They pretty much deserved this one: The MPAA is being sued because they eliminated screener copies of DVDs from being sent to members. I kind of think they won't win this since the MPAA is a private organization, but the monopoly argument may have some merit.

Fourteen small movie houses are suing the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) in a bid to to try to halt outgoing MPAA boss Jack Valenti's ban on sending 'screener' video copies to awards groups.

It will "chill the financing of independent films" by limiting the awards they can receive, say the plaintiffs, who include Talking Wall Pictures, Sandcastle 5 Productions and Salty Features.

They want at least $25 million in damages and a finding that the MPAA was conspiring to monopolize the film industry, restricting trade through unlawful and unreasonable agreements with its governing members, says Larry Neumeister's Associated Press report here.

I'm in Indianapolis this entire week, so my internet access is pretty limited. I wouldn't expect many updates. If you have something you think would be of interest here, feel free to post it in the comments here, or email it to me and I'll post it along with any comments you may have.

This isn't much of a suprise, but another kid got suspended for defending himself against a bully. There was apparently a history of this kid being pushed and punched by the bully, and when he finally fought back - the school treated him just like his attacker.

Lileks tears into Salam Pax - and with good reason.

Salam: Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.

Lileks: Hey, Salam? Fuck you. ... But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him. ... Let me explain this in simple terms, habibi. You would have spent the rest of your life under Ba’athist rule. ... the Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you. People who would rather have lived their life in low-level fear than change your situation.

This is actually a very American-type idea coming from Pax. If something can't be fixed quickly and with relative little effort - its probably not worth taking the time to fix. This is precisely the reason that Social Security hasn't been fixed - nobody is willing to get dirty in the short-term for the long-term good. If our politicians (and media) would look past the next re-election cycle and take a longer view of the world, alot more good things could be accomplished.

Stop picking the easiest task from the bin and instead look at the most important.

My little group of websites sure has become a bandwidth hog over the past month. Up thru August of this year, I had never used more than about 18gig a month in transfer. Then last month I burned thru about 25gig and November is on pace to be over 40gig.

All the new traffic is nice, but this could start getting expensive. Partly because of that, and partly just because its been so long, I'm going to be working on a site redesign over the Thanksgiving holiday - I'm on vacation all week long in Indianapolis.

A principal in Ohio has recommended a 7th grader for expulsion because he drew some stick-figure death cartoons. Although two of the figures are labeled with the names of teachers at the school, officials say they don't know whether the 12-year-old meant to harm anyone. They said that under the district's zero-tolerance policy, it really doesn't matter. The policy covers anything that reflects violent images or violent statements.

Well, that certainly seems reasonable. Always err on the side of draconian punishments I say.

Whats behind the anti-Bush folks in Britian? Not much according to this Spiked article.

Some will argue that the anti-Bush demos show the rise of a new anti-war opposition, particularly among younger people no longer prepared to put up with the antics of American presidents. In truth, the peculiar anti-Bush sentiment shows the opposite - a depoliticised lashing out, rather than a progressive movement for change. People have marched against American presidents in the past, most notably around the Vietnam War - but today's protests against Bush are something very different.

The outbreak of Bush-bashing reveals more about those doing the bashing than it does about Bush. President Bush has become something of a magnet for a widespread sense of powerlessness and disconnection, with commentators, protesters and others projecting a sense of isolation on to the man who most clearly symbolises power in today's world.

The Platinum Edition Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD got released today.

More embarrasingly silly statements from the Radical Left (this time from the Mayor of London):

Mr Livingstone recalled a visit at Easter to California, where he was denounced for an attack he had made on what he called "the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years". He said: "Some US journalist came up to me and said: 'How can you say this about President Bush?' Well, I think what I said then was quite mild. I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction."

Mr Livingstone, who is holding a "peace party" for anti-war groups in City Hall tomorrow, added: "I don't formally recognise George Bush because he was not officially elected. So we are organising an alternative reception for everybody who is not George Bush."

How the heck do you write an entire news article about how athletes are more likely to be charged with sexual assault and less likely to be convicted and never once mention the possibility that they are 'targets' for this charge by some women. It probably doesn't explain away all of the differences in conviction rates here, but to not even mention that the charges could be motivated by the deep pockets of athletes is a glaring error.

A DOD memo details links between Iraq and al Qaeda going back to 1992. This'll throw a wrench into all those 'Bush Lied' folks. Though, they'll surely just say there's plenty more that he lied about besides this.

UPDATE: Here's an alternate link on this story since the Weekly Standard is down.

Just because you're on a liquid diet, doesn't mean you have to miss out on Thanksgiving this year. Today, Jones Soda has launched their new seasonal flavor, Turkey & Gravy. I've heard that only Michigan and Washington are going to be the test markets for this, so who out there is going to be the first ones to try this stuff?

