October 30, 2006
President and Dictator-to-be George W. Bush moved the country one step closer to realizing his life long dream of a Soviet Amerika by making it easier for the President to declare martial law anywhere within the United States. Peculiarly enough, the President went so far as to sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which essentially condones torture and basically pushes the Geneva Convention to the wayside.
Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007″ (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”
The Bush Administration has done more damage to America than just about any president in history. The oppressive laws that the government seeks to sign in to law under the guise of “protecting lives of American citizens” is nothing but a farce. Those that believe otherwise are fooling themselves; these laws are nothing more than portions of the “scare America” strategy that the Republicans have engaged, in order to put fear in to the hearts of American citizens with the hopes of remaining “in power.” Do not be fooled by the Republican rhetoric that portrays Democrats as “soft” on terrorism.
Raise the bullshit flag on these people; get your fat, lazy ass off of the couch, drive down to your local polling station and vote. More importantly, educate yourself on these issues and find the right candidate who truly knows how to solve America’s issues the right way. This election season it just so happens that voting Democrat might allow the country to remain a democracy.
The future of America, or even possible Soviet Amerika, is in your hands. Vote!
Get jiggy with Disco, probably the most highly anticipated shareware application for OSX to come out this year. All this hoopla surrounds a revolutionary disc burning application that purports to eat Toast for breakfast.
I played with Disco for a short bit and thoroughly enjoyed the neat smoke effect while burning a CD. The interface could not be more simple, let along beautiful. Disco sure puts a whole new spin on disc burning and, maybe even, for the first time makes CD burning enjoyable rather than a chore.
Disco is currently in beta and is shareware. A license costs $14.95, which alone beats the hell out of the $79.99 for Toast, and that comparison is strictly on price point rather than features and fun.
This is one piece of software that I am sticking with. If you are an OSX user then you oughta grab Disco if you burn CD’s. It is well worth it!
October 28, 2006
Comedy Central has apparently served YouTube with a DMCA takedown request in order to remove all Comedy Central clips from the service. This means that The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and South Park clips have all been eradicated from YouTube, therefore making the service less relevant.
I received a couple of emails from YouTube this afternoon (see below) notifying me that a third party (probably attorneys for Comedy Central) had made a DMCA request to take down Colbert Report and Daily Show clips. If you visit YouTube, all Daily Show, Colbert Report and South Park clips now show “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.â€
In fact, I just conducted a few searches for The Daily Show clips that I knew of and each one of them results in a, “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement” message. Meanwhile, the same clips still reside on Google Video, which is rather odd considering that YouTube was just recently acquired by Google for $1.6B.
Incidentally, it does not appear as if all videos have been tracked down yet, as a great number of clips on YouTube still load without any copyright infringement message.
What is significant about this move is that Comedy Central used to allow sharing of clips from their shows online, because of the draw that they provided the shows. In fact, Jon Stewart even encouraged watching clips of The Daily Show online because of how it reminded people to watch the following night because of what they missed the previous night. This latest move comes as somewhat of a surprise, especially considering Stewart’s, and other Comedy Central executives’, view on the online clips. This is what happens when lawyers get involved in an area they should steer clear of.
It is worth pointing out that a move of this nature is perfectly within the right of the copyright holder. In this case, Viacom, owners of Comedy Central could have allowed the clip postings to continue but have opted to shore up that hole for whatever reason. Viacom is definitely allowed to do this, though that does not mean they are making the right, or even a smart, move.
Should be quite interesting to see what the reaction to this move by both Comedy Central and YouTube will be. I suspect many folks will be unjustly upset with YouTube, even though they are performing the required actions that the DMCA lays out when a copyright holder requests removal of their content from a service provider.
Maybe now is the right time to start focusing energy on the copyright holders themselves, in an attempt to acquire the reasoning behind this awfully ignorant move.
October 27, 2006
The Nippon Ham Fighters, a professional Japanese baseball team that calls Hokkaido home, won its first Japan Series in 44 years. The win came as a shock to most of Japan, who never expected the club to make it to the playoffs, much less win the series!
Fernando Seguignol hit a two-run homer and Yu Darvish went 7-1/3 strong innings Thursday as Trey Hillman’s Nippon Ham Fighters defeated the Chunichi Dragons 4-1 to win the Japan Series.
Seguignol, who played for the Montreal Expos from 1998 to 2001, broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the sixth inning with a home run off Chunichi starter Kenshin Kawakami that just cleared the wall in right field at Sapporo Dome.
