Political Randomness

[Defiant]

Glenn Beck, of all people, writes something worth reading

(Not that I don't have issues with Facebook, but...)

[Pyperkub]

We should call them CJWs - conservative justice warriors

[RunningMn9]

An interesting read. I had a similar experience back in 2008 when I voted in the primary for Obama as a spiteful act to deny Hillary her crown. That act seemed to temporarily disconnect me from the mothership, and I saw the conservative propaganda machine for what it is (i.e. exactly the same as the liberal propaganda machine that I had been raised to hate).

I could never get back on board, and in the meantime my social liberalism took center stage over my fiscal conservatism (since neither party seems to understand what that means anymore).

[gilraen]

Glenn Beck, of all people, writes something worth reading

(Not that I don't have issues with Facebook, but...)

Very solid piece - I didn't think Glenn Beck was capable of expressing his opinion in any way that didn't eventually disintegrate into blabbering hysterics I guess I agree with him, I just haven't been following this "Facebook suppresses conservatives" news story at all...since I really don't care (I don't use Facebook, and I also think that measuring importance of current events by what's "trending" on social media is like calling TMZ a newscast)

[Zarathud]

I could never get back on board, and in the meantime my social liberalism took center stage over my fiscal conservatism (since neither party seems to understand what that means anymore).

The funny thing is that the Bernie Bros hate Hillary on economic issues because she's a pro-business fiscal conservative Democrat. She is likely the closest candidate you could find in 2916.

But that may not make you feel better....

[El Guapo]

I could never get back on board, and in the meantime my social liberalism took center stage over my fiscal conservatism (since neither party seems to understand what that means anymore).

The funny thing is that the Bernie Bros hate Hillary on economic issues because she's a pro-business fiscal conservative Democrat. She is likely the closest candidate you could find in 2916.

But that may not make you feel better....

Yeah, by 2916 the pro-business fiscal conservative democrat faction will be all but wiped out by the Techno-Utopian Cyber-Consciousness Party.

[RunningMn9]

I don't equate "pro business" with "fiscal conservative", and I don't believe she's a fiscal conservative because I don't believe that she believes in anything or has any principles. She believes whatever she thinks she needs to believe in order to get elected.

[Zarathud]

Clintons have always been insufficiently liberal on economic policy to satisfy the base. The difference is that Bill is more charismatic and didn't represent Wall Street for a time. Plus, he was a scrappy hip governor who promised Democrats their return to power in exchange for moderating social/economic platforms.

[YellowKing]

I don't equate "pro business" with "fiscal conservative", and I don't believe she's a fiscal conservative because I don't believe that she believes in anything or has any principles. She believes whatever she thinks she needs to believe in order to get elected.

I believe the technical term is "power-hungry ice harpy."

[LordMortis]

I don't equate "pro business" with "fiscal conservative",

Ditto. That's sort of the biggest whammie that the party pulled on its voters and they've been basking in it for my entire lifetime. Between that and their change in stance from you be you and I'll be me to the Christian nation, there was nothing left to conserve by the time I was voter. I spent a few years waiting to support a party as I viewed it was supposed to be and it's never surface in my lifetime. I've only ever "supported" them in that their lie was an aspiration better than the democrat truth. That feeling waned when Bush the Elder left office.

The lack of proper fiscal conservatism successfully sold to populace as "the rising tides" lie to achieve "pro business" ends has ironically put us in place where we need economic liberalism more than ever. We need stimulus in the form of playing catch up on infrastructure. We need more centralization and a declaration of more services as civic responsibility. We've pushed our nation to the brink of its breaking point.

[Defiant]

Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game

DaVinci sued Ziko for copyright infringement, asserting that LOTK copied protected features of Bang! Copyright law protects original expression, but does not protect ideas or functional elements such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. Game mechanics and rules are not entitled to copyright protection, but expressive elements may be copyrightable, including game labels, design of game boards, playing cards, and graphical works, as well as elements of the characters – if they are sufficiently developed. Copyright does not protect “stock” characters.

The court determined that Ziko’s game did not infringe any of the protectable elements of Bang! The game play and interactions of the roles and characters in Bang! are not sufficiently detailed or developed to be protectable expressive content, but instead are unprotectable game mechanics and rules.

While I don't think game mechanics should be protected, being able to copy an entire game and just change the names/artwork/assets around seems sketchy to me.

[Blackhawk]

This simplifies my upcoming Bunions & Baggins book releases.

[noxiousdog]

Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game

DaVinci sued Ziko for copyright infringement, asserting that LOTK copied protected features of Bang! Copyright law protects original expression, but does not protect ideas or functional elements such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. Game mechanics and rules are not entitled to copyright protection, but expressive elements may be copyrightable, including game labels, design of game boards, playing cards, and graphical works, as well as elements of the characters – if they are sufficiently developed. Copyright does not protect “stock” characters.

The court determined that Ziko’s game did not infringe any of the protectable elements of Bang! The game play and interactions of the roles and characters in Bang! are not sufficiently detailed or developed to be protectable expressive content, but instead are unprotectable game mechanics and rules.

