Companies that offer downloadable movies and music online without licenses from the copyright holders typically wind up answering lawsuits from the Hollywood studios and the major labels. So it was odd to see a news release announcing the impending launch of Zookz, a site that offers unlimited music or movie downloads for about $10 a month (or both for $18). That's a bit like waving a red cape in front of a couple of bulls, isn't it? But Zookz believes it's in the clear, legally, thanks to the World Trade Organization. It's a far-fetched argument, but you've got to give Zookz credit for nerve.

The main differences between Zookz and most online outlets for bootlegged goods are that it's not a file-sharing network and that the content isn't free. Instead, it's just insanely cheap. The company's impossibly low prices reflect the fact that it doesn't pay for most of its inventory or share revenues with  copyright holders. All the proceeds go to Zookz, its 10-person staff in St. Johns, Antigua, and (through taxes) the Antiguan government.

How can it get away with this, you ask? I'm not sure it can, but here's its argument....

The Times endorses an unusual idea being considered today by the L.A. Unified School Board: allowing assorted groups inside and outside the district to operate 50 newly built schools over the next four years. Yes, there are pitfalls to this idea, but it's still the most intriguing experiment to reinvent local education to come along in years.

The ongoing crisis in Honduras, meanwhile, is starting to look like it won't be resolved without some "superpower pressure" from the United States, The Times opines. It's time to impose sanctions on those behind the coup that ousted the country's rightful president, Manuel Zelaya, and take other actions aimed at restoring democracy. "Failure to return to constitutional order would send a signal to the rest of Latin America that once again political problems can be solved with an old-style coup."

And we celebrate the nomination of Regina Benjamin as surgeon general. This "angel-like" figure, known for her work bringing clinics to rural areas, rebuilding health centers devastated by Hurricane Katrina and leading medical associations, "has the potential to be one of the strongest voices in public health in decades."

On the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg raises an eyebrow over a recent comment in the New York Times from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

'Frankly I had thought that at the time [Roe vs. Wade] was decided,' Ginsburg told her interviewer, Emily Bazelon, 'there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.'

Goldberg lists other prominent abortion backers, including former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who appeared to think that abortion was necessary to cull undesirable elements -- like the poor and minorities -- from the population. He'd like to see more questioning of such attitudes in the media.

Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project says the Obama administration is breaking its promise to bring transparency to government surveillance programs. The administration is reportedly proceeding with a Bush-era plan to use the National Security Agency to screen government computer traffic on private-sector networks, a program known as Einstein 3 that has no intrinsic security value -- but will allow spooks to read e-mail communication between the government and private citizens.

And Deborah Doctor of Disability Rights California challenges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to document all the fraud he claims to have identified in the state's In-Home Supportive Services program, a quarter of whose funds he says are wasted. The governor not only hasn't proven the accuracy of that figure, he has proposed fixes that could well cost more than they would save.

Ever noticed how many digital "innovations" in the entertainment industry narrow (or attempt to narrow) the rights of customers? That's one ramification of the decision by Ticketmaster, AEG Live and Miley Cyrus to sell "paperless" tickets to Cyrus' fall tour. The seats are being sold online (only to fan-club members at this point), but buyers won't be able to get into the show unless they flash the credit card used to make the purchase and a matching "government issued ID." As a consequence, if you buy tickets to see Cyrus, you're stuck with them -- even if your plans change or your daughter gets the flu the day of the show. (From a Ticketmaster FAQ page: "There are no refunds for this event.") Nor is there any hope for you if the show sells out before you get the chance to buy in. And forget about giving the seats as a gift. If you buy them, Mom and Dad, you're going along for the ride.

Given the restrictions, "paperless" tickets seem like a lower-value option. But don't expect a discount -- no, in Ticketmaster's view, this is a good thing for customers. Why? According to the company's website, "Paperless ticketing ensures that only fans can purchase tickets and attend the event." In other words, no scalpers or resellers will be jumping in line ahead of Cyrus' devoted followers! Granted, scalpers have become more aggressive and ruthlessly effective now that tickets are sold online. Yet they're hardly the only reason fans have been having a tough time scoring seats to hot shows. As the Journal noted in a damning story in March, some top artists and promoters (including AEG Live) create an artificial scarcity by setting aside good seats for resellers, in addition to the ones reserved for fan clubs. They do this because those artists aren't willing to price the best seats as high as the market will pay for them, yet they, their promoters and Ticketmaster deeply resent the ability of resellers and scalpers to capitalize on that demand. So they find ways to sell tickets at fat-cat prices without the stigma of appearing to cater to fat cats.

