Vote For Agam!

Agam's Gecko, a blog from Thailand that I regularly look at when news is happening in that part of the world, is a finalist for Best Asian Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards. When the voting begins, please consider voting for Agam. When the protests were in full swing in Burma, Agam was rounding up news like mad. When tsunamis hit in southeast Asia, Agam is gathering links and news. If you have not done so before, go check out Agam's Gecko.

Wai, Agam!

A Game Fatal To Both Sides

I have not been following this , but it just popped in two places almost at the same time. Hollywood writers are apparently just about to strike as their contract expires. The Los Angeles Times says the strike looks likely.

It's a script many had hoped would not be written: Hollywood's film and TV scribes and their employers failed to reach an agreement on a new contract today, setting the stage for a possible showdown that could ripple across the streets of Los Angeles and into America's living rooms. Despite the presence of a federal mediator and more than a dozen bargaining sessions since July, negotiators for the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke off talks before hashing out a last-minute deal on a new three-year contract.

Talks ended after several hours tonight, about six hours before the current contract expires at midnight.

In a statement, the alliance said talks broke down after its chief negotiator, Nick Counter, outlined the producers' opposition to raising the pay writers receive when their work is released on DVD — a key guild demand.

"We want to make a deal," he told WGA negotiators. "We think doing so is in your best interests, in your members' best interests, in the best interests of our companies and in the best interests of the industry. But, as I said, no further movement is possible to close the gap between us so long as your DVD proposal remains on the table."

The alliance said WGA members refused to meet Thursday. "When they were asked about Friday, they advised they would call us."

Guild officials were not immediately available for comment.

The development doesn't guarantee an immediate walkout by writers but certainly heightens the prospect of Hollywood's first major strike in nearly two decades.

The last strike caused real damage says the Times of London.

A writers’ strike would be the first such walkout in Hollywood since 1988, when a dispute lasting 22 weeks cost the industry an estimated $500 million and killed off several television shows. Viewing figures fell by 10 per cent during the strike — a fall from which the industry never recovered.

Because of the long production times of films, and the stockpiling of screenplays by studios, the effect of industrial action would probably not be felt at cinemas until late next year at least.

But late night talk shows would go off the air at once. The real danger here is that media has changed - dramatically - in the past 20 years. With other sources of entertainment  like the web - television, movies and the writers could all take some serious damage if the audience simply goes away. If folks find new ways to amuse themselves, they might not come back anytime soon.

Hate Monger Goes Bananas

Jay over at Stop the ACLU alerted me to this one - it is an amazing clip. Fred Phelps goes totally bonkers on CNN after losing the lawsuit today.

This is a narrow but very important distinction. This is not about Fred Phelps and his family members right to free speech. They intentionally, very deliberately, inflicted emotional distress on a family not in the public sector. (Slightly different rules apply to public figures.) I probably would have gone after them for libel/slander - but the use of "intentionally inflicting emotional distress" may have been even better. You may have a right to swing your fist in the air, but that right stops at another person's nose. I think (hope) the appeal by Phelps will fail because of the very narrow scope of what the plaintiff used to go after Phelps. But enjoy Phelps' meltdown. (Jay has some good comments going over at his place as well.)

British Council Asks 91-Year Old Male Veteran If He Is A Lesbian

The Daily Mail is just chock full of bureaucratic madness today. First it was the Brave New Briton a British think tank proposed now comes this item. A local council in Briton is quizzing elderly male veterans of the Second World War if they happen to be lesbians. No, really, they are.

It wasn't exactly the sort of question Bill Burrow was expecting as he read through the garden waste survey from his local council - Are you a lesbian?

The leaflet asked the 91-year old Second World War veteran to "identify your sexual orientation" and gave him four boxes to tick: Heterosexual, lesbian, gay man or bisexual.

The widower was so bemused by the question in a simple survey about recycling garden rubbish that he passed it on to his son Richard to make sure that he had not misread it.

The form was sent to hundreds of residents across Leeds by the city council, which has defended the question.

But great-grandfather Mr Burrow yesterday criticised council officers, and won support from a former lord mayor of the city.

Mr Burrow, who was married to his wife Joan for 67 years, said: "My son was laughing his hat off. He said, 'Look dad, they think you're copulating in your dustbin'."

"I didn't know what to put for sexual orientation. So Richard wrote that long word that begins with an H - heterosexual, I think."