While I don't think game mechanics should be protected, being able to copy an entire game and just change the names/artwork/assets around seems sketchy to me.

I think the alternative is someone copyrighting baseball or billiards.

[Max Peck]

Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game

DaVinci sued Ziko for copyright infringement, asserting that LOTK copied protected features of Bang! Copyright law protects original expression, but does not protect ideas or functional elements such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. Game mechanics and rules are not entitled to copyright protection, but expressive elements may be copyrightable, including game labels, design of game boards, playing cards, and graphical works, as well as elements of the characters – if they are sufficiently developed. Copyright does not protect “stock” characters.

The court determined that Ziko’s game did not infringe any of the protectable elements of Bang! The game play and interactions of the roles and characters in Bang! are not sufficiently detailed or developed to be protectable expressive content, but instead are unprotectable game mechanics and rules.

While I don't think game mechanics should be protected, being able to copy an entire game and just change the names/artwork/assets around seems sketchy to me.

I think the alternative is someone copyrighting baseball or billiards.

What if a game designer filed a patent for the game mechanics, as well as a copyright?

[Isgrimnur]

You mean like this?

[Max Peck]

I'm just mildly curious as to whether, if copyright specifically cannot protect game mechanics, a patent can be used for that purpose (hopefully, covering the specific mechanics rather than being overly-broad patent-troll fodder, but figure the odds on that).

[gbasden]

I dunno... There are a *lot* of game mechanics we take for granted. Could some troll get a patent for rolling dice to determine hits or misses? What about the idea of a randomized tile based gameboard? I don't like the idea of being able to copy a game from the ground up, but I'd hate to see board gaming drown in patent lawsuits either.

[stessier]

You mean like this?

The Referenced By section of that patent is so depressing - the fact that those items mentioned received patents is so ridiculous.

[Defiant]

I dunno... There are a *lot* of game mechanics we take for granted. Could some troll get a patent for rolling dice to determine hits or misses? What about the idea of a randomized tile based gameboard? I don't like the idea of being able to copy a game from the ground up, but I'd hate to see board gaming drown in patent lawsuits either.

This. They should be able to patent the whole game - provided it's a nontrivial implementation (roll a die should not be a game). But not for the specific mechanics.

[Max Peck]

Won't someone think of the children?

Mary Lou Bruner is poised to be the next member of the Texas State Board of Education, having fallen just short of the 50 percent needed to secure the seat this past Tuesday.

Oh, missed it by that much.

A Texas education board candidate who claimed that President Barack Obama was a gay prostitute and believes dinosaurs walked the Earth with humans lost her primary runoff Tuesday night just two months after nearly clinching victory outright.

Mary Lou Bruner, a 69-year-old former schoolteacher, had been the front-runner for a seat on the powerful Texas State Board of Education that sets curriculum and textbook standards for more than 5 million schoolchildren. But her lead unraveled as old Facebook posts in which she peddled conspiracy theories and fringe political screeds drew greater attention and ridicule. Voters instead picked Keven Ellis, a local school board president who ran a mainstream campaign, for the Republican nomination.

Ellis is now an automatic favorite to win in November in the staunchly conservative East Texas district. The Democratic nominee is a professor at Stephen F. Austin University.

Among Bruner's since-deleted posts was that Democrats killed John F. Kennedy, that climate change is a hoax concocted by Karl Marx, and that Obama's health care overhaul was an orchestrated plot to wipe 200 million people from the U.S. population. She also wrote that the flood from the biblical story of Noah's Ark is what destroyed the dinosaurs - and not a meteor as "concocted" by atheists. Some of the posts were several years old. They were captured by the Texas Freedom Network, left-leaning watchdog of the state education board.

[Isgrimnur]

There is hope yet for humanity. Or at least East Texas.

[GreenGoo]

There is hope yet for humanity. Or at least East Texas.

I've recently had the pleasure to peruse a schizophrenic's blog, as he had included former friends of mine in his conspiratorial fantasies.

His blog read remarkably like Ms Bruner's posts.

For the record, the blog would have been hilarious if not for the fact that he was hostilely targeting people I knew, and for the human tragedy of seeing inside the head of someone mentally ill.

[Isgrimnur]

So someone that showed signs of schizophrenia was together enough to not only run for the party nomination for a state school board seat, but savvy enough to get to a runoff election. That's one heck of a low bar the party is setting.

[Rip]

So someone that showed signs of schizophrenia was together enough to not only run for the party nomination for a state school board seat, but savvy enough to get to a runoff election. That's one heck of a low bar the party is setting.

You can't have a big tent without springing a few leaks.

[Moliere]

Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End Draft

[Rip]

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.722077

Israel Police recommended indicting Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, concerning irregularities in the running of the prime minister's households, Haaretz has learned.

Police have discovered evidentiary basis against Netanyahu in three separate affairs – and not, as could be understood from the police's Sunday statement on the matter, in one affair.

Recommended charges include aggravated fraudulent receipt on three separate counts. In one case, there's a recommendation to indict Netanyahu for ordering food and private chefs for family events at the expense of the prime minister's residence. It is suspected that private family entertainment was funded by public funds.

