Awwwwww - ain't that just too bad....
Las Vegas-based copyright enforcer Righthaven has been losing in court for months, even as opposing lawyers go after its bank accounts, computers, and office chairs. Righthaven lost its own domain name, which was auctioned off last week for $3,300 in order to pay the court judgment against the company. Righthaven even had to submit to a "debtor's exam" on Monday in which opposition lawyers got to go through the company's books and grill company leaders over where all the cash went. Surely, the indignities can't get much worse. Or can they?
Steve Green, a Las Vegas reporter who has covered the entire Righthaven saga in excruciating detail, now notes that three of the company's lawyers, including CEO Steve Gibson, are the subject of a Nevada State Bar investigation. Details of the inquiry aren't public, but judges have been blasting Righthaven's legal team so strongly in court that the move is hardly a surprise. Via The Blogfoddah - more schadenfraude at the link. :-D
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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Three people are confirmed dead after a cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 people ran aground off Italy.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/14/2012 08:13 ||
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Coast guard official Francesco Paolillo, a local coast guard official, told the AFP news agency there was a 30m hole in the ship but that it was too early to say what exactly had happened.
"We think this happened as a result of sailing too close to an obstacle like a reef," he said.
No, reeeeeeeeeeaaallly!
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/14/2012 10:16 Comments ||
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Now we just need to move these rocks closer to Syria, since they have proven their skill at dealing with maritime traffic.
[An Nahar] Tunisia's ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali plans to take a complaint about the seizure of his property to a United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... committee, his lawyer said Friday.
In a statement, Akram Azoury condemned "the illegal actions of the Tunisian authorities who have confiscated all the fixed and moveable assets of president Ben Ali, including his personal house," under a decree signed by then interim president Fouad Mebazaa last March 14.
After all the time he took to steal everything fair and square...
The announcement came as Tunisians were preparing on Saturday to celebrate the toppling of Ben Ali a year ago on January 14, when he decamped to Soddy Arabia following weeks of street protests.
"It isn't possible to confiscate somebody's belongings except after a court ruling respecting the norms of a free trial and the right to a defense," Azoury said, denouncing "an abusive measure contrary to the constitution and Tunisian laws."
"President Ben Ali intends to lodge a complaint against the Tunisian authorities with the Human Rights Committee in Geneva," he concluded.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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I Just love it when a thief has to sue to recover what he stole.
Once IN court he mat find it dificult to leave, Let alone prosper.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/14/2012 5:12 Comments ||
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[Dawn] King Abdullah dismissed the head of Soddy Arabia's powerful inquisitors religious police on Friday, replacing him with a more moderate holy man, state news agency SPA reported without giving reasons.
Probably because the new guy is more moderate...
Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh a member of the country's most powerful religious family, was named in place of Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Humain, to head the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
SPA gave no reason for the change. King Abdullah, a cautious reformer, appointed Humain in 2009 to head the "mutaween" which ensures the strict application of the country's ultra-conservative version of Islam, as a step towards reforming it.
Humain hired consultants to restructure the organization, met local human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups and consulted professional image-builders in a broad public relations campaign.
The commission also investigated and punished some out-of-control officers for misbehaviour.
It launched regular training sessions as well, including five-day courses on "skills to deal with witches and sorcerers" and the three-day "skills to deal with tourists."This came after a number of cases in recent years outraged even Saudis and embarrassed the government.
In 2002, they reportedly prevented firemen from entering an all-girls school that was ablaze because of the segregation-of-sexes policy, and blocked the girls from escaping because they were not wearing the obligatory veil.
Fourteen girls were trampled to death and 50 hurt in a stampede after the fire broke out.
And the arrest a few years ago of an American businesswoman meeting a man in a Saudi Starbucks sparked a US complaint. The new chief is noted for his moderate views on segregation.
Stop a moment to really feel that sentence. Pick your own adjective to describe.
In 2010, he backed the head of the inquisitors religious police in Mecca, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, who was briefly sacked and then rehabilitated after saying Islam does not categorically require segregation and that shops could remain open during prayer time.
