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Much as I wish it were true, alas, it is not...

If you read the supplied Snopes link, it will tell you that the local governments have the right to decide upon the legality of warrants passed on by Interpol, meaning they are allowed only as much latitude as the states deign to grant. The local governments decide on the legality, the local governments send law enforcement if needed, etc. Interpol does not of those things. Interpol doesn't even issue warrants, it requires one of the member countries to do so. They simply pass them on to the necessary recipient.

Interpol does NOT have a police force, it does not conduct criminal investigations, and it does not make arrests. It acts as a data manager of sorts, for any member nations, coordinating information, passing warrants as needed from one member country to another, etc. They are basically an administration/secretarial service on an international scale. Whatever odd idea of Interpol people may have gotten from the Bond flicks or whatnot, are not quite accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol

For those that don't want to read through all of the Snopes/NYTimes information:

These are the same standard rights that are granted to some 70+ other international organizations. These additional rights were not granted to Interpol because it did not have a local office on US soil at the time. This was submitted prior to Bush leaving office and the State Department suggested approving it so that Interpol had the same legal status as other international organizations. It was not completed before Bush left office however. This is a bit of house cleaning to complete the request.

It doesn't give them universal immunity to do as they will within our borders. Interpol has no police force. It's just an administrative organization that basically acts as a go-between between countries.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/interpol.asp

Mr. Williams should read up on his stories.
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bono.asp

Nintendo has always been stalwart when it comes to protecting their copyrights. Nintendo has a long history of comments about fair use, personal backups, and so forth that might even make Ken Kutaragi, Mr. "PS3 gamers should get a second job", laugh out loud. Their actions are usually quite in line with their statements.

But, something I have never heard about, despite trawling some of the darkest parts of the internet, is Nintendo going after creators of porn based on Nintendo IP. This has always confused me--I'm not really for nor against them going after the artists, but considering the potential harm they might do to Nintendo's brand, you'd think it would be of a higher priority. Even more astounding, at least to me, is that as far as I can tell THOT was being given away for free, while there are plenty of toon porn sites out there that charge for their content (though piracy often slips around this). I would think it almost a no-brainer for Nintendo to go after the commercial sites and more popular/notorious artists to scare off the little guys. And, yet, I've never heard of a single case or even a C&D.

In fact, I've never heard of any company acting upon toon porn (and any cosplay porn that may exist.) Why is this? Are they somehow not aware it exists? Rule 34 is a popular enough concept at this point that I would think the idea would have at least entered their head from somewhere. Are they scared of bringing the world of drawn pornography to the limelight? After an Iowa man was thrown in jail for kiddie toon porn ("shota yaoi"), Nintendo (and other similar companies) could get even more help from the FBI and local police forces (looking to make a name for themselves) going after the artists of any underaged characters. Nintendo obviously isn't going just for profit makers (Neither is Disney), so their lack of action in this regard leaves me scratching my head. ..Oh, and, uh, boo copyright, overzealous corporations, fish, fish, etc.

Faked - see: Snopes as usual, has the straight dope.

They do? Cecil is going to be pissed.

Faked - see: Snopes as usual, has the straight dope.

So by your logic events like THIS can't happen because no one knows who the bad guy is? You guys are a hoot. Responsible gun carrying citizens are not going to cause a wild west shootout where everyone kills each other.

IANAL, can they trademark something they didn't create/invent?

Not according to the FDA or the ACSH or MIT, among others. On the other hand, überquack Mercola and the holistic nutters agree. Basically, the aspartame thing is just like the vaccine thing: scientists with evidence versus quacks who try to dress their bias up as information. Sure, aspartame tastes like dog shit, but (unless you have a certain rare genetic disorder), it isn't dangerous.

Like the story about the frogs? throw a frog in boiling water? it jumps out. throw a frog in cold water and slowly boil it? boiled frog.

Actually, if you throw a frog in boiling water it will get burned. If you throw a frog in cold water and heat it it will jump out when the water gets too hot.

