{"id":4193,"date":"2003-01-21T14:27:56","date_gmt":"2003-01-21T19:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2003-01-21T14:27:56","modified_gmt":"2003-01-21T19:27:56","slug":"mutie_scum_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/21\/mutie_scum_2.html","title":{"rendered":"Mutie scum!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge has declared that the X-Men, that outcast band of mutant heroes, feared and hated by the ones they protect, are, in fact, not human<\/a>, but “nonhuman creatures.”<\/p>\n

Ironically, the ruling comes at the behest of Marvel itself.<\/p>\n

Marvel subsidiary Toy Biz Inc. pushed Judge Barzilay to declare its heroes nonhuman so it could win a lower duty rate on action figures imported from China in the mid-1990s. At the time, tariffs put higher duties on dolls than toys. According to the U.S. tariff code, human figures are dolls, while figures representing animals or “creatures,” such as monsters and robots, are deemed toys.<\/p>\n

Those tariffs have both been dropped, but Toy Biz is still embroiled in a suit with the Customs Service over the tariffs at the time.<\/p>\n

Also ironically, it was the US government that was coming to the aid of our embattled mutants.<\/p>\n

Toy Biz, in its filings, pulled no punches. The figures “stand as potent witnesses for their status as nonhuman creatures,” the company argued. How could they be humans, Toy Biz said, if they possessed “tentacles, claws, wings or robotic limbs?”
\nThe U.S. government showed more feeling. Each figure had a “distinctive individual personality,” the federal legal team argued. Some were Russians, Japanese, black, white, women, even handicapped. Wolverine, the government insisted, was simply “a man with prosthetic hands.” Justice Department lawyers who handled the case didn’t return calls seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Nuff said.<\/p>\n

(via BoingBoing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge has declared that the X-Men, that outcast band of mutant heroes, feared and hated by the ones they protect, are, in fact, not human, but “nonhuman creatures.” Ironically,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24942,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/30\/mutie-scum.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":0},"title":"Mutie scum!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Dec-11 3:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Heh. Marvel's lawyers (tongue in cheek? not where money is concerned) actually argue that because mutants aren't human, their imported action figures should be taxed based on the lower \"toys\" rate instead of the higher \"dolls\" rate. Fanboy hilarity ensues ... #ddtb Embedded Link Real-Life Weirdness: Marvel Lawyers Insist Mutants\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4397,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/10\/cant_you_tell_b.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":1},"title":"Can’t you tell by the nose?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Sep-03 10:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Saudi religious police have declared that Barbie is a threat to Islamic morality -- especially since she's Jewish. Saudi Arabia's religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137179,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/14\/companies-are-going-to-get-screwed-trying-to-work-with-trumps-tariffs.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":2},"title":""Companies are going to get screwed" trying to work with Trump's tariffs","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Sep-18 4:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember those nifty steel and aluminum tariffs that Donald said would revitalize American industry?Yeah, not so much. Because the Commerce Dept., which processes applications for exceptions to the tariffs, is both inundated with them (20,000 applications with only about 100 processed so far), and having to make head or tails\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132926,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/24\/tariffs-and-taxes-and-trade-theyre-complicated.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":3},"title":"Tariffs and Taxes and Trade. They're Complicated","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 24-Feb-17 8:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"Slap a tax on imports? Remove taxes on exports? Creating jobs and improving the economy look like they will be a bit more complicated than that, even if the politics of making it happen were trivial.But these kinds of causes and effects also take time. Which means Trump can make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136755,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/14\/lets-raise-a-glass-to-trade-wars.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":4},"title":"Let’s raise a glass to trade wars!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Jun-18 8:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When you bump up tariffs, and other countries bump up tariffs in response, guess what happens? Stuff that's imported or relies on imported materials gets more expensive for American consumers. American businesses that rely on exports -- and the American states that rely on tax income from them -- lose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Trump-smug.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":51058,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/female-super-heroes-invisible-and-replaceable.html","url_meta":{"origin":4193,"position":5},"title":"Female super-heroes: invisible AND replaceable","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-May-15 7:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Crikey.It's one thing (a bad thing, but one thing) to simply not pay any attention to the participation of, oh, say, Black Widow in the recent Avengers movie.It's another thing to take something Black Widow did -- something so cool and prominent and promotion-worthy that it was a key part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}