The Independent

Duhhh

A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials to not allow the popular mapping Web site from taking panoramic views inside the facilities.

Michael Kucharek, spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the decision was made after crews were allowed access to at least one base. He said military officials were concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level video could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.

His comments came just a few days after published reports suggested that protesters used Google Earth to help plot their access to the roof of the Parliament building in London.

Yeah. You guys didn't see this coming?

Source: Raw Story

No Heat, No Justice
The hiliarious tale of what happens when getting design accolades for a building matters more than anything else.

Thomas Mayne’s new George H.W. Bush Federal Building now looms over midtown San Francisco. While people have sharply divergent reactions to its unique exterior design -- I happen to like it -- the verdict on the structure’s function as a office space for federal employees is nearly unanimous: it is a disaster.

Not that architectural critics care. Bedazzled by unusual design features and its focus on energy conservation, reviews of Mayne’s latest work seem to ignore whether it fulfills its functional role as a federal office building.

Based on what I have been told, it clearly does not.

The first fact about the building that may cause surprise is its lack of air conditioning or heat. According to Mayne, “a bike rack and air conditioning get you the same point. I’d much rather see BTU and CO2 requirements and let the professional community solve the problem.”

I apparently lack sufficient understanding of green technology, as it does not seem that a bike rack would “get you to the same point” in terms of keeping workers cool. In the real world on the 15th floor of the Federal Building, workers seek to relieve the heat by opening windows, which not only sends papers flying, but, depending on their proximity to the opening, makes creating a stable temperature for all workers near impossible.

When I spoke with a Labor Department worker at the building (who noted that she is encountering the type of bad work conditions that her agency is supposed to enforce against), she confirmed what might have been an urban legend: that some employees must use umbrellas to keep the sun out of their cubicles.

The lack of internal climate controls has left some workers too cold and others too hot. A happy medium has proved elusive. And while the managers’ offices do have heat and air conditioning -- a two-tiered approach fitting in a building named for Bush -- the “green” design apparently has messed with the effectiveness of these systems, leaving these top staff as physically uncomfortable as the line workers.

So you see, they knew it would suck. They just thought that the peons could in turn suck it up.

Riiiiight. Only managers need to have a comfortable work environment!

According to my source, architect Mayne has stated that federal office workers do not get enough exercise. To address this, he installed elevators in the building that only stop at every third floor. This requires employees to walk up or down one or two flights of metal stairs.

Persons with physical disabilities who cannot use stairs can use a separate elevator that stops at every floor. The foreseeable result is that employees seeking to avoid stairs use the disabled access elevator, leaving this car crammed with people and making the ride to the top extremely slow.

I am told that when the freight elevator is out of service, deliveries must use the disabled access elevator. It seems only a matter of time until a disabled worker sues the General Services Administration for providing inadequate disabled elevator access in the building.

Yes, that's right. He intentionally broke the elevators. To force people to use the stairs.

Instead of course, they use the elevator for the handicapped. Screwing them over royally.

I'm not sure why this idiot thinks that people should be getting their daily exercise in suits and ties in the stairwells at work anyway. That's hardly ideal clothing or timing.

Source: Beyond Chron

Waaaahmbulance!
Poor little China feels bullied by all those non-violent Tibetan Buddhists. Again.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top official in Tibet on Friday accused the Himalayan region's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of seeking to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.


The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Communist rule, told Britain's ITV network in January that during the Games Tibet supporters should protest peacefully in China against Beijing's rule.

...

Zhang's lieutenant, Qiangba Puncog, the top government official in Tibet, said the activities of the Dalai Lama "clique were the main factors of instability in Tibet."

"They will not succeed. We are fully prepared and have full confidence. We will definitely ensure the Olympics and Olympic-related events in Tibet proceed smoothly," Qiangba Puncog said, apparently referring to the Tibet leg of the Olympic torch relay that is due to scale Mount Everest.

...

Critics say China continues to repress Tibetans' religious aspirations, especially their veneration for the Dalai Lama, who won Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Periodic rioting by monks has been brutally crushed.

Also, a neologism, or odd translation, out of China:

"The Beijing Olympics is the focus of world attention and the people are exalted ... but even a grand gathering like this, he is engaging in sabotage and threatening to cause trouble," Zhang Qingli, Communist Party boss of Tibet, said without elaborating.

