[humorix] And Now A Word From Our Lawyers

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

And Now A Word From Our Lawyers
August 21, 2005

In light of recent developments, the Humorix Legal
Department decided that we should publish the following
disclaimers and notices to avoid any potential lawsuits or
fiaSCOs.  [NOTE: The use of non-standard capitalization
within the word "fiaSCOs" should not be construed as a
disparaging or libelous reference to The SCO Group(R), its
subsidiaries, employees, or shareholders.]

The following statements were drafted by Mr. Noah Morals,
Humorix's Chief Litiguous Bastard, and his assistant
bastards,  Mr. M. T. Scruples and Ms. Sully Sittor, of the
Lowe, Morals, and Scruples Law Firm, LLCts, (Limited
Liability Corporation tax shelter).

WARNING: This document contains abnormally high
concentrations of advanced legal verbiage, complex
grammatical structures, and non-sensical meta-humor
references, which may lead to severe headaches, elevated
blood pressure levels, and excessive head scratching that
could produce premature hair loss.  The staff of Humorix,
its shareholders (if any), and its various hangers-on
disclaim all responsibility for adverse mental or physical
health effects that could result from reading, browsing,
or grokking(tm) the following material [NOTE: "Grokking"
is probably not a trademark, but Humorix and its legal
department refuse to take any chances.]

NOTICE: While the title of this story includes the word
"word" in singular form, that is merely a figure of
speech.  Let it be known that this document actually
contains 1,373 words (more or less).  Estimated reading
time: 26 minutes.  Estimated time spent kicking yourself
for wasting 26 minutes of your life: 27 minutes.

* TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1. Linux(R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

2. Olympics(R), games(R), Greek(R), Athens(R), 2012(R),
overcommercialized hypefest(R), and London(R)  are all
registered trademarks of the International Olympic
Committee(R) within the entire reach of the observable
Universe, excluding North Korea,  and any unauthorized
publication of these marks shall result in a complimentary
visit by The Salmonella Brothers(tm), the Unofficial
Organized Crime Syndicate of the Olympic Movement(R).

3. UnixWare(R) is a registered trademark of The SCO
Group(R) until such time that the company declares
bankruptcy and is devoured alive by its creditors, an
event that has a 99% probability of occuring within the
next twelve (12) months.  [NOTE: The aforementioned
prognostication shall not be used as the basis for
financial decisions, such as deciding to short SCOX or
SCOXE stock. Hint, hint. [NOTE: This is not a hint.]]

4. Google News Beta(tm), Google News Release Candidate
1(tm), Google Search Engine Alpha(tm), Google Do No Evil
Propaganda Platform(tm), Google Cold Fusion Reactor(tm),
and Google World Domination Strategy(tm) are all
trademarks of Google, Inc.

5. PHP(R), Apache(R), MySQL(R), Perl(R), fortune(R),
ls(tm), /dev/null(R), shutdown -r now(tm), vi(R),
emacs(R), yes(tm), /etc/passwd(tm), printf(R),
segmentation fault(sm), symlink(R), kernel panic(R),
Hello world!(tm), First post!(R),  and for(;;)(R) are all
trademarks of their respective holders.

6. The use of semantically significant whitespace in
Python(R) programs might be protected by intellectual
property laws in five (5) countries, at least according to
an old post on Google Groups Beta(tm) that may or may not
have been satirical in nature.

6a. (NOTE: The vague and/or ambiguous nature of the
preceding paragraph should not be used as a basis for
judging the competence, or lack thereof, of Mr. Noah
Morals and his aforementioned staff. (NOTE: The preceding
meta-joke was not intended to be humorous and anybody who
fails to perceive the seriousness of this prose should
seek legal counsel immediately. (NOTE: Mr. Noah Morals is
not accepting new clients at this time. (NOTE: If Mr. Noah
Morals was accepting new clients, this document should not
be construed as an unpaid advertisement for his
affordable, quality, award-winning services. (WARNING: The
following collection of closing parenthesis may cause
disorientation in non-Lisp(R) programmers.)))))

7. The use of semantically significant parenthesis in
Lisp(R) programs is NOT protected by intellectual property
laws because even the most advanced lawyers have been
unable to successfully understand Lisp and refuse to touch
it with a ten-foot pole(tm). [NOTE: "Refuse to touch it
with a ten-foot pole" is a trademarked expression of the
Republican Party.]