Science. It works, bitches.

One was once written on the side of a cow and left at the bank.

Just a linky for the other like me who didn't know about this (fictional) story.

Will a Certificate of Live Birth do?

This reminds me of the story I have been telling for years whenever someone asks me why I do not eat Octopus.

From Snopes

A while back I heard a story that went like this: in a certain aquarium, fish kept disappearing from one of the tanks late at night. Baffled, the staff put up cameras to find out what was going on, and discovered that an octopus was climbing out of its tank, eating the fish, then crawling back to its own tank.

Though the story is not verified, directly, there is consensus that the story is possible and is even likely to have occurred.

That's why births tend to spike 9 months after a days-long power outage. Not a whole lot else to do to entertain yourself ;)

While it is an entertaining idea, it is false.

why does this stupid thing keep cropping up?
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

What I see instead is a large number of credulous people who believe whatever certain pundits tell them is the best way to screw with liberals.

Exactly the point! For some reason, scratching almost any "environmental activist" one can find a worn-out Che Guevara T-shirt underneath. Why is it? Are the liberals noticeably more green-conscientious? No, they aren't...

It must be, then, that a substantial body of the Illiberal crowd sees "global warming" as a pre-text for destroying (or, at least, shackling) Capitalism. Indeed, regardless of whether the Global Warming (renamed recently to a less odious "Climate Change") is a) a threat and b) a man-made phenomenon, it is useful just because it can be used to hurt Capitalism...

Your argument is that environmentalists are dirty socialist hippies, therefore environmentalists want to destroy capitalism. Talk about taking absurdist A=A arguments far too far...

There are plenty of serious capitalists on board with environmentalism, who correctly believe that AGW is a fact, and wish to do something about it. It is inherently a collective action problem, just like any other (law contract and property law, for instance). This has implications.

Simply blindly asserting that only dirty fucking hippies who idolize socialist killers does not make it so, any more than attempting to shackle AGW to a silly thought experiment (while slyly imputing a religious belief to the hippies) reduces risk mitigation analysis in the face of uncertainty to a blind leap of faith.

Not only is your factometer hopelessly crushed by the weight of your ideology, but also our logic and rhetorical skills suck.

What I see instead is a large number of credulous people who believe whatever certain pundits tell them is the best way to screw with liberals.

Exactly the point! For some reason, scratching almost any "environmental activist" one can find a worn-out Che Guevara T-shirt underneath. Why is it? Are the liberals noticeably more green-conscientious? No, they aren't...

It must be, then, that a substantial body of the Illiberal crowd sees "global warming" as a pre-text for destroying (or, at least, shackling) Capitalism. Indeed, regardless of whether the Global Warming (renamed recently to a less odious "Climate Change") is a) a threat and b) a man-made phenomenon, it is useful just because it can be used to hurt Capitalism...

This is well-illustrated by the modern version of Pascal's Wager. To restate Pascal's conclusion: even though the existence of Anthropogenic Global Warming cannot be determined through reason, a Progressive should wager as though AGW exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

Wasn't there a car called "Nova" [0] that totally failed in South America?

[0] No va means "no go" in Spanish.

Bzzt! Wrong! When you consider that "nova" is a Latin word, it stops making sense that they wouldn't know what it means in Latin America-- it doesn't even pass the sniff test.

No. http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

But but but this guide tells me exactly how women should act!

(Yes, I know that the article was probably a hoax.)

I don't know how it works exactly as the song predates current copyright limits.

From your linked snopes article:

The Chicago-based music publisher Clayton F. Summy Company, working with Jessica Hill, published and copyrighted "Happy Birthday" in 1935. Under the laws in effect at the time, the Hills' copyright would have expired after one 28-year term and a renewal of similar length, falling into public domain by 1991. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 extended the term of copyright protection to 75 years from date of publication, and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years, so under current law the copyright protection of "Happy Birthday" will remain intact until at least 2030.

