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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I wish I could think of a way to relate this to hippos Last week, as I was wandering around a slightly shabby (but brightly coloured) neighbourhood of Santiago, I encountered the following restaurant, which was sadly closed at the time of day I visited.
It is likely that if a restaurant put up such a sign in Britain or America, it would soon receive a cease and desist letter from DC Comics or some other branch of Time Warner. However, despite the fact that the Chileans were undoubtedly required to enact some ghastly DMCA-like concoction as a consequence of the negotiations that led to the United States / Chile Free Trade Agreement, enforcement is somewhat laxer than it would be in Europe or North America.
This is, in my opinion, a good thing. If such a sign were taken down, there would be no consideration of the most important question related to it, which is What in the name of Apocatequil were these people smoking?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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Funny!
In Spanish, a bat (flying animal) is ‘un murcielago’ but this wouldn’t sound cool when applied to Batman (doer of good deeds) as a literal translation would be ‘Hombre Murcielago’.
Hence, ‘Batman’ is usually known by his English name in Spanish-speaking countries and the prefix ‘Bati-‘ is applied to anything where ‘Bat-‘ would be used in English. For example, the 60’s TV show would close with an invitation to tune in for the next episode, “Mismo bati-hora, mismo bati-canal” (“Same bat-time, same bat-channel”).
Heh. I guess they were smoking peyote. If that’s what you do. Never having taken any illicit drugs, except the occasional poppyseed muffin, I won’t know…
Maybe he’s using hypponosis to trick you into buying from him?
Enforcement is indeed much more lax in spanish-speaking american countries. I was amused to see buses in Cabo San Lucas painted with murals of famous classic rock album covers, such as nirvana or Yes.
I suspect the people have more immediate things to worry about than protecting copyrighted works of wealthy american interests.
Batman seems to be a pretty popular trademark to borrow in South America. I just came back from Peru, and it seems like half of the motorcycle-taxis and some of the combis were branded with the Batman logo.