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I just love that every day court cases are decided by out of touch, old, white, Christian males in the United States.  It practically guarantees fairness and justice because these men certainly are the wisest and most learned among us.  I have every confidence that our court system is based on the single principle that a complete understanding of the facts of a case will lead to a logical conclusion and a well thought out judicial opinion.

Wait, who the fuck am I kidding here?   Some of the statements made by judges in this country prove our judicial system is full of pompous, blowhards that have no idea what they are talking about and are incapable of looking at a case based on facts and not opinion.  Take, for example, the current litigation surrounding some the Harry Potter books.  I read the following statement today which is quoted from The Times Online.

"District Judge Robert Patterson Jr said that he had read the first half of the first Harry Potter novel to his grandchildren, but found the "magical world hard to follow, filled with strange names and words that would be gibberish in any other context."

This District Judge found Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hard to follow?  How in the hell can he understand legal opinions, legal precedent, and written law if he can't follow a story that my 4 year old has no problem understanding?  I won't argue with the "strange names", and "gibberish" as that is all true but any work of fantasy fiction is going to have such things.  Try reading Lord of the Rings.  That book is considered one of the greatest books of the English language and it is full of words that didn't exist before Tolkien put them to paper.  Would this judge consider that classic work nonsense?   Even given that there is a lot of "gibberish" in Harry Potter how is the book hard to follow?  It's not.  The judge's REAL problem with the work is that he has no imagination and thus doesn't enjoy or relate to the material.  Since he doesn't like it, it is very easy for him to dismiss the book.  I wonder if Rowling's banker find the book/books so easy to dismiss.

I don't care what happens with the litigation.  Rowling is not a struggling writer and Scholastic is not a struggling publisher.  If they want to produce a guide book then they just need to do it.  Do it in a way that makes the book the choice of fans.  The creator and publisher should be able to product a book that exceeds anything a third party could produce which would beat the other lexicon in the market.  However, I also understand intellectual property and copyrights have to be defended or they can be lost.  In this sense the case has merit.  It can set a precedent for fair use and thus I am interested in the ultimate outcome no matter which way it turns out. 

What concerns me most is that the judge is making critical statements on the artistic merit of the work instead of looking at the legal issues in the case.  The content of the work is only relevant when it comes to deciding what a third party can use in derivative works.  The quality and relevance of the content itself should not be under discussion.  If the books contained nothing but logs of Rowling's bowel movements it should not matter.  If someone then wanted to make a derivative work from such logs then the judge should give opinions on the legal fair use of the original source material and not make any statements on the literary value contained therein.  Judges are supposed to "stick to the facts" and how they relate to the written law, legal precedent, and legal traditions of their jurisdiction.   The fact that this particular judge can't follow the plot of the book is a whole other concern but I don't think a judge needs to understand the plot of a novel to decide on fair use issues. 

This illustrates a growing problem with the US judicial system.  Our judges don't understand much of what they are tasked with giving judgments on.  I see judges woeful lack of understanding in cases regarding the RIAA, DRM, software licensing, and just about anything related to the internet or digital media.  They constantly make uninformed statements which make it clear that they do not have the understanding needed to make fair and equitable judgments.  I am concerned that the evolution of technology that I use and take for granted every day is and will continue to be hampered by judges and attorneys that are unable or unwilling to learn about the subject that will be monumentally affected by their actions. 

Maybe we need age limits for judges?

I'd like to alert those of you in the Birmingham area of a few community type things you might be interested in.

First is a new meetup.com group.  The Birmingham Movie Fans group has had two screenings and has a third scheduled for later this month.   I haven't been able to make a meeting yet, but I am excited about the opportunity to view and discuss movies with a group of film fans.   I hope the group grows and that the meetings become regular and well attended.  Check out the group if you have some time.

The second thing I hope to gain some attention has been inspired by the first.  The functionality of meetup.com leaves a bit to be desired.  I have regretted not being able to make the first two meetups and thought it would be nice if there was a central location for group members to discuss films even if they could not make the scheduled screening.  Therefore, I bought a couple of domains to facilitate these discussions.  Both www.magiccityfilmclub.com and www.magiccitymovieclub.com point to a forum I set-up for this purpose.  If you are a film fan and would like to contribute to the discussion, please come on over and sign up.  Right now everything is in the beginning stages and I could use some ideas.  I tried doing something similar directly from this site last year, but I think maybe it will work better as its own thing.  The forum is open to everyone both locals, members of the meetup group, and even those not in Birmingham.  I have posted a quick review of a movie I watched over the weekend, Fido, to get things rolling.

Finally, the 2008 Movie Challenge continues.  I have only been able to watch one film over the past two weeks but I will be posting that review shortly. 

So yet another school board, this one in Pinellas County Florida, has decided that intelligent design must be taught along with evolution.  Superstition has thus become part of the curriculum.  While I am not surprised that a theory of creation with NO BASIS IN SCIENCE is being forced onto a student body, what does surprise me is a statement from one of the board members.  Board member Peggy O'Shea suggests that discussions on the origin of the universe are just too controversial to be important.  I wonder if she has a doctorate in thinkology. 

