Mock Mass Shooting By Pro-Gun Nut Agitators Drowned Out By Farts

"A choice between fear and a little bit of good humor"

Women’s Bodies Are More Regulated Than Firearms ...

... And That Needs To Change

Read More

Tennessee woman nearly dies trying coat hanger abortion

Tennessee woman nearly dies trying coat hanger abortion — and then gets jailed for attempted murder

Yocca, who is employed at an Amazon fulfillment center, was indicted on charges of first degree attempted murder by a grand jury last week.

Kentucky 'Christian' Homeless Shelter Just Banned Women And Girls Because ‘The Bible’

A 'christian' homeless shelter kicked women and girls out just before the holidays because the director says the bible told him to.

Read full story 

Ziggy

Naked man attempted to go swimming in hotel pool with stolen chicken

Police in Bavaria, Germany, received a strange call on Tuesday afternoon after a 19-year-old man stole a chicken and plunged naked with it into a hotel swimming pool. A hotel manager in the town of Bodenmais alerted police at around 4.30pm. Someone had just jumped naked into the outdoor swimming pool with a chicken in his arms. "The man wasn't in the pool for long," a spokesperson for Lower Bavaria police said. "The hotel manager saw him as soon as he jumped in." But the outdoor pool was covered, they said. "He broke the cover when he jumped in," the spokesperson said. The 19-year-old was an asylum seeker from Mali, police reported.
After jumping, the naked would-be swimmer clambered out and began to run down the road towards a local glazier, before being stopped by patrol officers. The man violently resisted arrest, police said, but officers were able to overpower him and escort him back to his accommodation. After his arrest, the chicken was found unharmed by the roadside.
Police identified and alerted the owner, who came to pick the bird up and return it to its pen. As well as the chicken, the man was also carrying a whiskey bottle when he jumped into the pool, the police spokesperson said. An investigation is currently under way, with the man facing accusations of theft, criminal damage, trespass and resisting a police officer. The damage to the swimming pool cover could amount to a four-figure sum.

Man in trouble for keeping live anti-tank rocket on roof of his home

A former soldier has been charged with illegally possessing a live anti-tank round at his home in Tacoma, Washington, causing the evacuation of a nearby elementary school and an order for nearby residents to lock down inside their homes.

Seemingly joyful man arrested for growing magic mushrooms

A western Pennsylvania man has been arrested after state troopers responding to a disturbance call say they found psychedelic mushrooms growing in the man's public housing apartment.

Forty-one-year-old David Kalb faces a preliminary hearing on Dec. 15 on a felony charge that he possessed with the intent to manufacture 70 mushroom plants and 10 jars with related ingredients on Monday evening.
Police say Kalb was involved in the disturbance and invited troopers who responded into his apartment, where they saw the mushrooms, and a small amount of marijuana, in plain view.
Kalb lives in Hempfield Towers, a high-rise owned by the Westmoreland County Housing Authority for low-income elderly and disabled residents. It has not been officially confirmed if he was under the influence of any of the illicit substances before he had his mugshot taken.

Pot-growing man turned himself in to police after hearing hovering helicopter on unrelated activity

Jasper Harrison was in a storage unit he allegedly used to grow marijuana when he heard a helicopter hovering overhead in Edgewater, Florida. Worried that police would soon barge in and arrest him, he called 911.

"I'm the guy they're looking for,"he told the dispatcher. But Edgewater police were not in the neighborhood for Harrison early on Wednesday afternoon. They were investigating a man's suspicious but unrelated death on the same street.
The helicopter Harrison heard belonged to a TV station reporting on the death, said Edgewater police Capt. Joe Mahoney. Harrison told police where he was – locked in his rented storage unit, Mahoney said.
Police found marijuana growing inside the storage unit and arrested Harrison. Harrison, 47, faces charges of cultivating cannabis within 1,000 feet of a school and possession of the drug with intent to sell. He was later released on bond from Volusia County Jail.

Hating wingnut police chief accused of pointing gun at woman who passed his Hummer

Hating wingnut police chief accused of pointing gun at woman who passed his Hummer

A former Pennsylvania police chief infamous for his profane video rants — punctuated by gunfire — against Liberals has been arrested on harassment and terrorist threat charges.

