Sadly, No!

Open Source Trademark Infringement has a clarification:

Our trade name is OSM, and please note that we have a TM after OSM, not after Open Source Media. We consider Open Source Media to be a description of what we are and do, not a trade name.

Good thing no one has ever heard of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montr?al (L’OSM as it’s known to a few.)

No one will ever be confused again. Although this would give a whole new meaning to “being the first violin of the OSM.”

The always excellent James Wolcott takes a look at some PJs and returns unimpressed:

In a scene sadly reminiscent of those titty-flashing Girls Gone Wild videos without which no bachelor’s personal library is complete, a female blogger fondles her breast while rubbing up against “globally influential” content provider Glenn Reynolds in the orgy room of the OSM launch party. She’s wasting her rubbing energy, I fear. He’s hardly that influential.

This prompts the usual production of manufactured outrage from said fondler/rubber:

You must stand corrected. Please look at the picture, I am giving a thumbs up sign. There is no touching, no rubbing……no sexual activity (or innuendo) of any kind.

Indeed, Wolcott had failed to study the picture in depth (who’s going to blame him for that?) — and as such, had not noticed that Atlas was giving the old interpretive dance rendition of “thumbs up” which states that you must hold your jacket just so while pointing your thumb at the person facing you. Excessive enthusiasm, the kind not typically displayed when in the presence of Glenn Reynolds, is also required. Rounding up the ensemble, of course, is the kind of close physical proximity not usually seen outside of an Ace & Gary crime fighting spree. That kind of non-sexual, thumbs up giving sign. Got it. Yet hell has no wrath like an Atlas Shrugged:

Quotations marks around “globally influential” when referencing Glenn Reynolds?
Your animus towards the blogs is misplaced and yet it understandable you might wish to disparage, demean the very thing that renders you irrelevant, .

Glenn Reynolds is globally influential, and blogs will make James Wolcott irrelevant. Step away from the keyboard and no one gets hurt. Seeing as how blogs will make Wolcott irrelevant, and Wolcott too has a blog, does this mean that he is actively working towards its irrelevance, along with the rest of the blogosphere. Is the blogosphere a self-destructing power?

It is a Gutenberg moment. And Reynolds is changing the world, albeit one word at a time.

Yes, there’s nothing more innovative than a bunch of Cheetos Enthusiasts? getting together to set a world record for biggest circle jerk ever. “Disturbing if true.”

This is spin of Scott McClellan-caliber:

Iraq’s interior minister has defended a government facility that was found to be holding dozens of prisoners, including some showing signs of torture, saying it held “the most criminal terrorists.”

“Nobody was beheaded or killed,” a defiant Bayan Jabr told a news conference Thursday, saying that only seven of 170 detainees showed marks of torture.

“Yeah, so we tortured them a little bit! No biggie! Hey, America does it all the time now! And it’s not like any of ’em got their heads sliced off or nothin’! Quit complainin’, you guys! The pain from getting electro shocks to the nads will wear off by next week!”

Late to the party as usual, but just too good to ignore. Open Source Trademark Infringement, meet Open Source Media:

Hm. A company that used to call itself Pajamas Media now calls itself Open Source Media, which is ? scroll down to our legal notice ? kind of exactly what we call ourselves. They?ve collected $3.5 million in venture capital, and, to celebrate their re-naming of our already-named name, they?re holding an event at the Rainbow Room.

That’s a shame. *

From Austin Bay’s Pajamas Media Open Source Media bio:

My mother was a civil rights activist and my father was an oil company geologist. In some ways, I have my mother?s domestic views and my father?s international views.

In other words, he doesn’t hate brown people, he just wants to steal their oil.

Nifty.

Anti-Defamation League v.s. Evangelical Christians- SMACKDOWN:

Warning that the Evangelical right has made alarming gains in social and political influence, a leading Jewish church-state watchdog is calling for a tougher and more unified Jewish response.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, speaking to the group?s national leadership here last week, signaled a sharp shift in ADL policy by directly attacking several prominent religious right groups and challenging their motives, which he said include nothing less than ?Christianizing America.?

Among the groups he cited were the powerful Focus on the Family ministry and the Family Research Council.

Gee, how did he ever get that impression? Maybe it’s because Focus on the Family is selling books like this one:

American history overflows with evidence of the profound role Christianity has played in our nation, yet that assertion is continuously mocked by media and academic elites. This book documents the historical record and the claim that America was founded by Christians to be a biblical “city on a hill.” The author responds to secular denials of America’s Christian heritage as he presents data from a broad range of historical sources, including the “separation” myth.

Aaaah, the “separation” myth! Secularists make it sound like there’s an amendment in the Constitution that says the government can’t establish a religion! What a bunch of loons!
Read the rest of this entry »

Glenn Reynolds, the anti-Peter Drucker, writes:

This is also, I suspect, one reason activist groups like to target big businesses. Small businesses don’t care what they think, unless the activists are their customers. Big businesses are run by people who can afford to let other issues — like how they’re treated at dinner parties or on the golf course — affect their bottom lines. In this sense, giving in to activist demands is just another example of management self-dealing. Like Gulfstream jets or fancy executive dining rooms, it’s a way for managers to improve their quality of life at the expense of shareholders and employees.

Managers at large corporations “give in” to consumer boycotts in order to improve their quality of life — just like with Gulfstream jets or fancy executive dining rooms. Color us unconvinced.

Bonus points:

In the really old days, prior to the industrial revolution, there were no real advantages to hugeness. 1,000 blacksmiths pounding on anvils weren’t any more efficient per capita than a single blacksmith working alone.

Replace blacksmiths with bloggers, and pounding on anvils with pecking at keyboards. What do you get? This.

So it makes sense to keep right on using it. The originals here, and our favorite repeat:

We can’t wait for his first speech in Japan.

CNN reports:

Jordan’s state-run TV announces resignations of 11 top officials, including the national security adviser, in wake of last week’s bombings.

350 Law Profs Write in Opposition to Graham Amendment

Because if the government can arrest you and put you in jail forever without any evidence that you’ve committed a crime, that’s pretty much a problem. Not to mention the whole torture thing. One has to imagine that a capital-‘L’ Libertarian law professor would find it troubling.

Hmm. Renzo, Resnik, Reza…

Nope, not on there [pdf file]. How strange.

“Being a Libertarian doesn’t mean you can’t be a cheerleader for repressive state power ungoverned by the rule of law.”

Well, some would say that it does. In any case, our man Retardo has coined the excellent term, ‘Propertarians,’ to denote self-described Libertarians who don’t really care about liberty, but who will champion any hare-brained free-market casuistry that emits from the GOP or its backline of right-wing foundations: privatization, flat taxes, eliminating Social Security — schemes, one and all, to advance the cause of private property by giving more of it to the propertied. Glenn Reynolds, we mention no names.

On the other hand, Glenn does link to a thing at Legal Affairs today featuring torture lawyer John Yoo.

So at least he has a dog in the race, as it were. Entire text of entry: “JOHN YOO AND NEIL KINKOPF debate the limits to executive power over at the Legal Affairs debate club. Posted at 01:33 PM by Glenn Reynolds.” Keep up the good fight, Insty!