Who wouldn’t love this face?
Photographer specializing in monkey portraits, via BoingBoing.
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Thou shalt not eat gluten
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OK, this story is just absurd. Now the church is turning away people with wheat allergies?!?
Sez the diocese bishop:
“This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level, but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority,” Trenton Bishop John M. Smith said in a statement last week.
You know. Because the church doesn’t have better things to do than to single out and exclude sick little girls.
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Share and Share Alike
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Of interest: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals apparently ruled today in the Grokster case (MGM v. Grokster, where the big media copyright holders sued the creators of a p2p filesharing application for copyright violation). The appeals court held that filesharing applications such as Grokster, Morpheus and Gnutella, like Betamaxes and VCRs two decades before them, are not inherently infringing devices, and therefore cannot be held liable for their use by actual infringers.
I haven’t read the decision yet, only the excerpts, but it looks like there’s some choice language therein:
The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well established distribution mechanisms. Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player.Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude.
The court also goes out of its way to make sure everyone knows that Congress is in control of the limitations of copyright and the definition of infringement, which I’m sure that Big Media will take as its cue to ramp up the march to a vote on the INDUCE Act, but still: a nice (and sensible) decision by the Ninth Circuit.
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How much is that doggie in the window?
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Paris Hilton’s lost her little doggie. Dognapping or runaway? You be the judge….
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From the files of “what were you thinking?!?”
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My evening tonight started off fairly innocently. I drove my butt all the way up to Rockville (for non DCers, Virginians just don’t go to Maryland unless absolutely necessary) to attend a happy hour fundraiser for a friend who is participating in a triathlon that benefits the Make a Wish Foundation.
Somehow, among the drinks and networking, I managed to let the organizer talk me into doing the swimming leg of the triathlon relay race. So now I have only slightly more than one month to prepare myself to swim one mile in the ocean (yes, the OCEAN) and to raise $250 for the little sick children. I knew I was in trouble when my friend Julie tried to reassure me by telling me at the nice little “chip” they give you to keep you safe in the water. Or to find you on the bottom of the ocean, when you get eaten by the sharks.
I really need to stop going to happy hour.
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Vote for Change Schedule Change
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Dahlbergcentral.com pal Vic writes in with this tidbit:
Just FYI, I know you had complained that there was no concert here in Columbus. Well, now there is. First I noted that the Jackson Browne show had been changed to TBA instead of having a location. I presumed that show would be changed to Columbus. Instead, Jackson Browne was put in the Cincinnati venue and the awkward combo of John Mellencamp and Babyface was moved to Columbus.
So, good news is, there’s a concert. Bad news is, its arguably the weakest lineup of the bunch. Personally, I prefer Mellencamp to Jackson Browne or Bonny Raitt alone, but Babyface doesn’t do anything for me.
But, for my money its still worth the 2+ hour drive to see the Boss in Cleveland.
And, am I the only one who thinks that it might have been a better strategy to stagger these concerts so that instead of focusing all of them in one state on one day there were 6 days of concerts in a row in Ohio, for example? I probably would have gone to at least 4 of the 6 because the lineups are so solid, but as it stands I can’t go see Pearl Jam or Jurassic 5 if I want to see Bruce.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mellencamp and Usher?