Oregon sheriff's corporal arrested for sexually assaulting co-worker and forcing her to stay in relationship

Oregon sheriff's corporal arrested for sexually assaulting co-worker and forcing her to stay in relationship

Missouri police chief resigns after caging family’s lost puppy at a gun range and shooting it

Missouri police chief resigns after caging family’s lost puppy at a gun range and shooting it

Owner Womack wrote on her Facebook page how she attempted to contact the police and was lied to on several occasions about the incident. Eventually, she was told by the police chief that he shot and killed her dog, and that they would be free to identify him if they wanted to go dig him up.

Stingray Gives Birth by C-Section

Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee houses several stingrays. A stingray pregnancy usually lasts a year, after which the mama gives birth to live young known as "pups."
The staff at the aquarium routinely performs sonograms on pregnant stingrays. They noticed that one pup was overdue to be born, but wasn't leaving his mother. So they performed a cesarean section surgery to remove him. WBIR reports (auto-start video):

She didn't give birth with the rest of the rays. They estimated that she was 6 to 8 weeks overdue, and that both lives in danger.
With an ultrasound, the staff determined that the baby was alive and well (and amazing video released by the aquarium shows the little sting ray swimming around in utero!)
They decided to perform a c-section to save both the baby and the mother, and the risky procedure was a success! They believe this is the first time that a cownose stingray has been successfully delivered by c-section.

Both mother and baby are alive and well. They're now swimming around the stingray tank without complications.

Zoo chimpanzees confronted wayward raccoon

A wild raccoon probably didn't expect a big chimp challenge when he wandered through the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee. A few days ago, "Downtown" Randall Brown was visiting the zoo with his son, Will White, when they spotted something unexpected in Chimp Ridge.

A raccoon had somehow got inside the chimpanzee enclosure, and had been "treed" by the youngest and most inquisitive member of the group, 7-year-old George. While the other chimps looked on from nearby, George grabbed a stick and was trying to poke the raccoon. Brown started recording the scene, and he and other visitors are amazed at what they are seeing.
"Chimps use tools, so that's unique in the animal kingdom that they do that," said Lisa New, zoo president. "He was extending his reach." But he wasn't touching the small intruder. New believes the chimps were curious but wary. They weren't looking for lunch, either. In the wild, chimps do hunt and kill for food, but these chimps have never eaten meat.

YouTube link.

"I don't think they would kill it. He was acting like he was a little bit afraid of it, which was why he had the stick, and wasn't grabbing with his hands," said Leigh Rickey, the Great Apes keeper.George continued to poke at the raccoon, which eventually decided to make a break for it. George and another chimp took off in hot pursuit, but the raccoon ran up another, even taller tree, that even George and his stick couldn't reach. Eventually, zoo keepers got all of the chimps into their inside enclosure. They opened a back door and the raccoon finally made it's escape.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.

Our seventeenth Xmas Tree of the month ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 205 countries around the world daily.   

  
Normal ... !

Today is - There is no special celebration today

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Brazil - Canada - Chile - Colombia - Mexico -  Puerto Rico - United States - Uruguay
Europe
Bosnia/Herzegovina - Bulgaria - England - France - Germany - Hungary - Italy - Netherlands  Norway - Poland - Portugal - Russia - San Marino - Scotland - Serbia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden  Switzerland - Turkey - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Burma - Cambodia - China - India - Indonesia - Maldives - Mauritius - Pakistan - Singapore 
Sri Lanka - Taiwan - Vietnam
Africa
Kenya - Nigeria - South Africa - Zambia
The Pacific
Australia

