Plan B misconceptions

The DI editorial page today incorrectly says -- not once, but twice -- that Plan B causes abortions. I don't have time to write a letter to the editor pointing this out. Anyone else feel like doing it?

Take that Hal Lindsey!

The Israel-Lebanon conflict is settling down to a slow simmer, and doesn't seem to be about to erupt into the multinational, Middle-East-wide, End Times conflagration that the hysterical fundamentalist Christians were predicting.

FOX News had a "Middle East expert" on a few weeks ago. By "experts," of course I mean "people talking about Biblical prophecy of the Last Days." Do you think they will have him back on to say how it looks like the Rapture has been put off until at least next week? Yeah, I don't think so either.

One thing that seems fairly clear is that these sorts of prophets will always have a job. If there isn't a war this week in the Holy Land that shows the end is nigh, then there probably will be one next week.

The suckers always buy into it, and can't be dissuaded from it, no matter how many times they're shown to be wrong, because they have "faith."

Good night and good luck

Blogging will be light nonexistent for the near future as I have to go out of town for a few days.

I leave you with this: A judge has ruled that the Bush warrantless wiretapping is illegal. Finally. Someone with some sense. Let the right-wing shrieking about activist liberal judges that hate America and love terrorists begin ... wait for it ... now.

I'm in the Advocate!

OK, it's completely unattributed, so you just have to take my word for it. This was a few weeks ago, when the Phelps clan's protests of military funerals were getting some press time. Some bills were introduced in some state legislatures to outlaw protests within x yards of a funeral or burial or something. Indiana passed one in March; I think there are a few others now. I guess when they were just protesting the queers, it was OK. Do it to the soldiers, and then people care.

There was a brief moment in the media where there was actually some discussion on whether this was constitutional or not. I just happed to be on the Advocate's website for some reason or another, and saw they were having a poll. So I gave them my 2E-02 dollars. My comment made it into the August 29 edition. Maybe it's not all that big a deal, but doggone it, people like me.

Q: Do you think Fred Phelps's antigay protests at military funerals are protected by the First Amendment.

Me: He is revolting, but the same thing that protects his right to protest is the same thing that allows us to have our pride parades.

There was a great interview with none other than the wife of the Cryptkeeper himself, where the FOX News anchor (of all people) goes fairly ballistic at her.

Nice doggie

After Katrina, and during the cleanup and continued evacuation, I was struck by news reports of people choosing to stay behind in the devastation with their pets. The animals weren't eligible for evacuation, so would have to have been left behind. It seemed to have been elderly people, but they may have just been the ones unable to leave on their own devices before the hurricane struck. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must have been to have to make that sort of choice.

There is a bill, the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, which requires "local and state disaster plans to include provisions for household pets and service animals in the event of a major disaster or emergency." It's been passed by both Houses, and is now in committee to work out the differences between the bills.

It's not that I can't see the point behind not letting people take their cats and dogs and birds and ferrets when evacuating, but service animals? You know, the dog that stops you a blind person from walking out into traffic? It's not like people were leaving for a weekend; many still haven't returned to their homes. What's next, some little old lady can't take her cane?

(Via Lycangeek)

Better than coffee

Yes, road construction is a pain. But it has one fringe benefit: hunky construction workers. Sure brightens up my morning commute.

Welcome home

Squire's back. Or, rather, TheSquire's back. Whatever.

Some are just more free than others

Remember back when the terrorists hated us because of our freedom? Matthew links to this story at The Observer:

Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution...

Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

Holy fuck. I'm looking online for a copy of the penal code, but can't find it. To be fair, Iraqis probably have more important things on their minds than digitizing law books. (Like the death squads currently roaming the streets.) But Jesus, it's actually legal to kill gays and lesbians? Why, exactly, did we liberate them again. Strike that. Why, exactly, did we liberate some of them again?

Wikipedia says this about the relevant law:

He who discovers his wife, one of his female relatives committing adultery or a male relative engaged in sodomy and kills, wounds or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty.

