Update: Twitter rumours are now that the CBA will be extended for another week to allow further negotiations. New deadline is Friday March 11 at 5pm Eastern time.
March 4, 2011
March 3, 2011
It’s down to the wire for NFL lockout
Mark Craig summarizes the labour situation between the NFL and its players:
A moment incomprehensible to fans of North America’s most popular and profitable sports league is now, finally, upon us.
At a tick past 11 p.m. Thursday, the three-year standoff between billionaire owners and millionaire players could result in the NFL’s first work stoppage since 1987. Barring a new collective bargaining agreement or a temporary extension of the current one, all NFL business except next month’s draft is expected to cease as the owners lock out the players. Meanwhile, all concerns for the 2011 offseason, preseason, regular season and Super Bowl XLVI officially shift to threat level Orange.[. . .]
Owners claim the status quo is a recipe for financial destruction of the league but resist the players’ request to open the books and prove it. Owners possess franchises worth an average of $1.02 billion, charge fans in some cities up to five figures just for the license to buy season tickets, and oversee a thriving empire that drew a record 111 million TV viewers for last month’s Super Bowl.
The two major stumbling blocks since the owners opted out of the current CBA in 2008 are dividing revenue and extending the regular season from 16 to 18 games. The owners get $1 billion off the top before giving the players 59.5 percent of the remaining $8 billion. The owners now want another $1 billion off the top.
Yesterday’s news of the decision in David Doty’s court room may force the owners to negotiate with more urgency, as they were depending on having access to the billions in TV revenue even if no games were played.
Update: Rumour on Twitter is that the players and the owners have agreed to a 24-hour extension of the CBA. Hopefully this time will be used to make progress, not merely postures.
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Happy 25th anniversary to independent Australia
I had been labouring under the impression that Australia had been freed from the colonial yoke in 1931, but I was mistaken:
TWENTY-FIVE years ago today, Australia became independent.
You might think this statement absurd. Surely Australia has been independent for a lot longer than that? Let me provide a lawyer’s answer: yes and no. Yes, Australia as a nation became independent at some unknown date after 1931. By 1931 it had the power to exercise independence but chose not to do so for some time. Arguably, having the capacity to exercise independence is enough to be classified as independent, although the parents of 20-something children who show no inclination to leave home may beg to differ.
The Australian states, however, did not gain their independence from Britain at that time. Bizarrely, they remained colonial dependencies of the British crown, despite being constituent parts of an independent nation. This meant state governors were appointed by the Queen on the advice of British ministers and that it was the Queen of the United Kingdom (not the Queen of Australia) who gave royal assent to state bills. When an Australian governor-general once complained to the British government about this anomaly, the response of British diplomats was that it was better to “let sleeping anomalies lie”.
H/T to Roger Henry for the link.
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March 2, 2011
NFL owners lose key legal battle with players’ union
The looming lockout of NFL players may not be looming quite as large, due to a legal outcome in a Minnesota District Court:
In his ruling, Doty said the NFL breached its union contract by accepting below-established market contracts for their TV deals in 2011 that not only produced less revenue to share with players, but also protected the owners by guaranteeing the payment whether a lockout potentially canceled the season entirely.
In his 28-page opinion, Doty said the record showed the NFL entered contract negotiations with the TV networks with the expressed idea that, if there was no 2011 season, the owners would still get paid while the players would not, creating an imbalance used to “advance its own interests and harm the players.”
Doty overruled Burbank’s decision and ordered another hearing to determine if the owners are liable to paying damages to the NFLPA, which, given the current cost split, would give the players half of the $150 million each team would receive from the TV deal, or to block the owners from collecting any of the TV money without a product on the field. The NFLPA is asking Doty to issue an injunction to put the TV money in escrow until a new labor agreement is worked out.
This money might well have been a useful war-chest for the NFL owners to sit out a long work stoppage (whether a strike by the players’ union or a lockout), but thanks to the decision by David Doty they won’t have that money available until after some agreement is reached.
February 26, 2011
Arrested, beaten, tortured, and charged with treason . . . for watching viral videos
No matter how you say it, Zimbabwe is seriously screwed up:
Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe’s law school, was showing internet videos about the tumult sweeping across North Africa to students and activists last Saturday, when state security agents burst into his office.
