Glenn Beck according to South Park

Last night's South Park episode took on right-wing media demagogue Glenn Beck. For folks in the US, the episode is available to watch HERE.

Some obvious parallels to the recent "Did Glenn Beck Rape and Murder a Young Girl in 1990?" saga are present. Cartman gets his start doing the morning announcements, quickly expanding his media empire from audio-only, to video, to writing books. The main target of his attacks is student body president Wendy Testaburger, who is blamed for all manner of ills at the school. The attacks continue and escalate rapidly from maintenance issues at the school to being a drug-addicted slut, to being responsible for a Smurf genocide.

Cartman's grand plan disintegrates when he finds his rhetorical "asking questions" style turned back on him, suggesting that it was his illicit relationship with Smurfette which was actually responsible for the wiping out of the Smurfs, and the untimely death of Smurfette.

The lesson here is the same as the one delivered by the World Intellectual Property Organization last week to Beck in its denial of his complaint against Isaac Eiland-Hall- that employing a rhetorical, accusatory, "just asking questions" style to attack others leaves you open to the same tactics. Will Glenn Beck learn from this South Park episode? Probably not. The upside is that this means that there will be no interruption in the steady stream of idiocy, providing continued LULZ for people who are less impressionable than Butters.

The Glenn Beck 1990 story goes big-time

The story of Isaac Eiland-Hall's WIPO victory over Glenn Beck was all over the interwebs today. Huffington Post, Gawker, Slashdot, NPR, The Register, and even Weekly World News covered the victory at the international arbitration panel.

The site was erroneously reported to be down by some sources, but is still up and operating at http://gb1990.com/ even though Eiland-Hall voluntarily gave the original domain (GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com) to Beck following the decision in the case.

New sites have already popped up, the most amusing of which (in my opinion) is GlennBeckIsNowAPublicLaughingstock.com -consisting of the full WIPO decision. This isn't going away Mr. Beck. The people want to know the truth.

Glenn Beck wants to be Pedobear

In the latest round of filings with the WIPO, Glenn Beck and his lawyers take their FAIL to a new level. Beck's Supplemental Filing states in part:

Mr. Beck is an ardent supporter of the First Amendment right to free speech. ...Complainants' action is directed at the wrongful acts of Respondent in his registration of a domain name that completely subsumes the trademark "Glenn Beck" and links that trademark with raping and murdering a child, thus constituting bad faith registration, not protected speech.

While I get that a website named glennbecksucks.com may be less offensive than GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com, both names are clearly not connected with Glenn Beck other than that they are about him. I would argue that the second is actually more valid as a parody site, because it actually uses the same tactics Beck does, whereas the first is simply stating an opinion. With regards to Glenn Beck's ardent support of the First Amendment, that claim is laughable. If he is such an ardent supporter, why has he not agreed to the application of the First Amendment in this case, as was requested a month ago?

Marc Randazza (Isaac Eiland-Hall's lawyer) responds:

The logical pretzel that the Supplemental Filing creates defies any sense of reason. It is so irrational that one must wonder if it is yet another esoteric inside joke – an attempt by Mr. Beck to achieve the same level of memetic success as Pedobear.

Brilliant. Glenn Beck wants to be the new Pedobear. Given that, he may have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 after all. Randazza concludes with this:

Glenn Beck is the butt of a viral joke. He may not get the joke, but this does not make the joke likely to confuse or subject the domain name to transfer under the UDRP. Glenn Beck’s failure to understand these basic principles of law does not make the joke any less humorous, and does not make him any less of the butt. The First Amendment protects Respondent’s right to make Glenn Beck the butt, and his hypocritical attempts to squelch legitimate free speech criticism do nothing to portray himself in a more flattering light. Because his arguments do not satisfy Section 4(a) of the Policy, his request should be denied. Because he has attempted to silence a critic by circumventing (and thereby devaluing) the First Amendment -- which he publically (and in this proceeding) claims to love -- he should be deeply ashamed.

Well and eloquently put.

All of the legal documents can be found here

P.S. If Glenn wants to dispute any of the claims made, he can email me, leave a comment, or call the "Glenn Beck 1990 Truth Hotline." If he doesn't then Glenn Beck must really have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, and he must really want to be the next Pedobear. Just like Anita Dunn must have an altar to Mao Tse-Tsung in her bedroom if she doesn't call Beck's "Hotline," right, Glenn?

Hypocrisy or Cognitive Dissonance? You Decide

Tuesday's Glenn Beck show on Fox News was comedy gold, but that was probably not what Beck was going for. He was aiming to elicit outrage- sowing fear that the Government wants to take away your rights under the guise of "Net Neutrality":

"What are we doing in America? What are we doing to our freedom of speech?"