Secondary markets are important. They help overcome the inefficiencies in primary markets, while giving purchasers a safety net. If "paperless" tickets are the only option for consumers, there will be no secondary market unless Ticketmaster provides one. That's quite a power grab for a company that's awaiting the Justice Department's approval for a blockbuster merger (with Live Nation, the country's leading concert promoter). Perhaps that's why Ticketmaster is doing this round of "paperless" tickets with AEG Live, one of Live Nation's competitors....

When I was young and not yet 20, I used to mock my elders for their antique vocabularies. My mother called the refrigerator the "ice box." The aged nun who taught me seventh-grade math referred to automobiles as "machines."  One of my grandmothers used the words "authoress," "poetess" and (more offensively) "Jewess" and "Negress."  The other admitted that she was born in the year Nineteen-aught-eight.  Older relatives who grew up in a German neighborhood in Pittsburgh called taverns "beer gardens."

Now middle-aged, I find myself bemused by what I consider ugly neologisms. I'm not talking about computer abbreviations (lol) or teenage lingo. "Proper" English has taken on weird new forms.   In my youth, the word "behavior" was singular, "partner" was not a verb and you "referred to" something. Today, the behaviors of well-educated people include partnering with stakeholders (not the villagers who chased Dracula) and "referencing" an event or article.

I'm especially agitated by the use of "reference" as a verb. I suspect it originated in business English, whereas other atrocities ("behaviors," "role models') have the odor of the sociology classroom. Whatever its origin, the verb  "reference"  has established itself even in The New York Times, or at least on its baseball blog.   The other Times' Josh Robinson noted that the first pitch at the Mets home opener was thrown by Tom Seaver. Robinson continued: "Asked if he was surprised that the Mets had invited him back, Seaver referenced his own special status in Mets history. He is, after all, their only Hall of Famer."

Language changes and crankiness are occupational hazards of growing old (or becoming, ugh, a "senior"). But linguistic behaviors like "referenced" and "behaviors" ought to be put on ice.

The Times editorial board was poised Tuesday to advise Tom Daschle to withdraw as President Obama's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, but then Daschle mooted the issue by pulling his own ripcord. Undeterred, the board advises Daschle today not to let the door hit him on the way out of the Obama inner sanctum. Distinguishing him from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose payroll-tax problems drew a more forgiving response, the board writes:

The problem with Daschle’s nomination ... went beyond his tax returns. After losing his reelection bid in 2004, Daschle, the former leader of the Senate Democrats, spent four years doing what many former officeholders do: cashing in on his connections.

Tut tut tut. The board also pooh-poohs the latest hostage release by Colombia's FARC rebels ("a stunt") and urges the House of Representatives to approve a Senate bill to create 700,000 acres of new wilderness in California.

Over on the Op-Ed page...

I was doing some research on the Web today for an editorial about the economy when I recalled something a Brookings Institute scholar told me a couple of weeks ago. The Tax Policy Center -- a joint effort by Brookings and the Urban Institute -- was putting together a report card on the tax provisions of the economic stimulus proposal moving through Congress. So I went to Google and did a search for Brookings stimulus. In addition to the results, up popped the following ad:

New Obama Stimulus Checks

I got a new stimulus grant I never
need to repay to start a business
www.officialpersonalgrants.com

There you have it -- even before the bill makes it through Congress, our wild-eyed liberal new president is already spreading the wealth around. Heh heh heh.The advertiser, who identified herself only as Jessica, said she used the $12,000 government handout not just to start a Google-based business ($5,000 per month in revenue on only 12 hours of work per week!) but also pay off debts and buy a new laptop. Schweet!! Oh, I want to believe ... but I don't.

You have to admire the clever topicality of this come-on. I mean, most people heard Barack Obama calling for a new stimulus package as a candidate and again as President-elect. And so few people pay attention to the details, there's probably millions of people out there who think the money's already in the pipeline. If we could somehow harness this kind of entrepreneurship, we'd be well on our way to recovery! Then again, this kind of entrepreneurship in the field of housing finance (stated income mortgages, pick-a-payment loans, synthetic CDOs, etc. etc.) is what put us where we are today.

