Spontaneous Monotony

The copyright cartels are well-known for using the threat of legal action to compel 12-year olds, dead people, and other such dangerous ‘criminals’ to pay thousands of dollars in ‘compensation’. Now it seems the MPAA is on the receiving end.

The owners of Torrentspy, a popular BitTorrent indexing site, have filed suit in California alleging that (among other things) the MPAA paid a former business associate $15,000 to hack into their servers and email accounts, and hired a private investigator to go dumpster diving.

Apparently the matter came to light when the hacker had a change of heart and informed the Torrentspy team of what he had done – although the MPAA denies all of the allegations.

See Also

• Ars Technica – The tables turn
• Copy of court filing (191k PDF)

Well, it appears that Yahoo is no longer getting special treatment from Akismet (any hosting company can now get a volume discount on a site-wide key). That was the only problem I had with Akismet, and I’ve reinstated it.

Following a court ruling that the Afghan hijackers can stay in the UK, the Sun has launched a campaign calling for Tony Blair to ‘rip up the Human Rights Act‘. This mother of all knee-jerk reactions (in the true style of the trashbloids) wouldn’t change the situation of the hijackers, while depriving British citizens of the ability to vindicate their rights in domestic courts. Why wouldn’t it change their situation?

• The Human Rights Act simply incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law (ie allowing you to use it in a domestic court case). The ECHR itself couldn’t be repealed without Britain leaving the EU and the Council of Europe (two different organisations, the Council of Europe has more members), and failing that the hijackers could still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
• The United Nations Convention Against Torture also prohibits extraditing people to countries where they could face torture. As far as I am aware there is ‘‘no’‘ method

When a British helicopter was shot down this morning, the media questioned why Iraqis were celebrating the death of 4 British service members. The actions of the British forces later that day only serve to provide the answer. Yes, the crowds should not have been throwing objects at the British troops, but their response was completely disproportionate. Rocks were countered with live bullets, petrol bombs were countered with dead children. Is there any wonder why they are hated?

Well, it looks like public opinion might finally be turning against the Poodle Party. Of course, since this election was held exclusively in England it’s hard to judge, but here’s hoping that (if Poodle is still in power this time next year) they get pushed into second place at the Scottish Parliament election (I don’t really care who buy, but the SNP seem most likely) which would be a real humiliation.

Think about it – Scotland not run by Labour anymore. Just think about it