This summer markes the 100th anniverary of Bloomsday, which you have to be pretty damn geeky to even understand. You see, James Joyce’s Ulysses takes place on a single day. The day in question is June 16, 1904, making this summer a wonderful opportunity for literary celebration, or at least an excuse to swill an awful lot of Guiness at highbrow events.

But never mind that, at least in Dublin. The Joyce estate is preparing to sue over any public readings from his work, however, thanks to (you guessed it!) copyright extensions brought on by EU legislation. Under the original copyright, Joyce’s book passed into the public domain 50 years after his death in 1941 (i.e., in 1991). The EU-mandated extension put it back in the bottle in 1995, and the estate intends to keep it there (EU copyrights are death-plus-75, not 50). So much for shared literary history. You’d think they’d see this as free marketing.

Florida’s excellent sunshine laws ensure essentially any document created by government is available for anonymous public review unless specifically exempted by statute. Unfortunately, an audit conducted by 30 Floriday newspapers discovered that nearly half the agencies surveyed were unwilling to comply when requests are made by “ordinary citizens” (i.e., made by people who did not identify themselves as journalists or attorneys). Stonewalling and intimidation ruled the day in 43% of the case. In a particularly egregious example, Broward county administrator Roger Desjarlais told a volunteer “I can make your life very difficult,” and then used the Internet to obtain the volunteer’s cell phone number to enable additional harrassment.

Desjarlais defended his actions, saying that the volunteer raised suspicion when he declined to explain who he was. Officials across the state had similar misgivings about volunteers who came into their offices. They cited a number of arbitrary reasons for their suspicions, including the volunteers’ hair length, casual dress and, in one case, “the look in his eyes.”

This next bit is priceless:

Mary Kay Cariseo, executive director of the Florida Association of Counties, said people need to understand that making a public records request can be threatening to public officials. “You’re not looking at e-mails to do something good,” she said. “You’re trying to find something. You’re trying to dig something up when we’re trying to be good public servants and run our governments.” That’s a key reason why the public records law exists, said Sandra Chance, executive director of the University of Florida’s Brechner Center, a nonprofit organization that studies and serves as a resource on public records law. The ability to inspect government records lets the public police the officials they bankroll with tax dollars.

Bingo.

Of course, “security” had to raise its head in the litany of bullshit excuses for not following Florida law; it’s the catch-all reason for fuzzy-headed beaurocrats everywhere:

In a post-audit interview, Taylor County Superintendent Oscar Howard said his district was hesitant to produce his cell phone bill because the volunteer wouldn’t give his name. “He could have been a terrorist,” Howard said. “We have to ensure the safety of children.” Howard couldn’t explain how a terrorist might use his cell phone bill to harm children.

Neither, of course, did Howard explain how giving a name — or even showing identification — would deter or prevent terrorists from obtaining his oh-so-sensitive cell phone bill. The rest of the nation would do well to adopt sunshine laws like Florida’s — especially if we do so on the Federal level, and hold our elected servants to the same standard. Of course, THEN where would Cheney hide his cronyism?

Greedy car dealer duped by teen. Sure, it’s all over the web, but damn, this is hi-larious. “You’re the banker? Sure. Deliver it to a high school? Absolutely!”

My job may be sort of underperforming right now, but at least my coworkers cannot feed me to the lions.

Aside to M: Do not view this as a challenge.

For years now, I’ve been ranting here about the gradual erosion of our civil liberties in the name of “security.” Now, though, it’s finally gone FAR TOO FAR.

As any fool can see, James Brown was clearly denied his right to ‘Do Process last month when he was arrested for spousal battery. If it can happen to JB, it can happen to YOU.

Thanks, I’m here all week. Try the veal.

Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com covers a story (UPI, but still) noting that indictments are coming in the Plame Affair — indictments apparently meant to shake loose folks further up the food chain.

And in an election year, even.

Pentagon Cancels Internet Voting Plan

Wired News has a story on the steps the OMB is taking to eliminate top scientists from its pseudo-peer-review process in favor of those hand-picked to support the administration’s position, and science be damned.

Marvel and DC are asserting that they and they alone have the right to use the term superhero; they’ve already bullied a small publisher into changing the title of one of their books.

I said basically the same thing yesterday, but Whiskey Bar has a great rant on the bizarre reactions to the boob flashed ’round the world.

Slacktivist once again nails it, this time on the bizarre claims the administration is now making about how it was mislead on the Iraqi WMD issue by the CIA and the intelligence community. It’s been amply documented that in the rush to war, the White House disregarded any intelligence that suggested their cassus belli of choice was inaccurate; they cannot not credibly claim that the CIA is to blame for their own cherrypicking of only the most damning (and unverifiable) data.

Agent Mohney points us to the libertarian publication Reason for this discussion of the efficacy and competency of the Transportation Safety Administration. Hint: it’s a sick joke, and we’re no safer for our loss of privacy and liberty when flying.

