“Picture by Dunno Source”

December 26, 2008
Flickr Photograph

“Picture By: dunno source” is how my stolen photograph is attributed at the ICanHasCheezeburger website, one of the most popular sites on the Internet. At my Flickr photostream it is “© All rights reserved” to me. 

My “Good Cat – Bad Cat” copyrighted photograph has been illegally uploaded to the I Can Has Cheezburger site, credited as “Picture By: dunno source.” As of today, 26 December 2008, fifty-nine (59) derivatives (Lolz) have been made of this photograph, totally without my permission.

My original photograph that I published on 5 August 2006 is here: Good Cat, Bad Cat by Edna Barney.

ICanHasCheezBurger is a very popular commercial website which exists to make revenue from its posted cat photographs. CNet has one explanation on the popularity of the website and its picture books (CNET 2008). Here is another of why this website is so popular

“I came to ICHC to see the free photos of cats since I’m illustrating a childrens book about a cat.” (Tempie’s Profile)

ICanHasCheezBurger is on Flickr, profiled at www.flickr.com/people/icanhascheezburger. Here is the commercial website’s cat group on Flickr: Flickr Can Has Cheezburger. Does anyone else know of any other “commercial” websites who are allowed to have groups on Flickr? I could not find any, other than ICANHASCHEEZBURGER.

UPDATE: Cheezburger Cats

The image, Dunno Source, is subject to copyright by barneykin. It is posted here with permission via the Flickr API by barneykin.
Advertisement

“I Am Goddess” Cat

December 22, 2008

I had visited the ICANHASCHEEZBURGER site only a couple times after learning that my “Good Cat, Bad Cat” copyrighted photography was there without my permission, when I spotted an Abyssinian cat I recognized from Flickr. It is a very popular photograph at Flickr and since I own an Abby cat, I recognized it immediately. ICANHASCHEEZBURGER credited it to “dunno source.” I doubted that the source of such a popular picture could be unknown.

At ICANHASCHEEZBURGER the cat poster was made into a template named “I Am Goddess,” contributed by Ozzy Kat and camcat. I found what appeared to be the original photograph at Flickr, “(c) All Rights Reserved,”named “Belle on Black 4.” After I contacted the Flickr photographer about his non-credited photograph at ICANHASCHEEZBURGER, I noticed that the site changed “dunno source” to his name. However, at their LOLcat Builder page, his picture is still credited as “Picture By: dunno source”and there are seventy-five (75 and counting) derivative images of it. I found that not one credited the Flickr photographer of such a popular ICANHASCHEEZBURGER template.

My Photo at “I Can Has Cheezburger”

UPDATE: Cheezburger Cats


My Stolen Flickr Photograph

December 22, 2008
Flickr Photograph

On 5 August 2006, I uploaded this photograph of my pet, Katy Blue and my stuffed Stieff cat to the Flickr site. It has always been prominently labeled as “copyright,” although I added the written notice on the actual photograph today, after realizing my copyright had been infringed.

That copyright notice did not stop the ICanHasCheezburger.com site from infringing my photograph and posting it at their site for their own commercial purposes. On 21 December, when another Flickr user reported to me that my photograph was posted at their site, ICanHasCheezburger.com added my Flickr name as credit to the picture. Then they wrote to tell me how proud I should be that my photograph is on the front of their site.

When I told them, as the owner, to remove my photograph, because I had never given them license to use it, they blatently refused until I provide written legal proof  that I am the owner of the photograph. This they demanded, even though they had already admitted in writing that the photograph belonged to me.

So, beware, if you upload your photographs to Flickr and allow said photographs to be publicly viewed. ICanHasCheezburger.com is a Flickr member, with Flickr groups, and seemingly has little regard that you label you images as copyrighted. Yahoo.com owns Flickr, and I have written Yahoo about this matter. If I hear from them, I will report here their actions on this matter.  It is already the case, that Flickr members like ICanHasCheezburger.com are allowed to operate on Flickr even though they are commercial sites, which Flickr Terms of Service forbid.

Yahoo Copyright Terms of Use

The image, Good Cat, Bad Cat, is copyright by Edna Barney posted here with permission via the Flickr API by barneykin.

Now here is my own photo that I never authorized for publication, given a code to be used on other websites to garner advertising hits for the ICanHasCheezburger.com:
funny pictures of cats with captions
more animals

I Can Has Cheezburger even has published a book of cat pictures. It is #150 as of today at Amazon: I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun This is their book blurb on Amazon:

http://www.icanhascheezburger.com was founded in January 2007 as a place to collect “LOLcats”—pictures of cats with funny captions. It has gone on to become a singular sensation, captivating millions and becoming one of the most visited blogs on the internet. For the book, the founders of the site have selected 200 of their favorite LOLcats from their archive of nearly one million, all of which are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud or wonder WTF?

