Real Kato Blog: Friday Miscellany

Record companies, First Amendment rights, and the increasing bird flu threat.

The Justice Department is launching an inquiry into the recording industry, to look into possible price-fixing in the music download industry. (Record companies, I gotta say: I told you so.) Some might see this as a threat to Apple's iTunes Music Store as well, but to me this doesn't sound like an attack on Apple's vertical monopoly. It sounds more like an investigation into illegal collaboration between record companies.

Americans are more likely to name all five characters on "The Simpsons" than they are to name all five First Amendment rights. In a poll, while 22% could name all five Simpsons, only 0.1% could name all five First Amendment rights. 20% thought one of the rights was the "right to own pets". Only 28% could name more than one of the five freedoms. The one most forgotten? The right to "petition for redress of grievances"... in other words, the right to sue someone. Geez, you'd think Americans would remember that one.

A cat in Germany has been found infected with the bird flu. (This will continue to spread the madness). Health officials insist that this doesn't necessarily pose a new risk for humans, since there's no record of cat diseases being transmitted to humans. However, I'm sure that cats were saying the same kind of thing, back when this was still just a bird disease.

Permalink 3 Comment

Posted by Ken in: commentary

Comments

Comment #1 from Cori (Guest)
2006 Mar 3 - 1:40 pm : #

We had some crazy cat ladies here in Edmonton (like, insane, house destroying, hundreds of sick, dying and dead cats, feces everywhere cat ladies), and actually if I'm remembering correctly, the women were afflicted with diseases from their cats.

Comment #2 from JuanC (Guest)
2006 Mar 3 - 4:45 pm : #

What people need to relaize is that if it does jump to numans... it has to spread all over again. It is not like every place it is will suddenly convert to a human friendly virus.

Comment #3 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2006 Mar 3 - 4:52 pm : #

Call me un-American, but I only know of Marge and Homer.

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