Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
 
And now for something completely different...

In our day jobs we work with contracts. A great deal. As in daily. As in our livelihood depends on our ability to draft, parse, modify and negotiate contracts. We print out dozens of contracts a month. For fun. As education tools. In short, we do contracts and always, and we mean painfully always, we click on every "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy" link on any website we visit. We do. It's annoying to those around us. But it's who we are.

And so we came across The New York Sun's "Terms of Use" page. We like the Sun. In a liberal island of madness it's a beacon of sanity (except for it's inordinate and ineffable recent crusade to get Bloomberg in the White House. Sorry, fellas, it was doomed from the start - and rightfully so. Of course if the Mad Marxist, a/k/a Obama, gets in to the Whitehouse, sheesh; don't get us started).

Anyway, the Sun's Terms of Use is quackery. We hate to denigrate a fellow practitioner's handiwork, but there's elegant and then there's effluvium. And this, sir, is effluvium. When more time presents itself we'd like to do a Ken Adam-like annotated exegesis of the Sun's ToU, but for now, behold this clause: "It is prohibited to link other sites to this Web site without The New York Sun's prior written permission."

As in YOU can't link YOUR site to us without OUR advanced written by your leave. Sort of defeats the purpose of this little thing called, ahem, the World Wide Web. Don't cha think? We have a saying for this kind of baloney. But this is a family website and we shall refrain in the interest of good taste and maintaining a civilized discourse.

The Sun's legal brain trust then goes on to proclaim "If you link to this Web site, we require that you follow these guidelines. You may link only to the home page, and not to any other page, directory or subdomain of the Web site." Really? Do tell. You require that we follow these guidelines, else what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark they shoot bees at you?

Gentlemen, I suggest you delve deeper into 17 U.S.C. 107. I also imagine you have registered each posting with the U.S. Copyright office. Right? It's a big Internet out there, and frankly, users do not NEED or require permission to comment, link to or reference your website and its pages for other legitimate fair use purposes.

And here's another term you no doubt ran across in Contracts 1: "unconscionable". As in this indemnification clause included in your ToU:
User agrees to defend, hold harmless and indemnify The New York Sun and its business partners and affiliates, and each of them, against and from any and all third party claims, liabilities, damages, fines, penalties or costs of whatsoever nature (including reasonable attorney's fees and costs), arising out of or in any way connected with: (i) any breach by you of these Terms of Use; (ii) any claim based upon your ultimate use of the Content or services available on this Web site in any unauthorized manner and (iii) any content or materials submitted by you.
Good luck enforcing this in any court, anywhere, state, federal or otherwise. Words matter. And such usage mocks our craft shamelessly. We shall not even entertain the matters contained with your Governing Law and General Terms section.

And, finally, for the record, we do not agree to your terms, nor consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in New York county, nor to indemnify anyone associated with your operation, and for completeness, and therefore our continued visits to the website are expressly unauthorized. You may send your cease and desist notice to rhlqc at hotmail.com.

posted by anonymous at 12:21 AM

Friday, June 06, 2008
 
June 6, 1944 - D-Day
Sixty-four years ago (can that much time really have passed), the greatest amphibious invasion in history began, and with it the liberation of western Europe. We have nothing but the utmost admiration, gratitude and respect for all those who took part, military or civilian.

The best D-Day website, with photos, audio and many links to other memorials, is the U.S. Army's own site at http://www.army.mil/d-day/
The home page notes:
June 6, 1944 - 160,000 Allied Troops landed long a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded -- but more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler.
It should also be noted that Google, which continues to rightly catch flak for ignoring momentous American holidays and events, is on its homepage graphic iconography today highlighting Diego Valezquez, as at left. Who? Exactly.

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posted by anonymous at 9:42 AM

Tuesday, June 03, 2008
 
Barack-eth Giveth, and Barack-eth Taketh

Well, leave it to the Democrats to nominate the most inexperienced, least qualified, most liberal and now, after revelations of all his questionable associates and judgments, the most bloodied candidate. We don't care that Obama is black. Truly. We'd vote for the best candidate we believed embodied the majority of our beliefs and goals and if that person happened to be black then he's black. But the Democrats have demonstrated in spades what their endless ethic, gender and racial slicing and grievance mongering leads to -- internecine knives fights for the spoils of victory. We'd never vote for Barak because we don't believe he would be good for America. Period. His ultra-liberal socialistic stance, his vacuous rhetoric, his barely concealed sense of entitlement, his antipathy towards limited government & textualist Constitutional interpretation and his expansive view of the role of government are all anathema to us.

Now McCain wasn't our first choice by any measure. We endorsed Fred Thompson here, based primarily on his view of governmental limitations, judicial and constitutional jurisprudence and the fact that he vocalized a tough affirmative stand on the war against Islamist ideology and we stand by that endorsement. McCain may be the luckiest candidate in history because right now we think he's going to clean Barack's clock Old School style. And if Hillary's supporters maintain their current righteous indignation Obama may lose in a historic landslide.

And, frankly, on a knee-jerk note, we just hate the name Barack. President Barack? President Obama? Not on our watch if we have anything to say about it.



posted by anonymous at 10:53 PM

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