Superbowling

An assortment of Super Bowl tidbits: Supposedly sports gambling sites are being threatened with denial of service attacks if they don't pay protection money - also a Reuters story. Infinitus writes "The NFL's legal firm has a PDF up that outlines the NFL's intellectual property rights to words like 'Super Bowl' and 'NFL'. Including a neat little chart that tells you what you can and can't say..." VeggiePossum23 writes "Panthers Upset Patriots, 29 to 21... at least in the Sony Sponsored '989 Sports Game Before the Game' played on NFL Gameday 2004 on the PS2 Console. This annual event, held Wednesday night in Houston, has a perfect 8-year track record of picking the winner of the Super Bowl. Carolina Panthers Wide Receiver Steve Smith controlled the Panthers, winning an upset victory against New England Patriots' Wide Out Troy Brown, also controlling his own team." lordbyron writes "CBS is doing a SuperBowl of commercials that will include a vote for the best commercial in history. You can watch the top 10 now and make sure that you vote at 9pm on Sunday 1/31. It includes some classics like the Apple commercial and the exploding mosquitos from Tabasco."Wing Bowl.--->

Comments

Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[OS24Ever]

Pretty potent/A. non-sex non-beer ad with only one statement in it.

Pretty effective ad no matter what you US Political viewpoint is.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[kermyt]

Quoted from moveon.org

The CBS networks still refuses to run our winning ad in the Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest during the Super Bowl. The
MoveOn.org non-partisan campaign to get CBS to air issue ads continues, but we're not going to let CBS's censorship stop us
in the mean time. That's why we're spending over $1 million to air the ad in our swing states and nation-wide on other
channels -- starting with two spots on CNN that will air during the Super Bowl half time.

This Sunday, during the Super Bowl half time show, join us in changing channels on CBS. At 8:10pm and 8:35pm EST, switch
over to CNN to watch "Child's Pay" on a channel which doesn't censor its ads. We'd like to keep a tally of the number of
people who participate -- you can sign up here:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id= 2293-33 48214-6QjmVnR6_TwkZW4t8xOELQ

The number of groups, individuals, and newspapers that have called on CBS to run our ad is remarkable. The National
Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union have asked their own members to call CBS. Senator Dick Durbin
(D-IL) gave a powerful speech about CBS on the floor of the Senate, saying, "Maybe network executives at CBS are so afraid
of political pressure from the right wing and their business advertisers who are in league with the right wing politics of
America that they are afraid to put anything on the air that might in fact make things uncomfortable. If that is the case,
it is time for CBS to announce the name of their network is the 'Conservative Broadcasting System' and come clean with
American viewers."

28 members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to CBS which stated, "The choice not to run this paid
advertisement appears to be part of a disturbing pattern on CBS's part to bow to the wishes of the Republican National
Committee. We remember well CBS's remarkable decision this fall to self-censor at the direction of GOP pressure. The network
shamefully cancelled a broadcast about former President Ronald Reagan which Republican partisans considered insufficiently
flattering." Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote a separate letter to CBS urging them to reconsider their decision.

Today, the L.A. Times printed an Op-Ed piece of ours which lays out the case against CBS's censorship. That's attached
below. But the editorial pages of the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other papers came out in our favor as
well. As the Globe wrote, "MoveOn.org's 30-second ad, which has aired on CNN, is a gentle yet powerful depiction of how hard
today's children will have to work to pay off the country's mounting deficit. That's a vital message that might get lost in
a year of campaign rhetoric, and it deserves a response from the White House in its own 30 seconds of imagery. America,
sitting on the couch, junk food in hand, just might sit up and want to know more."

Luckily, there are still some networks that do allow the free exchange of ideas. Please join the one-minute boycott: at
Super Bowl halftime, switch to CNN and watch "Child's Pay," and let us know at:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id=22 93-33 48214-6QjmVnR6_TwkZW4t8xOELQ

Re:protection money...

[interiot]

The gambling sites are in a legal grey area, in that often what they're doing would be illegal in the countries of the participants, but the organization is outside the jurisdiction of the united states/europe/whatever. So in that sense, the extorters may also be working in a legal grey area where they won't see much investigation or pressure from the western world to stop their extortion.

