Well, well, well. Looks like there is suddenly a huge interest in the ol' Pirate Party. For those who are not familiar, there is a land of Reddit, where narwhals parade across pastures of bacon, and many lulz are had.

Today at Reddit, a cause very dear to our hearts became the topic de jour. The Pirate Party. Now, they are all hot and heavy for a party called the American Pirate Party, and more power to them.

I mean, my allah, what are we gonna do? File a copyright claim?

Comical at best and we wish them all the best and don't mind if they join our skeleton crew. Those arriving from Reddit must be asking themselves, is this a dead site?

No, we are not with Davy Jones quite yet. We have been researching how we can actually get the USA Pirate Party on state ballots. We posted up the Connecticut version as an example of exactly what one must due to get our name on the ballot.

See, the status quo hates third parties, it is extremely hard to get on the ballot. It is almost like the Democrats and Republicans hate democracy. Which, of course, they do.

No one wants to be a pirate, life makes them.

We were going to do a proper launch in a month or two, doing our usual media antics that have helped out so many other causes, but it seems we are meant to sale much earlier than planned.

We must sail to help this "America Pirate Party", least they become another joke like the Pirate Party US.

For more lulz, see the Reddit thread of pirate epic here:
America, we need a third party that can galvanize our generation. One that doesn't reek of pansy. I propose a U.S. Pirate Party.

Btw, we are totally stealing this:

So I guess I have to start blogging again, least people think we ain't doing shit.

Go Pirates.

So we add some more resources. The Pirates in general wrestled with various online petition modules for joomla that were all basically horrific.

So we added NinjaBoard.

Instead of having pointless online petitions, we're going to research how to get the USA Pirate Party registered in each state.

Wouldn't you know it, political party registration is a state's right issue.

Go Republic Go!

(Hat Tip to nvolker at Reddit.com)

Patent trolls, Machiavelli's descendents

The Supreme Court v. Patent Absurdity

By L. Gordon Crovitz, The Wall Street Journal
November 15, 2009 10:20 PM ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574537481229336114.html

The Supreme Court last week became Exhibit A for the case that technological change is fast outpacing the ability of government to deal with it. The last time the justices tried to address broadly what kinds of innovations are entitled to patent protection was a generation ago. It showed.

During the oral argument in last week's case, Bilski and Warsaw v. Kappos, it became clear that the justices had strong views about what intellectual property should not get special protection. They signalled that they will invalidate a category of patents that have been granted for over a decade. But they also admitted they had little idea about what kinds of innovation should be protected in an information age.

Patents provide exclusive rights for a certain time in exchange for disclosing details of inventions so that others can then use them after the patent expires. It was easier in the industrial age to recognize the inventions and discoveries that the Constitution says would "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." Today, many innovations are made using the virtual machine of the computer, which operates by changing digits, not by inventing cotton gins or improving plowshares.

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Such humility is rare at the Supreme Court, but as the justices come to a decision in this case, they should remember above all that legal uncertainty about intellectual property has real costs. For now, the most innovative parts of our economy bear the burden of uncertainty, with no one knowing for sure who owns what rights to which ideas, inventions or discoveries.