Christian Louboutin: a (red) sole proprietor speaks

Prompted by the AmeriKat's first post yesterday, which reviewed the Red Soles spat between Christian Louboutin and the Gucci Group's Yves St Laurent, laden ladenfam's friend Mary-Ellen Field (Brand Finance) was inspired to write the following opinion piece which the Kat -- every wary of expensive footwear for the very good reason that he is a quadruped -- is pleased to share with his readers.  It runs like this:

"As the owner of several pairs of much loved and dare I say much admired Christian Louboutin's (I don't expect male readers will understand any of this) I can only think that the Gucci Group must be really desperate to paint their YSL soles red. It seems an incredibly silly thing to do.

Do they really think that women who are prepared to spend over £400 pounds for a pair of CLs will actually change their minds and buy a pair of YSL's because they have red soles? Just because we are prepared to spend a lot of money on shoes does not mean we are stupid (Please try to control yourselves, all you tomcats reading this.  Expensive shoes -- like hair colour and other unmentionables -- are no indication of intelligence or the lack of it)

Listen up YSL, we women buyers of luxury shoes make our choices of the shoes we buy based purely on love: if we love them we buy them. This is very annoying to accountants, lawyers and bankers because love is not measurable. CL is the ultimate status shoe at the moment (in my humble opinion and I could send you a photo of my shoe closet if required to prove this). Wearing our red soled CL works of arts makes us part of a special club, just like owning an Apple product or a Ferrari.

I also quite often love YSL shoes enough to buy them too -- but if you feel the need to try to trick me by adding red soles I won't love you any more. You don't need to pass yourself off as CL, you are beautiful in your own right.

It always amazes me, when I go to so called "luxury events, conferences" etc, that hardly any of the attendees are attired in or carry any luxury products at all. Perhaps the luxury industry pays so badly that they can't afford to buy the products they flog. It is always so disappointing".

This member of the Kat team knows little of female shoe fashion but feels he has a slightly proprietary interest in anything to do with red footwear, since the Red Shoes -- the movie classic of that name -- was co-produced and co-directed by Emeric Pressburger, who had the good fortune to the cousin of this Kat's mother-in-law. Never mind that, Merpel says, what's important here is to find out what other readers think about what, at the very least, seems to have been a curiously risky decision on the part of YSL.

American F-15 Forced To Crash Land In Libya

This is breaking news and the details are sketchy regarding an American F-15E Eagle crew having to crash land inside of Libya just a short time ago. The report from Fox News states that the crew is supposedly okay...let's hope and pray so.

UPDATE: Here's some more information from TimesofMalta:

One crew member has been safely rescued and the search for the other is ongoing.

"Both aircrew ejected," the spokeswoman, Karin Burzynski, said from the command's headquarters in the western German city of Stuttgart.

"One crew member was recovered and the operation to recover the second crew member is ongoing."

The plane appeared to have suffered mechanical failure and had not been shot down, the spokeswoman said.

Here's the article:

U.S. Jet Reportedly Crash Lands in Libya, but Crew Believed Safe


TRIPOLI, Libya -- A U.S. warplane was forced to make a crash-landing in Libya after suffering from mechanical failure, The London Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

The crew of the F-15E Eagle was believed to be safe. There was no immediate confirmation of the crash-landing from U.S. or U.K. military officials.

A correspondent for the newspaper on the ground in Libya said via Twitter that the plane plowed into a field near opposition stronghold Benghazi in the east of the country late Monday. The crew was in rebel hands, the newspaper reported.

US planes including F-16s were involved in a third night of air attacks on Libya on Monday.

NATO Forces Intercept 48 Iranian Rockets Headed To Taliban In Afghanistan...At What Point Will We Finally Turn Iran To Glass?

I've absolutely fucking had it. The last time that a huge cache of munitions from Iran was intercepted by NATO forces in Afghanistan, explosives and weapons that were heading to the Taliban to kill American and coalition forces, I nearly lost it here. Well, now we have NATO forces intercepting 48 BLOODY ROCKETS FROM IRAN headed to the Taliban - think about what kind of destruction 48 rockets would wreak on our forces.

Here's the news on it from DAWN:

Nato forces in Afghanistan have seized 48 Iranian-made rockets intended to aid the Taliban’s spring battle campaign, the most powerful illicit weapons ever intercepted en route from the neighboring state, officials said Wednesday.