UPDATE: Cheezburger Cats


Disenfranchised Americans

December 13, 2008

Surely John Adams Is Repenting in Heaven For the Sheep Who Are His Posterity.

Although it is sad to contemplate, it is the reality of today’s America, as more and more traditional Americans of faith, conservatives, small business owners, the military, are feeling disenfranchised from their own country and their government. I am one of them.

How can any American of old-fashioned honesty and character continue to believe in a government that is so blatantly corrupt?  How can Americans trust greedy leaders who tax them to redistribute their hard earned money as rewards to other greedy politicians and overpaid and corrupt business executives? We have only to examine Congress’s own businesses, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that were plundered by that same Congress and their favored friends, resulting in the near collapse of the nation’s banking system. This is even before we ponder the now commonplace scenario of tenaciously clutching onto so-called elected positions until death do they depart, only to bequeath those seats in Congress to family members as though they were a part of an anointed Solon’s estate.  Now we are discovering that in the former land of Lincoln, a United States Senate seat is offered to the highest bidder.

The church I have belonged to all of my life is being attacked and its members persecuted by my fellow countrymen and America’s vetted churches of Christendom. My traditional beliefs that were taught me long ago by my family, teachers and church are now lampooned by Americans of today who know little of America’s history. We are now described as uneducated and full of hate by “in favor” American Christians, when we are not being ridiculed. I have been publicly told by the now President-elect of the United States that the American flag I once proudly displayed at my home and wore on my clothing, was merely a sign of my own “false patriotism.”  I have never felt a racist thought against anyone, and have lived closely with people of many different races including African Americans. However, for the first time in my long life, in 2008, I was repeatedly labelled a racist because I, a conservative, did not support a liberal black man as candidate for President of the U.S. At the same time, those very same Americans who labeled John McCain supporters as racists, now condemn the founders of this country because those who volunteered in 1776, to sacrifice their own blood, sweat and tears for our freedom, were rich white males.

“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.” ~John Adams letter to his wife Abigail Adams, 26 April 1777.

We, the disenfranchised Americans, were taught that our vote was sacred; that it had been won for us with the blood of patriots. How can we continue to believe that when we see with our own eyes federally-funded groups such as A.C.O.R.N run ads on television against our preferred conservative candidate? Why would we continue going to the polls when we know that these same federally-sanctioned community organizations will be stealing our votes, with our own tax money, by overwhelming them with dozens or hundreds of ill-gotten illegal votes? How can our “one” vote stand up against the onslaught of criminality encouraged by our own government’s elected officials?

Today, all over America, the military, conservatives and Christians are being publicly disenfranchised in the very nation that their predecessors created. Signs of faith of “out of favor” Christians are banned, outlawed, and destroyed. We see that a law-abiding “out of favor” group, the Mormons, cannot go to the polls and vote their consciences without violent ramifications and persecutions, whilst members of African American churches are praised for doing the exact same thing. When Christians cannot freely speak on public streets without police protection, or even with police protection, we see that not only is “Freedom of Religion” dead, but “Freedom of Speech” is too. (See the VIDEO.)

Just today, two weeks before our Christian holiday of Jesus’ birth, the Alaskan church of Sarah Palin was struck by arsonists. The smoke alarms of the church saved the lives of the women and children working inside, from evil would be murderers of innocent “out of favor” Christians. (Anchorage, Alaska) Governor Palin’s Church is one of those conservative churches that is now reviled by much of America, the media, late night comics and mainstream Protestantism. Her church believes in the same traditional Christian tenets that the Pilgrims and Puritans brought to this land; tenets which come from the Holy Bible.

However, these disenfranchised Americans who are being deprived of their Constitutional rights, are still expected to swear oaths supporting the Constitution that is not supporting them, to pay taxes which are then used in schemes to further bludgeon them, to send their children to schools to be indoctrinated to revile their own parents’ beliefs and culture, and to continue to raise their young people to believe it patriotic to fight America’s wars, although America will never fight for any of the reviled, out-of-favor, and disenfranchised ones.

Mainstream America, secular and progressive America, finds that fair and just, as they tell us that we are disenfranchised from their “changed” America because we are worse than Hitler and more frightening than Osama bin Laden and all of Al Qaeda put together.


A Very, Merry Barackmas

December 13, 2008
Flickr Photograph

You better watch out, you better not cry;
You better not shout, I’m telling you why;
The Chicago Machine is coming to town!

The Chicago Machine is coming to Washington! Why, you ask? Because the voters voted for them to come. The voters voted to CHANGE Washington. Here comes “change” you can believe in; “change” you can see, the “change” you’ve been wanting all the days of your lives.

