Obullshit

Since right-wing mouthpieces act like there's never been criticism of the president on the scale experienced by G.W. Bush by the mainstream media (read: "liberal media," or not them), conservatives can probably now rest assured the Daily Show will live on should Obama be elected.

Should still be plenty of fodder.

I posted about the FISA bill's troubles before, but now the bill — which would grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies for their help with illegal spying by the government — is back and guess who signed up in support? Obama.

Apparently the Democratic apologists are out in force so as to clear any criticism of the gentleman from Illinois from his path to the White House. Pathetic, but sadly not surprising.

Glenn Greenwald skewers Obama, and his apologists, as well as you can. A couple gems include:

There was absolutely no reason to destroy the FISA framework, which is already an extraordinarily pro-Executive instrument that vests vast eavesdropping powers in the President, in order to empower the President to spy on large parts of our international communications with no warrants at all. This was all done by invoking the scary spectre of Terrorism — "you must give up your privacy and constitutional rights to us if you want us to keep you safe" — and it is Obama's willingness to embrace that rancid framework, the defining mindset of the Bush years, that is most deserving of intense criticism here.

And:

What Barack Obama did here was wrong and destructive. He's supporting a bill that is a full-scale assault on our Constitution and an endorsement of the premise that our laws can be broken by the political and corporate elite whenever the scary specter of The Terrorists can be invoked to justify it. What's more, as a Constitutional Law Professor, he knows full well what a radical perversion of our Constitution this bill is, and yet he's supporting it anyway. Anyone who sugarcoats or justifies that is doing a real disservice to their claimed political values and to the truth.

I can't stomach the thought of McCain winning, and want the Republicans out of office as much as anyone, but not at the expense of being able to criticize McCain's opponent. And especially not if it means giving the next president the same unchecked (begging to be abused) power as Bush.

A bad sign of things to come? Probably. He is a politician, folks. Via.

Wal-Mart whoops

Usually watching or reading the news is a surefire way to piss me off, so it's nice when such an amusing story comes along, especially when a heartless corporate monolith is the butt of the joke.

Seems Wal-Mart hired a guy in 1970 to tape its annual meetings, big sales meetings and other doings. This continued until 2006, when the relationship was terminated. What wasn't terminated was the 15,000 tapes made in the meantime (even though Wal-Mart, good cheapasses that they were, suggested videographer Flagler reuse the tapes to save money).

So now the video company's new owners, having turned down Wal-Mart's $500,000 offer for all the material, are ready to sell to anyone. I don't know if they'll ever make $500,000 off the tapes, but turning down the offer definitely makes for a better story. And as Wal-Mart will likely forever be involved in lawsuits, the tapes could prove most valuable — assuming Wal-Mart's perfunctory legal challenge on the tapes fails.

The tapes surfaced, so to speak, via a lawsuit against Wal-Mart in which a kid was injured by an exploding gas can.

The plaintiff's attorney Diane M. Breneman says that when she first laid eyes on the racks of tapes, "I thought, 'How could anyone in the world allow this to exist?'" The videos, she says, deal with "everything anyone would want on Wal-Mart ... They've got 30 years of people winging it."

Ouch. That's gotta sting.

Here's hoping lawyers, as well as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, put this stuff to good use.

Super for Siegels, not so much DC

A federal judge this week ruled the heirs of Jerry Siegel own part of the copyright to Superman, co-created by Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Now, this case mainly involves the first Superman story in Action Comics #1, which Siegel and Shuster sold to DC (for $130!), and the character points and story elements therein. But how much of what DC did with the character since was based out of that story? It could also only pertain to money being owed the Siegels for product only after 1999, when DC's copyright protection would have terminated. But that's a ton of product and money at stake, and product decisions could conceivably have to be OK'd by the Siegels and Shuster estate holders (after 2013).

Comic book writer Warren Ellis is not one for hyperbole, but called the ruling "fucking immense."

There's been numerous cases of comic book creators, or their heirs, challenging publishers over the rights to characters, especially with the boom of comic book-based films. Although the specific cases differ, and most may not be able to overcome the work-for-hire hurdle as was done in the Siegel case, most of these people were royally screwed. Hopefully this will lead to more getting their due.

It is amazing to think about Superman product possibly having to be run through the Siegel and Shuster estates — not unlike Star Wars comics, games, etc. running through Lucas — and further down the road, the Superman copyright being in the public domain. Assuming copyrights aren't extended by then. It's no accident Mickey Mouse isn't already public domain.

