From Hack-A-Day comes this video presentation about why you should not talk to the police without a lawyer. It's well worth the 28 minutes.



You should also watch the second half where a police detective gets up and tells about the techniques he uses to get people to talk to him.

From BoingBoing comes a research paper into the copyright issues surrounding the song "Happy Birthday To You".

I'll have to download this paper and read it later, but the abstract sure looks interesting:

"Happy Birthday to You" is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many - including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft - have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless remains under copyright. Yet close historical scrutiny reveals both of those assumptions to be false. The song that became "Happy Birthday to You," originally written with different lyrics as "Good Morning to All," was the product of intense creative labor, undertaken with copyright protection in mind. However, it is almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application.

The falsity of the standard story about the song demonstrates the dangers of relying on anecdotes without thorough research and analysis. It also reveals collective action barriers to mounting challenges to copyright validity: the song generates an estimated $2 million per year, and yet no one has ever sought adjudication of the validity of its copyright. Finally, the true story of the song demonstrates that a long, unitary copyright term requires changes in copyright doctrine and administration. With such a term, copyright law needs a doctrine like adverse possession to clear title and protect expectations generated when, as with this song, putative owners do not challenge distribution of unauthorized copies for more than 20 years. And Copyright Office recordkeeping policy, which currently calls for discarding correspondence after 20 years and most registration denials and deposits after five years, must be improved to facilitate resolution of disputes involving older works.

Over two hundred unpublished documents found in six archives across the United States have been made available on a website that will serve as an online appendix to this article.

Link

(Did I scare you?)

From BoingBoing comes this 1990 film of a Rally Car running up Pikes Peak.

I've been seeing links to the new Weezer video for Pork and Beans all over the intertubes, but I've never clicked on it.

Today I clicked on it. It is full of total intertubic awesomeness! They must have had so much fun contacting all these internet phenomenons to make this video.

Watch it and see how many you can pick out.

Harry Shearer has written a song about the 935 lies that we were fed leading up to the war in Iraq.





(h/t to Crooks and Liars)

We took our popup camper for it's shake down cruise last weekend with a camping trip in Bil and Nanc's side yard. Bil, Nanc and the boys went to Nanc's parent's cabin, so it was just us and the animals for the weekend.

Bill and Nanc live on a hobby farm near Stillwater and have two horses, two lamas, a goat, a pony, chickens and to many cats to count (actually I think it's three house cats and four barn cats, but I'm not sure.) They also have a dog, but they took her with them.

We brought along one of Rosalyn's friends and the girls were in heaven taking care of all the animals.

The camper performed wonderfully and I got some 'mods' done to it.

On Sunday we had a big hail storm with hail larger than golf balls! The camper has some dents in the roof, the truck has some dents in the hood and the roof and the car has a broken windshield.

Here is a tour of the camper.

Here are photos from the camping trip at the farm.

And here is an album of the 'mods' I made to the camper.

Updated: It appears I had the link to the 'mods' wrong. Silly me. It's fixed now.

I sent my last missive - Why Do I Care About Other's Religions - to my email list and got this thoughtful message in response:

Tim,
You raise many good points. In our age of better communication and open exchange of ideas, this list is a very good example of this, why or how does religion persist? I ask not to bait you into an argument, but am curious about your thoughts on why people still believe in the face some of the points you raised. And on a similar note I am happy to say I have an atheist friend, you. I think the wide range of opinions on this list gives us all a more balanced view on life.

This is a very interesting question: In this age of enlightenment why is religion still around?

I'll start off by suggesting that we are not currently in an age of enlightenment. I personally feel we are heading down the slope into another dark ages. The religious right has become very vocal again (remember the Moral Majority in the late 70s?)

Science is looked upon as something bad or evil (the stem cell research issues, global climate change nay-sayers, the movie Expelled - which is full of lies - and Ben Stein's subsequent statement that science leads to killing people.)

Republicans are practically required to kowtow to religious leaders and are proud that they are ignorant about science and knowledge.

In a hearing about Abstinence Only Education, Representative John Duncan (R-TN) said "It seems rather elitist to me for people who maybe have degrees in this field to feel that because they’ve studied it somehow they know better than the parents what is best for [their children].” (If this doesn't flabbergast you, you need your flabbergaster reset. And this man is a politician who is creating laws for our country.)

