the sky is falling

I gave money to Barack Obama for his campaign. I stood up for him to Hillary Clinton supporters who were insistent that his presidency was going to be disastrous and that it was better to elect John McCain than Barack Obama. I voted for him and I used my voice to encourage others to vote for him. As of right now, I'm planning on looking very closely at the entire field of potential Democratic challengers to his candidacy in 2012, because frankly I think that Barack Obama has let me and every one who worked so hard to get him elected down.

I say this for three reasons; the failure to push for meaningful healthcare reform in the face of the health care mandate, his failure to follow through on his promises to repeal don't ask don't tell; and his failure to understand that the people opposed to him are not dealing in good faith and as such he needs to do everything he can to minimize their impact rather than pretending he is working with adults who actually care about anything other than playing a petty game of political one upsmanship.

If he's playing a long game that I don't yet see, he can still win me back.

As of right now, I'm skeptical that he deserves a second term.

Less than a year into his first term, that's a bad sign.

So people are freaking out about Facebook thanks to this story on The Consumerist.

I'm curious about it because the whole thing just, well, seems ridiculous. For one thing, I continue to find it baffling that people feel as though they can control works of intellectual property uploaded to sites that are indexable by search engines. One of the reasons I'm still a livejournal user is the fact that I can keep posts there locked and off of google.

Up front I should probably say something that Chris Walters, the blogger and chicken little at The Consumerist who apparently started this panic, didn't say in his article. I am not a lawyer and no expert on intellectual property rights. I did however study intellectual property rights and have about as much knowledge of the byzantine nonsense that is US copyright law as any layman can claim to have. I also, apparently, have a greater level of reading comprehension than Mr. Chicken Little Walters and the various other barnyard animals who have been parroting his "OMG DUDES FACEBOOK PWNS ALL YR STUFF NOW" conclusion in the above blog post.

Of particular importance is the part of the Facebook TOS that the sensationalist boobs at The Consumerist failed to read completely. Below you will find the entire relevant section of the TOS quoted in full, emphasis mine: