The delays in certification and testing, along with a backer pulling out, have resulted in them filing for reorganization as they attempt to complete their all-composite Jet program, the SPn.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Friday Cat Blogging: Ridley Scott Edition
Judge Rules that Companies Must Consider Fair Use Before Issuing DMCA Takedown Notice
This is a very good thing.
In the case in question, a parent uploaded a video of their kid dancing to a song by Prince, and because there was 30 seconds of the song in the background, Universal Music issued a DMCA take down notice.
The Judge said that they can’t simply determine that it is their material, but whether it is legal or not:
“Fair use is a lawful use of a copyright,” the judge wrote. “Accordingly, in order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with ‘a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,’ the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright.”
The video of the kid is below…It’s 30 seconds long, and I can’t even recognize the song.
The judge says that, “The Court has considerable doubt that Lenz will be able to prove that Universal acted with the subjective bad faith,” but if I were on the jury I’d vote for the muthas to fry.
Fed Chairman Calls for More Financial Regulation
He was vague on specifics, but described the need in a speech at the Fed’s economic symposium.
I agree that more regulation is needed, but I do not agree with what appear to be his suggestions.
Bailout should not be what is done when an institution is too big to fail, that creates perverse incentives. Nationalization, where investors and share holders are wiped out to the greatest degree possible should be.
Additionally, I would modify anti-trust law to add “too big to fail” to the reasons for a breakup.
Finally, I believe that the complex secularization mathematics should be severely restricted.
All that “innovation” in the financial markets has gotten us the mess that we are in now.
Senate Republicans Short on Reelection Cash
And they are freaking out about it so much that NRSC chair John Ensign is publicly complaining about his fellow Senators not raising campaign funds.
The problem is that the rich rat f*%$ers of America have decided that George W. Bush is bad for business, and you guys have welded yourselves to him.
My heart bleeds.
Bush Still Pushing to Have Your Daughter Carry Her Rapist’s Baby
As I mentioned in an earlier post, see my earlier post, All Your Uterus Are Belong to Us, Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are determined to make sure that Abortion will be unavailable, even if it is legal.
So, they are pushing ahead with a modified plan now, and they have changed the definition, so that contraception is no longer abortion, but it still allow a doctor to refuse to give birth control information to a woman, for example.
These folks are more like the Mullahs in Iran than they admit.
Al Franken Tied With Norm Coleman in MN Senate
Franken is actually ahead by one point, 41% to Coleman’s 40%, with a margin of error of 3.6%, which is very good news, as undecideds typically break at least 2/3 for the challenger.
BTW, here is Franken’s latest ad.
Funny Signs of the Apocalypse
That’s the funny part. The sign of the Apocalypse is that the beltway pundits are starting to notice that most of McCain’s sentences are a noun, a verb, and POW.
We have Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman, Time‘s Anna Marie “Wonkette” Cox, and Politico‘s Ben Smith all saying, “Give it a rest”.
About bloody time.
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Ruled Constiturional
This is a victory in the fight against the Peter Pan accounting that has gotten the financial markets into so much trouble.
The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the board did not violate the separation of powers clause.
Georgian Fallout on Israel-Russian Relations
Well, it looks like Israel-Russia relations are a little bit cool now, because of Israel’s arms sales to Georgia, though, as I mentioned earlier, the Israelis shut that down when they thought war was likely.
On the bright side, it appears that they will be holding talks on the middle east, which implies a continued relationship.
On the not so bright side, we have rumors of increased Russian arms sales to Syria, including the advanced long range S-300 system, though Syria has denied this.
We also have a report (Ynetnews, not sure of the quality of the source) that the US is pressuring Turkey to shut down the Israel Syria talks that it is hosting, because Syria took Russia’s side in the Russo-Georgian war.
It’s petty and stupid if true, and considering that we still have Condi Rice running state, I am therefore inclined to believe it.
Federal Judge Rips the Texas Courts a New One on Capital Case
It appears that Federal Judge Orlando Garcia is upset at the state of the death penalty in Texas, and said so in his ruling granting a stay for Jeffery Lee Wood.
The judge described the positively Kafkaesque system under which he was determined to be competent for execution, as, “an insane system,” because it required that he prove that he was insane before the state would grant him a lawyer and a psychologist to prove that he was insane.
In addition to his not pulling the trigger, he was driving the getaway car, the man has a long history of mental problems and retardation.
I understand why the Judge finds this insane, but he does not understand Texas. People there do not care if someone is innocent, or insane, they just want a needle put in as many arms as possible.
The entire state is nuts.*
*I lived in Texas from 1992-1994, and 1996-2001.
Americans Increasingly Sick of Religion in Politics
I’m not surprised. As anyone who has followed Bush and His Evil Minions™ knows, religiously based government does not work.
The Iranian people know that too, which is why they are increasingly restive under the Mullahs.
Chart pr0n:
I would note that there appears that only the 2 data points show a real shift, so we could be dealing with sampling or question issues.
Of interest is that more people are now saying that politicians talking religion makes them uncomfortable too.