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1399		Tamerlane’s Mongols destroy the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
1861		The Stonewall Brigade begins to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal.
1886		At a Christmas party, Sam Belle shoots his old enemy Frank West, but is fatally wounded himself.
1903		Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft.
1927		U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg suggests a worldwide pact renouncing war.
1938		Italy declares the 1935 pact with France invalid because ratifications had not been exchanged. France denies the argument.
1939		In the Battle of River Plate near Montevideo, Uruguay, the British trap the German pocket battleship Graf Spee. German Captain Langsdorf sinks his ship believing that resistance is hopeless.
1943		U.S. forces invade Japanese-held New Britain Island in New Guinea.
1944		The German Army renews the attack on the Belgian town of Losheimergraben against the defending Americans during the Battle of the Bulge.
1944		U.S. approves end to internment of Japanese Americans. U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issues Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that Japanese American "evacuees" from the West Coast could return to their homes effective January 2, 1945.
1948		The Smithsonian Institution accepts the Kitty Hawk – the Wright brothers’ plane.
1950		The French government appoints Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny to command their troops in Vietnam.
1952		Yugoslavia breaks relations with the Vatican.
1965		Ending an election campaign marked by bitterness and violence, Ferdinand Marcos is declared president of the Philippines.
1981		Red Brigade terrorists kidnap Brigadier General James Dozier, the highest-ranking U.S. NATO officer in Italy.
1989		The Simpsons, television’s longest-running animated series, makes its US debut.
1989		Fernando Color de Mello becomes Brazil’s first democratically elected president in nearly 30 years.
1990		Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins Haiti’s first free election.
2002		Congolese parties of the inter Congolese Dialogue sign a peace accord in the Second Congo War, proviidn for transitional government and elections within two years.
2010		Mohamed Bouazizi immolates himself, the catalyst for the Tunisian revolution and the subsequent Arab Spring.

Non Sequitur

Saudi Arabia prepares for first-ever election open to female candidates and voters

Saudi Arabia prepares for first-ever election open to female candidates and voters

Aggressive Pushback at Evil NRA Is Working

Aggressive Pushback at Evil NRA Is Working; Lives Will Be Saved as a Result

Top Demagogues Through History

Top Demagogues Through History

Some demagogues have risen to power and become dictators, others were relegated a footnote to history. Here are a few.

Here’s Who ISIL Is Most Terrified Of, And It’s Fucking Awesome

Pathetic assholes.
Read more 

Man arrested in fire-bombing of California mosque after cops receive tip

Man arrested in fire-bombing of California mosque after cops receive tip

A 23-year-old man was in jail on Saturday, a day after he was arrested on suspicion of carrying out a hate crime and arson in connection with a fire at a Southern California mosque.

‘Pharma Bro’ Poised To Increase ANOTHER Drug’s Cost — By Around 99,900%

Martin Shkreli bought the rights to another decades-old drug, and he’s going to gouge that price, too!

Read more 

Did Abusive Baby-Hoarding Kansas Councilman Steal A Child From Lesbians?

Did Abusive Baby-Hoarding Kansas Councilman Steal A Child From Lesbians? Probably

Remember Topeka Councilman Jonathan Schumm, and his sad wife, Allison, and how they were IN JAIL for felony child abuse of at least one of their 16 children?

South Korean pop group sent home after US Customs at LA airport accuse them of being sex workers

South Korean pop group sent home after US Customs at LA airport accuse them of being sex workers

The K-pop group, Oh My Girl (OMG), were detained for over 15 hours before giving up and taking the long flight home after extensive questioning and concerns about their visas.

Violent assaults against women rose 168 percent in this North Dakota town

Violent assaults against women rose 168 percent in this North Dakota town — thanks to fracking

'We’ve had violence against women increase by 168 percent, particularly in the area of rape. We have 14-, 15- and 16-year-old girls that are willingly going into man camps and selling themselves.”

Superbug Named 'Phantom Menace'

Superbug Named 'Phantom Menace': Here's Why

Make a disease name 'clickable' and it gets eradicated more quickly, say health experts.

Walnuts Have Fewer Calories than the Label Suggests

Walnuts Have Fewer Calories than the Label Suggests

USDA scientists have found that walnuts have 21 percent fewer calories than previously thought, which is good news for the weight-conscious nut lover! Researchers with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service fed volunteers a controlled diet consisting of walnut halves...

Roman 'Ketchup'

Wreck Full of Ancient Roman 'Ketchup' Found

The second-century ship contained thousands of jars containing the ketchup of the ancient Romans -- a fish-based seasoning known as garum.

Is Nefertiti Hidden in King Tut's Tomb?

Is Nefertiti Hidden in King Tut's Tomb?

The world has long been agog to know all it can about Egypt's legendary Queen Nefertiti. One interesting question goes something like this: Where's her body?! Some archaeologists think she's been hiding out in King Tut's tomb all along.

Want to feel really small?

