Coffee Fascists or Just Yer Usual Corp Tw**z?

Oh, How They'll Grind Yer Granules!

Starfucks...er...Starbuck's Corp Logo.

Starbucks has been a target of parodies and imitations of its logo, and has used legal action against those it perceives to be infringing on its intellectual property. In 2000, San Francisco cartoonist Kieron Dwyer was sued by Starbucks for copyright and trademark infringement after creating a parody of its siren logo and putting it on the cover of one of his comics; later placing it on coffee mugs, t-shirts, and stickers that he sold on his website and at comic book conventions. Dwyer felt that since his work was a parody it was protected by his right to free speech under U.S. law. The case was eventually settled out of court, as Dwyer claimed he did not have the financial ability to endure a trial case with Starbucks. The judge agreed that Dwyer's work was a parody and thus enjoyed constitutional protection; however, he was forbidden from financially "profiting" from using a "confusingly similar" image of the Starbucks siren logo. Dwyer is currently allowed to display the image as an expression of free speech, but he can no longer sell it.[80] In a similar case, a New York store selling stickers and T-shirts using the Starbucks logo with the words "f—k off" was sued by the company in 1999.[81][82] An anti-Starbucks website, starbuckscoffee.co.uk, which encouraged people to deface the Starbucks logo[83] was transferred to Starbucks in 2005,[84][85] but has since resurfaced at www.starbuckscoffee.org.uk. Christian bookstores and websites in the US are selling a T-shirt featuring a logo with the mermaid replaced by Jesus and the words "Sacrificed for me" around the edge.[86]
Other successful cases filed by Starbucks include the case won in 2006 against the chain Xingbake in Shanghai, China for trademark infringement, because the chain used a green-and-white logo with a name that sounded phonetically similar to the Chinese for Starbucks.[87] Starbucks did not open any stores after first registering its trademark in Russia in 1997 and in 2002 a Russian lawyer successfully filed a request to cancel the trademark. He then registered the name with a Moscow company and asked for $600,000 to sell the trademark to Starbucks, but was ruled against in November 2005.[15] Sam Buck, who owns a coffee store in Oregon, was prohibited from using her name on the shop front in 2006.[88]
In 2003, Starbucks sent a cease-and-desist letter to "HaidaBucks Coffee House" in Masset, British Columbia, Canada. The store was owned by a group of young Haida men, commonly referred to as "bucks." After facing criticism, Starbucks dropped its demand after HaidaBucks dropped "coffee house" from its name.[89]

The SB Empire Map: they ditched Israel for
commercial considerations:
or was it that you mustn't upset the rag-heads...?
.

Other cases have gone against the company. In 2005 Starbucks lost a trademark infringement case against a smaller coffee vendor in South Korea that operates coffee stations under the name Starpreya. The company, Elpreya, says Starpreya is named after the Norse goddess, Freja, with the letters of that name changed to ease pronunciation by Koreans. The court rejected Starbucks' claim that the logo of Starpreya is too similar to their own logo.[90] A bar owner in Galveston, Texas, USA won the right to sell "Star Bock Beer" after a lawsuit by Starbucks in 2003 after he registered the name, but the 2005 federal court ruling also stated that the sale of the beer must be restricted to Galveston, a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.[91]
Ongoing cases include a dispute over the copyright application for Seattle’s Rat City Rollergirls logo in 2008[92] The company claimed the roller derby league’s logo by a Washington artist[93] was too similar to its own. Starbucks requested an extension to further examine the issue and possibly issue a complaint, which was granted by the Trademark Office. The July 16, 2008 deadline passed without action by the corporation.[94] Starbucks launched action against an Indian cosmetics business run by Shahnaz Husain, after she applied to register the name Starstruck for use with coffee and related products. She said her aim was to open a chain of stores selling coffee and chocolate-based cosmetics.[88]
Others have used the Starbucks logo unaltered and without permission, such as a café in Pakistan that used the logo in 2003 in its advertisements[95] and a cafe in Cambodia in 2009, the owner saying that "whatever we have done we have done within the law".[96] (Source: Wikipedia).

Killing Babies AFTER They're Born...They're Not Yet People!

Oxford’s Nazi Scientists Of Today!

Article: (C) Bruce Bawer.

In my teenage years, I was a devout fan of science fiction. The stories that made me keep coming back for more were the ones that made me think, wonder, look at the world afresh, recognize connections across time and space, contemplate the nature of consciousness, and confront moral questions that I had never thought about before. 

Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” and other such stories were Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God.” And Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall.” and of course, later I revered the masterly Robert Heinlein.  

