Majikthise

Preach to the choir!

Or, why Michael Moore is a strategic genius...

Liberals keep saying that Michael Moore is preaching to the choir. Of course he is. Pastors preach to the choir. Why? Two words: they tithe. The choir members also teach Sunday school, man the bake sales, and turn out for the PTA meetings to outvote the Darwinists. Satisfy a choir member, and he'll deliver 20 water cooler mini-sermons. So, make him feel special for showing up. Give him what he came for. It's bread cast upon the waters. You'll get back way more than you gave.

FDA gives the nod to leeches

Best news I've heard all day:

Leeches medical devices, rules FDA, via the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I can't wait to see the ads. Tagline: Our product sucks!

Bremer cuts and runs

U.S. Overseer Holds Ceremony Without Notice, and Departs

The early transfer was designed to foil attacks by guerrilla insurgents whom American forces are still struggling to vanquish. [...]

"Anybody who has any doubt about whether Iraq is a better place today than it was 14 months ago should go down to see the mass graves in Hilla, or see any of the torture chambers or rape rooms around this country," Mr. Bremer said. "Anybody who has seen those things that I have will know that Iraq is a much better place. [...]

With that, Mr. Bremer flew by helicopter to the Baghdad International Airport, where he boarded an American C-130 military transport and left the country.

The Corporation: Organization as psychopath

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.--The Devil's Dictionary

The Corporation is a new documentary opening in New York on June 30.

Corporations are treated as persons for legal purposes. What happens, the filmmakers ask, if you apply psychiatric standards to these legal persons? Corporations, it turns out, are psychopaths. Liberals often blame the misdeeds of corporations on the greed or malice of their managers. Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom were run by such individuals, but we can't explain all corporate misdeeds by appeal to the character flaws of management. The Corporation argues that much corporate misbehavior can be explained by corporate structure itself.

The Economist has this favorable review of The Corporation, entitled Face Value.

[Via Metamirror]

(Full disclosure: Bakan is a close family friend.)

Yes, but is it libel?

John Scalzi journalist and blogger at Whatever gives an excellent explanation of libel.

If you're like me, you live in a conceptual demi-monde in which slander, libel, and defamation seem synonymous. So, I thank Mr. Scalzi for setting me straight. I hope he will turn this into a series. I'd love to hear his explanations of slander and defamation.

Bear in mind with what follows that I am not a lawyer. However, I have been a writer for newspapers and magazines for years, and as an editor I had to keep an eye out for potentially libelous material. In short, I have a reasonably good grip on what constitutes libel.

Now then: Let's say that one day I'm wondering around the Web, like you do, and I come across the following tidbit on someone's blog:

John Scalzi is crack-smoking cat sodomizer. It's true. I've seen the pictures.
Naturally, I am outraged. How dare someone suggest I sodomize my cat while smoking crack! It's time to lawyer up! Or is it? There are questions to ask:

1. Is it true?
I mean, if I actually do sodomize my cat and smoke crack, then I have no grounds to claim libel. I probably wouldn't want people to know about my feline-violating, drug-huffing predilections, because it will make for a lot of awkward conversational pauses at parties and would probably keep me from being confirmed by the Senate for any really interesting government posts. But if in fact I do those things, I have no recourse. But let's say that indeed, my urine runs clean and my cat runs without sexually-originated hip dysplasia. Next question:
2. Is my accuser aware that he's spreading untruths? If in fact I don't sodomize my cat or smoke crack, clearly there are no actual pictures of me doing either. If my accuser hasn't actually seen the pictures but says he has, we've cleared another hurdle for libel. On the other hand, if for some reason someone has gotten creative with Photoshop and ginned up fake pictures of me, my cat and a crack pipe, and then my accuser sees them and believes them to be real, then although he's wrong he probably hasn't committed libel (if he created the pictures and purports them to be real, then we're back into libel country).
3. Is my accuser's intent malicious? If my accuser is a member of PETA and has been shocked by the faked Photoshop pictures of me cornholing my cat, then one might reasonably argue that he's accused me out of genuine concern for the poor feline who is the object of my unwanted attentions. That's not libel. On the other hand, if the accuser hates my friggin' guts and wants nothing more than for me to die bastard die, then libel is back in business. Clearly, it would be good for me if the URL this accusation resides at is something like www.scalzisucks.com.
4. Have I been materially affected by the accusation?If someone says I'm an enthusiastic ravisher of animals, and yet my wife stays with me, my family and friends shrug it off and my employers chalk it up to the Web being the Web, then I don't have much of a case. But, if I was about to sign a contract on a book on cats, and the publisher rescinded the offer on the basis of the rumor I love cats too much, and a concern that the cats I don't penetrate I'll sell for drugs, then yes, I have a case. I also probably have a case if my wife leaves, my kid is picked up by Child Protective Services and all my friends stop returning my phone calls.