I'm no lawyer, but the detailing of the ruling and possible ramifications make for interesting reading. The article at the top breaks it down in non-legalese. More here, with some interesting comments in the forum. Yet more here.

Note: The image at the top is from All Star Superman #8, which came out Wednesday, the same day the ruling was announced. All Star Supes is written by Grant Morrison. Is this more Morrison magic via comics at work?

And the law won?

Well, not yet it didn't. And even if much of his remaining time in office is spent on vacation, Bush has nine months to figure a way around a House bill disallowing immunity for telecom companies who helped the government spy on Americans. But still, the House made a good call, and it apparently puts Bush in a bit of a quandary:

President Bush has repeatedly claimed that there's an urgent national security need for new spying legislation. But he also says he'll veto any surveillance bill that does not grant retroactive immunity to the companies that turned over phone records and access to internet cable fibers to the government.

Bush argues that the participating companies were patriots, and that they would stop complying with lawful court orders in the future if not freed from the lawsuits accusing them of conducting illegal surveillance for Bush.

But it will likely be politically difficult to veto a bill containing new spying powers Bush himself says are vital to American's security, simply because a couple of deep-pocketed corporations are facing lawsuits for violating federal privacy laws.

So a tough decision. Lucky for Bush he's the decider. Via.

Exiting The Wire

Normally a review of a TV show episode might be fodder for my other blog, but this AV Club review of the final episode of The Wire is a good read, with good insights on the fifth season overall too.

Reviewer Scott Tobias takes issue with aspects of the Scott Templeton story, in which a Baltimore Sun reporter fabricates elements of or whole stories. I'd agree that even the biggest toolbox managers at a paper would not just dismiss Metro editor Gus' claims about the made up information, out of fear of embarrassment if nothing else. Tobias sees the portrayal of the two managers of the paper as the thinly-disguised rage of creator David Simon toward his two former bosses at the Sun. Maybe so.

I'd agree that overall though, the Sun story hit the right notes in terms of the corporate-run office environment — the "more with less" pep talk bullshit, morons making the decisions, good people pushed out or canned. I can't speak as to the focus on awards in big city papers, but it wouldn't surprise me, especially as a vehicle for advancement for the senior editors as well as the people actually doing the stories.

In interviews before the fifth season started I saw Simon and other former journalists attest to the fact fabrication occurred (though maybe more so back in the day), and not just the big cases everyone knows about. I'd think this would be easier to pull off at a big paper like the Sun or the Philadelphia Inquirer, where the subjects may be less willing to call and complain about small fabrications, and the machine may be too big to keep track of. Small fabrications would obviously be a lot harder to catch, and thus more realistic than in this season, but the story was consistent with other stories in The Wire in that respect. It might have been overblown for effect, and for the sake of plot, but Hamsterdam, Omar and several other elements of the show could be viewed similarly.

That the Sun storyline caught as much flack as it did in the media, to me, was just because reviewers worked in newspaper and magazine offices. They didn't know shit about street drug dealings or the inner workings of a big city port, so overblown plot elements in those settings got off easier.

McNulty fabricating the homeless killings, at first, actually bothered me a lot more until put in the context of some of the other over-the-top elements in the show. I was flinching along with Bunk when he starts manipulating the body of his first phony victim. Also, I still don't completely buy Freeman being OK to make busts on completely false paperwork. Interesting that as smart as Freeman was set up in the show, Levy (with a little help from Herc, who turns out to maybe be the biggest influence on the season's events while getting very little screen time) quickly figures out the cops' ploy, and would have made all that police work for naught if his own dirt wasn't in play.

Anyway, check the last episode review. I haven't been to the AV Club in a while, but will have to check it more often. Good stuff.

Oh, if wondering about the significance of the last episode's "-30-" title, someone in the comments on the article points out that's what reporters, I assume at the Sun, would stick at the end of their stories when filing them.

Chris Ware posts up

As soon as I saw this cool poster for The Savages I recognized the work of writer/artist Chris Ware who, based on his work and the from what I know of the film, seems a good fit. He talks about it briefly here.

Raaaasl, daaaasl!

Jeff Smith's new project, the self-published RASL, looks like it will be interesting.