The shipment is seen as a serious escalation in Iran’s state support of the Taliban insurgency, according to Nato officials and described in detail by an international intelligence official.

It’s also an escalation in the proxy war Western officials say Iran is waging against US and other Western forces in Afghanistan, as Washington continues to lobby for tougher international sanctions against Tehran to dissuade it from its alleged goal of building nuclear weapons.

The intercepted 122-millimeter rockets can be fired up to 13 miles (22 kilometers) away from a target, and explode in a burst up to 80 feet (25 meters) wide _ double that of the previous 107-millimeter rockets provided by Iran to the Taliban since 2006, the intelligence official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters.

The rockets, which were shown to an Associated Press reporter, were machined without Iranian markings or any serial numbers, but the official says their technical details match other Iranian models. So far, there is no evidence that the 122-millimeter rockets have been used in Afghanistan, though the Taliban has sometimes used Chinese- and Russian-made rockets of the same range in the fight here, harvested from the multiple weapons caches around the country from Afghanistan’s decades of civil war.

So, let me ask the question I posed in the title of this blogpost: When the hell are we going to finally turn the country of Iran into glass?

Don't even dare ask me if I'm serious here - these shitbags in Iran have been actively killing American fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan now for over 5 years. It's documented. It's factual. It's real as real can be. The nation of Iran has declared war on America by its actions in SE and Central Iraq and now in Afghanistan and it's about damn time that President Barack Hussein Obama gets off the golf course, makes a speech to the joint houses of Congress asking for permission to declare war on Iran, and order the first wave of bombers and fighter jets to take this piece of shit menace of a country out.

Name one reason....give me one excuse...why we should not attack Iran. Name one country in this entire world that would object to Iran being leveled to a smoking mass of fumes. Name one useful idiot that would defend these actions of the Iranians.

I haven't even touched on the whole nuclear ambitions of Iran or their goal to wipe out Israel. I haven't even touched on how many Americans have died at the hands of Iran's surrogates, Hezbollah and Hamas.

There are no more excuses. There is no more patience left. Give the damn Iranian people a week to get out of that country and then level that god forsaken land of perverts and pigs.

Bomb Iran Now.

Nato forces seize rockets from Iran in Afghanistan


KABUL: Nato forces in Afghanistan have seized 48 Iranian-made rockets intended to aid the Taliban’s spring battle campaign, the most powerful illicit weapons ever intercepted en route from the neighboring state, officials said Wednesday.

The shipment is seen as a serious escalation in Iran’s state support of the Taliban insurgency, according to Nato officials and described in detail by an international intelligence official.

It’s also an escalation in the proxy war Western officials say Iran is waging against US and other Western forces in Afghanistan, as Washington continues to lobby for tougher international sanctions against Tehran to dissuade it from its alleged goal of building nuclear weapons.

The intercepted 122-millimeter rockets can be fired up to 13 miles (22 kilometers) away from a target, and explode in a burst up to 80 feet (25 meters) wide _ double that of the previous 107-millimeter rockets provided by Iran to the Taliban since 2006, the intelligence official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters.

The rockets, which were shown to an Associated Press reporter, were machined without Iranian markings or any serial numbers, but the official says their technical details match other Iranian models. So far, there is no evidence that the 122-millimeter rockets have been used in Afghanistan, though the Taliban has sometimes used Chinese- and Russian-made rockets of the same range in the fight here, harvested from the multiple weapons caches around the country from Afghanistan’s decades of civil war.

Iran, which was a staunch opponent of the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan before the US-led invasion triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has denied allegations that it is supporting militants in the wartorn country.

British and Afghan troops captured the 48 rockets, which were being transported in a three-truck convoy, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition on Feb. 5 in southern Nimruz, near the Iranian and Pakistani borders, according to British officials.

Mark Sedwill, Nato’s senior civilian representative to Afghanistan, said the rockets ”represent a step-change in the lethal impact of weaponry infiltrating Afghanistan from Iran.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said they were sent by Iran and intended ”to provide the Taliban with the capability to kill Afghan and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) soldiers from significant range.”

Hague said Britain’s ambassador to Iran Simon Gass _ who will soon replace Sedwill as the Nato envoy in Afghanistan _ had raised the discovery of the haul with the Iranian foreign ministry.

