We’ve always loved this Mad cover. We probably still have the issue in a drawer at the Ancestral Home.

And if Time Warner, parent company of E.C. Publications, would like us to yank it from our website, we have a brand-spankin’-new DMCA Notice page for their lawyers to badger us.

Oh, and our $105 DMCA registration fee is in the mail to the U.S. Copyright Office. We’d like to thank our Usual Gang of Above-the-Timestamp Idiots for chipping in on the expense.

Why all the bother? Simple: If we don’t do it, Bad People will bankrupt us.

The $105 Fix That Could Protect You From Copyright-Troll Lawsuits [Wired, Oct. 27]

EFF Defends Former Prosecutor From Righthaven Copyright Suit [Wired, Nov. 1]

“Warner Bros. Pictures is now developing a live-action/CGI movie on the lovelorn French skunk and [Mike] Myers is attached to voice the lead role.” [New York]

We have this running game: If you read a given piece of news as coming from the Bush Administration instead of the Obama Administration, what would you think?

Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

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“Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has released the results of a lie detector test which he says proves he isn’t behind a string of attacks against one of his Republican opponents, Rep. Nikki Haley.” [WIS-TV, via Political Wire]

“An anal vibrator believed to be a bomb caused the California Highway Patrol to briefly evacuate its South Lake Tahoe area office on April 7.” [Tahoe Daily Tribune, via LuxMentis]

Oh please oh please oh please:

“I promise you, I will stop at nothing when it comes to defending our freedom and our values,” Santorum wrote [in an email to supporters]. “That’s the real reason why — after talking it over with my wife Karen and our kids — I am considering putting my name in for the 2012 presidential race.”

As long as Spreading Santorum shows up as the first Santorum link at Google, he has our endorsement.

The Re-Emergence Of Rick Santorum — From Ex-Senator To Potential Presidential Candidate [TPM]

Must be a federal holiday, things are so slow out there. How about a fun New York Times meta-correction?

In a number of business articles in The Times over the past year, and in posts on the DealBook blog on NYTimes.com, a Times reporter appears to have improperly appropriated wording and passages published by other news organizations.

The reporter, Zachery Kouwe, reused language from The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and other sources without attribution or acknowledgment.

Where’s Jayson Blair when you need him? Oh, he’s a Certified Life Coach these days.

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