To add to the feeling of uncleanliness, in searching for the Iraq penal code, I came across articles talking about this same story several times. Some were just news sites, others were blogs. Then I came across the discussion at FreeRepublic.com. Now I need to shower.

From the "Not even literate hate" department:

Since this [article] is unsourced I suspect it more of the usual made nonsense from the Hate American First Leftists

From the "Freedom of speech" department:

Saddam was right about one thing...it takes an SOB to run an islamic country. I believe that homosexuality is a foul sin of perversion but not nearly as bad a perversion as fundamental islam.

From the "Respect for others department:

Of course its a known fact MoMo was a switch hitter himself..
Arafat is/was widely known as a pedophile..
Islam is indeed a mental disease like liberalism...
I guess it depends on the propensitys of the MOBSTER(Mullah) in charge that determines the (local) character of Islam.. Tribal governance is indeed democracy...
in Kuwait queerdom is accepted freely..

From the "Maybe the Nazis were just aiming wrong" department:

Until Iran is "eliminated" by high temperature...Iraq will always be a crap hole. (no pun intended)

From the "My God is bigger than your God" department:

The problem with Iraq.........Islam.

From the "Nope, no racism here" department: (emphasis mine)

Yes, no two ways about it. Why have we let them into the US? They just want to take over. It's a fifth column. They breed like rabbits. We're doomed.

From the "Fred Phelps" department:

but, but, but - Islam is a religion of mercy...

From the "Channeling Ann Coulter" department

Had we utterly destroyed them, especially fallujah, outlawed fundamental Islam and did other drastic things, THEN we could be in a position of strength today.

OK, I just have to stop now, but it goes on. Freepers disgust me. It's like reading Diet Stormfront.

Finally!

The best part about the Lieberman/Lamont election, regardless of it's outcome, is that people will stop talking about stunning it is that Lieberman might not actually get reelected. I'm fed up with it.

It's almost as if people seem to think that Lieberman is somehow entitled to keep his seat in Congress because he's the incumbent.

Conservatives are why we have no serious political discussion anymore

After thinking long and hard about the vileness that is Ann Coulter this week, I'm next confronted with this from Townhall.com:

Why liberals love pedophiles

Liberals love pedophiles, because they must do so to keep their own belief system intact...

Since modern liberalism's true goal is the actual eradication of God, moral values, and the ideas of absolute right vs. wrong, it should surprise no one that not a single leftist politician in America has denounced Distasio. Nor did they denounce Levine. The truth is liberals seek sexual utopia where no rules apply. Restraint has in fact become a dirty word to them. Self control - a thoroughly foreign concept...

For liberals to denounce pedophiles, ultimately they would have to denounce, lesbianism, homsexuality [sic], and their particular favorite - adultery. And that's just no going to happen.

This isn't some little-known extremist website like Stormfront. Technorati rates this website as number twenty-six on the Internet. Bill Bennett and Tony Blankley -- both mainstream conservatives -- also write for this website.

There's a reason that I refer to liberals tongue-in-cheek elsewhere in this blog as "baby-eating liberals:" because pretty soon that's all that's going to be left to call liberals. We're racist (because of affirmative action), we hate our country and love terrorists (because of the war), and we are actively working for the forces of evil (since we're all godless).

You think the idea of a conservative accusing a liberal of baby-eating is ridiculous? Twenty or thirty years ago, it's what people actually used to say about Jews, believe it or not. In this country, even.

If you can dehumanize a political enemy enough, anything is possible. We all know what happened sixty years ago in Europe. Twelve years ago, it happened again in Rwanda. There, newspapers and radio programs called the massacred ethnic group as "subhuman," shortly before the killing started.

There is a rising tide of eliminationism in this country, and it is only coming from the Right. When was the last time you heard a liberal say that conservatives liked raping babies? When they said it was part of the core of their ideology? No, you only hear this stuff coming from the Right. Why? Because other than Nazis (and there aren't really many of them left), child molesters are the closest thing we have in our society to pure, unquestionable evil. It's an intentional gambit intended to get you to stop thinking rationally and start reacting emotionally.

Last week, Deputy Sheriff Guy Adams (of our own Cook County) said that gays having sex with infants is "the new trend."