Meet UY Scuti, the largest star in the universe

by Brendan Hesse

Looking up at the sky inspires deep moments of introspection and curiosity. It’s easy to feel small under a starry night sky, but in order to begin to grasp just how small we truly are, we must know what our relative size is compared to the larger celestial bodies of the Galaxy — and what makes a better point of comparison than a star? Enter UY Scuti, a bright red supergiant variable star that resides within the Scutum constellation and is currently believed to be the largest star in the Milky Way galaxy.

German astronomers originally discovered UY Scuti at the Bonn Observatory in 1860, but it wasn’t until astronomers observed UY Scuti through the Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2012 that the star’s true size became well documented. Following this discovery, UY Scuti was officially named the largest known star in the galaxy, surpassing previous record holders such as Betelgeuse, VY Canis Majoris, and NML Cygni.

While there are stars that are brighter and denser than UY Scuti, it has the largest overall size of any star currently known, with a radius of 1,708 ± 192 R☉. That figure amounts to somewhere between 1,054,378,000 and 1,321,450,000 miles in size, which is about 1,700 times larger than our Sun’s radius and 21 billion times the volume. Wrapping one’s head around such number can be difficult, so let’s break this down a bit.

Consider the Following.

From our point of view, Earth is pretty big compared to the size of a single human. But compared to even some of our close neighbors, our home is incredibly tiny. Let’s imagine for a moment that the Earth were an 8-inch diameter ball. At that scale, the Sun would be about 73 feet in diameter, which is a few feet more than the height of the White House. Our enormous, distant friend, UY Scuti, would be 125,000 feet in diameter, which is just a smidge under 24 miles. Remember that crazy Redbull-sponsored stunt a few years ago performed by Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from the outermost limit of Earth’s atmosphere back to the surface? That was 24 miles in the air. Now imagine a sphere that large. That’s how big UY Scuti is.

So, what would happen if UY Scuti were to swap positions with our Sun? The Star would engulf the the entirety of Jupiter’s orbit, swallowing the Sun, the first five planets of our solar system, and the asteroid belt without so much as a belch. Some speculate the star may be even larger, enough to surpass the orbit of Saturn. Not only that, but the UY Scuti’s gravity would gobble up the larger planet and distant planetoids of our solar system like a interstellar Pac-Man, and whatever remained unconsumed would take thousands of years to complete a single orbital rotation around the luminescent giant.

This video from Youtuber J Dude simulates what such an event would look like:

Hopefully, it’s beginning to sink in just how enormous UY Scuti is. We haven’t even touched the distance between us and the supermassive star — approximately 2.9 kiloparsecs, or 9,500 light years — but that’s a topic for another day.

It must be stressed that we’re constantly exploring, observing, and discovering new things about our galaxy and the trillions of celestial bodies that populate it. It stands to reason that we could uncover yet another, even larger star in the future. Our perspective, on a universal scale, is infinitesimally small. Even if UY Scuti is the largest star in the Milky Way, there could be enormous other stars in far away galaxies that dwarf those of our own, somewhere within this indescribably vast universe. Alas, we will may never know.

Crabs Get a Bridge to Cross a Road Safely

Tens of millions of Christmas Island Red Crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis) migrate across Christmas Island in the south Pacific Ocean. Although they live in the forests on the island, they must go to the sea to breed. To help them cross safely, the people of Christmas Island take a variety of precautions, such as closing roads occasionally. In recent years, they've really stepped up their game by building underpasses and bridges to guide the crabs and move them safely along. The Daily Telegraph reports:

More than 20 kilometers of plastic barriers are in place to direct the crabs away from the island’s roads and into 31 crab underpasses - as will as a five meter-high crab bridge crossing one of the areas busiest roads, which has apparently become something of a tourist attraction in its own right.

These pathways also make it easier to see the crabs in large numbers, so they've become popular tourist attractions:

“Sydney can have its Harbor Bridge and San Francisco its Golden Gate Bridge," says Linda Cash of the Christmas Island Tourism Association, "but it’s our crab bridge which is currently wooing tourists from all over the globe.”

Animal News

All Birds Descend from One Feathered Founder

Genetic data indicates that birds' common ancestor lived in South America some 95 million years ago.

'Cinderella' Tiger Video Has Conservationists High-Fiving

Once sickly and orphaned, the rescued and rehabilitated animal has at last found her prince.

