You know you've really stepped

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You know you've really stepped in a pile of political dog shit when the President, being of your own party, publicly criticizes what you've said. After the endorsement that Trent Lott gave to the 1948 campaign of Strom Thurmond this last week, he deserves the ass chewing he's getting from both parties. Democrats are calling for his resignation as Majority Leader, and Republicans want to know what the hell he was thinking. I think the Daily Show had the best take on it, watch the extremely large 38MB video of it here.

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Lott said. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Lott, R-Mississippi, made the comment Thursday on Capitol Hill during a 100th birthday celebration for Thurmond, who is retiring next month after nearly 48 years in the Senate. The comment was broadcast live on C-SPAN.

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," Lott said at last week's party.

Thurmond ran as the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in the 1948 presidential race against Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. He carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and his home state of South Carolina, of which he was governor at the time.

Lott initially drew little fire, but the criticism grew this week and intensified with a report of a similar comment he made at a 1980 campaign rally for Ronald Reagan in Mississippi. His comments followed a speech by Thurmond, who praised the platform that would soon put Reagan in the White House.

"You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today," Lott was quoted as saying of Thurmond in a November 3, 1980, article in The Clarion-Ledger, a Jackson newspaper.

Lott granted two phone interviews Wednesday during which he apologized repeatedly for the more recent comment, calling it "terrible." In neither case, Lott insisted, did he mean to endorse Thurmond's since-discarded segregationist views. Instead, Lott said, he meant to praise Thurmond's stance on defense, law enforcement and economic development.

Riiiight, oh sure, yeah, because when I think of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats of '48, I think of "defense, law enforcement, and economic development" as their core issues.

Fatwallet.com called Wal-Mart on their

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Fatwallet.com called Wal-Mart on their bluff, and Wal-Mart backed down from their ridiculous subpeona: FatWallet Victorious in Challenge to Wal-Mart's Frivolous Digital Millennium Copyright Act Subpoena

BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- In response to FatWallet's letter demanding that Wal-Mart withdraw its subpoena for identifying information about a poster or face sanctions, the retailer backed down. Wal-Mart had sought the identity of the individual who posted Wal-Mart Day After Thanksgiving sales information on the FatWallet site.

Megan E. Gray, co-counsel for FatWallet, was not surprised by Wal-Mart's decision. "You have to call their bluff. Too often people will assert copyright protection when it is clear none exists, just to fall under the broad reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It is why abuses of the DMCA are so common."

Wal-Mart obtained a subpoena from federal court under the DMCA after submitting a declaration under penalty of perjury that its sales prices were protected by copyright law. FatWallet.com objected to the subpoena on the grounds that the Supreme Court has ruled that facts cannot be copyrighted.

In one of the first times in the history of the DMCA, FatWallet also demanded that Wal-Mart pay damages for its knowingly false assertion of copyright, as provided under Section 512(f) of the DMCA.

Tim Storm, president and founder of FatWallet.com, said, "We're pleased Wal-Mart dropped its request for the poster's identity, but an injustice still occurred here. The use of the DMCA to remove factual information about prices that retailers charge consumers is just wrong. We stand by our belief that consumers have the right to share the factual shopping information required to be a smart consumer. That is what FatWallet is all about. We are thankful for the support of consumers everywhere who voiced their support for our position."

FatWallet co-counsel Deirdre K. Mulligan, director of UC Berkeley School of Law's Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, said, "When the DMCA passed, many were concerned that the takedown provisions were heavily tilted against speakers--by merely claiming copyright, any individual or business can silence speech. While this case caught the public's attention, there are certainly other instances of speakers being wrongfully silenced under the DMCA."

Megan E. Gray is a principal in the law firm Gray Matters in Washington, DC. She represents many clients in connection with intellectual property matters, Internet issues, online privacy, anonymous speech, and related issues. More information about Gray Matters can be found at http://www.megangray.com.

The Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), represents individuals and nonprofits on privacy, copyright, and First Amendment issues relating to the Internet and other advanced technology. More information about the Samuelson Clinic can be found at http://samuelsonclinic.org.

I'm now an elected official,

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I'm now an elected official, at least on-campus. I just found out that I won the run-off election I was in to be on the University's P&S Council. P&S stands for Professional & Scientific, and it's the type of position my job is, the other two major types being Merit (mostly hourly jobs, not requiring a 4-year degree) and Faculty. Those two groups are unionized, we, the P&S people, are not, relying instead on the Council to act on our behalf. The web site, with more information, is here.