The agents seized laptop computers, DVD discs and a video projector before arresting 45 people, including Gwisai, who runs the Labor Law Center at the University of Zimbabwe. All 45 have been charged with treason — which can carry a sentence of life imprisonment or death — for, in essence, watching viral videos.
Gwisai and five others were brutally tortured during the next 72 hours, he testified Thursday at an initial hearing.
There were “assaults all over the detainees’ bodies, under their feet and buttocks through the use of broomsticks, metal rods, pieces of timber, open palms and some blunt objects,” The Zimbabwean newspaper reports, in an account of the court proceedings.
Under dictator Robert Mugabe, watching internet videos in Zimbabwe can be a capital offense, it would seem. The videos included BBC World News and Al-Jazeera clips, which Gwisai had downloaded from Kubatana, a web-based activist group in Zimbabwe.
February 25, 2011
What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away
Ever read the fine print of a contract to discover that the actual term of the contract contradicts the claims? Britain’s Office of Fair Trading is looking into this practice:
Companies whose small print changes the basis of consumer deals will face investigation by consumer regulator the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), it has said. According to the OFT, one in five consumers had experienced a contract problem in the last year.
The OFT has set out the criteria it will use to judge whether or not consumer contracts are unfair and should be investigated by it. The crucial factor determining the fairness of contracts will be the consumer’s understanding of what the contract means.
If the small print of terms and conditions alters the contract from what a consumer would understand it to mean from other claims made by a company, that is likely to be harmful and could be unlawful, the OFT said in a paper on unfair contracts.
“Our approach to identifying the potential for harm from a particular contract, before considering whether there is any breach of law, is to assess whether a contract term changes the deal from what consumers understand it to be,” said the OFT’s paper.
“One way in which a contract term can change the deal is where there are surprises buried in the small print,” it said. “Our research found that for 80 per cent of those who had experienced a problem with a consumer contract, the problem came as a surprise.”
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February 24, 2011
Wisconsin’s proposed labour laws not uncommon
To read all the huffing and puffing, you might get the impression that if the proposed labour law changes be enacted, Wisconsin public workers would be uniquely disenfranchised. As Josh Barro points out, however, that’s not very accurate:
The truth, as laid out in a GAO report from 2002, is that there are already 12 states with no public employee collective bargaining law at all. In these states, state workers have no right to collective bargaining; local employees have collective bargaining only if local elected officials choose to grant it. (And in a few states, notably Virginia and North Carolina, state law forbids localities to allow collective bargaining.) Another 12 states grant collective bargaining rights only to certain classes of employees, such as only state workers or only teachers. Only 26 states have a collective bargaining law covering nearly all public workers.
So that means that the model from which Walker proposes to break, much to the horror and outrage of public worker unions and their backers, is a model only actually followed by 25 other states. And indeed, by retaining limited bargaining rights for most workers (and fuller rights for a few classes, including police and firefighters) Walker is going less far in restricting public-sector collective bargaining than a substantial number of states already do.
H/T to Walter Olson for the link.
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February 23, 2011
Ontario actually considers liberalizing (some) liquor laws
It’s a rare, rare thing for the Ontario government to consider any kind of liberalization, but especially one involving booze:
Could Ontario be saying good-bye to beer tents? The province’s government announced on Wednesday that it would be asking for public input on a series of possible liquor law changes.
Some of the changes considered would include relaxing the liquor laws at events and festivals, meaning drinkers would no longer be sequestered in beer tents, but could wander with a drink in hand.
It would also allow one-off event permit holders — weddings, parties and fundraisers, for example — to serve booze until 2 a.m., bringing their serving hours into line with bars. Current laws require special occasion permit holders stop serving alcohol at 1 a.m., with the exception of New Year’s Eve, when it’s 2 a.m.
Don’t hold your breath — this is still bluestockinged Ontario — but just the idea that they’re willing to discuss changes is heartening.
February 22, 2011
Former UK Home Secretary shocked to discover the internet awash in porn
The amusing thing is that she lead a major effort to suppress “extreme porn” while in office:
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has professed herself “shocked” at the availability of porn on the internet after investigating the issue for a radio documentary.
Which raises the question of what exactly she thought she was cracking down on during her time in charge of law and order.
[. . .]
