Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign

So Obama gave this speech in Berlin… here’s exactly what I thought when reading through it… you won’t get a clearer picture in to my mind than this folks…

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

YO, Germans! Don’t worry, I’m not a hard-core American Exceptionalist… we’re cooo… and I totally would have made this speech even if I weren’t a candidate for president… nobody would have came to hear me… but I totally would have done it… my candidacy had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. Just a normal citizen… making a speech… right up.

I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father - my grandfather - was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

By the way, I’m black (didn’t know if you knew that, so I thought I’d mention it)… and I’ve got European blood in my family… sort of… fyi.

At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.

That is why I’m here.

Well, actually, I’m kind of hear for campaign purposes… to prove I’m no newbie on foreign policy…

And you are here because you too know that yearning.

Or maybe because the 2 most popular German Bands gave free shows… but I’ll just assume you would have came anyway… I AM Barack Obama, after all. I’m a rock Staaarrr!

This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.

I’m not too kean on Americans and Iraqi’s struggling to accomplish the same dream though… It’s just so not-cool anymore.

Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof…

This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city…

The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.

All this talk though about radical Islam taking over the Middle East and Europe…. OVERRATED.

**editors note** Obama, you IDOT… you don’t see the same threat Radical Islam posed and the incredible DANGER posed by retreating from Iraq??? How on earth can you use this analogy without grave self-reflection on YOUR Iraq policy positions–policies which would have left Iraq and the Middle East in the very thralls of it’s OWN civil war???? You think retreat from Berlin would have been a disaster but from Iraq would have been the RIGHT THING???? You’re KIDDING me, right!???

And that’s when the airlift began - when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.

The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies…

But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning.

It wasn’t the 300 tons of food and supplies flown into the country EVERY DAY by British and American servicemen that kept the flame of hope burning… no, it was the people of Berlin–flaming that flame of hope with their own scrap wood they burned to stay warm….

The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won… The people of Berlin have spoken.

Pope John Paul the Second? President Regan’s economic and military buildup plan and his “tear down this wall” speech? Pleeeassee… those people were barely involved with the fall of the Berlin wall! ANY historian will tell you it was the people and Mayor of Berlin that caused the wall to fall.

We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin

Don’t look at Iraq though… or America for OUR role in “keeping the flame of hope burning”…whatever you do… DON’T LOOK. Because when all is said and done… America just is far more flawed than Germany on these important issues of human freedom…

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As I was researching a previous post, I came across a number of interesting blog posts and interviews I found quite interesting. In particular, I wanted to bring your attention to a great interview with my favorite liberal feminist, Naomi Wolf, author of the infamous “a room of ones own” (and the subject of possibly the best television prank in the last year). She is promoting her new book “The End of America” –a book that lays out the ‘Ten Steps to Closing Down an Open Society’ and “exposes” the ways in which America is mirroring the closed societies of history.

Allow me to begin this discussion by first complimenting Ms. Wolf. First, she just looked great during that interview. I was all about that red thing she was wearing (but I digress!). In all seriousness, I think this book is a valuable addition to the discussion and brings an important (albeit selective) historical context to modern politics. At the risk of cliche, I would remind you that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. By reminding us of the evils of history Ms Wolf is, shockingly enough, being helpful… and I wish to encourage this kind of behavior.

This being said, I think it is fair to say that Ms Wolf’s conclusions are lacking… in any number of ways. It isn’t that she is always wrong, but that her foundational history is in many cases only loosely connected with modern practice. She begins with an assumption of guilt (primarily with the Bush administration… many times implying he is a ‘wannabe’ despot), finds similar parallels to dictators with completely different motivations and purposes, and then imputes those motives to Bush because factual circumstances were the same. Although a stretch, in some cases I found myself thinking that if two people washed their laundry, that would be enough for her to draw a comparison. I am, of course, exaggerating; but I do so to point out that to end one’s analysis at factual similarities without further analysis can lead to very irrational conclusions.

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Introduction 

It’s been a while since I posted on any LEGAL matter, and I must say it’s good to finally get around to the legal posts again.  Anyway, I’m not vouching for the LEGAL correctness of any of this… but I though I’d post the text of my final Copyright Exam just in case you were interested in Copyright as a general matter.  The exam was intended to be the analysis portion of a legal opinion discussing Google’s “book search” and the Copyright issues raised with Google’s scanning and indexing activities.

Let me know what you think?  I’d be interested to hear from law students and novices alike.  (Do I deserve and A? ;) 

Update:  It turns out I DID get an ‘A’.   niiice. 

OVERVIEW

Google, an online search giant, is undertaking a project to catalogue and digitally index the contents of books in libraries across the country. To accomplish this project, each book added to the Google database must be scanned and the text converted into a digital format. Google then stores a graphical copy of the book as well as an indexed database of all words and phrases that is then searchable by the end user. For works in the public domain, Google allows users to access the work in its entirety. In the case of Copyrighted material, Google selects individual pages to be displayed in order for the user to preview the book before having the option to purchase or obtain the book by alternate means.

As a result of these activities, Publishers have sued Google for “massive” copyright infringement. They claim that the act of copying and indexing a Copyrighted work is itself an infringing activity and further assert that the opt-out policy is evidence of indifference to the rights of authors and publishers. Google asserts that the opt-out program removes them from Copyright liability and even if not, they are protected by the “fair use” doctrine.

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