In a separate development, the intelligence official said a high-level Afghan Taliban leader had traveled to Iran in the past two weeks to meet with a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force leader to ask for more powerful weapons to attack Afghan and Nato troops in the spring and summer fighting season.

An intelligence tip led to the rocket interception, according to the international intelligence official. The logistics of the shipment were arranged by a Taliban ”facilitator” who is based in Iran, the official added.

The seizure follows more than a year of fierce Nato operations against Taliban networks, with the highest number of special operations forces raids in Afghanistan ever, targeting Taliban safe houses, weapons caches and bomb-building factories.

In the 90 days before March 4, coalition forces launched more than 1600 operations and killed or captured about 350 insurgent leaders, Nato said Wednesday. They also captured over 1800, and killed around 500 lower-level insurgents. In that time, Nato raids found some 1,005 weapons caches, severely depleting the Taliban’s weapons supply.

In the alleged meeting with the Quds Force, the Taliban leader is believed to have asked the Iranians to provide more shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile systems, such as the two Iran provided in 2007, which were used against one British and one US Chinook helicopter, the official said. But Iran has not provided such weapons since, sticking to the smaller 107-millimeter rockets, C4 plastic explosives that have been used in some improvised explosive devices here, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms like AK47 assault rifles, the official said.

In all, Nato troops seized 48 warheads, 49 fuses, and 49 rocket mortars during the Feb. 5 raid on the convoy. The drivers of the three vehicles resisted arrest and were killed. One of the three vehicles caught fire during the operation and burned up, making it hard to determine what that vehicle was carrying.

The official said the rockets’ increased range means they are less accurate and more likely to cause civilian casualties in heavily populated areas like Kandahar City _ the expected focus of the southern Taliban fighting campaign as the insurgents try to take back parts of Kandahar and Helmand provinces lost to Nato forces over the past year. – AP

Applications for "There's an App"

Registering "There's an app for that" was a piece of cake
in the US, but Europe may prove more resistant

Matthew Rippon was first.  Lawrence Ryz was last.  Between the two there were many kind souls who sent laden ladenfam this link to Apple's latest venture into the world of trade mark protection.  The Unofficial Apple Weblog ("Apple trademarks "There's an app for that", here) has spotted the  iToys-to-die-for company's US trade mark for the slogan "There's an app for that."  To be fair to Apple, (i) that tagline has been used to promote Apple's App Store and iOS devices almost since their inception, and (ii) Apple doesn't really have much credible competition anyway in the minds of many consumers, who assume that "App" is just the first three letters of Apple.  Indeed, in some parts of this noble planet, the Kat understands, the slogan has become a jokey colloquialism-cum-conversation-booster, frequently deployed by people when they can't think of a sensible response to what someone else has just said to them. The trade mark, for which Apple filed on 4 December 2009, covers

"Retail store services featuring computer software provided via the Internet and other computer and electronic communication networks; retail store services featuring computer software for use on handheld mobile digital electronic devices and other consumer electronics".

Intrigued to see what Apple might be planning on the Eastern side of the Pond, laden ladenfam checked the warm and user-friendly online search facility of the UK's Intellectual Property Office, where he was rewarded with details of International Madrid (EU) Trade Mark U00001043881 (first designation of the EU for IR 1043881).  Opting for English as its first language and Italian as the second, the applicant boldly went for protection in Classes 09, 35, 38, 42.

laden ladenfam is genuinely sad that Apple has been so precise and selective in its list of goods and services.  He had hoped that the Cupertino company would be registering its slogan for ashtrays, knitting patterns, meat cleavers and all the other strange things that get inadvertently left in trade mark applications these days -- but it was not to be.  The big question, though, is whether we dull and unimaginative Europeans, on looking at the words "There's an app for that", would ever think "Gosh, that's an indication as to the identity of the origin of goods and services in respect which that slogan is used", rather than "Oh, I suppose there it ..."

Contributions of "There's an app for that" to the cultural enrichment of humanity here, here and here

Are you small, American, IP-ish and in business? If so, read on ...