Okay, when I made a snarky remark about how some people seemed up in arms about Janet’s bare breast, but were utterly untroubled by the other crass exploitation of sexuality surrounding the Super Bowl, I was making a joke.

From where I sit, this bit of exposure is only different in degree, not substance, from the countless scantily-clad dancers surrounding P. Diddy and Nelly, for example, not to mention the cheerleaders for teams themselves. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would actually think of this as materially different than these other exploitations of sexuality, or to even think that something like this (deliberate or not) wasn’t inevitable. Sex and titilation sell. The networks and the NFL trade on this very fact, and to pretend otherwise is simple mendacity.

I say all this now because the FCC is looking into whether or not there should be some sort of sanctions for this “classless, crass, and deplorable stunt” (as FCC chairman Michael Powell described it). He goes on to suggest that we as a nation “deserve better.” (Frankly, I thought the breast in question was perfectly nice, but maybe Whatever, Michael. Were you similarly scandalized by Nelly grabbing his crotch, or by the skimpy costumes the cheerleaders wore? I doubt it. Show a nipple, though, and these boobs freak right the hell out.

Apparently, that really was Janet Jackson’s boob (or, at least, her nipple jewelry) that Justin Timberlake exposed last night at the finale of their “flirtatious” duet. Timberlake, for his part, has apologized for the “wardrobe malfunction,” which is a phrase I hope makes it into the popular lexicon. The grouches at the NFL were not amused, though, and have stated that MTV will no longer be doing the halftime show, which strikes me as hilarious given the sexual aspects of virtually every beer ad shown during the broadcast. Bikini-clad girls selling beer with little left to the imagination: OK. Janet Jackson’s (pierced! (NSFW)) nipple: Horrors!

Salon discusses the widespread nightmare that zero tolerance policies in schools create. Like mandatory sentencing minimums, zero tolerance policies ignore any extenuating circumstances, and remove all possibility of flexibility in response to infractions.

California voters are already having trouble with their $12 million Diebold voting system. It seems some votes go to the wrong candidates sometimes. Diebold, of course, insists they’ll fix the problem, but won’t show anyone the code since it’s a trade secret.

Surely the conflicts involved here are obvious, right?

This, of course, surprises no one

The 9/11 panel finds that existing security measures should have caught at least some of the hijackers, something that’s been widely asserted in the 2 years since the attacks. Of course, this won’t stop the Feds from continuing their police-power-grab.

At least all those new security measures make airports safer, right?

A woman at LaGuardia got past security with a stun gun and a knife last week. Ooops.

In the 2000 elections, one of the most amazing things to me was that the Democrats made NOTHING of Bush’s Vietnam reserve record, and that the press — whom you’d think would have been all over it — let the whole issue slide.

Now, with two solid records running for the Democratic nomination, the issue may get legs after all, especially since Clark has thus far refused to repudiate supporter Michael Moore’s claim that Bush was and is a deserter. Is he? Well, here’s a discussion and examination of precisely that claim and the coverage surrounding Moore’s statement.

Two facts, though, aren’t even in dispute:

1. In the spring of 1972, Bush failed to get a flight physical in direct violation of orders.
2. Bush performed no duties or drills of any kind between early May and late November of 1972.

Now, that’s not really desertion (technically), but it’s damn sure being AWOL, and it seems pretty clear that somebody without a super-connected family would have probably been discliplined. Since the “liberal media” had such a field day with Clinton being “draft dodger” back in ’92, I eagerly await their tenacious coverage of these charges.

High school students in Florida were disqualified from a theater competition because their anti-totalitarian play (James Clavell’s 1963 one-act “The Children’s Story”) includes a scene wherein students are encouraged to cut up a flag following the US’ defeat at the hands of some powerful enemy. The episode is designed to illustrate the dangers of mindless obedience, a fact apparently lost on the competition’s administrators, who appear to have missed the last 14 years of Constitutional law. Co-chair and theater teacher Melody Wicht disqualified the team based on Florida Statute 876.52, which bars flag desecration. “My problem was that they took an American flag off the flagpole and cut it into pieces. They were disqualified based on Florida law,” she said.

Of course, just such a statute was struck down in 1990 by the Supremes; writing for the majority, Scalia (!) noted that flag desecration was clearly an expression of disagreement, and was therefore protected speech. This means the Florida statute is no good, either.

Perhaps the theater teachers in Florida need a refresher from the government and history departments. What they taught here was that (1) they don’t actually understand the First Amendment; and (2) they’re incapable of experiencing a work in any but the most literal senses. And people wonder why smart kids hate high school.

Part of the PATRIOT Act has been found unconstitutional. Now, for the rest of that damn creeping totalitarian law. Just to remind you: it got passed in a panic after 9/11, and our elected representatives by and large DID NOT READ IT before passing it. If that’s not dereliction of duty, I don’t know what is.

Scarier, of course, is the fact that it almost certainly had to exist on 9/10/2001, waiting for the right moment to be introduced to Congress.