There are a few bright spots. The latest Pew Forum Religious Survey shows that the number of atheists and non-affiliated people is increasing. There are many very prominent and vocal atheist and scientific blogs on the internet. And I have a lot of friends that are either atheists or non-religious.

And yet religion still persists. Why?
Continue reading "Why is Religion Still Here?"

I emailed a link to my previous blog posting about the Hello Kitty Jesus tattoo to a mailing list I am on. I got the following question in response.

Tim, with all due respect, I get not you not believing in religion - specifically Christianity, but I don't get why you seem to care so much about the belief system of those who do. (?)

This was my response:

I care because I feel the people who believe things "on faith" with no evidence do harm to all of us. Believing things because the are written in a book, with no supporting evidence, makes no sense. Denying rights to people based on what is written in the same book (e.g. gays and lesbians) is abhorrent. Basing your moral system on the same book, when if you read it at all you will discover the moral system in it is bloody, brutish and not the one currently in use, is insane.

I care because believing things "on faith" with no evidence is irrational. If you believe some things "on faith" and some things you know due to evidence you have a schism in your world view that causes problems.

I care because people who "believe" hassle those of us who don't. Both of my daughters have been hassled at camps and at school (public school) by children who have been brainwashed by their parents and religious leaders into believing they are superior to anyone who does not follow their "faith". And yes, I consider religious indoctrination of young children brainwashing.

I care because like it or not, and regardless of what the "Christians" believe, the USA was formed as a secular nation. Where belief in god is not a requirement to be a citizen. Where there is no state religion.

I care because all the right-wing religious "Christian" politicians are two-faced hypocrites and they are horrible role models for the youth of America. Shall I make a list of them for you?

I care because religions are supposed to get unquestioning respect, just because they are religions. Why should we not be able to question religious viewpoints? Why should we respect religious viewpoints that are clearly irrational?

I care because religion gets a free ride from the press, the police and the government. How many sex scandals have there been with Catholic priests and alter boys? So many that we make jokes about it while the church just quietly shuffles the priest off to another parish where he can molest more children. If I molested a 12 year old boy I'd be in prison faster than you can say "Pope Ratzi". But priests just get reassigned. How is this possible?

Man, you really opened the floodgates. Thanks for asking the question. Do I really need to go on? Yes, I do. Click the Continue Reading Link .

Continue reading "Why Do I Care About Other's Religions?"

I've often thought it would be fun to get a tattoo, but what design to use?

My next door neighbor has the old recycle symbol (the three chasing arrows in a triangle) on his arm, and I think that's cool.

The biohazard symbol would be cool, but it's been done too.

Then on the Hello Kitty Hell blog I found the ultimate tattoo. It's both annoying and offensive!



What do you think?

Be sure to click on the blog link so you can read all the comments from the "Christians" who are highly offended.

Update: The tattoo artist is in Ohio and does a "free tattoo of the month" gig. All the free tattoos are Hello Kitty! He has a gallery on DeviantArt. Fun stuff there!

This one hits it right on the mark.



(h/t to Shakespear's Sister)

The Get Out Clause, an unsigned Manchester band who could not afford a camera crew for their video, 'performed' in front of a load of CCTV cameras, requested the footage from the camera operators under the Data Protection Act and then stitched the results together for their music video.



Link

Thanks to WillS via BoingBoing

I like the song too.

Brian Cox gives a wonderful talk at TED about the Large Hadron Collider. Brian is a "rock star physicist" who can put high physics concepts in language that even I can understand.

Make sure you watch all of the video because near the end he expounds on our current understanding of the birth of the universe and it's an amazing explanation.



Here is the page with the video and the comments. There are of course the usual "Gawd Did It" people there. sigh

We took the plunge on Saturday and bought a popup camper. It's a 1992 vintage Jayco that's in pretty good shape. We drove it out to Bil's house to store it and practice setting it up.

It goes up and down pretty easily. It pulls pretty well too.



It will be nice to sleep off the ground for a change.

Amy, !K's wife, took the photo of me and Paul sitting on the Hack and made a Despair.com type poster out of it!



Awesome