The inquisitors religious police prevent women from driving; require them to shroud their faces and bodies in all-black, shapeless abayas; block public entertainment and force all commerce, from supermarkets to petrol stations, to come to a halt at prayer times, five times a day.
They are the reason Saudis do not have cinemas, that unrelated men and women cannot work in the same office and that young men fear their cellphones will be searched for "illicit" photos and messages from unrelated girls.
Although they fall under the interior ministry, they operate with great autonomy.
They maintain a close alliance with both the courts, where all the judges are Islamic holy mans, and the powerful Grand Ulema, the supreme council of religious scholars who define the Islamic rules governing life.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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Blame a subordinate for "excesses"---oldest trick in despots' handbook.
RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held talks on a wide range of regional and international issues with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who arrived here on Friday. King Abdullah received the visiting British delegation headed by Cameron at his palace in the capital.
At the commencement of the talks, the British premier, who was making his first official visit to the Kingdom, conveyed the greetings and appreciation of Britains Queen Elizabeth II to King Abdullah, who reciprocated with similar greetings and good wishes to the queen.
The two sides discussed the prospects of increased arm sales cooperation between the two countries and explored ways and means to promote increased arm sales and consolidate arm sales them in all areas of cooperation.
A statement issued by the prime ministers office in London said, The leaders will discuss the full range of increased arm sales regional issues, the global economic situation and proposals to increase arm sales broaden and deepen the UK-Saudi partnership on issues from increased arm sales social development to increased arm sales security to increased arm sales business relations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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This has the makings of a great joke:
Abdullah, Cameron and a yak walk in to a bar in Riyadh...
The law On political parties, allowing the people to form parties on a voluntary basis and according to their views come into force in Turkmenistan after notification in the press on Friday. A political party can be created by the decision of the constituent congress. Those wishing to join a political party must establish a steering committee composed of at least nine people to convene a constituent group.
The number of political party members must be at least 1000 and governing bodies and structural subdivisions should only be in Turkmenistan. The Department of Justice registers or can refuse to register a political party. A permanent citizen of the country aged at least 18 may be a member of a political party.
There was only one political party, the Democratic one in the country until now. The Democratic Party was established after the proclamation of independence on Dec 16, 1991.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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Multi-party systems create the illusion for the masses that they actually have influence on the government.
This poll apparently has the Party's hereditary aristocracy in a tizzy. I guess the beatings will have to continue until morale improves.
The identity issue poll, carried out late last month by the University of Hong Kong, revealed a growing resentment towards the mainland.
Only 16.6 per cent of people living in the former British colony identified themselves first as Chinese citizens. That's the lowest level during the 15 years since the special administrative zone of seven million was returned to China in 1997 in a blaze of patriotic fervour.
Instead, more and more Hong Kongers are declaring themselves first and foremost as a Hong Kong citizens or Hong Kong Chinese citizens -- a clear rejection of the shared bond Beijing has attempted to build between the city and the mainland.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/14/2012 5:14 Comments ||
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Redneck Jim... you know Taiwan is watching that like a hawk and using the data as a background in their dealings with the ChiComs... Their major problem is right now that almost one third of their current population in Taiwan are illegals from China who overstayed visits.... sort of like Mexican "tourists" to the USA. It has made an unknown demographic change...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/14/2012 8:21 Comments ||
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What nobody cares?
The Central Committee cares. China historically goes through a cycle of multi-states to consolidation to breakup. The thought of regionalism over centralization puts chills in them. The previous collapses usually featured extensive corruption in the central administration as a prelude to events. The omens are not good as they stand upon a worldwide economic precipice they helped create by currency manipulation [refusing to allow their currency to gradually float in a free market].
#4
"[Taiwan's] major problem is right now that almost one third of their current population in Taiwan are illegals from China who overstayed visits.... sort of like Mexican "tourists" to the USA."
They could deport the illegals if they really wanted to, WM. After all, they look different and most of them probably don't speak Chinese well, or at all.
Oh, wait.... ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/14/2012 9:36 Comments ||
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I'd offer to trade them their illegals for our illegals.