It's so strange to see a familiar problem when it's viewed from the other side.  European commentators and analysts have long made deeply concerned clucking noises about the fate of small (often but not exclusively British) businesses that set out bravely to trade in promising foreign markets, only to find that their IP rights -- which work quite well at home -- aren't particularly useful in countries where they don't actually have them.   Funnily enough, small American businesses that set out bravely to trade in promising foreign markets have many of the same problems.  This is apparent from a quick glance at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Small Business web pages, which are boldly, if not entirely fairly, decorated with the STOP-FAKES.GOV sign depicted on the right.  Why is it "not entirely fair"? Because a great deal of the loss is likely to derive from copying which isn't unlawful because it's done in a country in which local IP rights have not been secured -- though goods made lawfully in this manner can slip into markets where IP rights exist and, being sold on the cheap, cause damage to brand owners and product originators while racking up handsome profits for those who deal in them. Anyway, what does the USPTO have to say? Let's take a look at the site's front page:

"Are you a small business?

Welcome
Success in a global economy depends more and more on intellectual property (IP) assets. In fact, IP-based businesses and entrepreneurs drive more economic growth in the United States than any other single sector [We like to take this as axiomatic, but a model that adequately accounts for vague variables like "IP-based", "businesses and entrepreneurs" and "growth" make sectoral comparisons hard within each jurisdiction, and as between jurisdictions].

Unfortunately, intellectual property has captured the attention of pirates and organized crime. Today, piracy, counterfeiting and the theft of intellectual property pose a serious threat to all U.S. businesses. Industry estimates of the cost of such theft range from $250 billion to 750,000 jobs per year. These threats to ongoing invention and innovation make it important to consider securing IP protection, whether you're a major multinational firm or a 1-person home business.

Small businesses. Big questions.
While every IP-based business is vulnerable to piracy and counterfeiting, small businesses can be at a particular disadvantage because they lack the resources and expertise available to larger corporations [apart, that is, from the lucky few who become trolls?]. Small businesses may also often lack the familiarity with the process of protecting intellectual property: research conducted in the spring of 2005 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicates that only 15 percent of small businesses that do business overseas know that that a U.S. patent or trademark provides protection only in the United States [laden ladenfam wonders whether this figure, low as it seems, is higher than in less commercially-savvy jurisdictions. It would be good to follow this up at regular intervals, with non-US comparators].

It has never been more essential for you to consider patenting your idea or registering your name as a trademark, especially if you are a small business owner or are starting a small business.

The USPTO has created this Web site to help small businesses consider the benefits of strong IP protection - both in the United States and overseas [not much use for Canada and Mexico, then, muses Merpel] - and decide whether it is right for them.

This site includes important information on whether and when to file for intellectual property protection, what type of protection to file for, where to file, and how to go about it".

Once you're into the heart of the site, the information is clear, crisp, largely US-centric (which is reasonable to expect if the website hadn't mentioned the "overseas" bit) and in some cases debatable. For example,

"A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor. Patents are granted for new, useful and non-obvious inventions for a period of 20 years from the filing date of a patent application, and provide the right to exclude others from exploiting the invention during that period.".

The Kat wonders how many countries grant an outright 20 year protection.  In most jurisdictions with which he is familiar, many or most patents lapse, die or are revoked in around half that time.  Merpel adds, when this site is further developed, it would be good to see something about licensing on it.  She couldn't find the "l' word anywhere she looked and, because small businesses often lack the resources either to develop their own innovations or to sue others for infringing their rights, licence-based business models can be really valuable.

Thanks, Leason Ellis, for your Tweet which alerted the Kats to this item.

It may not be possible to make a more American political campaign ad than this one, it has it all - guns, God, constitution, dog tags, farm, horse.



(via Reddit)

WhaddaYaMean We're The Bad Guys?

This stunning, but true, summary of 65 years of American War from Australian journalist John Pilger appears on Reddit :

Since 1945, the United States has overthrown fifty governments, including democracies, and crushed some 30 liberation movements, and supported tyrannies and set up torture chambers from Egypt to Guatemala. Countless men, women and children have been bombed to death

This is taken from the reality-rocking Pilger documentary The War On Democracy, which you can watch online here for free.

