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Kim Dotcom hasn’t said much since his arrest in January over allegations of copyright infringement, but in one of his first sit-downs since making bail, the Megaupload mastermind is outspoken about one thing for sure — that his arrest was political.
For his involvement with the file-sharing storage site Megaupload, international authorities held Dotcom for five weeks without bail. Now finally out and able to enjoy life alongside his expecting wife as he awaits his next hearing, Dotcom is quick to condemn the entertainment industry and the politicians they’ve purchased for a legal proceeding that he explains to New Zealand’s 3news as simply crazy.
During the seven years that Dotcom operated Megaupload, the German-born founder says they’ve managed to acquire a top-notch legal team that made sure that what they were doing was by the books. Sure, people could upload and share material — even copyrighted ones — to Megaupload, but the company was operating under a policy akin to what YouTube has. When copyright holders complained, Megaupload would make a move and delete the questionable content. It was a policy that the entertainment industry supported and proved successful — until this January when Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion was raided by authorities during an international crackdown that was coordinated in conjunction with the seizure of millions of dollars worth of assets and the shutting down of Megaupload.com.
“[YouTube] won their lawsuit and I'm sitting in jail, my house is being raided, all my assets are frozen without a trial, without a hearing. This is completely insane, is what it is,” Dotcom explains.
Of course YouTube was sued over similar charges, but the company, owned by the billion-dollar giant Google (who, coincidently, lobby Washington substantially each year), was indeed allowed to walk free. Dotcom, on the other hand, was left to sit behind jail bars for five weeks. He was denied bail twice before a New Zealand Judge finally decided last week that having no money, no assets and no travel documents, the odds of Dotcom being a downright flight risk were indeed slim-to-none.
Dotcom adds, in his defense, that his caricature-like appearance only makes him that much more identifiable. Dotcom stands 6-and-a-half feet tall and comes close to crushing the scales at 300-lbs. To put it lightly, when Dotcom sits around his $30-million fortified New Zealand mansion, he sits around his $30-million fortified New Zealand mansion. And for now, as he awaits his next court date, he pretty much has to — Dotcom, who was born Kim Schmitz in Kiel, Germany, is under house arrest essentially and is allocated no Internet access.
“I'm an easy target. My flamboyance, my history as a hacker, you know, I'm not American, I'm living somewhere in New Zealand around the world. I have funny number plates on my cars, you know, I'm an easy target,” he tells 3news.
“I'm not Google. I don't have 50 billion dollars in my account and right now I've not a penny on my account. All my lawyers currently are basically working without a penny and they are all still on board and all still doing their job because what they see here is unfair, is unreasonable and is not justice.”
Not justice indeed, and Kim Dotcom says he plans to let America know that what he does business, he means business — and all of that is done by the books. After spending years to make sure Megaupload was operating according to applicable laws, he vows that this won’t be a fight he’ll lose.
“If you read the indictment and if you hear what the Prosecution has said in court, at least $500 million of damage were just music files and just within a two-week time period. So they are actually talking about $13 billion US damage within a year just for music downloads. The entire US music industry is less than $20 billion,” explains Dotcom. “So it's really, in my opinion, the government of the United States protecting an outdated monopolistic business model that doesn't work anymore in the age of the Internet and that's what it all boils down to,” he adds.
Commenting to The New Zealand Herald over the weekend, he added, "For me, sitting in my cell, I'm thinking, 'Why are they doing this? They can't win it'.”
"We're going for this and we're confident we're going to win," added to the website TorrentFreak.com recently. "We feel that the action taken against us was political."
Dotcom is expected to go before a court again this August to face extradition to America. He insists he will fight the charges and hopes to win.
And what did we learn today, class? At Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawano, Wisconsin, a recent lesson plan revealed to students that saying “I love you” in one’s native tongue is something worthy of disciplinary action.
A seventh grade student at the private northeastern Wisconsin school learned that lesson the hard way recently after educators decided to boot 12 year old Miranda Washinawatok from the basketball team for saying a few phrases in the language used by the Menominee Tribe of Indians.
The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans that total around 8,700 in the state of Wisconsin. Never mind the fact that the Menominee have been in the area for over 1,000 years, though. In America, you speak English. Unless, apparently, you don’t want to play school sports.
After her teacher complained that Washinawatok had spoken a few phrases in her tribe’s language, the student says the educator became pretty agitated.
“She sort of threw her hands down on her desk and said, ‘Don’t be talking like that. How would you like it if I started talking Polish?’” Miranda Washinawatok tells a local NBC affiliate.
The student says the words she said aloud were the Menominee translations for “Hello,” “Thank you” and “I love you.”