Expect to see more of this in the future.

(Via Seeing the Forest.)

Remember when they were going to greet us with flowers?

Remember this?

I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

-- Vice President Dick Cheney, Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

Then today, there was this:

Tens of thousands of followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr rallied in support of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Friday, denouncing Israel and the United States for igniting violence throughout the Middle East...

"Hezbollah, beloved! Hit Tel Aviv! Hit Tel Aviv!" the protesters said. "No, no, no, Israel! No, no, no, America!" they chanted. And, finally, "If Americans are strong enough, they should come face us!"

You know, if I didn't know better, I might think they didn't like us.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues

Showing possible proof the my life is actually guided by the hand of fate, David brought up John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience last night. I'd been meaning to blog about a recent posting by Glenn Greenwald over at his blog, "John Dean and Authoritarian Cultism - a Review" for a few days now, but forgot this is the same book he was talking about. Go read Glenn's post. It's written by a lawyer so it's got a lot of words in it, but it's very worthwhile. I'm going to have to pick this book up.

Dean's book is an analysis of the conservative movement, what drives it, and what attracts people to it.

Dean contends, and amply documents, that the "conservative" movement has become, at its core, an authoritarian movement composed of those with a psychological and emotional need to follow a strong authority figure which provides them a sense of moral clarity and a feeling of individual power, the absence of which creates fear and insecurity in the individuals who crave it. By definition, its followers' devotion to authority and the movement's own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement.

I guess I've never really thought about things that way, but it makes sense. In reading this description, I was struck at how well it describes the evangelical Christian movement and why they are so attracted to authoritarian conservative political doctrine.

A major component of premillinenialist Christian doctrine is that, after the Rapture, after the post-Rapture Tribulations, Jesus will return to rule over the world as king. If you really stop and think about that, it's a remarkably medieval notion. Completely undemocratic. Positively un-American.

These Christians don't just look forward to the day that they will have an unquestionable ruler over them with absolute power, they long for it. It's a seductive doctrine, surrendering control over your life to an absolute ruler in which you have faith that he can do no wrong.

It's also an amazingly dangerous idea. It's not like people in our history haven't found what they thought was their Messiah, only to be proved frighteningly wrong. Seventy-six people died at Waco. Nearly a thousand people died at Jonestown.

Getting back to Greenwald's review of Dean's book, this is the part of this movement I think is so dangerous: (emphasis mine)

...those who submit to authority necessarily relinquish their own conscience (in favor of serving the conscience of their leader and/or their movement), those who are part of this movement are capable of acts which a healthy and normal conscience ought to preclude. They can use torture, break laws, wage unnecessary wars based on false pretenses, and attempt to destroy the reputation of plainly patriotic and honest Americans -- provided that they are convinced that doing so advances the interests of the authority they serve and the movement of which they are a part.

The most horrible of acts are never committed in the name of evil, but in the name of good. It is with that very sense of righteousness that we are able to hurt our fellow man so effectively. Any movement that swaddles its followers with that same righteousness is dangerous and one that can be twisted to do evil, even with the best of intentions.

How much more can we take?

This Modern World today is pretty good. Go read.

In looking for a link to that comic, I came across Tom Tomorrow's blog, where he points to a column in the New York Post that just floored me:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

This is a column in a major American paper wondering if our best interests lie in committing something very akin to genocide. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth
thy little ones against the stones.

-- Psalm 137:9

David Letterman is gay!

David Letterman brought up Ann Coulter's recent accusations against Bill Clinton for being gay. Remember that Letterman has a child with a woman he's not married to. He must be gay, too, then.

In an interview this week on CNBC, conservative pundit Ann Coulter claimed that Bill Clinton is a homosexual. And while the former president admits he once told Coulter that he’s gay, it was simply a polite excuse to explain why he wasn't hitting on her bony ass. Bill Clinton, only gay when it comes to evil, crazy, bitches.

I've never done this before, but here's the clip from You Tube:

What would it take?