From the article at Tampabay.com:

"O'Shea suggested that parents who object to evolution being taught to their children might be able to opt them out of that day's lesson. "I'd probably ideally like to keep it all out of the classroom," she said. "If it's going to create this much controversy, how important is it?""

Not only is the origin of life just too controversial to be important, apparently it is ok for students to "opt out" of parts of their education that they don't agree with.  That sets one hell of a precedent don't you think?   Maybe I don't agree with coaches teaching math...can my child opt out of that?  How about if I really think that faster than light travel is possible?  Can my daughter then opt out of physics?  Wait, what if I am a communist?  Can my children opt out of American Government, Economics, and Civics?  Really Mrs. O' Shea?  Really?

Look, those that want to learn about "Intelligent Design" already have a place to get their fill of such nonsense.  As far as I know, most churches are open 7 days a week.   I am sure someone there would love to teach a class on magic.  Public school, however, is not the place to study superstition as the basis of the universe...unless it is in history or sociology class.  Do you insist on this "evolution is just a theory" argument?  That's fine with me.  Just about everything we know is a theory.   That is a solid, scientific approach to a scientific argument.  We also theorize that the sun will come up every day.  There is no way to PROVE this is true because we can't observe every day both past and future, but all evidence points to the sun rising (it actually doesn't rise...but we won't get into that today) every day and thus we accept it as true.  Let's keep mythology where it belongs...at the church.

And since we are talking about the origin of the universe let me make a point.  Do not try to argue with me that everything has to have a beginning.  That is a regressive argument that only allows me to negate your point.  Usually the argument goes like this:

Theist:  "If you believe matter and energy are the basis of the universe, who created them?"

Atheist:  "Why do they have to be created?  Why can't they just be?  Science says matter can neither be created or destroyed so maybe that is all there is?  Even before the big bang all matter and energy existed but just in a very compressed state."

Theist:  "But where did it come from?  Surely some intelligent force created matter and energy."

Atheist:  "No, I don't need to believe that.  I can believe that matter and energy are the beginning and end.  Those things have always existed and always will."

Theist:  "But it all had to start somewhere."

Atheist:  "Ok, you argue that there has to be a beginning.  You also argue that some intelligence, God, created matter, and energy, and the universe.  So, I ask you, if you insist on there being a beginning to EVERYTHING, who created your god?"

Theist:  "Oh no, God is God.  He has always existed and always will."

Atheist:  "Funny how I have to accept your God as a possible beginning with no creator, but you can not accept matter and energy as the beginning.  If you insist on everything having a creator then there is no end to the creator, creation chain."

Theist:  "But I know God created everything."

Atheist:  "Prove it."

Theist:  'Ummm...aahhh...The Bible....umm...personal revelation...umm...ahh....faith or something."

Atheist:  "Stop right there.  I seem to have an urgent appointment to go bang my head against a wall.  We'll talk later."

The whole "Someone must have started the whole thing" bit doesn't work with me.  Don't try it.

If you look at one website today, make it this one:

http://interact10ways.com/usa/information_interactive.htm

Go now. Then, tell me how awesome you think it is.

No, this post is not about that legendary Nintendo video game series The Legend of Zelda, but I will go on record and say that those are some of the best games ever created by human hands. Now on with the show.

While contemplating the greatness that is Disney's The Haunted Mansion, I came across a really great site for fans of the ride.

www.doombuggies.com

I really like the picture section and will be submitting some over the weekend.

There is also what seems to be a sister site dealing with The Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

www.tellnotales.com

I am still royally pissed that it was closed last week.

My third link of the day goes in a different direction... Living in the south you see a lot of pickup trucks. I mean a lot. Like take what you think is alot and then triple it. Then you MIGHT be getting close to how many pickups there are around here. Hell, I own one myself just to fit in. It comes in real handy on "free dump day" down at the landfill. Well, with all the pickups you just know there would be a healthy truck accessory market. Gun racks, rebel flags, and clever stickers about guns, god, and Budweiser are big sellers of course, but I have a seen a new item hanging around on several trucks these days and finally found out where to get it.

Head on over to trucknutz.com and give your pickup the set of balls it really deserves. Personally I like the camouflaged ones. You don't want your truck nuts just out in the open all the time. The camo nutz keep your business hidden. I do wonder, however, how UV resistant they might be. I would hate to think my truck nutz might fade or shrivel up.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to www.digg.com. I expect most of my tech minded readers are familiar with Digg, but for those of you that are more casual internet users, Digg is a great place to find out what is hot in the tech world. I really like Digg because the stories on the main page only get there because they are popular. Digg works through users "digging" stories. When a news item get enough "diggs" it appears on the main page. The result is an ever updating website that has its finger on the pulse of the tech community. You may see stories about video games and nuclear physics right next to each other. Pretty ingenious if you ask me. Digg is the brainchild of former TechTV and The Screen Savers personality Kevin Rose. Check it out.