Re:Hey, if we're talking about CBS...

[Ryan Amos]

That had nothing to do with the ad, it has to do with the fact that TV networks don't air "issue ads," or political ads not endorsing a certain political candidate. Basically, they're too controversial and the networks don't want to show anything that might make people want to change the channel. Yup, sucks, but that's the way things work. And this has nothing to do with the first amendment, CBS is a corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government. It would only be illegal if the FCC or Congress passed a law prohibiting issue ads on TV.

Re:Incorrect date

[Cutriss]

Argh...I love it. I post a corrective post, and end up screwing up what I was correcting in it...

The CBS special airs tonight, Saturday, 1/31, at 9 PM EST.

Re:Incorrect date

[Anonymous Coward]

No, tonight is not the 1st day of the 31st month.

It's 31/1. 31/1, 2004. Or 2004-01-31. Or 31-01-2004.

Use either little endian or big endian. You can't have both at the same time.

Along the same lines, to play football, you need to play with a ball, using your feet.

direct links and synopses

[Teach]

Any of you folks running linux may not have the best RealPlayer integration in your browsers, so here are the direct links to each of the RealMedia files, with a brief synopsis of each commercial (but no "spoilers").

Slashcode will probably embed spaces in these URLs, so you may have to manually remove them.

• 1984 Apple Computer ad about Big Brother
• 2003 Budweiser spot with the zebra
• 1980 Coke ad with "Mean" Joe Green and a little kid
• 2002 Levi's Jeans commercial with the guy who walks funny
• 1993 McDonald's spot with Larry Bird and Michael Jordan playing HORSE
• 2000 Mountain Dew ad with the cyclist chasing the cheetah
• 1973 Noxzema ad with Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett
• 1992 Pepsi spot with a kid trying to drink every last drop of his beverage (note that the screenshot shown isn't from the linked commercial)
• 1998 Tabasco sauce ad with the mosquito
• 1977 Xerox spot with monastic scribes

I quit watching television about seven or eight years ago. However, I try to catch the Super Bowl every year, if only for the commercials. In fact, I've always told folks that if there was a channel that just played commercials all day, I'd probably tune in to it.

I imagine it could be like VH-1 Classic, with an hour for commercials from the 50s, another from the 60s, etc. Maybe a "groundbreaking" commercials hour. Maybe one with ads from various countries.

I'd tune in, anyway.

Re:NFL = No Fun League

[ktakki]

The NFL says NO WAY to Casinos in las vegas showing the game on anything bigger than a 55" TV. They say its copyright law, but last I checked copyright law didnt say anything about TV Size.

Perhaps you should check again. From 17 USC 110:

(II) if the performance or display is by audiovisual means, any visual portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 4 audiovisual devices, of which not more than 1 audiovisual device is located in any 1 room, and no such audiovisual device has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches, and any audio portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 6 loudspeakers, of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space;

I've been involved with copyright issues for over 25 years and I've seen the Copyright Act go from a fairly straightforward document to one that's filled with exemptions and intentional loopholes, some that actually benefit the consumer at the expense of corporate interests. Those are the minority, to be sure, but they're in there.

k.

Re:budget != deficit

[IVotedIn2000]

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes /fed-debt.html

What's very telling is that from 1992 to 1996 the national debt rose 1.3 TRILLION dollars. From 1996 to 2004 is rose that same amount.

So Clinton raises the debt 1.3 trillion in 4 years and another 500 billion in his second term. From 2000 to present the debt was raised another 500 billion dollars.

So where is the 1 Trillion that Bush is responsible for?

That site shows estimates, not facts, for years after 1999. That's considerably out of date and doesn't include sweeping changes in tax lawas since then.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm#y ears shows that the total public debt increased from 5,674,178,209,886.86 on 09/29/2000 to 6,783,231,062,743.62 on 09/30/2003.

Re:Being English, I have to ask...

[The I Shing]

Oceana is our ally and always has been.

Go back to watching your TV, citizens.