The Contract Monitor
I ran into this website while researching artist's contracts.
Since I have begun negotiating contracts of my own, I find this website to be really interesting and helpful.
It's also quite disheartening, as a short investigation will reveal how vile most companies are in terms of fucking you over and trying to give you the least amount of compensation and credit as possible.
In most cases, they fancy more power than they need, just to see if they can get away with it. This includes contracts with illustrators to renown publications such as the New Yorker and Los Angeles Times!
As if it weren't tough enough to be an artist or illustrator without having to battle with your professional clients and conduits for BASIC rights to original work.
Click here to read a contract that "illustrates" how the New Yorker, an illustration-driven publication famous for it's commissioned artwork, has changed it's standard contract over the years to deal with web rights and everything that follows in a way that backs the artist into new corners.
The attitude of these contracts is gross.
you gotta fight for your right to party.
Showing posts with label fuck human existence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fuck human existence. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
→→→Forward →→→
I would like to forward this poignant warning just in from Mrs. L Babcock :
"A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.
Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:
The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]
The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.
Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization.
But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes.
Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign.
Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concerns through the constant hyping of the White House's overall message of "urgency."
But one cannot overstate this: Section 8 is a singularly transformative sentence of economic policy. It transfers a significant amount of power to the Executive Branch, while walling off any avenue for oversight, and offering no guarantees in return. And if the Democrats end up content with winning a few slight concessions, they risk not putting a stop-payment on the real "blank check" - the one in which they allow the erosion of their own powers.
Over in the Senate, Christopher Dodd has proposed a bailout legislation of his own, which critically calls for "an oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials" and would require the President to appoint an "independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program." In Dodd's legislation, Section 8 is effectively stripped from the bill.
Nevertheless, the fact that Section 8 of the Paulson plan seems to strike few as a de facto dealbreaker can and should astound. The failure of Congress to hold the line on this point would be truly embarrassing. But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year."
"A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.
Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:
The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]
The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.
Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization.
But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes.
Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign.
Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concerns through the constant hyping of the White House's overall message of "urgency."
But one cannot overstate this: Section 8 is a singularly transformative sentence of economic policy. It transfers a significant amount of power to the Executive Branch, while walling off any avenue for oversight, and offering no guarantees in return. And if the Democrats end up content with winning a few slight concessions, they risk not putting a stop-payment on the real "blank check" - the one in which they allow the erosion of their own powers.
Over in the Senate, Christopher Dodd has proposed a bailout legislation of his own, which critically calls for "an oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials" and would require the President to appoint an "independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program." In Dodd's legislation, Section 8 is effectively stripped from the bill.
Nevertheless, the fact that Section 8 of the Paulson plan seems to strike few as a de facto dealbreaker can and should astound. The failure of Congress to hold the line on this point would be truly embarrassing. But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year."
The Bush Administration is going out in a blaze of glory, eh?
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
bleh
from the washington post:
Another great idea from Bush
How long are the idiots of the world going to twist the word of the late great Jesus Christ (I am not Christian, but have always admired his story) and insist on moronic ideas such as an embryo's right to life in order to increase the human population on this planet? God! I wish the world would just stop having fucking babies and stop buying cars for just ONE YEAR!!
AHHH!!!
Humans FUCKING SUCK!! WEAK SAUCE!!!
EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!
Another great idea from Bush
How long are the idiots of the world going to twist the word of the late great Jesus Christ (I am not Christian, but have always admired his story) and insist on moronic ideas such as an embryo's right to life in order to increase the human population on this planet? God! I wish the world would just stop having fucking babies and stop buying cars for just ONE YEAR!!
AHHH!!!
Humans FUCKING SUCK!! WEAK SAUCE!!!
EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!
Thursday, 31 July 2008
From Gothamist - NYPD officer Patrick Pogan bodychecks critical mass bike rider Christopher Long during the July '08 ride.
Another worthless piece of shit in a uniform. Among the most memorable and exhilarating experiences in my entire life is the Critical Mass bike ride in NYC... not because I felt i was breaking the law, but because everything about it fucking rocks. Everything except the fucking Police, who are ordered to crush us for RIDING OUR BIKES.
May drivers sit and wait, and may cops lose their badges while cyclists win lawsuits against the city and eat cupcakes.
Another worthless piece of shit in a uniform. Among the most memorable and exhilarating experiences in my entire life is the Critical Mass bike ride in NYC... not because I felt i was breaking the law, but because everything about it fucking rocks. Everything except the fucking Police, who are ordered to crush us for RIDING OUR BIKES.
May drivers sit and wait, and may cops lose their badges while cyclists win lawsuits against the city and eat cupcakes.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Thank to Ms. Brain, Messenger's sexiest correspondant, for the following heads-up~
"According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is "very convincing and appears overwhelming." Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world's oceans is spreading.
An NRDC-led coalition of wildlife advocates succeeded in restricting the U.S. Navy's use of a powerful active sonar system known as SURTASS LFA in 2003. But the fight is hardly over; other nations are developing LFA-type systems of their own, and sonar testing using mid-frequency sonar systems, which have been implicated in numerous strandings of whales worldwide, continues unabated, putting marine mammals and fisheries at risk. And the Bush administration is now appealing the legal victory that compelled the Navy into compromise."
read more : http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp
that's sad. do we really need LFA in 75% of the world's oceans? what kind of dumbass thinks "that's a great idear."i mean, i'd rather be undermined by international terrorists in submarines than kill a bunch of whales and be nationally secure.my - and my country's - "security" is simply not worth the death of thousands of whales, and anyone who doesn't sign this declaration with me, i will kill you, so you die anyway. in fact, the deploration of whale-killing LFA's might be grounds for going to war in the first place.United States, you'd better pray to your shallow, withering gawd that i never become a nation capable of attacking your navy. I'll fund the Farley Mowat on your ass, bitchez. give a call-up-a Cap'n Nemo, right? *click* shiiieeeeeet.
"According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is "very convincing and appears overwhelming." Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world's oceans is spreading.
An NRDC-led coalition of wildlife advocates succeeded in restricting the U.S. Navy's use of a powerful active sonar system known as SURTASS LFA in 2003. But the fight is hardly over; other nations are developing LFA-type systems of their own, and sonar testing using mid-frequency sonar systems, which have been implicated in numerous strandings of whales worldwide, continues unabated, putting marine mammals and fisheries at risk. And the Bush administration is now appealing the legal victory that compelled the Navy into compromise."
read more : http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp
that's sad. do we really need LFA in 75% of the world's oceans? what kind of dumbass thinks "that's a great idear."i mean, i'd rather be undermined by international terrorists in submarines than kill a bunch of whales and be nationally secure.my - and my country's - "security" is simply not worth the death of thousands of whales, and anyone who doesn't sign this declaration with me, i will kill you, so you die anyway. in fact, the deploration of whale-killing LFA's might be grounds for going to war in the first place.United States, you'd better pray to your shallow, withering gawd that i never become a nation capable of attacking your navy. I'll fund the Farley Mowat on your ass, bitchez. give a call-up-a Cap'n Nemo, right? *click* shiiieeeeeet.
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