Apparently because they've run out of stupid reasons to suspend kids for in-school behavior - school administrators are now going after kids who keep weblogs. Note, these aren't cases where a kid was using school computers or school time to post to his weblog - these were cases where somebody either 'snitched' or an administrator started Googling students names.

Wesley Juhl received suspension and had to have a parent/teacher conference because of his blog: "The dean told me that what I'd written wasn't school appropriate," said Juhl, who was Valley's homecoming king this year and also was president of its drama club. "He said it wasn't appropriate for a journal. I just feel like I've been violated, like they've punished me for expressing my personal opinion."

Angie Scaduto was simply harassed by school administrators: Juhl wasn't the only Valley student who landed in hot water because of comments recorded in a personal online journal. His friend, Valley senior Angie Scaduto, was called to the dean's office at the same time Juhl was. She was questioned about one of her journal entries, which began: "I almost killed everyone today." The entry went on to explain all the things that had gone wrong that day, she said, and wasn't a threat against anyone. She also was asked about things she'd written about her mother and the fact that she'd said she'd taken cold medicine during lunch one day at school. "I kept asking, `What does this have to do with school?' " Scaduto said. "They never answered my question. I was completely shocked about it. They were my personal private thoughts and I was getting picked on for them."

This is just great. "Relatives of victims of Europe's bloodiest post-war massacre are to sue the United Nations and the Dutch government for £370 million."

Overlawyered sums this situation up perfectly: Since no adequate recovery is to be had from Bosnian Serb war criminals for the Srebrenica massacre, reparations lawyers now wish to extract money from the well-meaning neutrals and noncombatants whose bungling efforts failed to prevent it. That should provide a good incentive for anyone to volunteer as peacekeepers in future, no?

Britney Spears needs to stop lying. When Sawyer asks the freedom-loving pop star if she can think of an instance when she's gone further than she wished she had, Spears said "No. I don't think so."

Well, thats not what she told Newsweek. only a few weeks ago. But then it gets worse:

But when she looked at a photo from a recent Esquire magazine photo shoot — where she took everything off but her pearls, underwear and shoes — her reaction changed a little. "Now, those are a little much," Spears said. The star explained that she allowed the pictures to be taken as she was heading out the door, following a shoot. .

First, thanks for confirming your lie in the very next paragraph - very efficient. Secondly, why'd you have to go lie to us again. In the Newsweek interview, she said she was all hopped up on Red Bull when she did that Esquire layout - now she says she was heading out the door. Heading out the door - wearing nothing but pearls, underwear and shoes? Please.

I'm used to being lied to by politicians, but not pop princesses.

I'd like to know what the hell the Democrats think they are doing - they've got their work cut out for them to beat Bush in 04, but the news so far this week isn't going to help them.

George Soros pledges $15m to defeat Bush. The donation(s) are no big deal - its what Soros says thats the problem. Calling the defeat of Bush "a matter of life and death" and once again trotting out the Bush = Hitler comparisons: When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans," he said in yesterday's interview. "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me." is just too much.

Al Gore turning back into The Unabomber and talking up the evils of television isn't helping them win an election. Its drawing attention away from the actual candidates and remind folks just how weird some of Gore's ideas are.

Now Drudge is saying this: Controversialist Gore Vidal To Suggest In Interview: Bush and Ashcroft would be 'hanged' by Founding Fathers; they are 'despots'....

If this is the Democrats idea of how to help their party win the 04 election - they will get trounced. All these over-the-top comparisons and the not-so-occasional mention of death when talking about the Republicans are simply marginalizing the Dems from the vast majority of Americans. As much as I want to see the Dems lose elections, I'm still interested in them putting up a good fight - because without them the Republicans continue to stray further and further from the center-right.

Road rage, workplace rage, trick-or-treat rage? A dad who was out trick-or-treating with his 5 year old son apparently got enraged when someone didn't give his kid any candy - so he thru a pumpkin thru her window and smashed a bird feeder on her front lawn.

He wasn't entirely unpleasant though - before doing all this, he gave the woman his name and address and told her to call the police.

So our daughter comes home begging for us to purchase Speed Stacks. For only $17.00 we get 12 plastic cups - and with lots of practice she could be on her way to becomming the new cup stacking champion. That's right, folks, this is some sort of new sport (notice the sweatbands they need to wear because it's so strenuous).

I'd also like to note that her P.E. class is devoting 2 solid weeks of this activity....what ever happened to physical activity? And then we wonder why today's kids are so fat?

