Morning Meme: "Wilfred's" Snuffleupagus Situation, "Roseanne's Nuts," and Sarah Palin Is "The Undefeated"

Rep. Michele Bachmann signed a pledge in Iowa that if elected President, she would affirm marriage as being between one man and one woman, ban pornography, and agree that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk. She's scary because she's electable.

The major U.S. ISPs have agreed to a "five strikes" policy for enforcing copyright and slowing illegal downloading. What troubles me is that the policy seems poorly defined when it comes to remedies. You can be punished merely for accusations, not convictions, and the appeals process requires the accused to pay for a defense.

Willie Nelson was set to receive a minor fine for pot possession in Texas until the judge overseeing the matter denied the agreement reached by the prosecutors. She feels that Nelson is receiving special treatment and wants him to face one year in prison. The drug wars are just ridiculous.

You've probably all seen the pictures taken by the macaque monkey when a nature photographer left his camera unattended. In an interesting take on copyright law, one image has been widely distributed, but two others appear with a licensing agency mark. But since copyright belongs to the person who took the picture, and not the person who owns the camera, there is a legal question as to who owns the copyright. But how did the monkey license the photos to the agency? Did he sign a contract?

Apple's App Store has reached 15,000,000,000 downloads and paid out $2.5 billion to developers. At least $1.9 billion of that was for Angry Birds.

The Court of Appeals has ruled that the FCC failed to properly take public comments when it loosened the rules for newspaper and television ownership in a single market in 2008, and ordered the agency to do the work again.

The July 13th results show for America's Got Talent will feature performances from the cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert doing "Finally," "Shake Your Groove Thing," and "MacArthur Park." I have to wonder if Piers Morgan will hit his buzzer.

After some phrase changes ("queer" became "gay"), it appears that Lee Hall's opera will go on. While I do understand that words matter, I smell a rat. An embarrassed rat with a public relations problem.

I don't know much about comics, but according to this, when DC reboots their entire universe, most of the gay male characters are MIA. No Starman, no Tasmanian Devil, no Obsidian, and no Creote.

I already think Wilfred is the best show on television this summer. But the fact that this interview with Elijah Wood brings up that the show creates "a Snuffleupagus situation," my heart just melts. And probably confuses everyone younger than me.

The Obelisk bookstore (one of the few remaining gay book stores in America) sustained severe damage when a fire broke out on the roof of a neighboring building. I used to live a few blocks from the store in San Diego, and I'll be seriously heartbroken if it doesn't reopen.

George Takei seems an unlikely activist. At his age he could easily step back and take it easy. But first he fought against Prop 8, and now he's actively fighting the stalled "Don't Say Gay" bill in Tennessee. But seriously, $29.99 for a t-shirt?

You can buy the house from Up from a builder in Utah. It's priced fairly reasonably at $399k, even with the wild paint job.  But you have to provide your own balloons.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around what's happening in the UK with the News of the World scandal. Some say it could spread to the U.S. properties that News Corp. owns, since some of the people involved in the scandal are now in positions of power here. But was Murdoch's decision to shutter the paper sinister? Evidently UK laws require the liquidator to destroy all the records at the paper. Records that are also evidence.

I really don't know how I feel about readers voting Sir Elton John #9 on their Queen of Pop list at Rolling Stone. He's the only male on the list, and I feel like I should be offended. Madonna is the reigning queen, by the way, and Lady Gaga the crown princess.

It turns out polar bears are Irish, just like me.