meta-roj

arch-terrorist bin laden has weighed in on the american presidential election. crafty little bugger, and with precise timing no less. the terrorists… the base (and by “the base” i mean al qaida, not karl rove’s “the base” – that’s for another day…) wins either way…

scenario a) bush wins. al qaida gets their recruiting poster child american imperalist president to wave in front of poor muslims and build up their base.

scenario b) kerry wins. al qaida gets to go in front of their exiting recruits and show off how powerful they are, that they can influence the american election.

crafty indeed.

to help save some space, and reduce the huge page loads here, i’ve condensed the monthly archives by providing only titles and general information on each post here. full posts are now limited to the category and individual archives, presumably where they are most useful.

yet another example that crossed my desk. truly, the bush administration is willing to do “whatever it takes” – spam, doctored photos, appropriated endorsements from veterans, blocking opposition phone lines and so much more to keep their positions of power.

Bush Campaign Acknowledges Ad Was Doctored [reuters, october 28, 2004]

President Bush’s campaign acknowledged on Thursday that a television ad depicting soldiers listening to Bush speak had been doctored so that some of the faces of the soldiers appear more than once.

Released five days before Election Day, the ad was called, “Whatever It Takes” and had been touted by Bush advisers as a personal message from the president talking about the war on terror.

and in classic rovian fashion, it is plausibly deniable. the editors did it, not the campaign.

today’s proposition:

google + lawyers = trouble

over at boingboing, there’s a little teaser about the rolex spam anti-massacree movement.

you can read more about the circumstances of this incident, including an analysis by chilling effects and an editorial here.

briefly, some lawyers decided that the best way to protect rolex was to go after mailing lists that got hit with spam for fake rolex watches.

now, before i cast this stone, let me confess my own sins. i’ve come after, in very harsh ways, people who turned out later to be innocent third parties in spam/scam situations. there is a small difference, of course, and that is that i’m not billing three-figures (just a guess) an hour for my efforts, and i’m not doing this for anyone but myself. i do try to be nice about things, but sometimes, the only way i can get someone’s attention (maybe because i can’t afford the gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp letterhead) is to make a lot of noise. i guess another difference is that i generally don’t make specific seven-figure threats.

now for the stone.

i’ve got a small collection of domains that actually appear to sell fake rolex watches, but most of them are overseas (mostly korea, it seems). on the other hand, the domain in the specific spam in question seems to be registered in pennsylvania.

anyway, i’m sure rolex paid very well for the research, and i hate to see a company get such crappy results from a law firm, so i’m going to go a wee-bit further with the cluebat, and provide a public service to the good people at rolex and gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp. if you get rolex spam, maybe you could forward it to the suggestions address at gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp. they are apparently interested in identifying potential brand dilution on behalf of their clients, one of which is apparently rolex. i believe that a thousand eyes are even better (for now) than a “technologically savvy research department,” (we’ll get to that in a minute) so we can all do our little bit [i have about 150 spam messages with “rolex” in the subject at the moment] to help them identify the true source of these messages.

of course, you’re not going to get paid like the research department at gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp, but you can help put an end to this scourge of the internet. but probably not…

Recruiting at Gibney

TECHNOLOGICALLY SAVVY
Gibney is rapidly moving into the advanced world of technology. In the earlier part of 1999, the Intellectual Property team developed a branch of their department that both governs and enforces Intellectual Property rights, including trademarks and copyrights, on the Internet. The Internet Governance Team has been well trained in identifying trademark and copyright violations on behalf of clients in the luxury goods, fashion and entertainment industries. Our team of researchers actively seeks out Intellectual Property violations on the World Wide Web by conducting daily searches of Internet auction sites, independent web sites and bulletin boards.

(maybe it’s time for some new training)

and because even rolex needs someone to watch their back, from the gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp statement of client’s rights [pdf], i remind them of the following:

You are entitled to an attorney capable of handling your legal matter competently and diligently, in accordance with the highest standards of the profession.

lawyers, of course, could spend centuries debating the precise meaning of “capable” and “competently,” but I don’t really want to go there. i just hate to see money, even from a company like rolex – perhaps particularly from a company like rolex, that has a great history of philanthropy – frittered away on law firms spinning wheels. rolex has much better things to do with their money.

because i believe in redemption and making things right, i’m even going to suggest that gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp could donate the fees generated in this haphazard and incompetent (yes, i said it) effort to protect the rolex brand to the rolex mentor and protege arts initiative or the rolex awards for enterpreise.

and for the nice people at gibney, anthony & flaherty, llp – this whole thing is my opinion.

electronluv has finally given us amplifiers worthy of the pitracer.

not that i have one, but… if i did, you can be sure i wouldn’t be playing a $25, 000 cd transport (dac not included) through anything less than a gorgeous electronluv amp. seriously. [obscure political message].

[thanks to boingboing for the tip]

from the stranger, we get 2004’s scariest halloween costumes – and there is no gossamer wing or superhero spandex to be found….

i’ve been beaten over the head by my president for months about how america… and the world… are safer¹ since we’ve invaded iraq.

100, 000 excess civilian Iraqi deaths since war – study [reuters, october 28, 2004]

“The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than in the period before the war,” Les Roberts and his colleagues said in the report which compared Iraqi deaths during 14.6 months before the invasion and the 17.8 months after it.

the study suggests that “safer” in iraq is definitely an open question.

iraq body count has between 14160 and 16289 at the moment.

maybe iraq isn’t part of the world as defined by the bush administration?

¹ President’s Remarks at the 2004 Republican National Convention [september 2, 2004], President’s Remarks at Victory 2004 Rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota [september 16, 2004], U.S., World Safer Since September 11th, 2001, Bush Says [july 12, 2004], and so many, many more.

it seems that the lab is going public… this could be interesting.

i remember bush talking about how he wanted to get “around the filters” and get his message directly to the people. i guess that rule doesn’t apply to science.

NASA: Bush Stifles Global Warming Evidence [ap via abc news, october 27, 2004]

“In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now,” [director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York ] James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.