Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Monday, September 17, 2007

These two still have a great vibe Together

Free The Duck!


Now we know why the Duck was imprisoned and why college students were sporting tee shirts with "Free The Duck" emblazoned over a pic of the duck behind bars. Hi-Fuckin-Larious.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

DUCK UPDATE

I'm back from the game. Its 3 am and I am spent. Ducks thumped Fresno State 52 - 21 (That last touch down of theirs was scored in the last few seconds of the game after ALL of our starting players had been pulled out.) I'll tell ya about it when I wake up.

The Duck mascot has apparently commited some "crime" and was not allowed to participate in the activities yesterday. He did mysteriously appear on the jumbo-tron for a few minutes. I will investigate and report on these fowl doings.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Goin' to the Game

GO DUCKS !!!


Most schools go with the more terrifying animals for their mascots. We've heard many people deride the Oregon colleges for having such silly mascots as a duck and beaver. Personally, I like a university that has a self deprecating sense of humor, and can still kick the living shit out of a team like Michigan.

By Ernest Miller

An interesting story about a Disney character's use as a university mascot (Donald endures in hearts of Duck fans). It was a simpler time:

The university has had a web-footed mascot since at least the 1920s, when a live duck named Puddles surfaced at football and basketball games. A duck emblem was in use by 1933, and by 1936 it was starting to look more like Donald, catching the attention of Disney officials.

In 1947, Oregon Athletic Director Leo Harris shook hands with Walt Disney himself on an agreement to allow Oregon to use Donald as the mascot. The deal was put in writing in 1974 in a licensing agreement giving the university limited use of Donald at athletic venues.

Wow. A good-natured handshake agreement for almost thirty years.

Of course, such things could not be allowed to continue:

In 1991, the agreement was expanded to allow wider use of the likeness on sweatshirts, glassware and other merchandise.

The frenzied "charging duck" pumping his fists inside a large, eight-sided letter 'O' was a ubiquitous campus logo for years. It was eventually replaced as the UO marketing machine grew and felt confined by Disney's restrictive contract, which forbids the school from selling items with the Donald Duck logo beyond the Oregon border.

Although Donald is much beloved by Oregon fans, a stylized "O" will have to do for out-of-staters.

Ah well.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

So you got ripped-off by a huge corporation?


Gee, what a surprise that one of those benevolent entities would do something like that! Okay. Seriously. People are steamin' mad at Apple Computers for overcharging them for their new iphones and then subsequently dropping the price. Overcharging?What? You mean you had to pay a premium for being the first kid on your block to own the new Cabbage Patch doll? That's how these things work folks. Basic 101 business classes tell you that much. A new product comes out and costs a little more at first. As more units sell, the price drops and less wealthy consumers can afford it. Later on even poor people can afford one. Finally the market is so saturated with the WB6PD that the price goes low enough for all the hillbillies to have one in every room of the trailer.

Look. If you insist on being ahead of the bell curve by purchasing the latest, greatest, whiz-bang 6000 plus deluxe, the nano-second it comes out, you are going to pay more for the privilege of being a yuppie puke. I noticed a lot of television personalities whining about the supposed scam, including the normally thoughtful and wise Keith Olbermann. How much do you guys make in salary? You're bitching about a couple of hundred bucks. If I had your wealth I'd be spending that much on tips after lunch, you selfish jerks.

Now I've said my piece and will let you go. I'm sure you need to get in line for the next Star Wars movie. They haven't produced one yet, but hey, you'll be the first geek in line when they do. Be sure to bring your heel-less Skechers, your designer water bottle, your iphone, your ipod, your wii, and your crack-berry. Its gonna be a long wait to be first.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Judge Voids F.B.I. Tool Granted by Patriot Act

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: September 7, 2007
A federal judge yesterday struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use informal secret demands called national security letters to compel companies to provide customer records.

The law allowed the F.B.I. not only to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over the records without court authorization, but also to forbid the companies to tell the customers or anyone else what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited.

The judge, Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the measure violated the First Amendment and the separation of powers guarantee.

Judge Marrero said he feared that the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the judiciary’s role that would be “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”

According to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general in March, the F.B.I. issued about 143,000 requests through national security letters from 2003 to 2005. The report found that the bureau had often used the letters improperly and sometimes illegally.

Yesterday’s decision was a sequel to rulings by Judge Marrero in 2004 and a federal judge in Connecticut in 2005, both of which enjoined an earlier version of the law. Congress responded last year by amending the law in reauthorizing it.

The earlier version of the measure barred all recipients of the letters from disclosing them. The amended law changed the ban slightly, now requiring the F.B.I. to certify in each case that disclosure might harm national security, criminal investigations, diplomacy or people’s safety.

The law authorized courts to review those assertions, but under extremely deferential standards. In some cases, judges were required to treat F.B.I. statements “as conclusive unless the court finds that the certification was made in bad faith.”

In yesterday’s decision, Judge Marrero said that the revisions to the law did not go far enough in addressing the flaws identified in the earlier decisions and that in fact they created additional constitutional problems.

Recipients of the letters, he wrote, remain “effectively barred from engaging in any discussion regarding their experiences and opinions related to the government’s use” of the letters. Indeed, the very identity of the Internet service provider that brought this case remains secret.

The judge said the F.B.I. might be entitled to prohibit disclosures for a limited time but afterward “must bear the burden of going to court to suppress the speech.” Putting that burden on recipients of the letters, he said, violates the First Amendment.

The decision found that the secrecy requirement was so intertwined with the rest of the provision concerning national security letters that the entire provision was unconstitutional.

Judge Marrero used his strongest language and evocative historical analogies in criticizing the aspect of the new law that imposed restrictions on the courts’ ability to review the F.B.I.’s determinations.

“When the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of privacy,” Judge Marrero wrote, pointing to discredited Supreme Court decisions endorsing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and racially segregated railroad cars in the 19th century.

“The only thing left of the judiciary’s function for those Americans in that experience,” he wrote, “was a symbolic act: to sing a requiem and lower the flag on the Bill of Rights.”

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Internet company, said Judge Marrero had confirmed a bedrock principle.

“A statute that allows the F.B.I. to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional,” said Jameel Jaffer, an A.C.L.U. lawyer.

Judge Marrero delayed enforcing his decision pending an appeal by the government. Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, said the government had not decided whether to file one.

Saturday, September 1, 2007