Paris Hilton Drug Bust Conspiracy Theory

Heard about Paris Hilton's latest arrest?

Hilton was riding in a limousine in Las Vegas. A cop stopped the limo due to a strong marijuana smell coming from it. While the cop was collecting information, Hilton removed lip balm from her purse, whereupon a small packet of cocaine fell out of her purse. Hilton was then arrested.

On Sunday night, August 29, KABC-AM's Leo Terrell offered an intriguing theory. He suggests that Hilton intentionally got herself arrested.

Why? Because Hilton hasn't been in the news for six months. Lindsay Lohan has blown Hilton off the news pages, courtesy of Lohan's arrest. After a slap on the wrist (a few days in county jail), Lohan was rewarded with a lucrative TV interview.

This could be the latest celebrity fad. Used to be if you wanted to keep your name in the news, you adopted an African baby. Now, you get arrested. Being a celebrity, you get a slap on the wrist, followed by major news coverage, paid interviews, and more pay for future film and TV projects.

Regarding her arrest, Hilton says that she's not worried,

Hopefully, Hilton and Lohan will eventually run into judges that punish them like real people -- several years in prison, with no access to cell phones, twitter, or reporters! Give them hard time, the sort that ages you a decade!

When young girls see that the price of crime is loss of youth, beauty, and fame, then they'll stop idolizing and emulating these vapid, brain-dead, drugged-out "stars," and strive to lead a straight, drug-free life.

(Yes, I know that if Hilton facilitated her arrest by intentionally dropping the cocaine from her purse, it's not a "conspiracy," because a conspiracy requires more than one person. However, if her current boyfriend (some Las Vegas "mogul" she was sharing the limo with), helped Hilton get arrested by emitting the marijuana smoke from the limo to attract the cop's attention, then it would be a conspiracy.

Copyright Laws Restricts Progress

An expansion of Fair Use, and a shortening of copyright terms, are necessary to encourage progress and innovation.

That's a reasonable conclusion from the finding of economic historian Eckhard Höffner, who believes that England's strict copyright law (enacted in 1710), compared to Germany's non-existence of copyright, was a major reason that German industry caught up to England's despite the latter's head start.

Höffner writes:

"Publishers in England exploited their monopoly shamelessly. New discoveries were generally published in limited editions of at most 750 copies and sold at a price that often exceeded the weekly salary of an educated worker.

"London's most prominent publishers made very good money with this system, some driving around the city in gilt carriages. Their customers were the wealthy and the nobility, and their books regarded as pure luxury goods. In the few libraries that did exist, the valuable volumes were chained to the shelves to protect them from potential thieves.

"In Germany during the same period, publishers had plagiarizers -- who could reprint each new publication and sell it cheaply without fear of punishment -- breathing down their necks. Successful publishers were the ones who took a sophisticated approach in reaction to these copycats and devised a form of publication still common today, issuing fancy editions for their wealthy customers and low-priced paperbacks for the masses."

Also read these Hollywood Investigator articles: Long Copyright Terms Resemble Book-Burning, and Big Media Is Stealing YOUR Copyrights, and Pirate Party Demands Copyright Reform.

South African Horrorfest's 6th Event Nears

The 6th annual South African Horrofest Film Festival will run November at the The Labia Theatre, Orange Street, Cape Town, South Africa.

This 6th installment will include a range of new movies, classics, sneak previews, and premieres from around the world, as well as several chapters of short films (international and local), Halloween dress-up prizes, and audience give-aways before each film. A big Horror DVD collection (of several dozen movies) will be up for grabs for one lucky viewer.



There will also be a spectacular live movie soundtrack performance to the screening of a classic silent horror film by The Makabra Ensemble (created by members of Terminatryx, collaborating with members of Lark and violin maestro Matthijs Van Dijk).

The final festival line-up will be released soon.

The new literary leg added in 2009 with the Lounge Of Horror fiction readings has been expanded in 2010 to include Bloody Parchment's short story competition.

Closing date for film and short story entries is late-August. (Extensions by request - see website for full info.

Another added feature comes in the shape of a dark art and photography exhibition which is in the works. The S.A. Horrofest is nurturing South African moviemaking (and encouraging its own fresh identity), and fiction writers, artists and photographers.

While last year's special guest (American Werewolf in London's John Landis) couldn't make it, we are looking into bringing a prominent figure in horror movies to the event.

Check out the original HorrorFest promo clip produced by the festival organizers (expanded soon for the 2010 event): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFh62j-3IpI