Invasive Cuban Lizard Settling Down in Bermuda

It could be trouble ahead for the endangered Bermuda skink, a lizard that may soon have to share its turf with the invasive Cuban brown anole.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of Carolina Naturally.

Our sixteenth Xmas Tree of the month ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 205 countries around the world daily.   

  
Mandarines ... !

Today is - National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Brazil - Canada - Chile - Colombia - Costa Rica - Dominican Republic - Ecuador 
El Salvador -  Mexico - Nicaragua - Peru - Puerto Rico - United States - Uruguay - Venezuela
Europe
Belgium - Bosnia/Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Denmark - England - France - Germany - Latvia  Netherlands - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Russia - San Marino - Scotland - Serbia - Slovenia
Spain - Switzerland - Turkey - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Burma - India - Indonesia - Korea - Mauritius - Pakistan - Singapore - Sri Lanka - Thailand 
United Arab Emirates
Africa
Algeria - Kenya- Nigeria - South Africa - Zambia
The Pacific
Australia - Philippines

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1431		Henry VI of England is crowned King of France.
1653		Oliver Cromwell takes on dictatorial powers with the title of "Lord Protector."
1773		To protest the tax on tea from England, a group of young Americans, disguised as Indians, throw chests of tea from British ships in Boston Harbor.
1835		A fire in New York City destroys property estimated to be worth $20,000,000. It lasts two days, ravages 17 blocks, and destroys 674 buildings including the Stock Exchange, Merchants’ Exchange, Post Office, and the South Dutch Church.
1863		Confederate General Joseph Johnston takes command of the Army of Tennessee.
1864		Union forces under General George H. Thomas win the battle at Nashville, smashing an entire Confederate army.
1930		In Spain, a general strike is called in support of the revolution.
1939		The National Women’s Party urges immediate congressional action on equal rights.
1940		British troops carry out an air raid on Italian Somalia.
1944		Germany mounts a major offensive in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. As the center of the Allied line falls back, it creates a bulge, leading to the name–the Battle of the Bulge.
1949		Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung is received at the Kremlin in Moscow.
1950		President Harry Truman declares a state of National Emergency as Chinese communists invade deeper into South Korea.
1976		President Jimmy Carter appoints Andrew Young as Ambassador to the United Nations.
1978		Cleveland becomes the first U.S. city to default since the depression.
1998		The United States launches a missile attack on Iraq for failing to comply with United Nations weapons inspectors.
2003		The shrub signs the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which establishes the United States’ first national standards regarding email and gives the Federal Trade Commission authority to enforce the act.

The World War II Meme That Circled the World

My father taught me to draw Kilroy when I was very young, which was another reason my peers thought I was weird. I mean, even my father was too young for World War II, but we thought it was funny. You may be more familiar with the idea from the 1983 Styx concept album Kilroy Was Here, or maybe the video game Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway.

(YouTube link)

Vox tells the story of the big-nosed fellow that became a staple of graffiti, and was arguably a “meme” during the war. 

New Nasal Spray Is Simple Treatment For Overdoses, Could Save Thousands

The simple lifeline is effective on all opioids, including heroin, morphine, and prescription pain killers like Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percocet.

Six People (or Entities) You May Never Have Heard Of Who Secretly Rule the World

So much of the world's business and governmental inner workings are not what they seem. Largely powerless figureheads abound, and they front others in power, both individuals and groups. The linked article highlights six cases in which important rulers and decision makers are not widely known to exist. One example is the following:

"#5. The NSA Is Run By A Special Court Full Of Secretly Appointed Judges Who Don't Answer To Anyone

The NSA is one of the most controversial government organizations in existence. This is because, among other things, their surveillance tactics have been ruled unconstitutional, but they get to continue doing whatever they want, because terrorism. You see, despite what some knee-knocking appeals court says, every bit of electronic surveillance the NSA conducts on private citizens is totally legal in the name of protecting this great nation from secret threats. Just ask their bosses at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, if you can find them. And trust us: You can't.