The council is defending their gross invasion of privacy saying they only want demographic data. Er, sure. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard, as a service to our British readers, have produced a new survey that can be filled out and sent back. They'll be confused for months if you fill it out correctly. That will keep them from thinking up new ways to waste time and money!

We strongly encourage making up your own surveys to mail back in, too.

Brave New Britain

A British Labor party-affiliated think tank has had one of its recent reports leaked to the media. I doubt they are very happy about it. Because I rather suspect the average Brit on the street isn't going to be too happy with the think tank's suggestions to "improve" Britain.

Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations, says an explosive report.

Labour's favourite think-tank says that because it would be hard to 'expunge' Christmas from the national calendar, 'even-handedness' means public organisations must start giving other religions equal footing.

The leaked findings of its investigation into identity, citizenship and community cohesion also propose:

• 'Birth ceremonies', at which state and parents agree to 'work in partnership' to bring up children

• Action to 'ensure access' for ethnic minorities to 'largely white' countryside

• An overhaul of Britain's 'imperial' honours system

• Bishops being thrown out of the House of Lords

• An end to 'sectarian' religious education

• Flying flags other than the Union Jack.

The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research was commissioned when Nick Pearce, now head of public policy at Downing Street, was its director.

IPPR has shaped many Labour policies, including ID cards, bin taxes and road pricing.

The report robustly defends multiculturalism - the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities.

This is my favorite bit:

The system in which parents are required to register a new baby at a register office is dismissed as 'purely bureaucratic'.

The occasion should be transformed into a 'public rite', using citizenship ceremonies for immigrants as a model, the report says.

'Parents, their friends and family and the state [would] agree to work in partnership to support and bring up their child.'

Thus, the peasant's fealty shall be sworn to the new lord.

The junior who was to become the vassal of his senior (seigneur) appeared bareheaded and weaponless as a sign of his submission to the will of the lord and knelt before him. The vassal would clasp his hands before him in the ultimate sign of submission, the standard Christian attitude of prayer, and would stretch his clasped hands outward to the lord.

The lord in turn grasped the vassal's hands between his own, showing he was the superior in the relationship. The vassal would announce he wished to become "the man", and the lord would announce his acceptance. The act of homage was complete.

Presumably it will only be a matter of time until the jus primae noctis is reinstated as well. As a reward for the ruling class, of course. It is quite obvious where this is all heading, isn't it?

Dropping The Legal Hammer

The miserable excuse for a human being, Fred Phelps and two other members of his "church", the Westboro Baptist Church lost a civil suit brought in Federal court by the grieving father of a marine who died in Iraq. Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania had brought the suit as a private citizen who was the victim of a deliberately planned intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury found unanimously for Mr. Snyder.

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., the father of a Westminster Marine who was killed in Iraq, today won his case in a Baltimore federal court against members of Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church who protested at his son's funeral last year.

The jury of five women and four men awarded Snyder $2.9 million in compensatory damages. The amount of punitive damages to be awarded has not yet been decided. The jury deliberated for about two hours yesterday and much of today.

Snyder was the first in the nation to attempt to hold members of Westboro Baptist Church legally liable for their shock protests at military funerals after the church protested the military's inclusion of gays at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, a 2003 Westminster High School graduate who died March 3, 2006, in a vehicle accident in Anbar province.

The WBC people tried to have the suit dismissed - which the court rejected out of hand. I rather suspect that some of the language in that document may be what the appeal hinges on. Because some statements made by the WBC members were highly inflammatory and were made against a private citizen - not a public figure. That may - finally - shut the WBC down and stop their utterly appalling behavior.

More analysis from AllahPundit, (who also has an appalling story from Reuters), Captain's Quarters, Wake up America, Say Anything, Dread Pundit Bluto, The Belmont Club, Gateway Pundit, Stop The ACLU, Right Voices, VDG Gazette (Marc Moore), Brandywine Books,

UPDATE: AP is reporting that another $8,000,000 has been awarded in punative damages. Since the judge has already remarked that the initial award already exceeded all of the assets of the WBC crew, this will destroy them if the judgment stands up through appeal.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."

My guess is that the circus clowns are not laughing right now.

Ye Olde Bratwurst

An amateur historian has discovered the oldest bratwurst recipe ever. Dating from 1432 it is even older than some clams.

According to the 1432 guidelines, Thuringian sausage makers had to use only the purest, unspoiled meat and were threatened with a fine of 24 pfennigs — a day's wages — if they did not, a spokesman for the German Bratwurst Museum said on Wednesday.

