The top has played an important role in modern history. Without top hats, we wouldn’t have had the Civil War, World War II or Guns n’ Roses. Since the top hat’s impact on important human events is often overlooked and underestimated, here’s a collection of pictures of famous people wearing top hats:

Abraham Lincoln:

UPDATE: I’ve added a few more famous people to our top hat collection:

Bob Dylan:

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog today focuses on the lives of Barack Obama and John McCain. This picture of Obama with his mother caught my attention:

What, you don’t see it? Maybe if I blend them together for you?

Huh. I think they have similar eyes and eyebrows. Still not seeing it? Well, happy Fourth of July regardless.

Unlike hearsay exceptions, there appear to be no songs about personal jurisdiction. Someone please fix this.

50 Cent hates Taco Bell, but not for the same reason that most other people hate Taco Bell.

12 real reasons why potential jurors on the R. Kelly trial were excused from duty. The final two are fantastic:

Please call my mom - When one juror failed to show up for service, deputies called his house and his mother answered. She told the court that she didn’t know where her son was and that he hadn’t been “right” since he was shot in the head a while back. The judge and attorneys agreed to let him off the hook.

I blame R. Kelly for Sept. 11 - When the judge asked one prospective juror about his feelings regarding Kelly, he cryptically answered: “R. Kelly may have led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11, but you can’t prove it.” You’re right, we can’t. In fact, we’re fairly certain that no one has ever tried.

I might take the second guy, he at least seems open minded.

This 50 second White Stripes song is one of my all-time favorites.

You very rarely hear 50 second songs these days.

There’s nothing better than analytic discussions of rap music in legal decisions. It sounds so highfalutin when it’s coming out of a judge’s mouth:

“A signature and long-standing feature of live performance rap music is the hip hop chant. The chant is a form of audience engagement staged by the performer (mc, dj or rapper) who provides a familiar phrase or saying, often in call and response format, designed to energize, include, affirm and engage the audience.” Report of Tricia Rose at 2. Both Campbell and Jackson state that they had heard the disputed phrase of “Go ___, its your birthday” and that it was a common hip-hop chant. Numerous postings on USENET,FN4 pre-dating the release of “Its Your Birthday,” include several uses of the phrase “Go [name], it’s your birthday.” Likewise, Defendants make reference to many additional songs and books, dated after “Its Your Birthday” but before “In Da Club,” that use variations of the “birthday” phrase without license from Lil’ Joe Wein.

FN4. USENET is an online forum for “users to discuss, read about, or post messages on a particular topic,” Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1074 (9th Cir.2004).

The Defendants also set forth several specific examples of the use of the phrase before the creation of “Its Your Birthday.” First, the Defendants cite the 1993 film Who’s the Man?, starring Dr. Dre and Ed Lover (“Lover”), two notable MTV personalities at the time. See Def. Ex. 20. Ed Lover, who plays an inept barber in the movie, gives a customer a particularly awful haircut. In an effort to assuage the distressed customer, Lover compares him to the famous actor Wesley Snipes. Lover then raps, “Go Wesley, go Wesley, go go go Wesley, it’s your birthday.” Lover states that the line “was improvised during the filming and was based on a chant commonly heard at the time in nightclubs and on the radio.” Lover Decl. ¶ 6.

From Lil’ Joe Wein Music, Inc. v. Jackson (50-Cent), 245 Fed.Appx. 873, 878 (11th Cir. 2007).

For more rap-based law, see also Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (2 Live Crew covering/parodying Pretty Woman) and Parks v. LaFace Records (Outkast rapping about Rosa Park).

The new Nationals theme song is really, really bad. Via Metroblogging and Why I Hate DC.

Google celebrates Tom Lehrer’s 80th birthday.

The Del Rubio triplets sing Whip It by Devo:

I just received an interesting email from YouTube.

The CBC has apparently claimed rights to one of the videos I posted on YouTube for FanTent. Fair enough. The neat part is that instead of asking that the video be taken down, they instead simply asked to have access to the stats and the ability to post ads on the video.

Good compromise!

Read their email after the jump. Read more »

I just remembered an incident I overheard a few months ago.

I was meandering through a GameStop and a black man, about 40, was looking at Rock Band for the Wii. The store was crowded at the time, but he managed to get the attention of a clerk, also black. The shopper asked if the game merely allowed the playing of pre-selected songs, or if it also allowed freestyling. The shopper was clearly hoping that Rock Band was more of an actual music generation system than a video game. The clerk explained that the game only played pre-selected songs and that he could not use it to freestyle.

The clerk then looked around, did a sort of fake cough, and stated “and, uh, you can only play… well… rock music.”

I wonder if this unrequested piece of information was volunteered because the customer had asked about freestyling, or if it was because the customer was black?

The album’s title comes from an interview Zevon did on The Late Show with David Letterman following Zevon’s having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Letterman asked Zevon if there was anything he understood now, facing his own mortality, that he didn’t before. Zevon replied, “Just how much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.”

Tom Lehrer doesn’t like being “fake” kidnapped. Go figure. Via Tom Lehrer Livejournal.

1. Traveling cross country, correcting typos on public signage.
2. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
3. Ben Folds’s brilliant piece.
4. A play mocking the day in history that the world forgot what aesthetics were.
5. An airplane throwing contest.
6. To create a competing product to Coke that would satisfy the needs of Arab speakers in Europe and elsewhere for soft drinks.
7. A nerd auction.
8. An episode of Babylon 5.
9. A college’s “American Idol” ripoff.
10. Selling two spools of thread for one penny.
11. All of Einstein’s good ideas.
12. The name of an aquarium store.
13. Watermarking data files in lieu of using digital rights management.
14. Using municipal water systems to deliver bursts of laser light.
15. One of two potential titles for the seventh Harry Potter book.
16. Ellen’s Academy Awards monologue.

Free Dr. Peppers for everyone in America!  Oh, wait, only if  Guns and Roses releases Chinese Democracy this year.  Damn.  Via Jacob Grier.

I’ve always been amused by the lyrics to the Creed song “One”. It’s really transparently about affirmative action… and it’s really negative. You don’t often hear songs based on decrying affirmative action, Creed pretty much has the market cornered on this genre:

Affirmative may be justified
Take from one give to another
The goal is to be unified
Take my hand be my brother
The payment silenced the masses
Sanctified by oppression
Unity took a backseat
Sliding further into regression

…

Society blind by color
Why hold down one to raise another
Discrimination now on both sides
Seeds of hate blossom further
The world is heading for mutiny
When all we want is unity
We may rise and fall, but in the end
We meet our fate together

If you don’t recall the song, here they are doing it on Saturday Night Live.

Can every walrus do this!?!

Via YesButNoButYes.

Sweet Home Alabama performed by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Soviet Red Army Choir:

Via Cynical-C.

US, Los Angeles, Tower Records (2007)