A Redditer helpfully supplies a list of Wikipedia links that confirm it all :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_US_regime_change_actions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_transnational_human_rights_actions

Here's a few good reads for starters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_successful_coups_d%27%C3%A9tat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Wars (lots of little-known wars there)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state_terrorism

The Debate Unfolds

China Fires Back At US Over Human Rights : "The US Citizens' Freedom To Access & Distribute Information Is Under Strict Supervision"

China has compiled a detailed, well sourced report on human rights' violations in the United States, through 2008-2009. It makes for some very interesting reading, not only for the view China expresses of the United States, but for the vast number of human rights' violations listed, and the massive amount of general criminality it exposes.

Reading all this about the United States from inside China would make the US sound a quite scary, freedom-restricted, dangerous place. Much like the way China is portrayed by some or most of the commercial American media.

An excerpt :

Chaotic management of prisons in the United State also led to wide spread of diseases among the inmates.

A report by the Human Rights Watch released in March 2009 said although the New York State prison registered the highest number of prisoners living with HIV in the country, it did not provide the inmates with adequate access to treatment, and even locked the inmates up separately, refusing to provide them with treatment of any kind. (www.hrw.org, March 24, 2009).

While advocating "freedom of speech," "freedom of the press" and "Internet freedom," the U.S. government unscrupulously monitors and restricts the citizens' rights to freedom when it comes to its own interests and needs.

The U.S. citizens' freedom to access and distribute information is under strict supervision. According to media reports, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) started installing specialized eavesdropping equipment around the country to wiretap calls, faxes, and emails and collect domestic communications as early as 2001. The wiretapping programs was originally targeted at Arab-Americans, but soon grew to include other Americans. The NSA installed over 25 eavesdropping facilities in San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago among other cities. The NSA also announced recently it was building a huge one million square feet data warehouse at a cost of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars at Camp Williams in Utah, as well as another massive data warehouse in San Antonio, as part of the NSA's new Cyber Command responsibilities. The report said a man named Nacchio was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison after he refused to participate in NSA's surveillance program (http://www.onelinejournal.com, November 23, 2009).

After the September 11 attack, the U.S. government, in the name of anti-terrorism, authorized its intelligence authorities to hack into its citizens' mail communications, and to monitor and erase any information that might threaten the U.S. national interests on the Internet through technical means. The country's Patriot Act allowed law enforcement agencies to search telephone, email communications, medical, financial and other records, and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting foreign persons suspected of terrorism-related acts. The Act expanded the definition of terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which law enforcement powers could be applied. On July 9, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008, granting legal immunity to telecommunication companies that take part in wiretapping programs and authorizing the government to wiretap international communications between the United States and people overseas for anti-terrorism purposes without court approval (The New York Times, July 10, 2008). Statistic showed that from 2002 to 2006, the FBI collected thousands of phones records of U.S. citizens through mails, notes and phone calls. In September 2009, the country set up an Internet security supervision body, further worrying U.S. citizens that the U.S. government might use Internet security as an excuse to monitor and interfere with personal systems. A U.S. government official told the New York Times in an interview in April 2009 that NSA had intercepted private email messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by U.S. Congress the year before. In addition, the NSA was also eavesdropping on phones of foreign political figures, officials of international organizations and renowned journalists (The New York Times, April, 15, 2009). The U.S. military also participated in the eavesdropping programs. According to CNN reports, a Virginia-based U.S. military Internet risk evaluation organization was in charge of monitoring official and unofficial private blogs, official documents, personal contact information, photos of weapons, entrances of military camps, as well as other websites that "might threaten its national security."

The so-called "freedom of the press" of the United States was in fact completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated by the U.S. government. According to media reports, the U.S. government and the Pentagon had recruited a number of former military officers to become TV and radio news commentators to give "positive comments" and analysis as "military experts" for the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, in order to guide public opinions, glorify the wars, and gain public support of its anti-terrorism ideology (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). At yearend 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a bill which imposed sanctions on several Arab satellite channels for broadcasting contents hostile to the U.S. and instigating violence (http://blogs.rnw.nl). In September 2009, protesters using the social-networking site Twitter and text messages to coordinate demonstrations clashed with the police several times in Pittsburgh, where the Group of 20 summit was held. Elliot Madison, 41, was later charged with hindering apprehension of the protesters through the Internet. The police also searched his home (http://www.nytimes.com, October 5, 2009). Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said the same conduct in other countries would be called human rights violations whereas in the United States it was called necessary crime control.

The Full Report Is Here