I’ve been accused of only writing one Associated Content article per month. That has been true for a while, but something about Spring, the daffodils on the lawn, or just trying to delay doing my income taxes has prompted me to produce 3 whole articles this month.
At the end of 2006, I wrote Relationships: What Women Want and in addition to standing the test of time, it has one of the funniest lines I’ve ever written. Now I’ve taken those precepts and turned them on their ear with my latest lack-luster masterpiece, Why Your Woman Left You…
This report is the culmination of 25 years of research by The Barefoot Human Behavior and Scatological Research Group, LLC. I just wanted to make it clear that this is a scientific paper and not just some ass hat barking farts on the web. You can read the full report here.
Vogue magazine lit a nice fire with the latest cover. I don’t have a subscription, but the new “Shape Issue” caught my eye. They expound on all sorts of shapes, but mine. My doctor keeps telling me I’m out of shape. I keep reminding her that round is a shape.
Let’s try to look beyond the racial divide that still exists the world over and take something away from this furor that can be applied to life. In general, life teaches us these things.
Prejudice is human nature. Yeah, I said it. Want to fight about it? You’re prejudice. I’m prejudice. We’re all prejudice in a different way. My prejudice is just against stupidity. If you want to read my angry rant about prejudice, well screw you! I don’t like you. You smell funny and I hate you so don’t read it.
I know you are on pins and needles as you follow the saga of the Ness City Kansas woman, Pam Babcock, whose phobias kept her in the bathroom of her boyfriend home so long, her butt literally became attached to the toilet set. Apparently, Ness County officials have determined her mental state didn’t have a capital city. Medical privacy laws won’t allow the release of the findings, but officials think they have enough to declare her a “dependent adult.”
This means that equally crazy boyfriend, Kory McFarren, 37, is now charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult in Ness County District Court. I’m having trouble finding any thing humorous in this massive mess. It seems that both of these people need serious help. If it comes in the form of psychiatric sessions or Scientology e-sessions, I don’t care. I don’t see how pressing charges is going to help anyone involved in this case.
Here is Associated Content’s official policy on pursuing plagiarism:
Here’s some clarification that we hope will help any CP who finds their content has been posted/published/reprinted/etc. on a third-party site that isn’t a partner site of AC’s:FACT: If we grant reprint permission for a piece of content to ANY other site, AC will always notify the CP.
For EXCLUSIVE content:
Associated Content is the copyright owner of all exclusive content. While a CP may be the original author, Associated Content is the only entity that can act legally on behalf of the content in question. If you find an exclusive article on an inappropriate site, please contact AC’s Designated Agent at designated_agent@associatedcontent.com. Include the link to the offending website, as well as a link to your content on AC. Only Associated Content has the legal right to send an effective DMCA takedown notice to an offending company/website. We handle these types of cases multiple times every week, so the Designated Agent will be your best step. Any DMCA complaint that you send to a third-party will be defective, as you are no longer the copyright owner.
For NON-EXCLUSIVE content:
Unfortunately, because the content in question was licensed to AC on a non-exclusive basis, we have no way of knowing whether the offending site published the content before or after it was published on AC. Accordingly, we will not necessarily take any action against the site. (At our discretion, AC may send a Cease and Desist order, but we are not required to.) However, since you [the CP] retained the rights to the content, you are free to enforce your rights against the inappropriate third-party for copyright infringement. Depending on where you find your content reprinted, there should always be a contact or link that every company supplies for copyright infringement complaints that looks similar to our “Copyright Infringement?” link at the bottom of each page.
What I get from this is if you submitted your article as an AC exclusive, AC owns the rights and will pursue the matter for you. You only need to report it to their Designated Agent and they’ll take if from there. If you submitted the article as non-exclusive, you still own the rights and AC is under no obligation to help you. You should take action to rectify the situation.
Doing this yourself can be difficult especially if the thief is a blogger. My recent experience is pretty typical when a blogger steals your article. With no other way to contact them, I was reduced to leaving comments on their blog. After receiving no response for a couple of days, I resorted to reporting them to their host. The host, which happened to be WordPress, took swift action to suspend the blog.
It is important to note, I used all the magic DMCA words when I contacted WordPress. If you are going to pursue copyright infringement on your own, you will need to be very specific with URLs, publishing dates, and use the right language. Under the law, if you follow the DMCA legalese, the responsible party must follow up.
Because of my recent saga, I found a great resource, Plagiarism Today. It has lots of information on how to deal with plagiarists. There is also a very helpful Stock Letter section. Simply fill in the blanks and you have an officially worded DMCA cease and desist letter.
The really hard part about enforcing your copyright is finding out that you’ve been plagiarized. You could pay for a service like Copyscape if that is worth your money, but there is a cheesy free way to follow your work. Set up a Google alert for a key phrase or two from your article. This will notify you if the phrase shows up elsewhere on the web.