Thank Steamboat Willie and Sonny Bono.

For a complete article on "Happy Birtday" go here.

Michael Jackson's Estate owns Happy Birthday

In that case, someone needs to tell Snopes about it:

Who does own the publishing rights to "Happy Birthday to You"? They were acquired by a New York accountant named John F. Sengstack when he bought the Clayton F. Summy Company in the 1930s; Sengstack eventually relocated the company to New Jersey and renamed it Birch Tree Ltd. in the 1970s. Warner Chappell (a Warner Communications division), the largest music publisher in the world, purchased Birch Tree Ltd. in late 1998 for a reported sale price of $25 million; the company then became Summy-Birchard Music, now a part of the giant AOL Time Warner media conglomerate.

A bit of Google-fu turned up an apparent grassroots protest website on the subject. A bit on the strident side, it seems to me, but they have an interesting idea: turn in every violation.

If you have seen someone singing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, a park, or at a school, you should tell ASCAP so that they can arrange for a license. If you are an offender, you should apologize and offer to pay whatever is due -- a nickel, a quarter, a dollar -- whatever ASCAP demands.

There is an overwhelming amount of copyright infringement of Happy Birthday. Let's right the balance and tell ASCAP about every one of these violations!

I guess the idea is to overwhelm ASCAP and the Time Warner, and to highlight inconsistent enforcement as a reason to drop the whole stupid copyright fight over this song.

It's kinda like a turkey in the rain. It gets hit on the head by a drop of water and looks up. As it looks up water drops run down its nasal passages. It continues this strange curiosity til it drowns.

As someone who worked on farms where they raised turkeys I had never noticed large heaps of dead turkey carcasses when it rained. But perhaps this happens with wild turkeys which would make survival in the wild a short experience. So I looked it up.

Of course this anecdote is hilariously false.

Benjamin Franklin would like a word with the original poster.

It's kinda like a turkey in the rain. It gets hit on the head by a drop of water and looks up. As it looks up water drops run down its nasal passages. It continues this strange curiosity til it drowns.

As someone who worked on farms where they raised turkeys I had never noticed large heaps of dead turkey carcasses when it rained. But perhaps this happens with wild turkeys which would make survival in the wild a short experience. So I looked it up.

Of course this anecdote is hilariously false.

You should get your wife to turn off the lights (or install auto-shutoff systems). But I presume that those two are on all the time is what makes them not fail.. The same holds true for incandescents, i.e. they blow when you're turning them on. See this for an example of a very long-lived incandescent: http://www.snopes.com/science/lightbulb.asp

Urban myth. http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/mamacass.asp

Also, it seems that this would encourage people to use the panic button for stupid reasons.

I ordered pizza online with my credit card two hours ago, and the delivery guy isn't here yet.

He's not joking.

You have (deliberately?) twisted what I said.

I said:

It is in fact true that he does not make a habit out of putting his hand over his heart when it would be respectful and customary.

Check out the video on Snopes.

They even have a quote from the Administration on there.

Care to retract your 'lack of logic and facts' statement?

But like the American million dollar space pen/Russian pencil story, it will live on forever.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

Idiot.

Are you seriously asserting that you think Obama was not born in the USA? Really?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

Not that it will matter, anyone brainless enough to question whether the current president was born in the US, when his opponents in the campaign couldn't dig up anything substantial, is too freaking stupid to even argue with.

So either you are stupid beyond belief, or you are trying to waste my time.

Glenn makes personal attacks of this very nature, so it is entirely appropriate that this was done to Beck. After all, if he didn't rape and murder a young girl, why doesn't he just prove it? Should be as easy as proving you were born in this country.

They have certificates proving you didn't rape and murder someone in 1990? I seem to have misplaced mine... Uh oh.

They also have government documents proving that people were born in the country

.

"Seeing no evidence of a conspiracy to erode our precious culture myself, it does come down to your credibility. "

Right I mean, who would consider massive rallies and marches of hispanics to that end with major media coverage evidence.

