I find this story highly amusing.

Nevada has become the latest US state to make it illegal for musicians to falsely claim they are connected to well-known groups.

Perhaps that’s to be expected, but here’s the funny part:

Maxine Porter, manager for original Drifter Bill Pinkney, said: “In a town like [Las Vegas], where you have a constant flow of tourists, this is a place where people expect to have authenticity.

Eh? Vegas is a place where people expect authenticity? Elvis, for example, is a complex case:

The darling of Vegas, the real Elvis himself, was arguably just a tribute act, if not an outright impostor. Prejudice helped facilitate denial of any connection to the well-known (black) groups and artists that he emulated, so it raises interesting questions of how we come to terms with authenticity of an act.

While Elvis rocketed to stardom, resentment grew among talented musicians whose similar-sounding records weren’t getting the same play. The hip swiveling that merely disgusted conservative whites amounted to theft for blacks. More than one player laid claim to Elvis’ gimmicks.

Blues shouter Wynonie ‘Mr. Blues’ Harris told Sepia: “I originated that style 10 years ago. The current crop of shouters are rank impostors. They have no right to call themselves the kings of rock and roll. I am the king of rock and roll.”

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, guitarist Calvin New born said Elvis hung out in a black bar outside Memphis where he played. “He would sit there and watch me every Wednesday and Friday night,” he said. “I’d wiggle my legs and swivel my hips and make love to the guitar.”

In 1956, the Amsterdam News said Elvis had “copied Bo Diddley’s style to the letter.”

[…]

“The Elvis that died wasn’t the same Elvis that was coming up”, Chuck D said. “They said he was king. Based on who and what? Based on the quality of the people judging or the quality of his music? What does ‘King of Rock and Roll’ mean growing up in a black household? My Chuck Berry records are still in my house. Little Richard is still in the house. Otis Redding and James Brown. The King of what?”

Certainly not the King of authenticity, but perhaps the King of Vegas.

Goodbye Big Mac cost-of-living indicators, hello Peace Index:

The Economist Intelligence Unit measured countries’ peacefulness based on wide range of indicators – 24 in all – including ease of access to “weapons of minor destruction” (guns, small explosives), military expenditure, local corruption, and the level of respect for human rights.

[…]

The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:

— Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
— Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
— Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking

Lack of corruption? Education? Regional blocs? Ouch. It is like the index was created just to make countries like the US, Israel, Russia and Nigeria look bad.

The US comes in at 96th place, but I am certain someone will try and point out that the top 95 owe their spot to the bad-cop behavior of America. There is no proof of that, of course, any more than a bully in school creates peace in the yard. The underlying problem is one of defining fair governance and representation rather than right by might.

Hard to avoid noticing where Japan and Germany are on the list…near the top.

Speaking of governance and regulation, it appears Germany has just tried to ban “hacking tools”:

On Friday night the German Bundestag – the lower chamber of Germany’s federal parliament – passed without amendment a controversial government bill designed to facilitate criminal prosecution of computer crimes. Only the Left Party voted against it. At a hearing in March security experts and representatives of IT companies raised many objections all of which have been turned down.

It becomes an offence to create, sell, distribute or even aquire so called Hacker Tools that are built to conduct criminal acts like aquiring illegal access to protected data. It is feared by many that this might keep administrators and security experts from doing their job – i.e. from properly testing applications or networks to enhance security while on the other hand the blackhats don’t really care that their choosen tool has been made illegal now. Interestingly a similar clause in the Police and Justice Act amendments to the UK Computer Misuse Act has recently been suspended pending amendment for this very reason.

Another new offence is the unauthorized access of secured data by means that require the disabling or circumventing of security measures. This echoes the circumvention clause of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is still highly controversial after almost a decade and has been used in ways not anticipated by its creators to stifle legitimate security reaearch.

I’d like to get a copy of that bill…