WOW Senate does good (without a fight)

The Senate actually passed one of those "80% obvious" bills without a fight! Come on, everybody, lets actually cheer them for doing the right thing! [yes, i'm being serious]

AFP: US Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill:

The US Senate on Monday passed a bill to shield US journalists, authors, and publishers from "libel tourists" who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling.

The popular legislation headed to the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it and send the measure to US President Barack Obama to sign into law despite misgivings from key US allies.

Backers of the bill have cited England, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore as places where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers and publishers.

The Senate approved the measure in a "unanimous consent" voice vote.

The bill's supporters have said that "libel tourism" undermines free speech rights under the US Constitution's cherished first amendment, and so erode accountability of powerful figures in a healthy democracy.

Seriously, this is a good thing. A VERY good thing. Libel laws in Britain are totally backwards and almost always favor the plaintiff unfairly, and Europe has increasingly seen big multi-national corporations file suits on European nationals in UK courts in order to guarantee a win that they wouldn't get in other countries.

Now, I'm not totally getting my hopes up that this also means they'd also pass (or extend) this to include the increasing number of foreign nation anti-blasphemy laws which are also a gross affront on free speech, but at least there's progress and recognition that some foreign laws as they apply to US Citizens (and tourists) are just plain wrong.

back to crap you can't make up...

Without a Hint of Irony : Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

"For Washington consultants to sit around and personally disparage the governor anonymously to reporters is unfortunate and counterproductive and frankly immature," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

I'd like you all to know I'm feeling very depressed...

RIP:

El Jay Icon Maker officially offline.

uh...SAVE THE CHEERLEADER!

oik, so i never actually saw that show, but there you go...

US judge in Conn.: Cheerleading not a sport - Yahoo! News:

A federal judge in Connecticut has ruled competitive cheerleading is not an official sport that schools can use to meet gender-equity requirements.

U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill says competitive cheerleading is too underdeveloped.

Wednesday's ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by members of the volleyball team at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. The players sued after the school announced last year that it would eliminate the team for budgetary reasons.

The school replaced it with a competitive cheer squad to stay in compliance with the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics.

Quinnipiac has 60 days to come up with a plan to keep the volleyball team and comply with gender rules.

Finding Nemo 2?

Is Pixar planning on producing some "Finding Nemo" sequels? - Jim Hill - Editor In Chief - JimHillMedia: Walt Disney Company news, reviews, history & commentary, Jim Hill:

What with "Toy Story 3" in theaters right now, "Cars 2" due to debut next summer and a sequel to "Monsters, Inc." reportedly in the works, one has to wonder what other follow-ups Pixar Animation Studios has planned.

Well, based on the domain names that The Walt Disney Company registered today and yesterday, it looks like Marlin, Dory and Nemo may soon be heading off for another aquatic adventure or two.

Don't believe me? Then check out the names that Disney's attorneys just registered:

* FINDINGNEMO2.NET
* FINDINGNEMO2.ORG
* FINDINGNEMO3.NET
* FINDINGNEMO3.ORG

Now please keep in mind that just because the Mouse grabs a domain name does not mean that a motion picture is now in active development. [goes on to mention the Pirates 4 based domains picked up more than 9 months before Disney actually announced]

My comment:

Well, my concern would be the story not being too obvious. Spots of obviousness include "Nemo in Love" and "Nemo vs the nasty bad human polluters" (worst case being the two combined, in "Nemo falls in love with fish who got sick thanks to the nasty bad human polluters and raises his army (school?) to fight them to make it all better...").

Seriously, I can't think of anything Nemo could do that wouldn't be either one of those two plot-lines, or a basic repeat of the original (akin to the Disneyland ride)...

...but then again, I'm not working at Pixar, am I? :)

the end of any illusion that Israel is a secular state?

Op-Ed Contributor - The Diaspora Need Not Apply - NYTimes.com:

If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren’t rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren’t legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews.

Why, they will wonder, as Iran raced to build a nuclear bomb to wipe the Jewish state off the map, did the custodians of the 2,000-year-old national dream of the Jewish people choose such a perverse definition of Jewish peoplehood, seemingly calculated to alienate supporters outside its own borders?

And, they will also wonder, what of the quiescence of diaspora Jewry? Many American Jews understandably see Israel as under siege and have not wanted to make things worse; they imagined that internal politicking over conversions and marriages was ephemeral, and would change. But the conversion bill is a sign that this silence was a mistake, for it has been interpreted by Israeli politicians as a green light to throw basic questions of Jewish identity into the pot of coalition politics.

The redemptive history of the Jewish people since the Holocaust has rested on the twin pillars of a strong Israel and a strong diaspora, which have spoken to each other politically and culturally, and whose successes have mutually reinforced the confidence and capacities of the other. Neither the Jewish diaspora nor Israel can afford a split between the two communities — a dystopian possibility that, if this bill passes, could materialize frightfully soon.