"You worry that you'll have to learn a new language and you don't want to bother. I don't either, but look at it realistically: to graduate college and get a real job, you need to speak english."

Not in Miami and I suspect not in California. There are areas like Miami beach where English is spoken primarily and a couple neighborhoods where both are spoken. But throughout the rest of Miami all the shop signs and clerks speak Spanish only. You can't find anyone willing to assist you in English already. Spanish is the default choice of language on all telephone menus and even for government services there. The reason? The immigration influx was massive and rapid enough that all the politicians and most government officials there are Cuban. Many don't think of themselves as American at all, they are Cubans in exile from their home.

From what I have heard something similar has happened in at least part of California and in the past decade the immigrants have rapidly begun to spread throughout the country. With enough immigrants there will be immigrant owned businesses providing support only in Spanish throughout the country just like there are in Miami.

Some interesting reading that shows a common theme:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/mexicoflag.asp

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/57772/protest_ends_with_mexican_flag_on_california.html

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=13863

http://across.co.nz/AlienRights07.html

I recall a while back that the Swiss were angry at the Chinese for eating Switzerland's national animal (the St. Bernard); people were joking that the Swiss should start eating Panda.

No such thing as a national animal for Switzerland. http://www.about.ch/administration/index.html#CH_Admin_Nationals

That being said, the way that the Chinese kill the dogs is barbaric. And it's not an urban legend. I've known Asians who have admitted to eating dog, and I'm not impressed.

Disclaimer: I owned a St. Bernard.

But EMI don't own the particular soundwaves which comprise the Beatles' songs. Instead they own the very idea of these songs. EMI has sole and total ownership over the platonic ideals of which any particular instance of a Beatles song is merely a shadow.

They don't own all of the rights to the Beatles songs. There are also the publishing rights, which are owned separately. While this page doesn't describe the part that EMI owns, it describes the publishing rights in the context of clarifying (IMHO "debunking" qualifies, in terms of the layman's original idea, even though they term it "Mostly True") Michael Jackson's ownership. http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp

According to snopes, the reverse pin alert was an idea, patented in the 90s, that was never implemented.

Google for "exploding Pyrex". Snopes.com will tell you that it's a bullshit urban legend, but actual facts about the materials will tell the truth.

Now tell me Snopes isn't being paid to manipulate "the truth".

Well, shit.

Snopes has an article on it, well including this issue: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/mlking.asp And Wikipedia has a page about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._authorship_issues

For a very real example with ATMs: Lebanese Loop.

I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that this type of coercion ("abject poverty or sex work!") is actually happening.

You are mistaken.

[citation needed]... haha, are you talking about Somalia? Even in the EU, they don't force people to enter prostitution as a condition of continuing to receive public assistance. A bold assertion such as yours demands proof.

Otherwise, you just sound like yet another foaming mouth.

I would like to know the last time one of those online petitions actually worked.

Hmm... it appears never.

On a more upbeat note, slacktivism is our word of the day!

Never worked... I swore i signed onto this petition and was able to buy a copy of Bioshock Collectors Edition: http://www.petitiononline.com/bioshock/petition.html http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_1644/Bioshock_Collectors_Edition

I would like to know the last time one of those online petitions actually worked.

Hmm... it appears never.

On a more upbeat note, slacktivism is our word of the day!

Never worked... I swore i signed onto this petition and was able to buy a copy of Bioshock Collectors Edition: http://www.petitiononline.com/bioshock/petition.html http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_1644/Bioshock_Collectors_Edition

This is the same California where a city came hilariously close to banning products containing DHMO. It is entirely plausible. Just imagine they require this glazed glass for all road vehicles. Boom, it's on motorcycle fairings.

I would like to know the last time one of those online petitions actually worked.

Hmm... it appears never.

On a more upbeat note, slacktivism is our word of the day!

I would like to know the last time one of those online petitions actually worked.

Hmm... it appears never.

On a more upbeat note, slacktivism is our word of the day!