Bizarre

It’s lawful to make up to 200 gallons of beer or wine per year for your and your family’s consumption, at least under federal law (I’m not sure about all the states). So why, just over seventy years after the Twenty-First Amendment became effective, is it still a federal felony to distill alcohol for consumption without obtaining a license and enduring all sorts of federal red tape? I can understand why commercial production would be regulated, but if the government condescends to allow us to make our own beer and wine, why not our own whiskey and vodka, too? (Disclosure: I am a former homebrewer — of beer — with occasional aspirations of getting back in the game. But I have no aspirations of making my own booze. I so very rarely drink the hard stuff that the opportunity cost of making my own would be prohibitive.)

I’m going to traffic court tomorrow to adjudicate one of the Mrs parking tickets. Normally I’d just pay up. Not this one. It’s $50.

It was also uniquely got.

Normally, to get a parking ticket, the car must be parked. That means stopped, without occupant, in an illegal place.

In the Peoples Free Democrat Republic of Washington, D.C., that also includes several unique variations:

- at a legal place, but not at the right time;
- parked where some City Hall wanker, or fed gubmint mucky-muck wants to park for a plush conference attended on the taxpayer dime;
- parked in a zone that gets re-zoned during the day, without notice; the usual penalty for this is a $250 ticket, a boot ($175) and/or a tow ($225).
- PWW (parking while White)

From Talking Points Memo:

Let’s watch really closely how the walk-back unfolds. And taking what was undoubtedly a hotly-debated stab at walking back the administration’s WMD claims this afternoon was Secretary of State Colin Powell.

A little more than an hour ago NPR ran an interview with the Secretary on All Things Considered. Here’s one of the key passages in which the interviewer asks Powell about why no toxins were found on the alleged chemical/biological weapons trailers found in northern Iraq

MS. BLOCK: There were no toxins found in those trailers.

SECRETARY POWELL: Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn’t been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn’t been used yet.

On Tuesday, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) made some very scary comments about how illegal file traders could be fought.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

“No one is interested in destroying anyone’s computer,” replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can’t.

“I’m interested,” Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone’s computer “may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.”

From Wired:

Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate?
By Leander Kahney

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.

But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.

The senator’s site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch’s website.

“It’s an unlicensed copy,” said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. “It’s very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made.”

…

From Angry Bear:

Bizzaro World

What did I tell you? Two posts ago, I called the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page “just plain wacky”. Six posts ago I recommended a fairly new libertarian blogger, Amy Phillips. Now Amy reports on more wackiness from the virulently pro-war editorial page of the WSJ: WSJ editorial writers are using the lack of WMD to attack anti-war politicians.

I know, it doesn’t make any sense the first time you read it. There must be a typo, you think. So I’ll say it again: WSJ editorial writers are using the lack of WMD to attack anti-war politicians.

The Guardian has retracted a quote that I posted yesterday at Who Cares About WMDs, It Was About Oil!!! Wolfowitz did not say that the war was about/for oil.

Here is the retraction.

Corrections and clarifications

Thursday June 5, 2003

Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

George Wright
Wednesday June 4, 2003

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz – who has already undermined Tony Blair’s position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a “bureaucratic” excuse for war – has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is “swimming” in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

Well, the FCC decided to give away the public airwaves today, apparently the FCC thought there was too much diversity. If you really believe that there is too much diversity, then check out this graphic of how concentrated the media community really is.

Remember, as noted earlier at Media Deregulation, the FCC received 11 comments in favor of further consolidation and thousands of comments against further consolidation. So, how is the FCC acting in the public’s interest?

From The Register:

Court confirms DMCA ‘good faith’ web site shut down rights

…

InternetMovies.com had asked the District Court for the District of Hawaii to require that copyright holders investigate infringing Web sites before shutting them down. This rational request was rejected by the court, as its granted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and any other DMCA zealot the right to put the clamp on Web sites at will.

“This decision rules that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require a copyright holder to conduct an investigation to establish actual infringement prior to sending notice to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) requiring them to shut-down an allegedly infringing web site, or stopping service all together to an alleged violator,” InternetMovies.com said in a statement.