* WAIVERS OF LIABILITY

8. The content of this website is provided "as is" without
warranty of any kind, including, but not limited to, the
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY and FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  So there.

9. In the unlikely event that the content published on
Humorix results in feelings of laughter, mirth, euphoria,
hilarity, and/or giddiness, we disclaim all responsibility
for any harmful effects that may occur, including, but not
limited to, the following:

(a) Damage to vocal chords from uncontrollable laughing

(b) Overflows of the tear ducts

(c) Bodily injury from rolling on the floor laughing

(d) Damage resulting from pounding fists or other body
    parts during jovial outburst(s)

(e) Violations of local noise ordinances from extreme
    laughmaking

10. In the much more likely event that the content
published on Humorix does NOT result in laughter, we
disclaim all responsibility for any negative effects that
may occur, including, but not limited to:

(a) Regret at wasting precious seconds of your life
    reading this drivel

(b) Profound outrage at the offensive material possibly
    contained herein

(c) Sadness at the complete and senseless waste of
    perfectly good electrons that were squandered while
    producing this site

(d) Feelings of confusion and hopelessness in trying to
    understand this crap

11. The content of this site may contain grammatical
errors, spelling mistakes, split infinitives, double
negatives,  dangling participles (whatever those are),
unnecessary parenthetical constructions, inexplicable
typos, and various other forms of improper language usage
that may cause adverse effects in certain English language
parsing systems  (i.e. the human brain).  The subclass of
people commonly known as "Grammar Nazis" should proceed
with the utmost caution.

* JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS

12. The content of Humorix is intended, but not
guaranteed, to be based in whole or in part upon
fabrications, lies, falsifications, untruths, half-truths,
quarter-truths, exaggerations, fictions, imitations, and
various other forms of make-believe.

13. In the event that an unwanted element of truth,
veracity, reality, fidelity, accuracy and/or integrity is
spotted within a story erroneously labeled as "Fake News",
please hesitate to register a complaint with the Humorix
Ombudsman at:

devnull [at] humorix [dot] org

or by postal mail at:

Humorix Ombudsman
123 Fake Street
Springfield, Whatever State Springfield Is In, 99999

13a. If the Ombudsman determines after an extensive review
that a violation of journalistic fake news standards has
occured, a full refund for this free website will be
provided within thirty (30) days. [NOTE: The definition of
"extensive review" may vary from day to day based on the
blood alcohol content of the Ombudsman]

13b. The staff of Humorix is already aware that our Open
Source Beer story [1] has become true [2], and we
apologize profusely for the confusion and inconvenience
that has been caused by this inadvertant intersection of
reality and non-reality. Moreover, Humorix shall not be
held responsible for the consequences of producing Open
Source Beer, such as alcohol tax violations, lawsuits
arising from PWI (Programming While Intoxicated), or
waking up with a strange woman in the morning while
suffering a bad hangover.

* PRIVACY POLICY

14. We value privacy -- ours.

* EDITORIAL POSITION

15. Contrary to the implied message of some of our
content, Humorix does not possess, nor pretend to possess,
any evidence documenting a link between Microsoft and the
entity known as the Devil (d/b/a Satan, El Diablo, The
Dark Lord, or Darl McBride) [NOTE: Contrary to the
previous sentence, we do not possess any evidence
suggesting a link between The SCO Group(R), or any of its
employees, to the Devil. [NOTE: The aforementioned
evidence could still be uncovered as part of a future
discovery process fishing expedition.]]

16. Humorix and its affiliates have not been involved,
either directly or indirectly, with the presumed deaths of
John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Julius Caesar, or common
sense.

17. Despite rumors, no Humorix staff members have ever
donned a tinfoil hat for the purposes of deflecting
government mind-control rays or engaging in other
conspiracy-related objectives.

17a. We do, however, maintain a Faraday Cage surrounding
Humorix World Headquarters.

18. In the text editor wars between vi and Emacs, Humorix
has firmly endorsed a winner: NEdit.  And for KDE vs.
GNOME: AfterStep.

19. Humorix, for one, welcomes our new Google(R) search
engine/kitchen sink web portal overlords, and we will
gladly toil away in the bowels of their search engine
catacombs for the opportunity to earn some AdSense(R)
scratch.


[1] http://humorix.org/articles/1998/08/beer/
[2] http://www.voresoel.dk/main.php?id=70

--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/humorix/
Web site:     http://www.i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/