But there was no writer who awed me more than Philip K. Dick – and no story that had a more powerful impact on me than Dick’s “The Pre-Persons." The story takes place in a time in the near future when abortion has been redefined in such a way that parents may “abort” their children up until age twelve. A boy who is out playing in the park sees the “abortion truck” heading for some home in his neighborhood and, fearing it is coming for him, sequesters himself in some bushes until he realizes to his relief that the “abortion” victim in question is someone other than himself.

I bring all this up not out of idle nostalgia but because of an article that has just appeared in the British Medical Journal, and that I learned about through a news report in the Telegraph.  The BMJ article is by two individuals named: Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

Giubilini.
I love jumpy things. Now...it's only
very intelligent people like me
who should be entrusted
to make these
unsentimental  decisions for
society.

The former (photo Left) is connected with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan and with the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University in Melbourne; the latter is associated with the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University.  Both share the same job description.  They are “medical ethicists.”

The point of their article is simple.  They argue for the morality of what they call “after-birth abortion” – in other words, as they bluntly put it, “killing a newborn.” They say that such killing “should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” They explain that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion” to “euthanasia” “because the best interest of the one who is killed is not necessarily the primary criterion for the choice.”

Minerva.
Your baby? Well it's hardly going
to be another Mozart...

So speak the “medical ethicists”  – one of them connected with Oxford, no less.  It is all very chilling – and it is all straight out of Philip K. Dick, right down to the cool, dispassionate, professional rhetoric about what does and does not constitute personhood.  

Giubilini and Minerva explain that for them, the word “person” signifies “an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” Since newborns are not “persons” in this sense, their “alleged right…to develop their potentiality…is over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being” – for “actual people’s well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child.”

Perhaps Giubilini and Minerva could let them grow up a bit before experimenting on them, similar to the one's performed on these children in the photo below, by some Nazi doctor. 

Children subjected to medical experiments in Auschwitz.
And who's once beloved children were those...?

Giubilini and Minerva – if I keep repeating their names, it’s because I want to make sure you and I remember them – who are purportedly talking here about what constitutes humanity, but their very language is the epitome of inhumanity.     

Nazi science: to be straightforward about it, that’s pretty much what Giubilini and Minerva are selling.

About Bruce Bawer

Bruce Bawer is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center and the author of “While Europe Slept” and “Surrender.” His new Harper Collins e-book, "The New Quislings," about the Norwegian Left's exploitation of the July 22 mass murders in Norway, is now available.

What Else Do You Need To Know?

Iran leader Khamenei thanks Obama

for diplomacy push!

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praises U.S. president’s insistence against a military 

strike on their nuclear program.

Take 1: (For gullible public, NYT and Obama's ears):
"I will not allow such terrible weapons to be built!"
Take 2: (For the Nuke Team Iran:)
"Get a friggin' move on!
Just how long do you expect me to sell the Infidels this pup?"

So you don't need your tea leaves read or consult a Voodoo priest. Any praise from THAT tosser tells it all! 

Just Wait Til I Get Myself Re-Elected!

Obama has offered Israel ‘bunker busters’...but... wait till I have my second term victory. Some fucking way to run US foreign policy!

Obama: But PM, you only have the
trifling matter of a nuke strike on Israel
to think about...meanwhile I have a second term
election to organize, fund raising to do
and consider what music 'Shel and I will smooch
to at our victory ball. 

 Memo to Bibi: Tell him to go bollocks...oh....and you'll just have to go Super-EMP for the first course, followed by a proper nuclear strike in order to cook the Iranian facilities for the next few thousand years. That should slow the genocidal goons down a tad with the added bonus of pissing on Obama's chips!  
(Cartoon: Copyright Control).

Beatles Youtube: How They Helped Destroy Soviet Communism...

How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin tells the extraordinary and untold story of how the Beatles punctured the Iron Curtain. In a personal journey through Russia by award-winning director Leslie Woodhead, he tells in first-person accounts the story of a secret revolution which contributed to the fall of communism.
Yeah,yeah,yeah..it's a longie at 55mins...but you can be pluckin' yer eyebrows or balalaika while it plays.
(Video: Copyright Control).

Lights Out?

This handout image provided by NASA shows a solar flare heading toward Earth. An impressive solar flare is heading toward Earth and could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights!

Candle in the solar wind.

An impressive solar flare is heading toward Earth and could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights. Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center said the sun erupted Tuesday evening and the effects should start smacking Earth late Wednesday night, close to midnight EST. They say it is the biggest in five years and growing. (AP Photo/NASA)

$2 And £1 Return Airline Tickets...Get 'Em Here!!!

You don't have to have been born with a shamrock stamped on yer bum in order to enjoy what these piss taking Irish are singing about. Anyone who has ever flown on a cut price airline will understand only too well!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HPyl2tOaKxM

(Video: Copyright Control).