Archive for June 16th, 2011
Paul McCartney drawings withdrawn from sale at auction
A set of drawings by Sir Paul McCartney have been withdrawn from sale at auction after a legal challenge over ownership.
The cartoon characters, drawn in the 1970s as prototypes for a part-animated film, were due to be sold on Thursday in Gloucestershire.
They were being sold by the daughter of animator Eric Wylam, who died in 1997.
Lawyers stepped in on the eve of the sale claiming they were unaware that Sir Paul had given them to Mr Wylam.
Mr Wylam’s daughter, Maggie Thornton, who lives in Tewkesbury, said the drawings had been in her family for almost 40 years.
“My father was given a pile of scrap paper covered in rough drawings and I always believed they belonged to my father,” she said.
No choice
Chris Albury from Dominic Winter auctioneers in South Cerney, said he had no choice but to withdraw the items from sale.
“The lawyers say they’re still Paul McCartney’s property as the film was made by his company MPL Communications,” he said.
“As such any work done by Paul or the team working on the film should have been returned to MPL or Paul at the end of its usage.
via BBC News – Paul McCartney drawings withdrawn from sale at auction.
In CA-36, Democrat Calls For Blanket Condemnation Of Stunning New Web Ad (VIDEO) | TPMDC
The special election to replace the retired Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) just took a turn for the spectacular. A new web video aimed at boosting the Republican chances for an upset win is
dropping jaws at the Democratic candidate’s headquarters and prompting calls for a bipartisan condemnation of the shockingly negative attack.
The election pits Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn (D) against businessman Craig Huey, a tea party Republican who’s second place finish in one of California’s first jungle primaries came as a surprise to most. The race to the July 12 runoff has fallen to the national backburner as attention shifted to the NY-26 race and a more general discussion of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R) budget plan.
That could be about to change, thanks to the web ad produced by the brand-new Turn Right USA PAC, which filed its official paperwork last week.
Simply put, the ad is Willie Horton on steroids. The 90-second clip accuses Hahn of being too cozy with gang criminals in the past, a charge she’s faced for a while and her campaign says has been thoroughly debunked.
via In CA-36, Democrat Calls For Blanket Condemnation Of Stunning New Web Ad (VIDEO) | TPMDC.
Judge to copyright troll: your lawsuits are shams, give it up – Boing Boing
Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez ,”In a decision with likely wide-ranging impact, a judge in Las Vegas today dismissed as a sham an infringement case filed by copyright troll Righthaven LLC. The judge ruled that Righthaven did not have the legal authorization to bring a copyright lawsuit against the political forum Democratic Underground, because it had never owned the copyright in the first place. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and Las Vegas attorney Chad Bowers are defending Democratic Underground.”
“In dismissing Righthaven’s claim in its entirety, Chief Judge Hunt’s ruling decisively rejected the Righthaven business model of conveying rights to sue, alone, as a means to enforce copyrights,” said Laurence Pulgram, head of copyright litigation at Fenwick & West in San Francisco. “The ruling speaks for itself. The court rejected Righthaven’s claim that it owned sufficient rights in the copyright, stating that claim was ‘flagrantly false–to the point that the claim is disingenuous if not outright deceitful.’”
Judge Hunt also noted that “Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the Court” and rejected Righthaven’s efforts to fix things after the fact with a May 9, 2011, amendment to the original assignment agreement. The judge expressed “doubt that these seemingly cosmetic adjustments change the nature and practical effect” of the invalid assignment.
As part of his ruling today, the judge ordered Righthaven to show why it should not be sanctioned for misrepresentations to the court. The Court permitted Democratic Underground’s counterclaim to continue against Stephens Media — the publisher of the Review Journal — allowing Democratic Underground to show that it did nothing wrong in allowing a user to post a five-sentence excerpt of a 50-sentence article.
via Judge to copyright troll: your lawsuits are shams, give it up – Boing Boing.
Valley Center teacher arrested after wild party – SignOnSanDiego.com
A 56-year-old Valley Center Middle School teacher was arrested early Sunday morning following a wild, drunken party held at her home attended by at least 100, mostly inebriated, teenagers, officials said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Bishop said empty hard liquor and beer bottles were strewed about the house on Puma Trail. Teenagers were passed out on couches in their own vomit, and there was even a strip poker game going on in one bedroom involving four girls being photographed by boys.
The woman, Nancy Jean Hildebrand, was at the house and, according to witnesses, was passing out beer to the minors, Bishop said.
She wore a name tag that said “My name is Nancy, I’m (her daughter’s) mom.”
Hildebrand could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
via Valley Center teacher arrested after wild party – SignOnSanDiego.com.
Oregon man Leo Plass who quit college in 1932 graduates aged 99 | Mail Online
With only a couple of months until his 100th birthday, Leo Plass must have learnt a lot from the University of Life.
But the Oregon man who dropped out of college just short of graduation in 1932 has returned to get his degree aged 99.
‘Never dreamed of something like this happening to me,’ said Mr Plass who received an associate’s degree from East Oregon University in La Grande. ‘It’s out of this world.’
via Oregon man Leo Plass who quit college in 1932 graduates aged 99 | Mail Online.
‘The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture’ by David Mamet: Book review – latimes.com
David Mamet’s “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” comes with a built-in get-out-of-jail-free card: Dispute it and you’re part of the problem, a defender of the liberal orthodoxy. Such is the case, I suppose, with any polemic, but here the author is especially adamant. “The struggle of the Left to rationalize its positions is an intolerable, Sisyphean burden. I speak as a reformed Liberal,” he declares in a statement deemed significant, or inflammatory, enough to reproduce across the bottom of the book’s cover.
I beg to differ, but what do I know? I write for the mainstream media.
Actually, the media is not Mamet’s main concern in “The Secret Knowledge,” although he does offer up his share of barbed remarks. He’s got bigger fish to fry. Among his targets: liberal education, the New Deal, Al Sharpton, global warming, “Obamacare” and the bailout of the auto industry. If such a list sounds familiar, that’s because the bulk of it is made of Fox News talking points, generalities equating liberalism with socialism and framing it as venal, lazy, anti-American — a children’s crusade with no understanding of realpolitik.