Iraq Looks to Head Back Down Toilet
One of the reasons that violence and US troop deaths have dropped in Iraq is because of the “Sunni Awakening”, where people in Sunni dominant areas stopped supporting the insurgency, either because of US salaries, or because they were sick and tired of al Qaeda in Iraq, and started patrolling as part of the “Awakening Councils”.
Well, it now appears that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki has decided to send his own bully boys after the leaders of the Sunni citizen patrols, and refusing to integrate them into the state security forces.
It appears that Maliki is going after Sadr too, which is not surprising, as the Sadrists are more popular in many areas than either the Iranian backed ISCI and Maliki’s Dawa party.
Measles Cases Skyrocket Because of Bad, Ignorant Parents
Yep, it’s those vaccination flat Earthers again, with measles cases to date this year being three times more than all of last year.
I will note that a significant number of the cases are infants who are too young to get the vaccine, so the loss of herd immunity because of these harms the helpless whose bear no blame.
There is no correlation between thimerosal in particular, or vaccines in general, and autism.
While correlation does not prove causation, lack of correlation does prove causation.
What’s more the (hopefully soon to be stripped of his license) doctor who came up with the theory has a history of making up his own facts, and has a financial interest in alternatives to vaccines.
My earlier posts on the subject here.
I will note that my son is on the autism spectrum, he has Aspergers, and my wife, a special education professional trained to look for such things, spotted the first indicators in his first weeks of life. No vaccine problems there.
Georgia Update
It appears that the Russian pullout is in fact happening, though they are taking up stations in their buffer zones, and they blew up military installations on the way out.
The UN Security council is currently deadlocked, with the Russians demanding that force to reunify the provinces be specifically forbidden, and the US demanding that it not be, and that “Georgian territorial integrity” be specifically affirmed in the document.
I also heard (no link, radio report) rumors that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be declaring independence at some point in the near future.
Economics Update
Well, it appears to be a slow news day, with the only major news being that it appears that the ratings agencies are trying to get their sh&% together, as yesterday Moody’s started uprating government bonds, and today Moody’s downgraded its ratings for Fannie and Freddie preferred stock.
As to commodities and currency, oil down, gasoline down, and dollar up.
OK, Maybe I was Wrong to Dismiss the Oil Speculation Theories
I’ve been dismissive of accusations that speculation is responsible for most of the oil price run up.
I have always suggested that arbitrage might cause excessive volatility, but have been dubious on the idea that speculators are responsible for most, or even much, of the current oil price run up.
Unlike electric power, where one can shut down a plant to juice the market, you can’t hide all that oil, you have to pay to put it somewhere
Well, the CFTC just discovered that Vitol, a company that thought to primarily be in the business of hedging oil for large consumers, like Southwest Airlines, to save costs, has been aggressively holding huge amounts of futures contracts as a speculative investment too, at one point holding about 11% of all trades on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex).
So the CFTC now pegs the percentage of speculative, i.e. non-consuming, trading at around 81% of volume.What’s more the CFTC found out about this by mistake.
I still believe that the primary cause of the run-up was supply and demand lines crossing, but with this level of speculation, and this level of leverage, it’s reported that Vitol could have purchased over $8 billion in oil futures for less than $1 billion, it’s possible that there were issues of excess volatility and over-shoot on the price of oil.
Friendly Fire Alleged in Deaths of French troops
I’m sure that this will be resolved over the next few months, but the allegation that the French deaths in Afghanistan were the result of a NATO air strike play into everyone’s worst stereotypes.
Anthrax Update
First, we have an editorial in Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific publication in world, suggesting that the data provided this far by the FBI has been incomplete and not properly reviewed. They strongly suggest that the FBI is using selective information releases to make their case, and I agree.
Meanwhile, this breathless article detailing the efforts to identify the sample genetically seems to be exactly what the editors of Nature are objecting to.
I again would note that none of the information provided by the FBI has shown how the samples might have been weaponized, a capability that was not present at Bruce Ivin’s lab.
Georgia News
It appears that by late last yearIsrael scaled back arms sales to Georgia last year, because they saw a war between Georgia and Russia brewing.
Based on what I’ve read at this point, it appears that, with the South Ossetians, there was no one within 1500 km who did not know that the Georgians were preparing for an invasion of the breakaway province.
Meanwhile, Georgia is suffering economically, both as a result of transportation disruptions and a flight of foreign capital.
Meanwhile, in response to NATO’s downgrade of relations, the Russians have frozen cooperation with NATO, which includes things like anti-drug operations and supply routes to Afghanistan.
On the military side, while the Russian counter-offensive was clearly successful, there are accusations that the Russian Air Force was unprepared, with little or no effort made in the initial stages of the war to take out surface to air missile and radar sites.
Mikhail Gorbachev has written a blistering editorial excoriating the west and the western media, that he feels was in the pocket of Georgia.
It looks like the promised Russian pullout is procedeeding, albeit slowly, though Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili is claiming that the pullout is widening the occupation of Georgia.
I think that it’s clear at this point, despite Saakashvili’s fluent English and his Columbia University degree, which counts for way more than it should in US diplomacy, he’s just a bit…..well….nuts.