Year: 2009

27 October 2009, 7:41 PM

Look for the Union Label

Here is an interesting fact: If you retired from Delphi, the bankrupt GM parts supplier, and you are a member of the UAW, your pension is safe, because the Union fought for contractual assurances that it would be safe, but for non-union middle management? Not so much:

But four months later, Mr. Gump finds himself in a far more perilous condition than his neighbors.

On his street, he is the only Delphi worker whose pension benefits may be cut. His neighbors all belong to unions and have received a lifeline in an unprecedented deal related to the government-supervised bankruptcy of General Motors, the onetime parent of Delphi. (G.M. spun off the parts division as a separate company 10 years ago.)

Mr. Gump and some 21,000 other salaried workers and retirees are furious that their roughly 46,000 union co-workers at Delphi have had their benefits restored, apparently with government largesse, and they have not.

This is not “government largesse”, of course, it’s because the Union used its clout to protect its people, and got agreements and guarantees from GM as a result.

Mr. Gump, like myself, is an engineer, who as a group are tremendously resistant to the idea of unionizing, and this cost him, and thousands like him at Delphi.

27 October 2009, 7:15 PM

Signs of the Apocalypse: George F. Will Calls Out Dick Cheney

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On ABC’s This Week (Stephanopoulos), they have a discussion of Dick Cheney’s speech, where he says that Obama is taking too long to make up his mind.

George F. Will, yes that George F. Will, takes takes Cheney to task:

“A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction,” Will said on ABC’s “This Week. “For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action.”

When you have lost the guy who drilled Ronald Reagan for his debates with Jimmy Carter while using Carter’s stolen briefing books, you’ve lost everyone.

Start watching at about -11:10. (the timer on the clip counts down, not up)

27 October 2009, 7:09 PM

Hitler tries a DMCA takedown

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You’ve seen it, the various mash-ups that have been done with the German movie Downfall (Der Untergang), where people take a rant by Hitler, as played by Bruno Ganz, and subtitle it, so it appears that he is ranting about XBox games, losing a parking space, becoming a meme, or Super Bowl Results.

Well, it now appears that Constantin Film Produktion GmbH is hitting Youtube with a flurry of DMCA takedown demands. As Brad Templeton of the EFF Notes, this is absurd. The copies do no damage to the producers of the movie, and people are watching this short bit (about 4 minutes) for the subtitles, not the film.

He makes some very good points about just how absurd the hoops that he had to jump through in order to make the film in full accordance of the DMCA, despite the fact that this is clearly fair use.

Go read,

He also gets jiggy with the Hitler rant, only this time, Hitler is assuming the role of a studio executive, not much of a stretch, and trying to lock down the content.

It’s very funny, and contains the classic line, “Have you seen how good that Führerbunker scene is? Bruno Ganz does a great Hitler!”

Video follows: