Author: Ron Coleman

The “Downfall parodies” aren’t really parodies, in the legal sense. But as this one demonstrates, “Hitler” does seem to understand something about copyright, law, intellectual property management and, of course, slaloming through alternative realities: Never before has an historical figure, much less one of history’s most evil men yet one still regarded as some kind […]

[/caption] I felt a little bad writing a fairly vicious piece about Ted Kennedy that I posted pretty much at the cusp of his stay in this world. But then I considered that, seeing as how he was so sick, he probably would not read it. So I did not kill him. What kills me […]

Senator Edward Kennedy is demonstrating his (seldom doubted) commitment not to end his time on this earth — which has more or less been “dedicated” to “public service” as Senator for Life from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts — without demonstrating, sadly with seem to be literally his last breaths, the full scope of the […]

Traverse Legal: Mary Roach has a great post at CircleID on an area that we have talked about extensively, namely, copyright takedowns under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mary’s post covers the more specific strategy of sending takedown notices to search engine providers, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, to effectively reduce access to stolen […]

Sounds almost ordinary enough at first — this tweet from @EFF (the Electronic Reefer Freedom Foundation): Another Obama image fair use controversy: http://bit.ly/vhWCk Oh, sure. Another vhWCk?! What are you, stoned? Whoah, no. Much better! No, no, no. Oh, ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-n!: It was only a matter of time before someone combined a certain memorable image of […]

Forbes ranks West Point as nation’s top college (via Insty): A report released Wednesday by Forbes magazine ranked the U.S. Military Academy as the top college in the country in their America’s Best College review. “Marked by an intense work ethic and drive to succeed on all fronts, the West Point undergraduate experience also allows […]

Insty: TRYING TO FIND THE TRUTH BEHIND the Jupiter impact. “Something invaded our solar system and whacked Jupiter, but professional astronomers were looking the other way at the time. Now, as the shock wave slowly subsides, astronomers are working around the clock to find out exactly what hit Jupiter – and why they didn’t see […]

Instapundit: REASON TV: Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie on Why The Obama Honeymoon Is Over. I’m sure it’s a good piece, but as long as I have to go to Reason TV to find it, the honeymoon still isn’t over. When Glenn links to ABC with this story, that’s when I expect to see rolling […]

Maybe this is for real now. Maybe the sky really is falling, and all my measured lectures for loyal and genteel opposition were wrong, wrong, wrong after all. Because, you know, it’s really always about the money. And look what the New York Post, via Instapundit, is reporting: Congress is now spending about $3 trillion […]

Hm. Instapundit cites Randy Barnett, who writes: When [Jeffrey] Rosen published his critique [of Sonya Sotomayor], I knew very little about Sotomayor. After forcing myself to watch much of the hearings, I wonder if those who criticized him then are having any second thoughts today. I am having second thoughts about my own measured enthusiasm […]

My fellow blogger Scott Ott, the man behind the inimitable “Scrappleface” but in real life the executive director of a non-profit organization serving children, is seeking to become the next Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Executive. His campaign is premised on the idea that his years of business experience have prepared him to take bold action to […]

Media Bloggers Association president Bob Cox is all over the story regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s brand new Guides on Endorsements and Testimonials, which, as Bob explains, will certainly affect bloggers. In fact, one of the examples given of a testimonial in the proposed revisions, found here, is of a product review written by a […]

Obama, it turns out, isn’t even different about being different, especially as regards the… different: “When a president tells you he’s going to be different, you believe him,” said John Aravosis, a Washington-based gay activist. You do? What if he says, “This time it’s for real” or “I’ll call you”? In fact, it turns out […]

On one of my favorite topics, anonymous blogging — James Joyner (via Glenn) is unhappy with one particular bit of outage: While I generally find the practice of revealing people’s secrets to the public distasteful, there are times when it’s appropriate. Public officials who are abusing their power is the most obvious case. Here, however, […]

The New York Times writes, regarding the General Motors bankruptcy: Rarely has a company fallen so far and so fast as General Motors. “Fast”? Hello?! Actually, Michelene Maynard doesn’t really mean that: She documents the exact opposite of a “fast” fall in the otherwise perfectly good article that follows. It’s just that, well, you know […]

Jihad Watch: Poor Timing Alert: Hamas renews rocket attacks on Israel just as Obama calls for Israelis and Palestinians to live “side by side in peace and security” — Obama said this during his press conference with Netanyahu yesterday: “I have said before and I will repeat again that it is, I believe, in the […]

Remember this one? “Edwards reaffirms key political question.” And this, its predecessor. Oh, did I get abused for this. Even by some pretty slick brains. How could I be so mean. Well. And… and… to Her. What were my mean old words? That he was either “a liar or a moral retard.” Yea-heah. Yes, now […]

The Bipartisan Rules blog, relying — not surprisingly on this point — on support from David Frum, writes as follows: The Republican Party should be a political vehicle, not an ideological movement, but its opinion makers have it completely backward. Its policies have become secondary to this ideal that we must keep alive the flame […]

On my Princeton lawyers list there was a bit of a dustup late last week when some excited participants started talking about the prospect of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a fellow alumna, being nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama. It started with one of the participants breathlessly reporting the news; the inevitable comment from […]

Last fall I reluctantly supported John McCain for President. I wasn’t even sure why at the time, and could mostly focus on why I thought Barack Obama was not up to the task. But shame on me — there was a reason, and it’s the same issue that made me realize I am a conservative […]

Obama on show trials of CIA employees: Mr. Obama, who has been saying that the nation should look ahead rather than focusing on the past, said he is “not suggesting” that a commission be established. But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “if and when there needs to be […]

“I have been to the mountain and I have secured the rights to the promised land!” Emancipated, yes, but poorly managed IP-wise The AP reports that the pimps family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. got $800,000 for “the use of his words and image” on the national memorial to his memory on the […]

The Times reports that Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York who has everything, now also has a pretty sleazy — and by all indications, gratuitous — campaign dirty trick to his credit. It’s push-polling to slime his rival for the mayoralty, Anthony Weiner: As his campaign sought to overpower any candidate considering challenging […]

[ Yes, mixed metaphors can be a downer, but how else to express the silence of America’s Prophetic Voice, Jimmy Carter, regarding the other “apartheid fences”? As Soccer Dad points, out, whether in Belfast, Arabia, “and now, in Brazil,” they all keep out the unwanted, and are quietly ignored after initial bursts of interest by […]

Moderates — including moderate conservatives who, I think, are even more “moderate” than yours truly — have had it with President Obama. Liberals, at first disappointed with what had encouraged those moderates, are really unhappy now. And surrenderists of all stripes in Congress? They don’t know what to do! Even the MSM is getting off […]

Boo-hoo: Tim Neal of Miller County was shocked recently when he heard a radio program about a strategic report compiled by state and federal law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism. Titled “The Modern Militia Movement,” the report is dated Feb. 20 and designed to help police identify militia members or domestic terrorists. Red flags outlined […]

What exactly do you have to do get put into jail for being a bona fide sex offender in Washington State? When 13-year-old Alycia Nipp didn’t come home from a trip to Wal-Mart, her family had no idea where she was, but a tracking device was transmitting the location of her alleged killer. . . […]

Via Glenn Reynolds, it appears that someone is questioning the crammed-down concept of “Obama the intellectual.” Indeed, that’s one of the themes of the last couple of days, as his Harvard Law Review “experience” is being questioned as well. Only I already asked that question in a post called, well, “Obama the Intellectual?” In June. […]