An excellent question, and one that I hope that Beck is prepared to answer himself. First, it appears that Glenn's understanding of the internet is less than stellar. Net Neutrality simply means that all the ones and zeros flowing through a provider's tubes need to be treated equally. It means that your ISP cannot discriminate against companies which offer competing services. For example: if SBC is my ISP, but I get VoIP service from Vonage, SBC has to let the Vonage data through unimpeded, despite the fact that they have their own VoIP service. Many areas of the US have little or no competition among broadband providers. If those companies use their position as monopolies to force me to buy other products and service from them, that's a bad thing.

Net Neutrality is not censorship. It is not a "Fairness Doctrine" limiting speakers or points of view. Ones and Zeros are not a finite commodity. They can be produced on demand. Transmission capacity (bandwidth) is the finite commodity of the internet. Allowing equal access to it, so that every one or zero has an equal priority is the only fair way to handle it. Net Neutrality ensures and protects free speech, rather than threaten it.

One thing that DOES threaten free speech, is attempts to take away domain names- attacks like the one Glenn Beck himself launched a month and a half ago against Isaac Eiland-Hall. Isaac registered a name for and launched a site critical of Beck- GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com. The name is, admittedly, crude- and could be argued to be in poor taste, but one of the tenets of the First Amendment is that taste -or the lack thereof- is not a valid reason for censorship.

"What are we doing in America? What are we doing to our freedom of speech?"

What is Beck doing to our freedom of speech? He is asking an international body (the WIPO) to censor someone else's speech for the simple reason that he does not like it. Net Neutrality is not the threat to the First Amendment, Glenn Beck is.

"[He] didn't call to correct me on that one- that's weird- Oh! It must be true!"

I noticed yesterday that Beck's "White House Hotline" is back, and still silent. Also silent is the "Glenn Beck 1990 Truth Hotline." Since Beck has not called to correct the rumors, it must be true that he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, right?

Glenn Beck: It's not cesnorship if I do it

Today on his show, Glenn Beck called the internet "the last thing that is truly free." Of course, it won't be for long, if Beck has his way. Glenn Beck's ability to maintain cognitive dissonance in his rants against perceived government control of the media, and his own actions in attempting to silence his critics is astounding. In case you missed it, Beck has filed an action with the WIPO requesting that the domain glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com be taken away from the person who registered it. WikiNews today published an interview with Marc Randazza, the lawyer representing the person who started the criticism site, and WikiPedia has a good article on the case.

Glenn Beck's "Red Phone"

Glenn Beck unveiled a new gimmick on his TV show, today. He has installed a "Hotline" for the White House to call and refute anything he says that is not true, and in true dramatic fashion, the "Hotline" is- literally- a red phone, manned by a staffer throughout the show.


This is a blatant continuation of Beck's "prove me wrong" tactics- placing the burden of proof on the accused as he infers and announces connections between President Obama and everyone from ACORN and SEIU to Hugo Chavez and Chairman Mao. He constantly checks throughout the show whether or not the phone has rung, even going so far as to have the staffer manning the phone verify that it is working by checking for a dial tone and having someone call the "Hotline" to verify that it is in working order.

Strangely, despite the availability of a phone number for Beck to call to dispute the rumors that he allegedly raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, he has not called to dispute or deny the allegations. By Glenn Beck's own logic, we must then conclude that it is, in fact, true that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.


Meanwhile, Beck has also so far declined to sign the proposed stipulation to apply the First Amendment in his dispute with Isaac Eiland-Hall over the domain GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com. Again, by his silence, we must infer by Beck's own logic that his lack of response means that he does not support First Amendment protections for the speech of others, just for himself.

Mr. Beck, do you support the First Amendment?

*crickets*

Yep, that's all that has been heard from Glenn Beck's lawyers since September 29th, when Attorney Marc Randazza (who is representing Isaac Eiland-Hall in his dispute with Glenn Beck over the domain GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com) sent to Beck's legal counsel a proposed stipulation requesting that Glenn Beck agree that First Amendment protections be taken into account by the international panel that will be deciding the case for the World Intellectual Property Organization. Never mind the irony of Beck, who has publicly decried internationalism as an erosion of constitutional rights, appealing to an international group to silence his critics, Glenn Beck has so far not agreed that the first amendment should be applied and upheld in this case. I'll repeat the question: Glenn Beck, do you support the first amendment and free speech?

*crickets*

"They don't respond to these questions, which should tell you an awful lot, shouldn't it?" -Glenn Beck, 10/07/2009

Since Beck has remained silent on the issue of whether or not he actually supports free speech, or if instead he is just a whining hypocrite, I do want to post something amusing, so here's Stephen Colbert's latest comments on Beck:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bend It Like Beck
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

I should also add, Glenn Beck has still not provided an answer to the question: Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990?

Randazza on the radio!

Marc Randazza, the lawyer representing Isaac Eiland-Hall in his dispute with Glenn Beck over the GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com domain was interviewed today on Ed Brayton's show "Declaring Independence" on WPRR AM 1680 in Grand Rapids, MI. Here is the interview:

Part One:


Part Two:


This may be the only time you get to hear a lawyer get RickRolled on the air!