Glenn Hauman: View From Above

One of the things not commented on in the ruling in this case
where the California Supreme Court ruled that Matt Pavlovich can’t be
sued in California state court for posting DVD decryption software
(though he can probably be sued elsewhere). Apparently, the key issue
was whether Pavlovich’s knowledge that his action would affect
California companies was by itself enough to give California courts
jurisdiction. The Court ruled that it was not.
My response when I first heard of this case was: California
companies? Who, the movie studios? Not the way I see it. They may have
major offices there, but the main offices of the companies like Viacom,
AOL Time Warner, and Sony are in New York City. And the companies
themselves are incorporated in Delaware, if not subsidiaries of
overseas corporations.
This struck me as jurisdictional shopping to take advantage of a law in
one place that gives you an advantage. Think (among other cases)
Hillary in New York and Liddy Dole in North Carolina, Mitt Romney in
Massachusetts, or Dick Cheney in Wyoming (he couldn’t come from Texas,
because then he couldn’t be Dubya’s veep.) I’m sure there’s a nuanced
argument to be made why this ain’t so– but I don’t think I buy it.

Dr. Earl Warrick, inventor of Silly Putty, passed away
last week.
I’m sure I would have posted this information sooner, but every other
copy I got of his obituary was backwards and stretched funny.

Thought for the day: “We expect others to judge US by our good intentions, yet we judge others by their words and deeds.”

Why does this spring to mind? Because of… oh, hell, the usual. Pick a story.

…I’m going to link to this:

Oh, come on. You know you want one.

This just in– one out of four men fake orgasms.

(Yes, this is what I choose to lead with after a few days absent. Deal with it.)

Just getting around to watching Journeys With George,
the HBO documentary that aired on Election Night. As I was busy
knocking on doors trying to get people to vote, I put it into the PVR
and was holding off on watching after seeing how badly trounced the
Democrats it.
It’s fascinating. It’s the most I’ve ever seen of George unfiltered
(well, unguarded) not to mention the only real look I’ve ever seen of
Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In many ways it’s more damning of the media
than it is of Dubya, showing how easy it is for the press to be
manipulated. But it also showed that Bush is a better campaigner than I
gave him credit for– which does help explain the last minute
come-from-behind victory.
And I really wish HBO had aired this before the polls closed.

The three guys
who hacked the OTB systems have been arraigned. I thought these guys
were dumb when I heard how they were placing bets– if they’d wasted a
few thousand dollars on a few extra bets, they might never had been
caught– but geez. \\Mr. Harn, the Autotote employee who is charged
with changing the computerized bets, showed up at his office on Oct.
26, Breeders’ Cup day, even though he was not scheduled to work.
Telephone records show that Mr. Davis used his cellphone to call Mr.
Harn at Autotote while the six races that made up the Breeders’ Cup
pick six were being run.
And perhaps in a final insult to a scheme gone awry, two of the three
defendants tested positive for cocaine today before the hearing.\\
On the other hand, one of the lawyers for the defendants said, “The
only thing we know for sure is that Autotote has the world’s worst
computer security.” Can’t argue with that one. My stock sell
recommendation stands.

…Happy Veterans Day.
We here at View From Above deliver this message in advance to those of you who may not be able to accept in person
after your service to our country. Know that your sacrifices of mind,
body, fortunes and lives will be honored, however inadequately– in
many cases, far too inadequately– by those you have served. Jon
Carroll expresses similar sentiments here.
I, for one, would like to apologize for all the merchants who are
having sales today, but somehow aren’t able to give deeper discounts
for those folks who have actually served.
And for that matter, I would also like to tip my hat to those folks who
put their lives on the line for my sake even without going to war– the
men and women of the police and fire departments.

From Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
Read it. Forward it. And get off your ass and do something with it.
I spent most of the 5th walking around the next Congressional District
over, trying to get out the vote for Anne Sumers. Yeah, my leg hurts,
but I got at least one person to the polls that wouldn’t have
otherwise.
How about you? Did you help out your side? Did you even vote? Or were
you too busy raking leaves?
I have a few thoughts on the issue on what to do, I’ll be posting more
about it in a day or two.

This is what paranoia leads to:
The last few posts here have been spent discussing how two people
mucked around with a computer system to create winning tickets that
shouldn’t, to enrich themselves to the tune of three million dollars.
Now we have in Florida (a place rife with election shenanigans) brand
new and untested electronic voting systems, to completely replace paper
balloting with electronic votes. And we have reports from Drudge that
people “voted
for McBride, but the machine counted it as Bush. It did this three
times. The polling worker finally said, ‘We have to reprogram this
machine. Another person was having the same trouble while I was there.'” And there are now no paper ballots to check against.

And of course, Voter News Service
took themselves out of the exit poll business yesterday, because the
numbers they were getting seemed to be completely at odds with what the
actual votes appeared to be.
How much is a House seat worth? Certainly more than three million
dollars…
As I said, this is what paranoia leads to– combined with lack of trust
in the people in charge.