#6
The bottom line is that Beijing has long had a policy that Shanghai will become the "New Hong Kong", and that Hong Kong proper will wither away. Needless to say, the people of Hong Kong are not too cool about this.
#7
After all, they look different and most of them probably don't speak Chinese well, or at all.
Much simpler grammar and vocabulary, Barbara. Or so I was told by a Taiwanese friend who engaged to teach me proper Mandarin, and laughed out loud at her first look inside Mao's Little Red Book, which Mr. Wife had brought back from his first trip over there.
#8
My wife told me a relative was voted as an award for her hard work by her working collegues, to go to college even though she had been working at a factory.
To this day she is still illiterate; can't read or write Chinese.
[CNBC] Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping La Belle France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday 13th for the troubled single currency area.
"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policy makers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the euro zone," S&P said in a blurb announcing the downgrade.
In a potentially more ominous setback, talks broke down between Greece and its creditors over a debt swap seen as crucial to avert a Greek default, although officials said more talks are likely next week.
If Greece cannot persuade banks and insurers to accept voluntary losses on their bond holdings, a second international rescue package for the euro zone's most heavily indebted state will unravel, raising the prospect of bankruptcy in late March, when it has to redeem 14.4 billion euros in maturing debt.
S&P lowered its long-term rating on Cyprus, Italia, Portugal and Spain by two notches, and cut its rating on Austria, La Belle France, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch.
The move puts highly indebted Italia on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status.
The credit-rating agency affirmed the current long-term ratings for Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
U.S. stocks slumped earlier amid buzz about the possible downgrades, though finished well off their lows. The euro fell by more than a cent to $1.2650 on the news. European shares closed lower. Safe-haven German 10-year bond futures rose to a new record high while the risk premium investors charge on French, Spanish, Italian and Belgian debt widened.
The credit-rating agency put all 14 euro-zone nations -- Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, La Belle France, Ireland, Italia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain -- on "negative" outlook for a possible further downgrade.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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As I see it, as long as Europeans have money to support genocide (Paleo aspirations), they have too much money.
#6
Worshippers at the shrine of Krugman the Tiny God claim that he must be right now (spend more and more and more) because he's been right so many times before. So let's revisit Shortround's assessment of Europe back in 2008 (Caution: Slimes at the link):
But the next time a politician tries to scare you with the European bogeyman, bear this in mind: Europes economy is actually doing O.K. these days, despite a level of taxing and spending beyond the wildest ambitions of American progressives.
Ummmm, maybe not Paulie.
Posted by: Matt ||
01/14/2012 14:09 Comments ||
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Euroland economies do OK until the government can no longer borrow and ramps up taxes to try and keep the deb under control. Thats when the real economy crashes as Greece currently illustrates.
#8
If all the "bad" economies leave the Euro what does that leave?
Expect the Euro to double when the "Good" Euro countries get rid of the bad. At least until Germany and France have to confront their pension crises(presently at 300% of GDP respectively)Then expect the real STHTF. Maybe 3 to 4 years. Then as the Chinese would say "may you live in interesting times"
[Dawn] Three small children died of suffocation in a village overnight but their father blamed black magic for the tragedy, police said on Thursday.
Police found the story told by the father, Zahoor Hussain, the caretaker of a shrine in village Ara in Lohi Dhandi foothills, weird and are investigating.
But the Sherlocks have to wait for the children`s mother and three older siblings who luckily survived the tragedy to regain consciousness and health.
Police came to know of the tragedy when the Polyclinic alerted the Secretariat Police Station that Zahoor, along with some neighbours, had brought three children for treatment around 6:30pm who were found dead.
A police team arrived at the hospital and took custody of the bodies of Hasnanin Abbas, 2, Mishal Fatima, 3, and Kanwal Shahzadi, 5.
Zahoor told the police that he lived at the shrine. He went to visit the family in the morning but found the door of the house bolted. As his calls went unanswered, he said he broke into the house and found the family `asleep`.
When he tried to wake them up, only his wife and three elder children showed signs of consciousness but not the young ones.