I've read on a few blogs (sorry, forget where) the idea that there is nothing a conservative can say that is so over-the-top, so vile, and so outrageous that it will get a conservative pundit kicked off the air. I'm starting to think that's true. Case in point: Ann Coulter

This week, Coulter suggested Bill Clinton was gay. Why? Because he was "promiscuous." So, it seems, having sex with a lot of women means ... you like dick. Setting aside that ludicrous idea, do you think we will see Coulter saying that Newt Gingrich is a screaming queen? After all, for five years, he was screwing an aide twenty-three years younger than himself while he was married to another woman.

It gets worse. Later, she called Al Gore a "fag." That's not my paraphrase. That's what the (arguably) number-one Republican pundit called a former Vice President of the United States on national television. A fag. Can you imagine the uproar if something similar happened to George H. W. Bush? Or if someone called Alberto Gonzalez a "spic?" The right-wing media machine would be calling for the deaths of whoever said it, as well as the deaths of those in charge of the network where it was said. Well, more than they do now, anyway.

This is, of course, the same woman that called the venerable Helen Thomas an "old Arab," and has called for the bombing of the New York Times building. And yet, she's still on the air.

I wonder if we'll be hearing her call Joe Lieberman a "midget kike," next.

Video of Coulter's fag joke and her outing of Clinton is at Crooks and Liars.

The amazing powers of the gay

Continuing the "How is religion different from a delusion" thread from the other week, comes this poll from WorldNutDaily. Apparently a number of Jewish rabbis are saying that the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict is a punishment from G-d because of the World Pride parade scheduled two weeks from now.

It's not like the Mideast hasn't been a pressure cooker for decades. It isn't as if there haven't been, oh, a few wars here and there or anything. It's not like there aren't a couple of wars going on right now in the Middle East. No, the rockets and bombings are the fault of the queers.

Such is the power of teh gay. Know it. Fear it. Wear Ultrasuede.

The nutty part is that the WorldNutDaily-ers go right along with it. Only 30% of them were willing to say in the poll that either the violence is not a punishment from above or that they did not know. The largest grouping, at 30%, said that the violence was definitely due to YHWH being in a pissy mood because of all the rainbows. For fuck's sake, what can you do with these people?

Actually, I think this could be a good thing. Demand money from local government or else we will schedule a Pride parade in your town, bringing down the Wrath of the Almighty™ upon you. We could make a killing.

(Via Pam's House Blend)

Identify this movie!

If I told you I was watching Corwin's Quest: Uncut tonight, what would you think: porn movie or Animal Planet special? Or do I just have a dirty mind?

Copywhich?

(I was originally just going to append this to my previous post, but I think it may wind up being longer than the original, so I'm giving it its own blog post.)

David left a comment below which makes some good points. I'm going to respond here rather than in the comments because I have better control over the formatting.

1. Unskippable ads

I'm only going on what I've read elsewhere here. The EFF has a legal response they presented to the Copyright Office that lists nineteen movies. The text says consumers were unable to "fast-forward" through the ads, but the title of the document is on "unskippable" material. So it's not clear if they mean the chapter skip function also doesn't work. Sixteen Candles apparently has such ads. This article at MyMac.com says the author purchased a DVD and was unable to fast-forward, chapter skip, or main-menu-jump past the four ads on it, but doesn't say what the title was. Finding Neverland apparently has an unskippable Pontiac commercial on it.

I've often wondered if the versions of all the DVDs out there are the same. Whether, say, the editions of a movie sold to Blockbuster for rental have more or different promotional material on them than the ones consumers can buy. That wouldn't be difficult; there are so many collector's editions, special editions, widescreen vs. 4:3 editions, that making another one for commercial applications would be trivially easy.

2. Ownership

I disagree that it's about ownership. Once I buy a DVD it's mine, for me to do with as I see fit. The studio retains no ownership over my DVD. What they do continue to hold is the copyright over it. But I think that if I want to burn the DVD to my hard drive, edit it, and watch an edited version, I should be allowed to do so. Similarly, if I want to tear annoying commercials out of a magazine I buy, cut recipes out of the newspaper, or even read a book backwards, I should be able to do so.

