Whooee! Well friends an' foes, are we men or are we mice? Last night, CBC's The National had an 8 minute segment on blogging and libel and lawsuits. Section 15's Mark Francis was interviewed. Also yammerin' were Michael Geist and Kate Holloway. I'd call that big news fer the Canajun boogeysphere.
I'd expect Pergressive Boogers an' the Boogin' Tories main feeds to be full of boog stories talkin' about the CBC story and about libel laws, links and litigious lunacy. But, dang it all, there's hardly anybuddy writin' about it.
Why not? Because, like the story was all about, there's a chill in the air -- Libel Chill.
I ain't in favour of libel and slander. I come out strong when I seen a Canajun booger libellin' Scott Tribe a few months back. I'll come out strong again if I see that sorta stuff. In comin' out against a slanderin' snake, I might post a link to the offensive material. I did link to the numbnuts slanderer when Scottie was bein' victimized. The offender eventually changed his post and took out the bad stuff.
In that case, if Scott was as small-minded as some other people (who shall remain nameless on accounta they'd probbly sue my sorryass) he'd have had cause to sue me fer linkin' to the slanderer. Scott ain't small-minded and he ain't a litigious lunatic (like some nameless people). He let the libel roll off like water off a duck's back.
If we wanna protect the Canajun boogeysphere and protect free speech, we need to fight frivolous lawsuits and the libel chill they foster. Do yer part and donate what you can.
One idea I been kickin' around is fer a mass linkin' campaign where as many boogers as possible defy the litigious lunatic and link to the offensive material. Double-dog-dare the sumbitch to sue everybuddy. It might backfire, though, on somebuddy who ain't afraid o' tryin' to sue Google, Yahoo, MySpace an' Wikipedia.
Or, we can all point an' laff an'compare this case to that numbnuts Merkan judge who tried suin' the poor dry cleaners fer $67 million when they lost his suit pants. He not only lost his suit pants, he lost his lawsuit and was ordered to pay costs. Plus, the whole world seen what a small-minded, greedy bullyboy he is.
JimBobby
2 comments:
I can't really say that I am surprised at any of this, it's all about power and control - 'those who have' have always sought ways to silence others.
Being liable to libel leaves you with having to keep things vague and takes any edge off the point you might be trying to make.
What's even more onerous in the States are the SLAPs. A corporation can throw suits at you from a variety of venues, their staff of lawyers are getting paid anyhow. They know you'd go broke just trying to show up at them, if you do they just shelve it to drag the case out and you into the poorhouse.
Check out Spockos Brain vs Disney in a unfair fair use affair. He hosted some mp3s of right wing hate radio examples and got silenced.
For the poor souls offended by those just awful things said by someone pulling their chain or exposing their hypocrisy an old Trekkie quote comes to mind:
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid."
Heh, that old Q had some of the best lines.
The cue ball himself got in a few too.
This one from Picard on freedom of speech:
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." -- Picard [quoting Judge Aaron Satie]
That just leaves us to calling each other poopy heads I guess. That's poopy head in a nice way ;)
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