Category: Legal, Laws, and Regs

Categories
Copyright Weblogging

Always off

Is this still on? Testing, testing.

Can you hear me? Good!

Frank Paynter is surveying several people about why they blog for a post he’s writing for the Kitchen. When he asked the question, I had a hard time answering. It wasn’t that I didn’t have good reasons to blog, because I do. In fact I have dozens of good reasons, hundreds! Give me several hours and I could, and probably would write them out into a post.

Of course, then there would be another day where I sat down at my computer in the morning just to check what’s new only to surface in mid-afternoon, wondering where the day’s gone. A better question for me isn’t why do I weblog, but why I do it so much.

The hype behind broadband is that you’re ‘always on’. I could be the poster child for ‘always on’ because lately that’s a pretty good description of my life on a day to day basis. As for my roommate, switch internet for TV and you could describe him, at least on the weekends.

So, as an experiment, I’ve set up my home laptops to do the work I normally do on my server, and I’ve gone out and saved several web pages of research for a new article, and today I’ll disconnect the cable modem. We’ve already disconnected the digital cable converters, and I’ll take them and the modem down to Charter.

If something goes wrong with my web sites, Hosting Matters will either correct the problem or keep it from being a problem for anyone else, and I’ll make any fixes I need when I connect. As for the Kitchen, I’ve tried to make this as self-sufficient as possible, because the strength of that effort should be in the fact that it’s not dependent on any one person.

I’ll be slower to respond to email, but I don’t think anyone will mind. I’ll post less, but most of us are posting less. In fact, you’re probably indifferent as to the state of my connectivity, but I want to provide a heads up for anyone who might be expecting responses from me.

I don’t plan on being offline at home forever–just for a couple of months, see how it goes. Maybe less. Maybe more.

All well and good, but what I hadn’t counted on is how all of this is going to impact on Zoe. You see, every morning after she gets breakfast, Zoe comes in and curls up on my cable digital converter box. This morning, it wasn’t there, so she had to make do. Tomorrow, even that will be gone. Poor dear.

Categories
Copyright

Copyright, copyleft

Dave Shea has a set of images at his web site, depicting a photograph being altered in progressive stages. He asks the question:

Assuming the photo I started with was copyrighted by someone else and I wasn’t licensed to use it, at which step does the design process below does the work become ‘legitimate’?

I gather that his doing this was a direct result of one or more CSS designs from CSS Zen Garden being taken by one or more people, used as is, and the other person or people actually claiming credit for the work. However, people could not understand how something that is ‘open source’ so to speak, also be copyrighted; hence his unusual and rather clever experiment.

I was going to write more on this, because as you all know, I’m just so fond of discussions involving Creative Commons and copyright. And the comments at Shea’s were pretty damn interesting. I also have a pictorial essay I’m writing on the state of politics here in Missouri for American Street. However, I am feeling pretty beat tonight.

Categories
Legal, Laws, and Regs

Judicial activism

Just a quick note to point something out that I will be talking more about this weekend. Michael Hanscom pointed out a House Resolution to allow Congress to override the Supreme Court when the Court indulges in what the family values folk term “judicial activism”. What are examples of ‘judicial activism’? Try the civil rights movement, the right of women to control their bodies, and gay rights.

But before you get too worried about this bill, when I went looking for more information, I found Ten Bills to battle Judicial Activism. (Michael created a separate post on this.)

My biggest concern about the hooplah around Howard Stern has always been that while the ‘freedom of speech’ people are occupied with the antics of Mr. Stern and the new FCC fines, some very real, and very serious bills are being introduced into Congress by several very strong, very organized, and very united groups. They are not only working to get these bills introduced, but they are also working on putting people into Congress, and the White House, to support this ‘purer’ Constitution.

What’s more disturbing – Supreme Court Justice Scalia has come out in defense of a ‘dead Constitution’:

Today, Scalia – who is often add odds with several members of the Supreme Court – said many prefer to look at the document as a “living constitution,” one that evolves based on changes in society.

And as a result, issues such as abortion and homosexuality, which are not addressed in the Constitution, are discussed in courts.

Scalia’s premise is that an evolving Constitution allows personal interpretation on the part of the Justices when new issues arise, such as Gay rights and abortion. However, times change, and if justice is frozen in amber, we women would not have the right to vote, and blacks would still be picking cotton on their master’s farms.

I’ll take a living Constitution, even with the increased difficulty of ensuring proper judgements, than a Constitution whose inflexibility chokes the soul out of our country.

