The human race has a certain amount of tasks to perform, and it is only appropriate that we delegate them those who are most likely to perform them. One of our representatives has thereby played a round of gold using the entire country of Mongolia as his golf course. Yet another task admirably completed!

Task Completed!

You can sponsor the EU presidency!

Link via Weatherall’s Law

The now-famous This Land satire by JibJab is being threatened with a lawsuit by the copyright owners of Woody Guthrie’s original song. Jesse Walker brings up a number of interesting points. Firstly, the song with all its verses is a Marxist one, that leaves out this verse

As I went rumbling that dusty highway

I saw a sign that said “private property”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing

This side was made for you and me

…and another one about welfare. Secondly, like a good Marxist, Guthrie often used this statement in his copyright applications -

“anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

 

But Walker points out that there still may be a case, due to the rather bizarre legal difference between ’satire’ and ‘parody’, a difference that hinges on the target of the joke (for lack of a better word.) The troubling part of the USFTA is that we may be forced to accept US-style copyright law, so perhaps government lawyers should watch this case carefully.

The UK Government has apparently taken up issue with this site, http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/. They are “very concerned that the material on [the] site will confuse people about the sensitive advice and information that we are giving to the public.”

Oh well. “National editions of the booklet will be available here when we can be arsed to get translators to put them into your crazy moon languages.”

Bump for Samizdata

In another vanity move, this blog is now accessible through the domain name www.chrisberg.org.

In a self-selected sample of 44 visitors to the Australian Libertarian Society website, 55% are going to vote Liberal/National. While flawed to the point of irrelevance, such results are interesting - self-identifying (and to go to that sort of website they are most likely going to be) Aus libertarians will majority vote to the mainstream rightwing party, even when it has little ideological purity.

Of course this poll will likely change… and no, I didn’t vote in it. I’m a true journalist, with NYT-like ethical sensibilities.

Robert Corr at Kick & Scream has an extradinary comprehensive contextual post on the genocide in the Sudan. Many of the details we have seen before. Darfur: Rape as a weapon of war. Situations like this are why we intervened in central Europe and Somalia, and are precisely why we need to intervene here. (With of course varying success and dedication - but this does not diminish the necessity.)

Particularily in the post-Cold War era, intervention in cases of genocide should be a foregone conclusion.

This is great. Darpa has floated the idea of a troop carrying blimp, designed to move a 1800-man unit anywhere in the world in FOUR (4) days. A prototype is due in 2008. A copy of the proposal is available here.

Noah at DefenseTech notes that this isn’t the only blimp project on the books - the Office of the SecDef has its own initiative (relying more on industry support).

We all know what sort of history airships have enjoyed, so, while I am sure the danger of flaming airship has been nullified, the defense of the Walrus has to be foremost in the planning. Imagine a fleet of airships, like aircraft carriers in the sky, with attendant defensive escorts.

In a decision I’m certain to soon regret, I have uploaded one of my recent coursework essays, the awkwardly named “American Civil-Military Relationship and the Military-Industrial Complex“. If nothing else, hopefully it will provide a good bibliography (its more of a literature review than a specific argument.) Remember - UNDERGRADUATE. Before you read it, think - UNDERGRADUATE.

I just brought this book for my Uni course - Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. No, it is not small. I could use it as ballast. (It has two[!] indices - one for names, one for subjects - write that down.)

Also Rebels and Redcoats, for a fairly light-weight, contrarian view of the American revolution.

This is why I am poor. A’cursed booksellers.