The FISC was founded in 1978 to combat the rash of illegal Russian spies who were making it hard for illegal American spies to do their job properly. But after 9/11 made suspected terrorists of us all, the FISC quickly became the most powerful organization you've never heard of. It operates from a small office -- there are 11 judges, and their terms of service in the FISC last for seven years. And each one of them is appointed to their position by no less than the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He hires these judges all on his own, without any supervision or fellow justices getting in the way to ensure he doesn't accidentally appoint a violent sadist.The main job of the FISC is to hear requests from the government for permission to wiretap, monitor, bug, or otherwise snoop on whatever target they deem sufficiently shady. So if anyone's going to stop the NSA from pilfering through your DMs, it's them. Except they probably won't -- out of the 33,900 requests to spy that the FISC received from 1979 (the year of its inception) to 2012, they rejected 11 of them... It is equally important to note that there have not been 33,889 cases of espionage and organized terrorism in the past 30 years, so either the net they are casting is far too wide or they've successfully prevented 33,889 9/11s.

Read more about the FISC and about other individuals or entities who secretly control things from the world's pornography supply to the country of Mexico at Cracked. (Their usual, sporadic use of profanity in their pieces is present.)

4 CEOs Reveal How to Keep Getting Promoted

4 CEOs Reveal How to Keep Getting Promoted

Learn how to climb to the top from the people who are already there

Copyfraud: Disney's bogus complaint over toy photo gets a fan kicked off Facebook

Justin Kozisek, a staffer for the Star Wars Action News podcast, bought a $6.94 Rey toy at Walmart and posted a photo of it to Facebook, and he and his SWAN colleagues were surprised to get a DMCA notice from Disney/Lucasfilm claiming that they had infringed copyright by posting a photo of their toy.
The toy had apparently been offered for sale ahead of the release date, and the packaging includes elements that some may consider to be a spoiler.
Disney sent takedowns to Facebook for SWAN's photo, as well as all the individuals who reposted it. When SWAN's proprietor Marjorie Carvalho sent Disney a polite letter disputing the claim, she received a notice from Facebook stating that "The Walt Disney Company has retracted their intellectual property report."
However, Disney sent a new, identical complaint to Facebook later the same day, triggering Facebook's repeat-offender copyright punishment system, resulting in Kozisek's Facebook account being suspended for three days.
Lucasfilm was legendarily tolerant of fan activity prior to the Disney acquisition; Disney itself has a reputation for heavy-handed enforcement. Since the acquisition, fans and academics have been waiting to see whether Lucas's congenial relationship with its fans would persist. This kind of incoherent, bullying activity is not a good sign. Disney owes Kozisek, SWAN, and the fans it targeted an apology.
What's more, since the Universal v Lenz decision, companies that abuse the DMCA process run the risk of having to pay their victims' legal fees if they are successfully sued. If SWAN wanted to, they could cost Disney a lot of money at this point.
Facebook, too, should be ashamed of itself, for not ignoring Disney's complaint, which is so invalid on its face.

Disney and Lucasfilm own the copyright to Star Wars action figures, and the companies may own rights to some photos taken of those figures. But a photo on a fan blog of a legally purchased product has an extremely strong claim to being “fair use,” according to EFF attorney Mitch Stolz.
So what’s going on here? One possibility is that at least someone at Disney was open-minded about Carvalho’s thoughtful response, but the organization has a software-enabled copyright enforcement regime in place that they simply can’t stop. For fans dealing with images the company doesn’t like, the rule seems to be guilty until proven innocent.
Lucasfilm didn't respond to requests for comment yesterday. We've reached out to Disney and will update the story with any response we get.

Disney drops—then doubles down on—DMCA claim over Star Wars figure pic 

(Image pixelated for spoilers, unblurred version here)

All 1300 Employees Get $100,000 Holiday Bonus From U.S. Boss

Receptionist Amanda Thompson told KRIV News they inspire workers to never give "any less than 100% each day."

Here Comes The Next Big Attack On The Incomes Of Ordinary Americans

 They intend to cripple the unions and starve them of dues.

This Is How It’s Done, America: Canadian Prime Minister Personally Welcomes Syrian Refugees

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just made a powerful statement to the refugees coming into his country – and shamed American wingnuts in the process.

Read more

Gun linked to Paris attacks traced back to Florida arms dealer implicated in Iran-Contra scandal

Gun linked to Paris attacks traced back to Florida arms dealer implicated in Iran-Contra scandal

The serial number for a M92 semi-automatic pistol linked to the deadly Nov. 13 terrorist attacks matched one for a weapon delivered by the Zastava arms factory in May 2013 to Century International Arms in Delray Beach.