Note that for a really good libel case, all of these have to be in effect. And that's for private individuals -- which is to say, normal people with normal lives. If for some reason I'm judged to be a public figure (say, due to my extremely low-bore celebrity via the Web and my published work), then I have fewer libel protections. Note also that if the information is expressed as opinion (i.e., "I believe John Scalzi sodomizes cats and smokes crack. I've heard rumors of photos that show this"), I'm out of luck. I'm also out of luck if the language used is "heated" ("Goddamn motherfucking John Scalzi likes to poke his fucking cat with his tiny little meat and then shove a crack rock the size of a fuckin' rat into his crappy tinfoil pipe and suck on it like a Hoover on the overload setting") or if the work is satire ("Scalzi the Crack Smoking Cat Violator: A Musical Play in Three Acts").
And what do I get for it being so hard to prove I was wronged? Well, here in the US we have really excellent freedom to say what we want without worrying that opening our mouths to express an opinion will get us hauled into court -- or into jail. Let's also note, by the way, that stricter libel laws don't actually mean that less libel happens; the United Kingdom has far stricter libel laws than the US but the UK press is just vile when it comes to rumors. Given a choice, I'll personally take a little less protection against libel for a little more protection of free speech.
For the record: I don't smoke crack and I don't violate my cat, and no pictures exist of me doing either.
Although if someone whomps up something in Photoshop, be sure to send me a copy. I could use a laugh.

[To see what Scalzi's reader's came up with click here].

NYT editorial on Moon Coronation

A June 27th editorial in the NYT reports that "News has just leaked of the loony event...". The loony event in question is the Coronation of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon as Messiah in a ceremony at the Dirsken Senate Office Complex.

Actually, John Gorenfeld broke the coronation story in the Gadflyer magazine on June 9. Still, better late than never.

[EDIT: Thad writes:"Okay, further investigation reveals that Gorenfeld's first weblog entry on the Moon coronation was on April 23 -- one month after the event. Which would make the Times a fashionable 65 days late to the party."]

Kinsley's tour de force

Kinsley's first editorial for the LA Times is a triumph. Click to read The Disaster of Failed Policy.

Technical difficulty, please stand by

Due to techinical difficulties, blogging will be slow today. Majikthise will retirm to its usual frenetic pace tonight or tomorrow morning.

Monkey pines

Chan Yiu Wing, 51, accompanies his father's monkey 'Kam Ying' after his father 'Chan Pak' died this week in Hong Kong, June 24, 2004. The fate of Hong Kong's most famous monkey, Kam Ying, now hangs in the balance after his owner of many years died recently. Kam Ying, which means Golden Eagle, shot to prominence when authorities forcibly removed the monkey from his owner in recent years. The owner Chan Pak died this week in hospital and the monkey is said to be very forlorn and has hardly eaten since the old man left for the hospital.

[Via REUTERS.] [For Thad.]

Lockheed Martin/Titan merger self-destructs

BBC NEWS | Business | Defence giants' tie-up unravels

The mega-merger of US defence firms Lockheed Martin and Titan is teetering on the brink of collapse as Titan still faces a US federal bribery probe.

Lockheed Martin had given Titan a deadline of 25 June to satisfy the US Justice Department's investigators and save the $1.6bn (£877m) merger.

Titan said on Thursday that the deadline - the second set by Lockheed Martin - would not be met.

A Lockheed Martin spokesman has said it does not intend to extend the deadline. [...]