The goal is to find wholesale plagiarism. Finding just a except falls under the fair use rules. Don’t freak out if you find one paragraph which cites you as the source or links back to your original article. That’s a good thing. However, if you do find a paragraph or two which someone incorporated into their own work and they didn’t cite you, that is plagiarism.
Huntsville police arrived at a robbery scene early Friday to arrest a suspect but ended up arresting the victim and a witness, too. >> Read Full Story >>
Around 6:40AM on March 15, 2008, 43-year-old Walter McLin flagged down a patrol car and told the cops he had been robbed at gun point. After speaking to a witness, the police arrested 31-year-old Stepheon White at a near-by motel and charged him with first-degree robbery.
Upon further questioning, McLin was charged second-degree theft for the $900 forged check in his possession. Police then became suspicious of the witness’ identity and charged him with filing a false statement because he lied about his name. It turned out the witness had good reason to lie because he had multiple, outstanding warrants.
All three men are currently enjoying the hospitality of the Madison County metro jail.
This story only supports the old adage, “There is no honor among thieves.” It also highlights the fact that if you are going to be a criminal, try not to hang out with other criminals. One thief may be stupid, but the power of stupidity rises exponentially with each additional criminal brain.
All the answers to your burning questions about the woman from Ness City, Kansas who sat on a toilet seat so long, her butt became one with the porcelain.
Yes. There was a second bathroom in the house.
No. She didn’t sit constantly, but long enough.
Yes. She was abused as a child, but not by her boyfriend.
No. No charges are pending at this time.
Yes. She may spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair due to the damage to her leg nerves.
And finally, yes. This couple does not appear to be the sharpest tools in the shed. According to the sheriff, “The unfortunate thing is this truly is a case of two people, in my opinion, with diminished mental capacity.”
“The house was cluttered but not in shambles,” he [Sheriff Wipple] said. “The smell was overpowering – a terrible smell about the house, obviously coming from where she was at.”
McFarren, 36, told police his girlfriend, Pam Babcock, 35, had a phobia about leaving the bathroom and may not have left the bathroom in two years, although he’s unsure how long she was in there because “time just went by so quick I can’t pinpoint how long.” He said beatings she received in her childhood caused her phobia. >> Read the Full Story >>
Next time someone tells you to “Shit or get of the pot,” take that sage advice to heart. I’m glad that’s settled and now we can focus on the real news again. I hear there may be a puppy with his head stuck in a bucket in Peoria, Illinois. Stay tuned.
UPDATED: Please see the comments for AC response to this post.
Part of the AC Newsletter for 13 March 2008 was some less-than-helpful tips for promoting your article using MySpace.
Make friends with a friend adder bot. This tool collects a list of MySpace users and then sends out requests for you.
This is an incredibly bad idea.
It’s against MySpaces TOS. If caught, you’ll have your account deleted.
It’s spam. The adding friends part isn’t, but when you start blasting out bulletins, you’ll get blocked.
It’s going to give you and Associated Content a black eye.
My jaw hit the floor after the implications of these suggestions sank in. Please do not take AC up on this. Earn your MySpace friends and you will build a long-term, loyal reader base. Scoop and spam random strangers will get you dropped from all circles.
Just one more thing. This was in the AC Newsletter, too:
Make your MySpace page work for you by using colors, fonts and pictures to showcase your content or use the AC-themed layout.
You MySpacers need to open your eyes. I’m starting to think they are closed because you don’t see how butt-ugly your pages are. Tone it down. Stop with the flashing crap. You’re giving people seizures. Pick colors you can see. Stop putting lavender text on a pink background.
Bone up on some basic web concepts such as correct color combination and white space. Spend a few minutes at Web Pages That Suck. It’s a site that teaches you decent design concepts by showing you what other sites have done poorly. Don’t be surprised if you run into a few examples drawn from MySpace.
NESS CITY, Kan. – Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years, and they’re investigating whether she was mistreated.
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend. >> full story…
It appears their was no abuse or restraints involved. Her boyfriend brought her food and water and everyday asked her when she was coming out. After two years, he finally called police. She wasn’t cooperative with the cops, who had to use a pry bar to remove her and the seat together. She wasn’t cooperative with the hospital staff, who had to surgically separate her skin from the porcelain.
She sat for two years on a toilet until her butt was welded in place. No one is sure what mental illness she suffers from, yet. The real question is why it took two years before the boyfriend had enough of his girlfriend squatting at his pad.
I jumped into a forum debate about the 600 pound gorilla of the Democratic primary. What’s different about Clinton and Obama. It certainly seems like their policies are pretty close. From that seed, I spun up my latest Associated Content piece, Clinton v. Obama. Are They the Same Candidate?
She’s white. He’s black.
Obama is married to a black woman and he is only half-black. Clinton is married to a white man who cheated on her half the time, probably with some black women.
Advantage: Obama. Bill is more baggage than asset.
It follows this format and devolves pretty quickly. Hope you enjoy and let me know you stopped by.
Like mom's fridge 