"How can this not be called engaging in splittism?" Zhang told a news conference on the sidelines of parliament when asked by Reuters why China will not believe the Dalai Lama does not advocate independence and what he needs to do to convince China.

Easy. That's not a word. It's hard to be accused of something that doesn't exist.

Do you mean 'agitation'? 'Disruption'? 'Anarchy'? 'Chaos'? 'Insurgency'? Or perhaps the grand bugaboo of our times, 'terrorism'?

Source: Raw Story

Pirate Day
Speaking of the Beijing Olympics, it turns out that they stole content for their website from a Flash game designer.

Flash game theft is nothing new. I’m actually quite used to having my games taken without my permission, and without receiving compensation. The difference here is that this is not some crappy no-name portal. This is The Olympics.

I’d also like to point out that this is not just a clone of my game. They didn’t see my game and set out to make a similar game. They actually stole my game. I’ll say it again:
The Olympics stole my game.
They downloaded the swf file from my site, decompiled it, swapped out the little guy for the Fuwa characters, took my name off of it and republished it as their own. I can tell this is what happened because they are still using some of my original art from Snow Day (the clouds and the ice cube are exactly the same). I also took the liberty of decompiling their game and actually found it still contains the sound files from Snow Day, even though they aren’t being used in the Olympic version. It even still has the splash sound effect from The Lake (I used the engine from The Lake to make Snow Day and must have forgot to delete this file).

...

The Beijing Olympic Committee has also not been lenient with copyright infringers. Back in October the director of the State Intellectual Property Office, Tian Lipu, pledged to prevent Olympic piracy. Indeed, the Olympic web site even has a page set up where you can report infringement of intellectual property rights. Evidently, they are slightly less concerned when The Olympics infringes on the rights of others.

Well, duh. It's the Chinese government after all.

On the other hand, they HATE to be embarassed, especially in relation to the Olympics. They'll throw someone under the bus for sure if this story catches on. Maybe even execute them.

Of course, it may or may not be someone who was even involved.

Source: The Pencil Farm

Take-Down
So, under the odious DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), you can mail out so-called 'Takedown Notices' to anyone you suspect of infringing your copyright, and they have to take down the offending content or they're in trouble.

Of course, these notices are very, very frequently abused to harass critics and stifle Fair Use of copywritten materials.

Sometimes though, it just gets bizarre.

It's cyber war! Lawyers representing the Air Force's elite electronic warriors have sent YouTube a DMCA takedown notice demanding the removal of the 30-second spot the Air Force created to promote its nascent Cyber Command. We'd uploaded the video to share with THREAT LEVEL readers.

How quickly alliances shift in the murky new world of Cyberarmageddon. It was just last month that the Air Force sent us the ad, and thanked THREAT LEVEL for agreeing to run it. The spot shows earnest airmen deftly thwarting a hacker attack on the Pentagon using Minority Report-type touch-and-drag screens. I'm certain hundreds, if not thousands, of geeks have already enlisted as a result of our patriotic shilling for the Air Force.

Now, though, it seems we're just another cyber enemy to be squashed like so many Chinese DDoSers or unsanctioned blogs. Was it something I said?

But Air Force marketing chief Keith Lebling, who sent us the spot in the first place, says any intellectual property claim should have gone through his office, and none did.

U.S. Government works aren't even copyrightable. YouTube doesn't know that -- presumably because it has no lawyers -- and it's taken down the video. A spokeswoman said in an e-mail that the Google-owned service has no choice but to comply with DMCA notices. That's not quite right, though. YouTube has no legal obligation to remove non-infringing content.

Oops.

The right hand literally does not know what the left is doing.

Update: YouTube has sent along the DMCA notice (.pdf). It's signed by Meredith Pikser, an attorney with international law firm Reed Smith LLP, on behalf of the Air Force.

Kurt Opsahl at EFF notes that, notwithstanding Pikster's sworn statement, the Air Force website promoting the video contains this language in its privacy policy: "Information presented on the Air Force Recruiting website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied."

So, there you have it. Bizarrely, an ad that the Air Force sent out to media outlets, thanked them for putting up on Youtube and discussing, has now been the subject of an anti-infringement campaign, unauthorized, that it isn't even legally eligible for, and even if it had been, they already waived any rights to it in writing on their website.

Yeah. Wow.

Source: Wired (Threat Level)