Categories
Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

Will first horse meat plant open September 23

update

Looking through the Decision Document, given as an attachment to the court filing mentioned earlier, I found that the wastewater treatment plant that the USDA based its environmental review on is located in Gallatin, Tennessee, not Gallatin, Missouri.

Oopsie.

Earlier

Last Friday, the USDA filed a motion in the Front Range Equine Rescue et al v. Vilsack et al federal lawsuit to add Rains Natural Meats from Gallatin, Missouri, to the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). The reason given is that Rains has now met the guidelines for being given a inspection permit, and is demanding the presence of inspectors at the plant by Monday, Sept. 23.

From the court document:

Rains Natural Meats has informed FSIS that it is ready to begin operations, and has requested inspectors at its facility in Gallatin, Missouri, no later than September 23, 2013. Because FSIS is required, as a matter of law, to provide inspectors for these operations, see 21 U.S.C. § 603(a), FSIS must do so, in the absence of an amendment to the Court’s temporary restraining order, as specified above. Federal Defendants have advised Plaintiffs and Defendant-Intervenor Rains Natural Meats, through counsel of record, of Federal Defendants’ positions on the issues discussed in this Notice and that Federal Defendants intended to file this Notice.

A Missouri state judge has issued an order prohibiting the Missouri Department of Resources (DNR) from giving Rains Natural Meats a wastewater discharge permit because of the strong possibility of equine drug residue that can contaminate both land and water. However, according to the attachment provided with the USDA filing, it would seem that Rains has found a way around this injunction by contracting with a rendering plant and the City of Gallatin to use their facilities to handle solid and liquid waste:

Following section 401(a) of the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. § 1341) (“CWA”), 9 CFR §304.2(c)(1) requires any applicant for federal meat inspection at an establishment where the operations thereof may result in any discharge into navigable waters as defined by the CW A to provide the Administrator, FSIS, with certification, obtained from the State in which the discharge will originate, that there is reasonable assurance that said operations will be conducted in a manner that will not violate the applicable water quality standards. On September 3, 2013, Mr. Rains provided the Administrator, FSIS, with an attestation that equine slaughter operations at Rains Natural Meats will not result in any discharge into any navigable waters as define by CW A. Mr. Rains also provided the Administrator, FSIS, with copies of letters from Darling International Inc., a rendering company, and the City of Gallatin agreeing to dispose of Rains Natural Meats’ liquid and solid waste.

Darling International Inc is in Iowa, and not impacted by a Missouri court order. The City of Gallatin’s wastewater treatment system already has a permit, and presumably would not be impacted by the Missouri Judge’s order. According to MO-G822, which is the general permit Rains applied for, a plant would be exempt if it discharged wastewater into an existing sewer system:

Facilities that are of the types listed above and do not discharge into a public sewer system will need to either obtain this General Operating Permit or a site-specific permit. [emph. added]

Again returning to the USDA attachment:

Rains Natural Meats’ disposal of wastewater is governed by Missouri’s Clean Water Law (Mo. Rev. Stat. 640.006 et seq.). In accordance with the Clean Water Law, Rains Natural Meats will discharge its wastewater into the City of Gallatin’s wastewater collection system which consists of over 191 miles of sanitary sewer lines and 22 sanitary sewer pumping stations. 14 This system will transport water from Rains Natural Meats to the Gallatin Wastewater Treatment Plant for processing and eventual discharge of a high quality effluent back into Old Hickory Lake.

As of this morning, Judge Armijo has not modified the TRO in the Front Range Equine Rescue federal case. I have asked the attorney representing the animal welfare groups in the Missouri state case, Stephen Jeffery, for confirmation or correction, and will post an update, accordingly. I’ll also post an update if Judge Armijo modifies the TRO to include Rains.

Categories
Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

Two new stories on horse meat lawsuit

I just published two new stories related to the Front Range Equine Rescue et al v. Vilsack et al horse meat lawsuit.

In Cages at Burningbird I write that the USDA is not the enemy in this case and they aren’t. If we’re going to fight for the welfare of horses in this country, we need to be very careful with where we paint our targets.

I also introduce another new site, Eats at Burningbird, with another story: Eating Flicka: A Good Idea?. This story focuses on the food safety aspects of horse meat and the horse meat industry. All I can say is you’ll never look at your hamburgers the same way again.

I am trying comments again, at least with select stories. Last few times, I had a lot of spam. And yes, I actually used a spam service, and still had a lot of spam.

I’m also concerned at how quickly comments degenerate into slugfests nowadays. I don’t really think tossing insults at each other adds to the quality of a story. Popularity really isn’t everything.

We’ll see how it goes. Hope springs eternal.