From there the teacher, Julie Gurta, recommended disciplinary actions. When the school’s principal got wind that the student was a troublemaker of sorts, he benched her from the next basketball game. Principal Dan Minter has since apologized and says he wasn’t aware of the nature of the exact incident when he suggested taking Washinawatok off the team.
Gurta has apologized as well, offering a statement saying the actions were not meant to single out the student. Washinawatok’s mother, however, want more than just a “sorry.”
“It was unfair treatment I thought,”Tanaes Washinawatok tells the NBC affiliate. “It could have been handled differently.”
Tanaes adds that many of the school’s students are Native Americans and she fears they will be subjected to similar treatment in the future. Her solution, she says, is to fire the teacher.
“I’m not going to let anybody tell me they can’t speak that language,”adds the mom. She also calls the way Gurta handled the matter as"arrogant, narrow-minded way of teaching”and will be appealing for the diocese to relieve her from her position.
In a statement to the Menominee Nation, the Green Bay, Wisconsin diocese offered an apology saying that"It is our hope that with greater awareness, we can begin to repair any harm that has been caused, and be able to build new and improved relationships.”
Two British ad-men have launched an unusual self-promo project by placing their “brains” for sale on eBay.
In order to find better jobs, London-based copywriter Bernhardt and art-director Mifsud have launched a whole new campaign offering to bid for their brains and their parts. The Brains unLtd website was specially launched to support the project.
The description of the lots on sale says "Two highly creative brains in mint working condition… include an acute ability to produce big ideas for brands, services and consumers when presented with a brief."
Sales will begin on February 24 with the starting price of $1.50. For those who want to buy creative brains of the ad-guys out of the auction, the price is set at almost $44,000.
This unusual campaign is aimed at catching the eye of major ad agencies, creative directors, and private clients who might be interested in their ideas.
The Brains unLtd website also offers to buy separate parts of the guys’ brains, for example those responsible for the knowledge of French language, copywriting, musical talent and creativity.
A separate website’s section is dedicated to Zombie. It offers to buy various types of pastry shaped as brains.
Uwe Troeschel of Germany has offered his face for companies to rent for advertisements.
According to Bild, Troeschel divided his face into several sections, with each going for its own price. If you want your logo or ad appear on his forehead, you’d have to shell out 50,000 euro; each cheek goes for 20,000. Troeschel's nose is offered for quite "affordable" 2000 euro.
If a company doesn’t want competitors on Uwe’s face, or simply wants the whole face for itself, it’ll have to pay 100,000 euro. Troeschel is open to all offers regardless of the brand and its specialization.
Surprisingly enough, it was not financial despair that forced the man to such an unusual means of earning money. It was love for dogs. Troeschel shared his intention to invest the money from the unusual enterprise to fulfill his dream – building a museum dedicated to Saint Bernard dogs.
The idea to use a human body for advertising was first introduced several years ago, when an American lady tattooed GoldenPalace.com on her forehead for $10,000.
In Russia, a similar ad appeared on the back of St. Petersburg resident. She was paid 10,000 rubles (about $340).
Statements from Western leaders on Syria have grown harsh, if not menacing, as criticisms of the Bashar Assad government are unleashed and regime change becomes a common theme.
The fury and thirst for blood can be heard around the world as Washington and Brussels make their views known on how the conflict in Syria should be resolved. The noose began tightening around Damascus after reports emerged in the previous week that several foreign journalists were killed and injured in a siege of the rebel stronghold Homs. And now, Western officials are taking advantage of the incident as an excuse for openly calling for the removal of Assad and his government. The new labels for the country’s president and his regime are growing creative in their severity.
‘Medieval barbarity’ condemned from the UK
Responsibility for the “medieval barbarity” in Syria lies solely with the country’s leadership, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said at the end of an EU summit in Brussels.
“We will make sure … that there is a day of reckoning for those who are responsible. I have a clear message for those in authority in Syria: make a choice, turn your back on this criminal regime or face justice for the blood that is on your hands,” he said.
Britain is now demanding that Assad face a war crimes tribunal for what Cameron describes as “butchering his own people.”
“It is very important that we set out the war crimes that effectively are being committed, that we write them down, we take the photographic evidence, we bring it together and … make sure that the day of reckoning will come,” he said.
London is withdrawing its entire diplomatic staff from the troubled country, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Thursday.
France wants ‘dictators to pay’
As the two French journalists Edith Bouvier and William Daniels, who were evacuated from the embattled city of Homs, arrived at an airport near Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy asserted that “dictators anywhere in the world should know that they will have to account for their crimes.”
“The crimes that they have committed will not go unpunished,” Sarkozy is quoted as saying by Al Arabiya.
He backed his rhetoric with the announcement that France is to close its embassy in Damascus.
‘Assad’s days numbered,’ Obama warns
The US is obviously not the country to avoid inflammatory comments on the issue. President Barack Obama stated in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly published on Friday that the Syrian president’s “days are numbered,” and said that the US was working to accelerate the transition to what it calls democracy for the country.