Medieval town markets in Germany had committees tasked with monitoring the quality of produce. Thuringian bratwursts, which are made of beef and pork, are symbols of Germany's cultural heritage and ubiquitous snacks at football matches.

Historian Hubert Erzmann, 75, found the ancient recipe, inscribed with pen and ink in a heavy tome of parchment, earlier this year while doing research in an archive in the eastern town of Weimar, museum spokesman Thomas Maeuer said.

The bratwurst standards actually predate the well-known German beer purity law, the earliest form of which appears to date from 1487. The bratwurst recipe will go on display at the Bratwurst Museum in Erfurt. I'll bet you didn't know they had a bratwurst museum there, did you? (I would have thought it was at Lambeau Field, myself.)

Boy Playing With Matches Started California Fire

One of the fires that swept southern California last week was started by a boy playing with matches. Authorities are deciding whether to charge the boy or not in the case. The fire he started burned 38,000 acres and 21 homes, so it is no small thing.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

"He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," Hecht said in a statement.

The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be presented to the district attorney's office, Hecht said. It was not clear if he had been arrested or cited by detectives.

The fire began in an area near Agua Dulce and quickly spread. It was among 15 or so major wildfires that destroyed some 2,100 homes and blackened 809 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border last week. Seven deaths were blamed directly on the fires, six evacuees died of natural causes and one person died of a fall.

Authorities arrested five people for arson during that period, but none have been linked to any of the major blazes.

All but four of the blazes are now fully contained. Firefighters on Wednesday continued to cut lines around the remaining fires and kept a close eye on the weather.

Bruce Webster over at And Still I Persist is working on an after-action analysis of the fires right now. (Just scroll down.) As always, there are also some great photographs.

Chet Culver And The Pumpkin Harvest

In search of the rivers of revenue that a pumpkin tax will bring in, Governor Chet Culver of Iowa visits a pumpkin patch.

The Not-So-Great pumpkin

Burma: Junta Buying Child Soldiers From Brokers

Human Rights Watch will issue a report today that alleges that the military junta that rules Burma is buying child soldiers to fill the ranks of the army from human traffickers who buy and sell children. Just when you thought you had seen the worst depravities that a government was capable of when they started killing peaceful monks, it gets worse.

Burma's military government has been forcibly recruiting child soldiers through brokers who buy and sell boys to help the army deal with personnel shortages, which have been exacerbated by desertions and public aversion to its brutality, Human Rights Watch concludes in a detailed report being released today.

Private militias and ethnic insurgent groups in Burma have also been using child soldiers, though in far smaller numbers, according to the New York-based group's 135-page study, based on an investigation in Burma, China and Thailand.

"The brutality of Burma's military government goes beyond its violent crackdown on peaceful protesters," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. "Military recruiters are literally buying and selling children to fill the ranks of the Burmese armed forces."

Military recruiters and civilian brokers have been collecting cash and other forms of compensation for each new soldier, ignoring questions of health and age, the study found. Army expansion and unprecedented desertion rates have driven the process, it said.

Recruiters target children at train and bus stations, markets and other public places and threaten to arrest them if they don't join, Human Rights Watch said. Senior generals and recruiters in Burma, which the military junta calls Myanmar, condone and engage in this traffic, it said.

The junta supposedly formed a high-level committee to examine the charges of child trafficking. They spend their time denouncing foreign reports. While apparently figuring out how to buy more kids. You'll be pleased to know the UN is taking this very, very seriously:

While he was U.N. secretary general, Kofi Annan identified Burma's national armed forces in four consecutive reports to the Security Council as having violated international standards prohibiting the use of child soldiers. In the coming weeks, the Security Council's working group on children and armed conflict will take up the issue concerning Burma.

Meanwhile, the UN will be busy today debating the relative merits of au gratin potatoes versus hash browns.

Losing His Judicial Pants

Roy Pearson, Jr., the creepy Washington, DC administrative law  judge who sued a dry cleaner for $54 million, has lost his job. You'll recall that Pearson sued a mom and pop drycleaner over a lost pair of pants. For $54 million. Best of all, the board who decides these things threw him out of his office with an hour and a half notice.

The panel had a seven-page letter hand-delivered to Pearson about 3:30 p.m., directing him to leave his office by 5 p.m. Pearson's term ended in May, at the height of his battle with the dry cleaners. Since then, he has remained on the payroll, making $100,000 a year as an attorney adviser.

A source familiar with the committee's meetings said Pearson's lawsuit played little role in the decision not to reappoint him.