According to him the family had closed all windows and lit a coal-fired stove to keep the room warm and gone to sleep.
Eureka! We have discovered a new scientific formula: Carbon Monoxide poisoning = Black Magic
Asked why it took him so long to bring the children to hospital, he said he tried his `spiritual healing knowledge` to revive the motionless children and when it did not work he brought them to Polyclinic with the help of some neighbours.
Zahoor however left behind the semi-conscious members of the family at home.
Police visited them later and removed them to a hospital where they are convalescing.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Washington will start the process of exchanging ambassadors with Burma.
The announcement came hours after the country's most prominent political dissidents were released from jail.
US President Barack Obama described the move as a "substantial step forward".
The move is seen as one of the key demands of Western nations before international sanctions can be eased. The US stopped short of lifting them.
Mr Obama said he had asked officials to take "additional steps to build confidence" with Burma.
"Much more remains to be done to meet the aspirations of the Burmese people, but the United States is committed to continuing our engagement," he said.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/14/2012 09:22 ||
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YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar freed some of its most famous political inmates Friday, sparking jubilation outside prison gates while signaling its readiness to comply with demands of the US and its allies for a lifting of economic sanctions.
Among those released were prominent political activists, the leaders of brutally repressed democratic uprisings, a former prime minister, ethnic minority leaders, journalists and relatives of the former dictator Ne Win. The releases were part of a presidential pardon for 651 detainees that state radio and television said would take part in nation-building.
It was the latest in a flurry of accelerating changes in Myanmar sought by the West, including the recent launching of a dialogue with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Thursdays signing of a cease-fire in a long-running campaign against Karen insurgents.
Myanmar likely now feels the ball is the Wests court to lift the crippling economic measures.
But the United States and allies may take a wait-and-see approach, to see if government truces with various ethnic rebel groups hold, discussions with Suu Kyi move forward and scheduled April elections appear free and fair.
I think we are close to the removal of Western sanctions, said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at the University of Canberra, adding that the US and others might first wait to see Aung San Suu Kyi take a seat in parliament. Theres a sense that theres still more to go before the sanctions will be removed.
Human Rights Watch called Fridays release a crucial development in promoting human rights in Myanmar but stressed that an unknown number of political prisoners still remain detained. The group called for their release and urged the government to allow international monitors to enter prisons to verify the numbers and whereabouts of those still jailed.
Until Friday, as many as 1,500 political prisoners were believed to be behind bars, by some counts, and the exact tally of those released Friday will likely take several days. Suu Kyis party said it was expecting the release of many of the 600 dissidents it tracks.
The release of such a large number of political prisoners demonstrates the governments will to solve political problems through political means, said Win Tin, a senior member of Suu Kyis party who previously spent 19 years in prison but was released under a 2008 amnesty.
Among the high-profile inmates released were Min Ko Naing, a nearly legendary student leader from Myanmars failed 1988 pro-democracy uprising.
Activists arrested after the abortive 2007 Saffron Revolution named for the color of the robes worn by the countrys Buddhist monks were also freed Friday. Among them were Shin Gambira, 32, a militant monk who helped lead the anti-government protests. Family members said that he told them he was in good health.
Also freed was ethnic leader Khun Tun Oo, the chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, who was serving a 93-year sentence. He was arrested along with several other Shan leaders in February 2005 and charged with treason.
The government recently signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement with Shan rebels, among several other pacts to end ethnic fighting. The Shan Herald Agency for News, an online news site close to the rebels, said five or six Shan political prisoners were freed Friday.
Jailed former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt also was freed. He was ousted in 2004 after falling out of favor with the junta and convicted a year later of insubordination and corruption and sentenced to 44 years under house arrest.
The democratic process is on the right track, the 73-year-old Khin Nyunt told reporters in Yangon, saying he did not plan to return to politics.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/14/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Dawn] King Abdullah dismissed the head of 
[Dawn] Three small children died of suffocation in a village overnight but their father blamed black magic for the tragedy, police said on Thursday.