“It is our estimation that [Assad’s] days are numbered – it’s a matter not of if, but when,” Obama added.
“Now, can we accelerate that? We’re working with the world community to try to do that,” he said.
Obama did not hesitate to openly compare the situation in Syria to that in Libya some time ago, saying that the country is more sophisticated and more complicated than Libya – while regretting that “countries like Russia are blocking UN action.”
Regime change was the objective in two separate resolutions presented to the UN Security Council, both vetoed by Russia and China, who believe the international community cannot simply push out governments. Moscow and Beijing maintain that the Syrian people must decide what is to take place in their country, and support initiatives that would have both the government and the opposition agree to a ceasefire.
Obama noted that US is trying through the “Friends of the Syrian People” group to promote humanitarian relief to cities under attack from Syrian government forces.
“But they can also accelerate a transition to a peaceful and stable and representative Syrian government,” he added.
Earlier in the week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Congressional committee that Assad could be classified as a war criminal, while France suggested Assad be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Assad bad, rebels good?
Western leaders are classifying the Syrian conflict in more black-and-white terms every day, with Assad consistently on the dark side. But while Brussels and Washington condemn the Assad government, eyewitnesses from Homs tell chilling stories of atrocities committed by opposition fighters, who kidnap and kill anyone they choose.
The Free Syrian Army blocked passage to Red Cross and Red Crescent ambulances, delaying evacuation from humanitarian disaster areas like the one in Baba Amr, a district of Homs. Further, on several instances when aid did reach its destination, there was no guarantee the people, who needed it, would receive it.
Thus, on Tuesday, a Russian helicopter flew into a neutral area to pick up Edith Bouvier, a French journalist wounded in the shelling of Homs on February 22. She was meant to be transported to France or Lebanon, but failed to appear, said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
“She was in the area controlled by the rebels. They could carry her out to the helicopter. But she never came. Or were the rebels holding her?” added Putin.
Nothing changed after two attempts by Red Crescent ambulances.
Bouvier and another injured reporter, William Daniels, finally reached Paris on Friday night. But as far as the official powers are concerned, there was no reason for the wounded journalists to spend so much time in the devastated city.
As the recent death toll in Syria's year-long uprising has leapt over 7,500 people, a growing number of voices are saying the atrocities carried out by the opposition can no longer be ignored.
“There is a growing recognition that some of the fundamentalist Islamic groups, who probably make up about 30 per cent of the armed insurgents, are guilty of as much brutality as the Syrian army,” Aisling Byrne, a project coordinator at the Conflicts Forum, told RT. “It is a guerrilla war. This is not a fight for democracy, but a fight to introduce a hardline Sunni regime.”
To avert a new apocalypse – this time set for February 2013 – scientists suggest confronting asteroid 2012 DA14 with either paint, or big guns. The tough part of either scheme is that time has long run out to build a spaceship for any operation.
NASA confirms the 60-meter (197-feet) asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, has a good chance of colliding with Earth in eleven months.
The rock's closest approach to the planet is scheduled for February 15, 2013, when the distance between the planet and space wanderer will be under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is lower than the geosynchronous orbit kept by the Google Maps satellite.
Fireworks and watercolors
With the asteroid zooming that low, it will be too late to do anything with it besides trying to predict its final destination and the consequences of impact.
A spaceship is needed, experts agree. It could shoot the rock down or just crash into it, either breaking the asteroid into debris or throwing it off course.
“We could paint it,” says NASA expert David Dunham.
Paint would affect the asteroid’s ability to reflect sunlight, changing its temperature and altering its spin. The asteroid would stalk off its current course, but this could also make the boulder even more dangerous when it comes back in 2056, Aleksandr Devaytkin, the head of the observatory in Russia’s Pulkovo, told Izvestia.
Spaceship impossible?
Whatever the mission, building a spaceship to deal with 2012 DA14 will take two years – at least.
The asteroid has proven a bitter discovery. It has been circling in orbit for three years already, crossing Earth’s path several times, says space analyst Sergey Naroenkov from the Russian Academy of Sciences. It seems that spotting danger from outer space is still the area where mere chance reigns, while asteroid defense systems exist only in drafts.
Still, prospects of meeting 2012 DA14 are not all doom and gloom.
“The asteroid may split into pieces entering the atmosphere. In this case, most part of it will never reach the planet’s surface,” remarks Dunham.
But if the entire asteroid is to crash into the planet, the impact will be as hard as in the Tunguska blast, which in 1908 knocked down trees over a total area of 2,150 sq km (830 sq miles) in Siberia. This is almost the size of Luxembourg. In today’s case, the destination of the asteroid is yet to be determined.