Smith told the Radio Times that during her research for the documentary, she had been “shocked” to discover how much hard-core material was washing around the net. And so much of it for absolutely no cost at all.
She admitted that after the pay-per-view smut scandal had broken, her son had said: “Dad, haven’t you heard of the internet?” Smith was also shocked by a visit to the Erotica exhibition, where confronted by the likes of the Monkey Spanker and artisan-built bondage furniture, “I felt completely innocent.
That Smith was ignorant of the amount of porn available on the internet seems incredible, given that during her time in government Labour cracked down hard on “extreme porn”. Smith’s Home Office also sought to clamp down on extremism on the internet, and to track all the UK’s browsing habits via a vast uber-database, the Interception Modernisation Programme. Surely some her staff might have noticed there’s lots of smut out there as well?
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February 19, 2011
QotD: “Would Shakespeare Have Survived Today’s Copyright Laws?”
Turow, along with Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken and Authors Guild board member (and apparent Shakespeare expert) James Shapiro, have an op-ed piece in the NY Times that a whole bunch of you have been sending in, in which they assert that Shakespeare might not have been able to survive the web era, because of all of this “piracy.” The argument is quite a bit stretched, but see if you can follow me: because playwrights had physical scarcity, in that they could keep people out of the playhouses unless people paid to enter, it allowed playwrighting to flourish. They call this a “cultural paywall.” Then there’s some sort of bizarre leap about how copyright is really the same thing. It’s not. And, then it leaps to something about how stricter copyright laws are, ipso facto, better. The evidence for this? Shhhh, don’t bother the Authors Guild bosses with logic! And, of course, the inevitable punchline is the idea that Shakespeare wouldn’t have survived in this online era with all this piracy and stuff.
Of course, it’s difficult to think of a worse example than Shakespeare for this argument (and sort of bizarre that Shapiro would sign off on an op-ed that so thoroughly misrepresents Shakespeare). Of course, as most of you know, an awful lot of Shakespeare’s works are copies (sometimes directly) of earlier works. Sometimes they’re derivative, but other times, he copied wholesale from others. So the bigger question might not be if Shakespeare could survive all the file sharing going on today, but whether or not he’d be able to produce any of his classic works, since they’d all be tied up in lawsuits over copyright infringement.
Mike Masnick, “Would Shakespeare Have Survived Today’s Copyright Laws?”, Techdirt, 2011-02-18
February 18, 2011
Red light cameras
Some frightening footage of traffic accidents from a few years ago, posted to one of the mailing lists I’m moderately active on.
Note that most of these accidents would not be prevented by red light cameras: you can’t stop inattentive idiots from being idiots just by taking photos of the license plate on the vehicle. However, several of the accidents could have been avoided if the non-infringing drivers were a bit more attentive. Dennis Lippert responded to this video and the pro-red light camera fans thusly:
As usual, the majority of the crashes on the video probably would have been avoided if the “innocent” driver had been paying attention to his surroundings. Proving, again, that driving is not to be taken lightly… not to be done while texting… or talking… or doing anything else, really…
I’m all for this sort of camera… just a video overview of the intersection… which can be used to let law enforcement see what happened after a crash.
I’m staunchly against red-light-cameras as they’ve been implemented as revenue devices…. from which some 75% of the revenue comes from folks who innocently slipped thru a red-light a second or so after it changed… and before the cross traffic started into the intersection.
It has been proven that lengthening the yellow light by a second
decreases the incidence of red-light-running by something like 50%
per second of extra time…Red-light-cameras will not stop the folks who simply aren’t paying attention at all… or who are wantonly disobeying. All they do is generate revenue from harmless slight-offenders.
Since they generally sent most of the profits to the company that
installs the system, rather than to the municipality, this makes
perfect sense. More tickets = more money. So the systems are designed for maximum revenue… not optimal safety.
As Dennis points out, red light cameras are like speed traps in that they’re revenue generators first and only public safety enforcement a distant second.
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February 14, 2011
The plod may not get around to protecting you, but you’ll be charged if the burglar is hurt while stealing your stuff
Ah, England. Land of green hills, picturesque village pubs, and absolutely daft law enforcement priorities:
A spate of thefts in several towns and villages in Kent and Surrey over the past few months led to many householders taking action to protect their property.