The first issue introduces RASL, an art thief using a dimensional-hopping suit to aid him in his heists. The jumps take a toll, however. Not good when RASL discovers he's jumped to the wrong dimension where a gun-toting alien-looking guy's on his trail.

I never read Bone or Smith's Shazam mini from DC, but RASL definitely has a cool sci-fi vibe to it along with some sweet and simple black and white interior art. Promising stuff.

UPDATE: Interview and preview pages here. Also, how many comics about art thieves are out there? Give it a look.

Red light, green light

In his Lying in the Gutters column this week, Rich Johnston includes a Swipe File featuring art from a Spanish graphic novel and the poster for Vantage Point.

The Swipe Files can veer between literal and tongue-in-cheek, and I'd consider this one speculative. The images are very similar, but when I first saw the Vantage Point design (which I like) I felt like I might have seen a similar design before, and it definitely wasn't the graphic novel in question.

It's not so much there is an image within the cutout of a body, but that there's several hard panels within the body, themselves cut off by the outline.

Even if this item remains unresolved, there's always lots of other good rumors, reporting and comics industry shenanigans every week in Lying in the Gutters. Check it out.

UPDATE: Rich conveniently explains the origins and function of the Swipe File in his March 3 LITG.

McCain's pain

The "straight talker" didn't too much like this New York Times article about him, which offers some good reporting on John McCain and his (un)ethical history.

The second graph — the one McCain's people are having a conniption over, despite some serious business in the rest of the article — basically says people in McCain's camp thought he was having an affair during his 2000 run for president. It doesn't say he was, likely because the Times couldn't prove it. But it feels like they were being told by these anonymous McCain camp people that he was having an affair. But the Times couldn't go with that, so we get what was printed.

The gist of the rest of the article is that McCain continually seems to court ethical improprieties while maintaining a stance against the influence of lobbyists and corporate interests, though that stance seems not to be a priority in this campaign.

Hey, it's easier to just say you're a "straight shooter" than come up with an actual issue, especially when you can be called on your shit on the issues.

But anyway, why has he courted ethical problems the way he has? He's a dumbass? Probably has a lot to do with it. He'd still rather get things done in Washington instead of being a man alone, fighting the system? Maybe. He just like helping lobbyist buddies too much to really walk the reform walk? Looks like it.

He may be all about governmental reform now that the Republican bid is pretty much assured, and to take some of the sting out of Obama's campaign, but he wasn't making a righteous, indignant spectacle out of himself concerning the Bush administration/Congress in recent years when he could have, when it would have meant something beyond campaign pap.

Back to the article, near the end the Times circles back to this possible affair, and drip the hammer a little harder, writing:

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

Yeah, great, but the Times didn't have it. The implication’s clear as to how McCain behaved "inappropriately" with this one lobbyist. They attempt to cover themselves by never coming out and saying it, but this feels like an all or nothing situation. You either have it and report it, or you don't, and don't.

The McCain campaign's response to the Times is worthless as expected, especially as it counters facts in the story disputed by no one, which leads to my reaction on the story.

There's plenty of good reporting in there, and they actually could have hit McCain harder I think. How many times did he request the FCC or other bureaucrats to expedite proposals not submitted by his lobbyist buddies? They say reform hasn't been a big deal in his current campaign — point out how (and thus, how hokey and meaningless his campaign has been).

But the inclusion of the "implication" will end up detracting from the rest of the piece. Speculation suggests the Times rushed it to print so they weren't scooped by a The New Republic story on the Times' handling of the investigation, and it feels like that may be the case.

UPDATE: Though the Times denied it, the McCain camp alleged the story came out as is because The New Republic was working on a story on the Times' reporting (delaying?) the McCain story. This was discussed on Charlie Rose Thursday night, with someone from the TNR saying he took the Times' at their word in that the TNR didn't affect their decision on the story. So now I have to go read this TNR piece.

TNR's Noam Scheiber also offered that "The story reads to me like it had originally been much more ambitious, but had its guts ripped out somewhere along the way," to which I'd agree.

UPDATE 2: Go read the TNR piece, it's great stuff. I wonder what it would have looked like before the Times went ahead and ran the McCain story.

Freakin' A

Warren Ellis and artist Paul Duffield launched a free, weekly web comic today called FreakAngels, which looks to be a post-apocalyptic, steampunky tale set in a flooded future London. More info here.

First six-page installment looks pretty good.