3. Our viewing of Showgirls

David says that our viewing of Showgirls was different than the CleanFlicks case because we wanted a "lighthearted" evening of entertainment. But then, I ask, why shouldn't a Mormon family be able to do the same (though I am loathe to agree with their decisions of what is acceptable)? We were only able to skip the rape scene because people had seen the movie before and knew it was coming up. What if we wouldn't want to have seen it in the first place? Or what if a parent has no problem with his kid seeing the boobs and splasheriffic sex, but thought that the violence of the rape scene was inappropriate for a 17-year-old? (Aside: considering our society's screwed up attitudes towards sex and violence, this seems to me to be a more sensible way of approaching these matters, rather than taking out the sex and leaving the violence.)

What bothers me about this ruling is not that it means fundamentalists will be making decisions for me about what I can and can not see, but that it actually reduces choice. There was no deception involved in the CleanFlicks case. Everyone renting one of these movies (if "renting" is even the right word) knew that they were getting edited movies with bits cut out. They chose to accept the judgment of CleanFlicks of what was and was not appropriate to cut out. But they went into the relationship with eyes wide open.

4. Copyright

The quote of copyright law is a good one. I always forget that part of the derivative works aspect of copyright law is to protect the reputation of the copyright holder. On that basis, the CleanFlicks decision is probably a good one. If anyone is going to edit a movie to take the naughty bits out, the studio should be the one allowed to do so. Which relates to the next point David brought up:

5. Artistic merit

I daresay that just about every movie CleanFlicks edited had already been edited by the studio to bring it down to standards so that it can be shown on TV. So the argument that editing these movies devalues the artistic integrity of the artist doesn't really hold. I don't even know how much input the director even has in such decisions. Two commenters in the second Slashdot article I think put it best:

I understand where the movie companies are coming from in terms of copyright... they don't want people taking a DVD, adding additional clips/features/menus/etc, and selling that for a profit. Then again, I don't really understand why they have an issue with that. They're getting just as much money from each DVD sale, so it's not like they're losing any business. In fact, they're probably gaining business from those people who wouldn't normally buy a certain movie due to violent/sexual/etc content, but will if they get an edited version of the movie.

As for the directors and producers that claim their artistic vision was impeded upon, they sure don't have an issue with those movies being modified in the exact same way for broadcast on network TV. One of the Slashdot posters says:

-- TheFlyingGoat

And another reminds us about this argument ultimately boils down to:

So if we are to argue that, if you bought something you have the legal right to do whatever you want to it (Fast Forward through commercials, play on a Linux box, rip to a hard drive), then you cannot allow Hollywood to start acquiring new rights for their so-called "artistic vision". Otherwise, you will find yourself unable to fast forward through scenes (or commercials) because that would violate the "artistic vision" of Hollywood.

-- Brian_Ellenberger

6. My ultimate point

The point that I'm basically trying to make is that the digital age has fundamentally changed the way that we view and consume media. (Cue mental image of Godzilla eating a library.) It makes things possible that have never been possible before, and makes things feasible that were uneconomical before. Take for example, the recent Internet fads of Google Video and YouTube. Of the twenty YouTube "top rated" videos right now, eighteen are obvious, flat-out copyright violations, one is so avant-garde I can't tell if it's a video or a seizure, and two might be original works. Google Video is a bit better, of the twelve videos they currently have listed as "Popular," five don't seem to be copyright violations, four almost certainly are, and I can't tell about three.

The media world is changing. We need to have a discussion about how our laws and customs will change alongside it. I am of the opinion that copyright law has changed beyond anything the founders of our country ever intended, and that, in some aspects, it no longer serves the public interest. But, unfortunately, that is a discussion that we as a society are not having. And that's the problem.

In looking up some of the links for this post, I came across this blog entry over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, where Scott Lemieux basically says the same thing that I'm trying to, only more succinctly.

Copywhat?

David blogs about the ruling against CleanFlicks, which deals with the legality of sanitizing movies without the blessing of the movie studio. He makes some good points. This was also discussed once on Slashdot, and again. I want to chime in here and explain why I think this ruling is wrong.