For your safety, dear readers, I removed the links from the ad. Please resist the temptation to claim your stimulus check. 

Any promotion is good promotion, right? So we’d like to thank our friends out their in cyberspace who link to our humble newspaper -- even if the link-love is not always to promote our content, but to condemn it.

As Barack Obama took his oath of office last week, it seemed the whole world was watching the historic moment with bated breath. Then the flub heard around the world happened, and Patt Morrison took to cyberspace to share her thoughts -- and people were reading. FindLaw's Common Law blog discussed whether Obama should retake the oath and noted Morrison's inclusion of the not-known-to-most tidbit that the oath language prescribed by the Constitution does not include "so help me God." Ever since FDR's inauguration, presidents have simply volunteered the phrase themselves. Others referenced us for noting that the Constitution doesn't even require a president to take the oath. But they weren't the only ones to examine the flub.

If the infamous oath incident weren't enough to draw webbies to our blog, Michael McGough's odd discovery that Pope Benedict XVI has his own YouTube channel -- yes, it's true -- got us noticed.

And former Opinion staffer Amina Khan's July 2008 post on whether then-Sen. Obama's vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will come back to haunt him was a picked up recently by Under the Radar Media.

Not for the first time, the Catholic Church is trying to adapt its message to contemporary culture. Pope Benedict XVI has become what Reuters calls "one of the oldest people to have his own YouTube channel."

The site, www.youtube.com/vaticanit, features clips from the pontiff's activities, with versions in English, Spanish, German and Italian (though when I clicked on the English link I still got Italian). No word about whether His Holiness also will have a Facebook page or invite cardinals to join him on LinkedIn.

If the pope wants to amass an impressive YouTube subscriber list, I'd suggest he capitalize on his well-known fondness for cats, most famously reflected in an authorized biography of Benedict credited to the cat Chico. Several YouTube channels are devoted to man's second best friend. The pope could follow suit with clips showing him feeding the famous feral cats in the Coliseum, talking to cats in German and secreting a kitten in his miter.

If cats don't drive up the traffic for the pope's channel, Benedict might consider clips of the baptisms of funny babies or mirthful mishaps at Mass.

Here are some of the blogs that have added their own insights to Opinion L.A. posts in recent weeks:

The Google group soc.retirement ("Description: For seniors: retirement, aging, gerontology issues") discusses the court battle over Prop. 8.

Gday World takes up Patt Morrison's rhetorical question, "Is George Bush Russian?"

WitnessLA's Celeste Fremon digs further into the spat between Laura Chick and Rocky Delgadillo. (The National Law Journal's Legal Pad LA offers its view, too).

The Search for RELLevance weighs in on Obama vs. NASA. So does My Buffalo River Home.

Finally, Page One Kentucky echoes Patt Morrison's sentiments on an ill-chosen phrase by Mitch McConnell.

The Times editorial Wednesday on the Lori Drew prosecution sparked a great discussion, which you can read here. That's not surprising, given the nature of the case -- Drew joined her daughter and two other teen-aged girls in humiliating a neighboring 13-year-old girl on MySpace, who committed suicide.  A jury in Los Angeles recently found her guilty of violating a federal law against computer hacking (the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), and we opined that the charges never should have been filed. Readers who didn't like (OK, despised would be more precise) the piece, which essentially called for the judge to throw out the guilty verdict, made a "by any means necessary" argument that went something like this: any adult who torments a vulnerable child through the Internet should be punished, regardless of the legal niceties.

Here's an example from a reader identified only as "Sam":

Drew's conduct was not free speech, but rather, predatory Internet stalking. The Times minimizes Drew's intentionally brutal and sadistic harassment of a 13 year old. Drew’s "cruel hoax" was nothing short of stalking with the intent to inflict mental suffering. MySpace explicitly prohibits "stalking or harassment." The Communications Decency Act, (47 U.S.C. § 230) states that the policy of the United States is to ensure vigorous enforcement of federal criminal laws to "deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and harassment by means of computer" which has no place in the real world or the cyberworld.

The thing is, Drew wasn't prosecuted under the CDA (much of which was thrown out by the Supreme Court). Here's what the law she was prosecuted under (47 U.S.C. §  1030 (a)(2)(c)) says: