Good Morning:
Before he died this weekend at age 97, Tom Lehrer—the great satirist and songwriter—put all of his works in the public domain. Which is something all artists should do.
Here is his entire life’s creative works.
And here is the statement he wrote a couple of years ago:
DISCLAIMER STATEMENT
I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions:
All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.
The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages.
Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.
Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved.
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
NOTICE:
THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG.
Tom Lehrer
November 26, 2022
In honor of one of the great wits of all time—and certainly the greatest wit of our time—and surely the only person ever to both written songs for The Electric Company and written mathematical papers for the National Security Agency, download his works and spread them around.
It’s what he wanted.
Friday on #DogShirtTV, a multitude of estimable personages—
, , Mike Feinberg, John Hawkinson, and —came on with various agenda items. We covered Ukraine, saunas, global warming, South Park, a new twist in the Cactus Mystery, and more.The Situation
In Thursday’s “The Situation” column, I argue that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Russiagate” review does not warrant the appointment of a Strike Force and is part of a broader attempt by the administration to redirect attention away from its scandals.
Neither an assessment nor an initial review—which are tools for taking a preliminary look at a subject and determining whether a predicate exists for an actual investigation—remotely warrants the appointment of a “Strike Force” or a public statement by the attorney general promising to “leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.”
Unless, of course, you’re Pam Bondi and the Jeffrey Epstein case is nipping at your heels and you’re desperate to change the subject, and the president whom you serve has just gone bananas at the DNI’s supposed revelations about Russia in 2016 and has just declared his predecessor guilty of treason, and it is now your job to prosecute a matter for which there is exactly zero evidence.
In that case, you might have to announce that the Justice Department is looking at the matter.
And in yesterday’s column, I considered the economy:
Suffice it to say that the markets don’t think we’re on the precipice of some kind of cataclysm, and while we’re bombarded with forecasts of disaster, those always seems to be a few weeks or months off, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of objective evidence yet that the markets are wrong—economically speaking, at least—to whistle past this particular graveyard.
All of which has me stewing over one question: Is the crowd foolish or does governance really not matter?
Friday On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Mary Ford
Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance Demands Broader Data Protections
Justin Sherman describes how ubiquitous technical surveillance by malign actors threatens U.S. government personnel, and how improved privacy laws and expanded data protections can better protect the U.S. national security community.
National security operators on the ground will always have to continually implement, tailor, and upgrade extra mitigations for combating sophisticated, well-resourced, and persistent adversaries who put them under the metaphorical UTS microscope. But in plenty of areas, the risks are catalyzed or exacerbated by widespread industry data and digital practices, including the collection and sale of extensive U.S. persons data; the amount of “digital exhaust” produced during the course of people’s personal lives; and consumers’ lack of comprehensive, effective rights to control how data about them is gathered, used, transferred, and retained. Legislators can pursue broader data privacy and security protections that would directly and secondarily reduce some of the surveillance risks these practices and technologies create for U.S. national security—and lessen the mitigation workload for those on the front lines.
Can the Military Fight Climate Change?
Andrea Cameron reviews Sherri Goodman’s book entitled, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.”
One thing is certain. Goodman has built a legacy of advancing the dialogue on the range of climate change impacts to international peace and security. While the U.S. policy arc of “climate security” may be at a lull, the inevitability of this security issue now and into the future will necessitate a return to this focus. And with Goodman’s constant perspective of seeing the opportunities, we are all poised to take the next steps of climate security cooperation.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily and Scaling Laws, Kevin Frazier sits down with Janet Egan, Jessica Brandt, Neil Chilson, and Tim Fist to discuss the newly released AI Action Plan and what comes next after this AI policy.
Videos
On July 25 at 4 pm ET, I sat down with Scott Anderson, Roger Parloff, and James Pearce to discuss litigation over the Trump administration's immigration policies, a preliminary injunction over the administration's International Criminal Court sanctions, and more.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the tiger, seen here being a pest and being pested:
In honor of today’s Beast, go irritate someone, preferably by singing a Tom Lehrer song.
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