OK, maybe not why it's legally wrong, per se, but why it's bad. I'm not going to shed a tear for CleanFlicks. Seeing a self-righteous moralist get his comeuppance is always something that I take a perverse pleasure in (unless it's me). But this wasn't a case of CleanFlicks downloading a movie, editing it to take out the naughty bits, and selling thousands of copies. Rather, they are a Netflix-like service that loans you edited movies to watch. As I understand it, for every copy of a movie that they edited, they bought a legal copy of the movie. The studios weren't deprived of a dime. Piracy really isn't an issue here.

Rather, the whole issue is is about control. Who controls what we can watch, under what circumstances, and what choices we have regarding it.

You see, I've basically done the same thing that CleanFlicks did. When David, Jon, Billy and I saw Showgirls (and much fun was had by all), by general consensus of the group, we decided to skip over one unpleasant scene in the movie. Zip, we basically went by it as if it weren't there. David says, "If they don't want to watch [a movie] as it was released, then they shouldn't watch it at all." Except that's exactly what we did. If we didn't want to watch a movie with a violent rape scene in it, we didn't have to rent one, but we did, and we wanted to watch the movie without that scene. In this case, we were the self-righteous moralists.

There is of course the legal issue that CleanFlicks was a for-profit venture, and that there were copies being made. Nevertheless, I still think that this ruling is bad for consumers, because it allows someone other than me to decide what I may and may not watch. If, instead, we wanted to hire someone to hold the remote control and fast-forward through the unpleasant scenes in the movie, I suggest that would have been our right to do so, as well. There actually is a service that basically does that, albeit through technological means. It's called ClearPlay, and they, too are being sued by Hollywood. (The lawsuit may have been made moot by a 2005 law; I'm not sure.)

If you think fast-forwarding through a movie scene is different from a copy with the scene edited out, and that this will always be possible, you may be wrong. The next generation of DVRs may not be able to fast forward through commercials. Not because they can't, but because you will not be allowed to. Someone else will decide for you what you may and may not skip. It has also been suggested that digital TV users not be allowed to change channels during commercials.

DVDs already have this feature. Frankly, it pisses me off when I watch a DVD and have to sit through the "opinions expressed in the commentary on the disk are not the opinions of the idiot movie studio" warning, then the movie rating screen, then the FBI warning saying they'll come kill my family if I copy the movie, then the Interpol warning saying the same thing, and then the fucking Interpol warning in fucking French. All of these are unskippable. But maybe it's OK because those are legal warning? Well, no. I understand that Disney is fond of putting unskippable advertisements, sometimes ten to fifteen minutes long, in front of a DVD. How long until some studio decides that an obnoxious product placement should be unskippable?

Copyright started out as a way to ensure innovation in creative works. It is not a natural, innate right of a person. It is intended to ultimately benefit society, not the artist. It was limited in scope and in time. You were expected to live out the copyright on your works. Now, copyright has been extended to the point where an artist's children may not live long enough to see his work enter the public domain. It has not changed to keep up with the changing nature of our now-digital world. And I think that's to the detriment of us all.

Zing!

Oh wow, some writer at PlanetOut was really feeling his Wheaties this morning.

"God's Rottweiler" growls at same-sex marriage

Pope Benedict XVI lived up to his "Rottweiler" nickname this weekend when he chewed into same-sex marriage and Spain's Socialist government.

Like the tenacious dog breed he's been equated with, Benedict indicated that having sunk his teeth into Spain's newfound secularism, he's not about to loosen the bite...

He savaged marriage equality before even getting off his papal plane from Rome. Questioned on the role of same-sex marriage in society, the pope told reporters: "According to human nature, it is man and woman who are made for each other and to give humanity a future."

Critics have been swift to point out that an old man who's experienced neither relationships nor much life outside the church is unlikely to be the most qualified adviser on the subject of love and marriage. Regardless of this screaming anomaly, nearly 1.5 million devotees turned out to hear him.

Bitchy queens: 1, Man in a white dress with a funny hat: 0