The Chicago Machine Drives To Washingon

Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Machine

Obama and Blagojevich

The Obamas’ in Washington

The image, Obama Christmas Angel, is subject to copyright by Chantal Bennett & A Winsome Portrait. It is posted here with permission via the Flickr API by barneykin.

 


Obama’s Chicago Years

December 12, 2008

The Chicago Dance – On to Washington “Chicago, Chicago, That toddlin’ town. Chicago, Chicago, The town that Billy Sunday Could not shut down. I saw a man He danced with his wife, In Chicago, Chicago, my home town.”

In Barack Obama’s first memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” the author discussed his unusual childhood, his Kenyan African father, his white mother, his grandparents in Hawaii and his life in Indonesia. He also covered the three years in the 1980s when he worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois.

In Obama’s second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” he covered the Senate campaign that he waged to win election to the United States Senate, and the more than one year he served as a newly elected Senator between 4 January 2005, until 2006.

Chicago is Obama’s political home town; it is where he forged his political identity. However, Obama’s life in Chicago from 1991 until his Senate victory in 2005, was mysteriously overlooked or ignored in both autobiographies. What was Barack Obama accomplishing politically during those missing years in America’s center of vicious and corrupt politics, … Chicago?

America does not know because most American voters were uninterested in Obama’s history. Those who did seek information about Obama’s relationship to Chicago’s political machine, were called racists for questioning the character of a black man. During the Presidential campaign, the American media were uninterested in performing investigative journalism of Obama’s Chicago years, even while a federal prosecutor and his federal office were abroad in the city doing their own investigative research.

The missing years of Obama’s life in Chicago seem now on the cusp of revelation. They will be revealed by the court documents of federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Those lost Obama years will be documented by Obama’s Chicago friends, associates and enemies such as former U. S. Representative and now Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Mrs. “I saw a man he danced with his wife” Blagojevich, the Illinois governor’s chief-of-staff John Harris, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., bagman Tony Rezko and his “Realtor” wife, current U.S. Congressman Rahm Emanuel who is also working a second job as Oama’s Chief of Staff, Obama’s chief strategist and Daly Machine mouthpiece David Axelrod, David Wilhelm, and assorted other characters of Chicago’s inner sanctum machine.

“The New Yorker”tells us that in 2002, Barack Obama got the plum position of adviser to none other than gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich:

Rahm Emanuel, a congressman from Chicago and a friend of Obama’s, told me that he, Obama, David Wilhelm, who was Blagojevich’s campaign co-chair, and another Blagojevich aide were the top strategists of Blagojevich’s victory. He and Obama “participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor,” Emanuel said. “We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two.” A spokesman for Blagojevich confirmed Emanuel’s account, although David Wilhelm, who now works for Obama, said that Emanuel had overstated Obama’s role.

Perhaps right this moment, Rod Blagojevich himself may be writing the screenplay to “Chicago Boyz,” as I jokingly speculated HERE and HERE.


Chicago Boyz – Coming Soon

December 12, 2008

To a White House Near You!

The voters asked, and Chicago listened. America cannot wait for the change promised by Chicago’s Top Boy, Barack Obama. The brand new musical “Chicago Boyz” is destined to take the White House by storm. Politics in that once Southern town of Washington DC is about to experience “radical” change. It’s “Chicago Boyz” starring President-elect Barack Obama, his dancing Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the gang of side steppers.

The voters voted for “Chicago Boyz!” The voters voted for the Winds of Chicago’s change. The voters can hardly wait for the other shoe to drop and the excitement to begin. They want something to take their minds off the miserable economy, the War on Terror, and the imminent threat of being blown up by Islamists. Bring on the delusion of fun and games; bring on the new mid-western morality of the “Chicago Boyz.”

This is NOT New York City; this is NOT “The Sopranos,” implies “The New Yorker.” And, this is NOT beanbag! It is Chicago Boyz’s own political machine come to Washington – to stay and play, and to “Pay to Play!” It’s the Chicago Boyz Way!

Sit back and enjoy the songs and dancing of Chicago Boy Governor Blago as he audaciously struts his stuff. Watch the fiery antics of  Jeremiah “The Bullfrog” Wright, minister to Chicago’s “Christian” Chicago Boyz, as he calls upon God from his own pulpit, to damn America. See Senator Wannabees explaining how they go about buying a United States Senate seat in “Chicago Boyz.” Listen to Congressman Jesse Jackson explain how he did nothing wrong and is guiltless. Hear a Chicago Boyz father, the very Reverend Jesse Jackson, tell how he would never attempt to shake-down a Chicago politican for financial gain, much less political advantage for his own son. Hear the warblings of Tony Rezko, bagman to Chicago’s top Chicago Boyz, as he “sings like a bird” his favorite song of “Chicago, Chicago,” his hometown:

Chicago, Chicago
That toddlin’ town
Chicago, Chicago
I’ll show you around, I love it
Bet your bottom dollar
You’ll lose the blues
In Chicago, Chicago
The town that Billy Sunday
Could not shut down
On State Street, that great street
I just wanna say
They do thing’s
They don’t do on Broadway, say
They have the time
The time or their life
I saw a man
He danced with his wife
In Chicago, Chicago, my home town

Office of the President-Elect, originally uploaded by Jules°.