The first screenshots from the Paris Hilton Sex Tape have been released - Fleshbot has 3 of them (but their site is super sloooow currently). I've also uploaded them to File Pile, so if you have an account - go check them out. All three photos are of Paris in various stages of giving a blow job.

Nick Denton (owner of Fleshbot) has some serious balls for posting these pix on the 1st day of Fleshbot's existance. I can only assume there is already a cease and desist order being delivered to him by the Hilton lawyers.

UPDATE: The link to download the video has been posted in the comments - its #2.

UPDATE #2 GetSwank.com is probably the place to go to find out all the lastest Paris Hilton sex tape stuff. They've had more updates over the past couple of days including news or at least 10 more Paris tapes.

Well, it doesn't appear that the Harvey Milk School in NYC (the 'Gay' highschool) is off to a very good start. 7% of school enrollment have been arrested in last 2 months: Five transgender students were busted Thursday for posing as West Village hookers and ripping off would-be johns by flashing phony police badges and demanding cash. Last month, three students were arrested after a melee that ended in a stabbing.

I'm no fan of the draft, and would very much dislike its reinstatement, but Oliver's argument against it isn't very convincing.

If the cause is just, if the threat is real then I believe that most Americans would sign up in droves to defend themselves and their loved ones. I've always believed that if you have to draft people into a war, you should take a good look at the war in question and wonder why nobody is going.

That sounds great, but it flies in the face of history. The single greatest threat to the world in the last 100 years was Hitler & Japan in World War II. If ever there was a just cause and a real threat - that was quite obviously it. Yet, Americans didn't sign up for the war in droves - at least not droves large enough to mass the force necessary to win the war. We had to have a draft people to fill out the armed forces - over 11 million people (only 6 million volunteered) .

It'd be nice to think that we could fill an army of the required size based solely on volunteers whenever needed, but it just isn't going to happen. And the fact that it doesn't happen is not necessarily a reflection on the legitimacy of any particular war. People don't sign up for the armed services for a whole host of reasons - not wanting to die (regardless of the cause), religious objections, family or career issues.

Martha Burk is still beating the dead horse that is The Masters & Augusta National. Her protest fizzled out last year when more reporters than protesters showed up, and now she's in court fighting the City of Augusta law that governs demonstrations. Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, was in court and said a favorable ruling could make it "somewhat more likely" her group would protest at next year's tournament.

I predict that regardless of the outcome of this court case, any protest staged will be even smaller than last years.

Who's holding out on me? The Paris Hilton sex tape has been confirmed as legit for over 24 hours now and I still haven't had it emailed to me or seen it on the web. My weekend will not be complete until I get a copy.

Is anybody noticing the site being slower to load now that its on the new server? Or just had the site timeout as it was trying to load?

David Blaine's next stunt will be to survive 44 days without publicity. Ha! We all know that isn't going to happen. He's actually planning on diving into a river from 'hundreds' of meters up. And we also get a bit too much information: Blaine also told how he broke a ban on sex after his starvation stunt. Doctors had warned him the exertion could kill him because of his weak state. But he defied their demands with his girlfriend, model Manon von Gerkan. Because his heart was still attached to a monitor, doctors and nurses rushed into the room when his pulse started racing, thinking he was having a seizure.

We bought the Student/Teacher edition of Microsoft Office this past weekend - its the first time I've had a legal copy of a Microsoft product (other than Money) since the mid-1990's. I feel so wholesome now. We probably wouldn't have bought it otherwise - but it came with an HP PhotoSmart 7350 printer for free.

What is Howard Dean thinking? Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."

Does he really mean to tell people to ignore 4 huge issues of the day? Affirmative Action, the Right to Bear Arms, Separation of Church and State, and Civil Rights - I'm just supposed to ignore those issues? Please!

Those issues will stop being important to conservative southerners about the same time that they stop being important to liberal yankees - never.

The database is all straightened out, comments work on the new entries (I've disabled all the old threads), and the updates have started flowing once again. Thanks for sticking around.

A straight-A student in a Houston high school has been suspended for 7 days, stripped of her position on the student council and honor society for bringing a pencil sharpener to school that violated the districts zero tolerance policy. At least her parents are fighting back:

Her parents have said they didn't object to the district banning the sharpener -- typically used in schools in South Korea -- but they said their daughter was not treated fairly and the punishment was too severe. They have filed suit in federal court, saying she was not given due process. In the Houston school district, meanwhile, officials have expelled a Sam Houston High School student accused of beating a teacher. His family will be given due process, meaning they can appeal the charge, because it is required by state law for serious cases.

A 16-year-old girl got suspended for 3 days for wearing a 'safer sex' Halloween costume to school - and for having an "insolent attitude". Getting suspended for three days because of your Halloween costume would make just about anyone insolent. [Thanks to Derek for the link].