In another case, there's a recommendation to indict the prime minister's wife in relation to the employment of a caregiver for her father. The investigation revealed that Netanyahu paid the expenses for a live-in caregiver for her father from the budget of the prime minister's residence.

In the third case – the affair surrounding the prime minister's residences – evidentiary basis was found to indict three people: Sara Netanyahu, Ezra Saidoff, the deputy director general of the Prime Minister's Office and Avi Fahima, a former Likud Central Committee member who has been close to the prime minister for years and often did work at the Caesarea residence in the years when Netanyahu was out of office.

They are like Israel's Clintons.

[hepcat]

Yes, yes, let your rage over Hillary flow through you, my young Padawan. Your delicious anger fuels us.

[msduncan]

Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End Draft

He was/is my preferred candidate. Unfortunately he never had a chance for some reason. The media labels him loony which doesn't help.

[Rip]

Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End Draft

He was/is my preferred candidate. Unfortunately he never had a chance for some reason. The media labels him loony which doesn't help.

Mine as well. Perhaps he could have done better one-on-one against Trump but we shall never know.

[El Guapo]

Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End Draft

He was/is my preferred candidate. Unfortunately he never had a chance for some reason. The media labels him loony which doesn't help.

By many accounts his campaign was a disorganized mess.

[msduncan]

Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End Draft

He was/is my preferred candidate. Unfortunately he never had a chance for some reason. The media labels him loony which doesn't help.

By many accounts his campaign was a disorganized mess.

Yeah I think that is the key. You can have the best platform and ideals and assemble a god awful team to execute the campaign.

Plus the campaign elites flock to the establishment candidates so it doesn't leave many experienced types to sign on with Paul.

[hepcat]

Ann Coulter believes that the proper term for Asian Americans (specifically those of Chinese origin) is "Mandarins", and not actually...you know...Asian Americans...or even Chinese Americans.

[Rip]

Ann Coulter believes that the proper term for Asian Americans (specifically those of Chinese origin) is "Mandarins", and not actually...you know...Asian Americans...or even Chinese Americans.

[hepcat]

I'm glad the subject of my post wasn't African Americans or Jewish people. I shudder to think of the photo you have on deck for that occurrence.



p.s. to be fair to Rip though, if anyone mentions Italians, I usually post a picture of the Mario Brothers.

[Rip]

I'm glad the subject of my post wasn't African Americans or Jewish people. I shudder to think of the photo you have on deck for that occurrence.

You don't get it?

A Chinese guy playing a mandolin, get it?

Anyway Coulter is a moron and it would appear doesn't know the difference between languages, dialects, and cultures.

[malchior]

It sort of depresses me that the discussion is about Coulter being racist - which is a given. Instead IMO the rest of the media should be questioning why she is consistently given a platform to say racist things in the first place.

[hepcat]

Because she screams "FIRE" the loudest?

[Pyperkub]

The logic of the law is sometimes perplexing:

Try to follow along. In Texas, it's legal to have sex with somebody as young as 17 years old. But it's considered child pornography to have nude pictures of somebody under 18, even if he or she is 17.

So, yeah, the tutor could have slept with the student perfectly legally, but it was illegal for him to have photos she sent to him on his phone...

[Defiant]

Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game

DaVinci sued Ziko for copyright infringement, asserting that LOTK copied protected features of Bang! Copyright law protects original expression, but does not protect ideas or functional elements such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. Game mechanics and rules are not entitled to copyright protection, but expressive elements may be copyrightable, including game labels, design of game boards, playing cards, and graphical works, as well as elements of the characters – if they are sufficiently developed. Copyright does not protect “stock” characters.

The court determined that Ziko’s game did not infringe any of the protectable elements of Bang! The game play and interactions of the roles and characters in Bang! are not sufficiently detailed or developed to be protectable expressive content, but instead are unprotectable game mechanics and rules.

While I don't think game mechanics should be protected, being able to copy an entire game and just change the names/artwork/assets around seems sketchy to me.

I think the alternative is someone copyrighting baseball or billiards.

What if a game designer filed a patent for the game mechanics, as well as a copyright?

Extra Credits takes on this issue and according to them, you can't really patent it, as it tends to be unenforceable.

[Max Peck]

Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game

DaVinci sued Ziko for copyright infringement, asserting that LOTK copied protected features of Bang! Copyright law protects original expression, but does not protect ideas or functional elements such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. Game mechanics and rules are not entitled to copyright protection, but expressive elements may be copyrightable, including game labels, design of game boards, playing cards, and graphical works, as well as elements of the characters – if they are sufficiently developed. Copyright does not protect “stock” characters.

The court determined that Ziko’s game did not infringe any of the protectable elements of Bang! The game play and interactions of the roles and characters in Bang! are not sufficiently detailed or developed to be protectable expressive content, but instead are unprotectable game mechanics and rules.

While I don't think game mechanics should be protected, being able to copy an entire game and just change the names/artwork/assets around seems sketchy to me.

I think the alternative is someone copyrighting baseball or billiards.

What if a game designer filed a patent for the game mechanics, as well as a copyright?

Extra Credits takes on this issue and according to them, you can't really patent it, as it tends to be unenforceable.

Cool beans, thanks for the link.