Shinjo, one of Nippon Ham’s star players and arguably its most handsome and charismatic players, announced his retirement at the beginning of the season, so the championship is an exceptional treat for both him and the team.
This marks the second straight year that a Japanese professional baseball team with a foreign manager at the helm has won the championship. Last year the Chiba Lotte Marines, managed by ex-Mets manager Bobby Valentine, won the Japan Series. I wonder if this marks a turning point in the way that clubs manage their players. Maybe moving away from the rigid, military-like environment is really a good thing after all?
I am actually quite glad to see that Shinjo, who had previously played for the New York Mets, was finally able to get that elusive championship ring he so obviously desired. Expect him to be making the rounds on just about every show, on all Japanese channels, throughout the coming weeks.
Congrats!
October 26, 2006
I have never really been a fan of Rush Limbaugh. It is not that I necessarily disagree with his politics, but that I despise the manner in which he goes about attacking people only later to turn in to a hypocrite. While I could write for hours about how he annoys me so and how he has some of the weakest arguments around, that is not the direction I intend to go with this post.
Based on my experience with Limbaugh, it came as no surprise to read how, in a recent radio broadcast, he claimed that Michael J. Fox was exaggerating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in a political advertisement that promotes stem cell research. The douche bag believes that an ill Michael J. Fox was either acting or off his medication, which is why you see him excessively shaking throughout the entire commercial. There is even a video that depicts the manner in which Limbaugh stated his opinion, which really makes me want to perform some type of physical violence on the guy.
The attack ended up blowing up in Rush’s face. He has been attacked in return, especially online and in the blogosphere. Undoubtedly someone, somewhere, agrees with his unsympathetic view of a very sick man desperate to cure himself of a horrible disease.
Today, however, the media somehow got wind and reported that Limbaugh apologized for making such ill conceived remarks. Turns out that the media had it all wrong; Limbaugh not only did not apologize but took the chance to reiterate his position on the whole issue by essentially saying that he has no regrets for saying what he said and in the manner in which it was phrased.
I stand by what I said. I take back none of what I said. I wouldn’t rephrase it any differently. It is what I believe; it is what I think. It is what I have found to be true.
It is a sad state of affairs when conservatives radio talk show hosts like Limbaugh attack a man who is afflicted with an extremely horrible disease in search of a possible cure. Those with Parkinson’s stand to gain a lot if stem cell research is allowed, so who can blame Michael J. Fox for asking for a little help? Why is his request any different than any other individual or group that requests help from politicians?
The worst part of this is that Limbaugh is such an idiot that he apparently did not bother to conduct scant research before foaming at the mouth. It turns out that the symptoms displayed by Michael J. Fox are consistent with that of someone taking medication to treat Parkinson’s disease.
An official of the National Parkinson Foundation said movements like those exhibited by Fox are the result of taking medication to treat the disease, which would otherwise result in rigidity.
“When you see someone with those movements, it’s not because they have not taken medication but because they probably have taken medication for some time,†the official said. “If you don’t take the medication, then you freeze.â€
Personally, I could care less if Rush Limbaugh does end up apologizing. If he does then it will only be for mere damage control and will not have come from the heart. If Limbaugh really believes that he made a mistake then he should admit such, though it is doubtful that will happen. The Jabba-the-Hut stand-in will merely go along attacking more helpless people in an attempt to obtain an audience in a world where his relevance is rapidly decreasing.
I stand by Michael J. Fox. It was horrible to watch the commercial video. That is not the Michael J. Fox I grew up with on Family Ties and the Back To The Future trilogy. It is really shockingly sad to see him have reached such a horrible state with this debilitating disease that has unfortunately consumed his life.
Good luck brutha. I sincerely hope that science is able to find a cure for Parkinson’s in your lifetime. You definitely deserve it!
WordPress.com just opened up a new service that allows users to register domains and have domains mapped to their WordPress.com blog. If you have always desired a WordPress blog hosted under your own domain name, yet were unwilling to pay the somewhat higher prices necessary to obtain quality hosting, then this fantastic opportunity might just be what you have been searching for.
It’s here: you can now use your own custom domain with your WordPress.com blog. For example, if your blog was currently at example.wordpress.com you could buy example.com from us and we would automatically move your blog over and redirect all your links and readers to the new domain.
The service costs a mere $15/yr for those who desire to register a new domain or $10/yr if you already own a domain. You will not find a better price, especially considering the reliability of WordPress.com.
I seriously recommend this to anyone looking for an easy way to host a WordPress blog without having to do the whole shared hosting thing. To top it off, it is great to see WordPress.com monetize such a highly requested features and at such a minimal cost to their customers.