Instead, the committee said it had reviewed Pearson's judicial decisions and audiotapes of proceedings over which he had presided and found he did not demonstrate "appropriate judgment and judicial temperament," according a source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Sources said Pearson also was criticized for displaying a "combative" nature with supervisors and colleagues and for failing to comply with policies in drafting opinions.

I rather suspect that the lack of "appropriate judgment and judicial temperament," thing is adequately demonstrated by a $54 million dollar lawsuit over a pair of pants. That lawsuit pretty well ruined the folks who ran the drycleaners. They had to close the shop as a result.

A Perilous Policy

that is what Benjamin Civiletti, Dick Thornburgh and William Webster are calling a failure to grant conditional civil immunity to private individuals and companies who cooperate with authorities in national security matters. Specifically, they are talking about provisions in a FISA revision bill that would grant some immunity from civil litigation to telecom companies that cooperated with post 9/11 surveillance.

Public disclosure of the NSA program also brought a flood of class-action lawsuits seeking to impose massive liability on phone companies for allegedly answering the government's call for help. The Intelligence Committee has reviewed the program and has concluded that the companies deserve targeted protection from these suits. The protection would extend only to activities undertaken after 9/11 until the beginning of 2007, authorized by the president to defend the country from further terrorist attack, and pursuant to written assurances from the government that the activities were both authorized by the president and legal.

We agree with the committee. Dragging phone companies through protracted litigation would not only be unfair, but it would deter other companies and private citizens from responding in terrorist emergencies whenever there may be uncertainty or legal risk.

The government alone cannot protect us from the threats we face today. We must have the help of all our citizens. There will be times when the lives of thousands of Americans will depend on whether corporations such as airlines or banks are willing to lend assistance. If we do not treat companies fairly when they respond to assurances from the highest levels of the government that their help is legal and essential for saving lives, then we will be radically reducing our society's capacity to defend itself.

This concern is particularly acute for our nation's telecommunications companies. America's front line of defense against terrorist attack is communications intelligence. When Americans put their loved ones on planes, send their children to school, or ride through tunnels and over bridges, they are counting on the "early warning" system of communications intelligence for their safety. Communications technology has become so complex that our country needs the voluntary cooperation of the companies. Without it, our intelligence efforts will be gravely damaged.

As they point out, the issue of the legality of the program is completely different from the question of whether the companies acted in good faith when asked for help. Private citizens and companies are expected to cooperate with officials when there is a public need. Those entities cannot know all the facts and have to rely on assurances from the official that the needs - and the assistance - are legal.

This situation is precisely the same one that came up with the six flying imams and their threat to sue "John Does" who reported their antics. The public - individuals or corporations - have to help and be alert in these times.

Lap Of Luxury

USA Today takes a look at the "ethics reforms" passed by the Democrats controlling Congress. To say that they are less than impressed is an understatement. They go so far as to point out some of the most egregious examples of the perks for pols that the rules still allow - and there are a lot of them.

On Capitol Hill these days, a shrinking ration of perks has left members of Congress grasping to hang onto every lingering sliver of special treatment they can find — whether it's a free trip to Palm Beach or a way to slip dubious spending projects into the budget.

Such is the mixed legacy of ethics reform passed by the new Democratic majority that took control of Congress in January on a wave of voter revulsion about corruption. The Democrats banned an assortment of sleazy practices, such as the gifts lobbyists used to shower on Congress. They also ordered lobbyists to report more fully on contacts and contributions. But they left plenty of wiggle room and, not surprisingly, there's plenty of wiggling going on:

* Luxury travel. USA TODAY reported last week that during the first eight months this year, lawmakers accepted $1.9 million in free trips — more than they took all last year when Democrats were campaigning against what they dubbed the Republican "culture of corruption."

Instead of banning trips by groups that lobby Congress or push ideological agendas, Congress merely limited them. For example, lawmakers are still allowed to accept hotel stays up to two nights from companies with lobbyists. Thus, 22 House Democrats and three Republicans were able to accept $40,000 in trips — many of them to Las Vegas or Florida resorts — from companies that often are seeking something from Congress. So three nights of cozy influence at a posh resort is corrupting, but two nights is fine?

There are more examples. Earmarks and resorts and perks, oh my. So much for all the high-minded promises that they would clean things up if the got back into power. It is, in fact, not much different and may actually be much worse - and less transparent - now. Congressional pork and corruption is not a partisan issue, either. All Americans should be angry about it. (Where the partisan shot is legitimate here is that the Dems promised they would stop a lot of what they are still allowing - even more furtively than before.)