Some have been warned by police that using wire mesh to reinforce shed windows was ”dangerous’’ and could lead to criminals claiming compensation if they ”hurt themselves’’.
Thieves target sheds to steal lawnmowers, power drills, bicycles and a variety of DIY tools.
Thomas Cooper, of Tatsfield, Surrey, used wire mesh to protect three of his garden sheds after two break-ins over the past four years. He decided to take action after reports of a rise in garden raids in the area.
Mr Cooper said: “I reinforced my shed windows with wire mesh, but was told by the police I had to be very careful because thieves can actually sue you if they get hurt.
”It is ridiculous that the law protects them even though they are breaking it.”
It’s getting to the stage that I’m expecting to hear the police in some English town declare that locking your doors and windows will no longer be allowed because of the risks to burglars. That’s only a tiny bit more ridiculous than what they’re already saying.
H/T to Damian Penny for the link.
Update, 2 March: Eugene Volokh does a bit more digging on the original story:
Some readers expressed doubt about the accuracy of the news stories on which I relied, so I e-mailed the Surrey Police Department for more information. Here’s what I learned.
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February 12, 2011
Just an ordinary traffic accident, until the sword fight breaks out
By way of David Stamper’s Facebook update, a sad story of how ordinary attempted vehicular homicide turned into . . . a sword fight:
A hit-and-run collision Wednesday followed by a brief sword fight led police to arrest a 25-year-old man for assault.
About 4 p.m., the Sunnyside man spotted a 27-year-old rival and intentionally rammed his 1981 Ford F-150 pickup into the man’s vehicle as he backed out of his driveway in the 100 block of South 11th Street, said Charlotte Hinderlider, Sunnyside police spokeswoman.
The alleged assailant brandished a sword, swinging it at his enemy, who had climbed out of his own vehicle, Hinderlider said.
The suspect fell, giving the victim time to pick up a machete that happened to be laying in his yard and defend himself from his alleged attacker, Hinderlider said. Meanwhile, the victim’s mother, still in the vehicle, dialed 9-1-1 from her cellular phone.
You can’t really call yourself a swordsman if your intended victim can pick up a machete that “happened to be laying in his yard” and successfully defend himself. The report doesn’t spell out the actual weapon used, but it doesn’t seem to show that the attacker actually knew what the hell to do with whatever kind of sword he was using.
For those of you following along at home: you wound with the edge, but you kill with the point. The wounds may be painful, nasty, and gruesome, but if you’re trying to kill someone, the sword is a thrusting weapon, not a slashing weapon.
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February 11, 2011
Human hacking: the overconfident CEO
An interesting story at PC World talks about the methods used to get inside information on individuals and companies:
“He was the guy who was never going to fall for this,” said Hadnagy. “He was thinking someone would probably call and ask for his password and he was ready for an approach like that.”
After some information gathering, Hadnagy found the locations of servers, IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, mail servers, employee names and titles, and much more. But the real prize of knowledge came when Hadnagy managed to learn the CEO had a family member that had battled cancer, and lived. As a result, he was interested and involved in cancer fundraising and research. Through Facebook, he was also able to get other personal details about the CEO, such as his favorite restaurant and sports team.
Armed with the information, he was ready to strike. He called the CEO and posed as a fundraiser from a cancer charity the CEO had dealt with in the past. He informed him they were offering a prize drawing in exchange for donations — and the prizes included tickets to a game played by his favorite sports team, as well as gift certificates to several restaurants, including his favorite spot.
The CEO bit, and agreed to let Hadnagy send him a PDF with more information on the fund drive. He even managed to get the CEO to tell him which version of Adobe reader he was running because, he told the CEO “I want to make sure I’m sending you a PDF you can read.” Soon after he sent the PDF, the CEO opened it, installing a shell that allowed Hadnagy to access his machine.
When Hadnagy and his partner reported back to the company about their success with breaching the CEO’s computer, the CEO was understandably angry, said Hadnagy.
“He felt it was unfair we used something like that, but this is how the world works,” said Hadnagy. “A malicious hacker would not think twice about using that information against him.”
Takeaway 1: No information, regardless of its personal or emotional nature, is off limits for a social engineer seeking to do harm
Takeaway 2: It is often the person who thinks he is most secure who poses the biggest vulnerability. One security consultant recently told CSO that executives are the easiest social engineering targets.
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