What is “A Natural Born Citizen?”

December 11, 2008

The United States Constitution requires that Presidents (and Vice Presidents too) of the United States be “natural born citizens” of the United States. However, the Constitution does not define what is a “natural born citizen.” (See Obama a ‘Natural Born Citizen?’.)

No one seems to dispute that a child of American citizens born on the soil of the United States is eligible to hold the office of President upon reaching the required age. And everyone seems to agree that a person naturalized as a U.S. citizens is disqualified from holding that office.

However, what about someone like John McCain, who although born of American citizens, was not born on American soil. Or what about Barack Obama, whose birth record shows him born on United States soil of a foreign national who was temporarily in the United States on a visa?  Do either one of them qualify for the Presidency under the U.S. Constitution?

No one knows the answer to that question, as the Constitution does not tell us.


The Audacity of Chicago Boyz

December 10, 2008

Governor Sarah Palin thought she was one smart cookie when she put Alaska’s state airplane up for sale on eBay. Well, Ms. Palin could learn a bit of that Chicago audacity from Chicago’s own Chicago Boy governor, Rod Blagojevich. He put the Senate seat of Barack Obama up for sale to the highest bidder, or so federal prosecutors claim. (Chuckle – It actually made it to eBay, even though it has now been removed.)

If Governor Blagojevich had the “audacity” to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Illinois senate seat, how much do you suppose that “Congressman” Rod Blagojevich was able to fetch for his very own U.S. Congressional seat? Do you suppose any of the mainstream reporters will ask Blagojevich that question? Or will they ask Obama’s Chief of Staff, Chicago Boy Rahm Emanuel who held the Congressional seat after Blagojevich?

Of course, we have to remember that this is America, and in America, all crooks are innocent until proven guilty by a lowly paid government attorney. In addition, in Illinois machine politics, Cook County crooks are always innocent. All of those “bleepin'” audio snippets you are hearing from Blagojevich and his lovely wife, are not really evidence against Blagojevich, as he was innocently writing a new screen play for HBO entitled “The Chicago Boyz,” which is destined to rival “The Sopranos.” That audio you are hearing was stolen from the Blagojevich home when those jack-booted Federales invaded and confiscated the dictated manuscript of budding novelist Rod Blagojevich.

Audacity of Hope’s Halo Tarnished


Seven Years of Calm

December 10, 2008

No Terrorists Attacks In the United States! Why?

  • On October 12, 2002, in Bali, Indonesia, Al-Qaeda’s Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists targeted packed nightspots, killing 202 people, including more than 160 foreigners. There are even more nightclubs in the United States, why didn’t al-Qaeda target us here?
  • On March 11, 2004, in Madrid, Spain, 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 injured in a series of explosions on four trains. al-Qaeda took responsibility for that accomplishment to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq. But why didn’t the terrorists bomb American trains on American soil? We had even more troops in Iraq than did the Spanish.
  • On the morning of Wednesday September 1, 2004, in Beslan, Russia, Muslim terrorists and Arab mercenaries wearing explosive belts stormed a school taking 1,200 parents, students, children, and infants hostage. They wired a room with explosives and threatened to blow up the school during a three-day standoff. The children were refused food and water and were held in stifling heat in a gymnasium while the world waited. As Russian forces were collecting corpses from the initial raid outside the school, the militants in the school triggered the explosives inside the school. As the surviving hostages attempted to flee, the terrorists shot them and their rescuers in their backs. At least 326 people — 156 of them children — were murdered at that school and more than 700 wounded. Although 26 of the terrorists were killed, several escaped. Why did not these terrorists take over an American school on American soil? We have lots of schools here.
  • On July 11, 2006, in Mumbai, India, seven high-powered blasts on suburban trains killed more than 200 commuters and injured at least 800. America has commuter trains too, why did not al-Qaeda target American trains with bombs?
  • On November 26 of this year, again in Mumbai, India, Islamist gunmen launched attacks against luxury hotels. Gunmen from al-Qaeda’s Deccan Mujahedeen group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which killed more than 100. A rabbi, Gavriel Hertzberg, and his pregnant wife were sought out and murdered as were other Jews and Americans. America has many luxury hotels, many Jews and many, many more Americans. Why did al-Qaeda spare hotels and tourists in America’s homeland?

Could these “Seven Years of Calm in America” have had anything to do with the leadership of America’s Commander in Chief, George W. Bush, his administration and the fighting men and women of his military?