tsujigiri

The editorial comments of Chris and James, covering the news, science, religion, politics and culture.

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." -Douglas Adams

Saturday, July 19, 2003

It looks like RIAA is throwing down the gauntlet, serving 75 subpoenas per day to US file sharers. They have already filed suits against 1000 citizens. As said by Andrew Orlowski in an editorial for the Register [link], "If the RIAA was to be indulged in its whims, the statistics suggest that the USA would rapidly become a vast, continent-wide penal colony. And that's hardly a beacon of liberty to shine on the rest of the world." The editorial concludes with some well-stated comments:
My great grandfather was born in 1870. He learned to build crystal radio sets to listen to the earliest radio broadcasts in the 1920's. He would invite the whole town of about 500 over to listen to them. My grandfather was born in 1899. He purchased one of the earliest tape recorders to make copies of radio broadcasts for his friends in the late 1950s. My dad was born in 1924. He had a collection of 78's that he passed around for many years until he died last year. And now I am using the Internet to assemble an MP3 collection of all the tunes on all those LPs, cassette tapes and CD's that I've been buying since 1959. I'll be damned in hell before I accept the notion that I and my ancestors who love to listen to the audio arts are in any sense guilty of anything that is illegal, wrong, evil, immoral or improper. Gene Mosher
It boggles the mind to see how much of our society -- our technology and our private behavior -- are being threatened by RIAA's least-common-denominator. There's much more to all this technological progress than music sharing. The RIAA is trying to sell us on the notion that all new information technology, and all contemporary legal issues, revolve around their interests alone. They've managed to get away with too much of that line all ready. I hope they torpedo themselves with this bullshit.

Matt Drudge: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan "is having a rough first week." The White House was evidently unhappy about some remarks made by US soldiers in a story that aired on ABC News earlier this week. Soldiers in the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division had some unkind things to say about the Bush administration. One sergeant said that "The aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz." Another soldier went on camera and said "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation." The soldiers were apparently upset because over repeated extensions of their time in Iraq. They have been scheduled to return home several times, only to have those schedules revised at the last minute [ABC News]. The White House was not happy with these remarks, and there are complaints of retaliation:
"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers." First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear. [Drudge Report]
Perhaps such retaliation is not surprising. But the White House also attempted a sloppier retaliation against Jeffry Kofman, the reporter who collected the interviews. The White House apparently felt it was important that people know Kofman is openly gay and Canadian [Washington Post]. Damning. Meanwhile, a memo has turned up which makes the Recall campaign against Cal. Gov. Gray Davis look pretty blatantly like a Republican coup. This is a rare glimpse at some of the more cynical inner workings of American politics.
"While it is important to trash the governor," reads the blunt, 17-page memo from Virginia-based communications expert Frank Luntz, "it should be done in the context of regret, sadness and balance." [SF Gate]
And in other news that caught my eye, Bush's approval ratings continue to fall. According to the latest Zogby International poll, Bush's overall approval rating is now down to 53%, with a negative rating of 46%. More "likely voters" say that they do not want Bush to be re-elected. 42% say they have an unfavorable opinion of Bush as a person. Bush still maintains a plurality of support against a hypothetical Democrat, by five percentage points. [Zogby].

"When they reach maturity, all Muslims are commanded to drive up a mountain in their four wheel drive off road vehicles, or "jihads", and catch a crab. Only then will they achieve their beards. All Muslims can fly." [link]. A most bizarre site.

Thursday, July 17, 2003

The internet can be confusing. Two days ago, a headline appeared on FARK which stated "Metallica sues band over unsanctioned usage of the E chord." The link claimed to go to MTVNews, but actually went to an article at 411Mania, a site with which I'm not very familiar. The links go to a page at ScoopThis, and references a press release supposedly from metallica.com. The 411Mania article mistakenly attributed the report to MTV.com. As we read on snopes.com, the whole thing was a hoax, which is apparently the specialty of ScoopThis. The hoax was so well done that it was picked up by Ananova, although they have since removed the story from their site without comment. This is reminiscent of a few months ago, when Yahoo News picked a story from the Weekly World News about a time-traveling trader, a story which fooled a lot of people (and also made its way to Fark). Addition: one writer for Court TV noted that this hoax was easy to spot (the spoof pages were not actually on Metallica or MTV's web server). He then took the point ad absurdum and found that "A quick search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database turned up registrations for Metallica branded footballs, Metallica-branded sweatshirts and sunglasses -- but no 'Metallica-branded chords.'" [link] In other internet related news... A man in Taiwan wanted to test his girlfriend by pursuing her via an online alter-ego. She fell in love with the alter-ego after a period of "dating" him online (How do people date online? I just don't get that... I mean I don't know what it is. It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can do online. Like, "I'm going to go eat a hamburger on the internet." It just doesn't work. Unless dating is nothing more than a RPG....) Anyway, the girl told the guy that she'd fallen in love with the online guy (who was actually the guy) and the guy was so distraught that he killed himself [link]. Japan has had problems with online suicide pacts [Mainichi Daliy News]. Not to be outdone, Germany has produced a man who posted an online ad looking for someone who wanted to be killed and eaten. Perhaps not surprisingly (this is Germany, after all), he found a willing companion. "He allegedly chopped the body into pieces, deep-froze parts of it and buried the rest, capturing the crime on a videotape which is being used as evidence." [CNN]

The Catholic Church raises stupid questions about freedom of speech. A family in New Mexico is suing the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe because, at the funeral of their family member Ben Martinez, a priest declared that "the Lord vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell.” Apparently Ben was insufficiently pious and the church felt that his funeral was a good time to give him a tongue-lashing [link 1]. The Catholics are, of course, claiming that this is a first amendment issue. I'm interested to know how what happens in this case. I hadn't realized that funerals were open forums... "Family members say he was a practising Catholic all his life but was too ill to attend church in the last year of his life." Nevertheless, the priest claimed that Martinez was "livling in sin" and "lukewarm in his faith". "church officials deny the family's claims." [link 2]. At a time when the Catholic church is looking worse every day, they are doing an amazingly poor job of improving their image. Not so many years ago, a lot of people were sold on the image that the Vatican had moved beyond the dark ages and become a modern, enlightened church. Now they look like a cadre of corrupt, abusive pricks.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

I forgot to mention this before: There's a pirate FM radio station in the heart of San Diego, Free Radio San Diego 96.9. They broadcast a bizarre mixture of indie-rock/hip-hop/eclectica and indie news stuff. They've been around for several months. The FCC wants to shut them down. But they can't find them. Check out the "FCC" button on their site. Odd how the FCC hasn't been able to can them yet, when a local news station found them with a cheap Wal-Mart radio. It's a fun station. Where else can I hear Sleater-Kinney next to the Dead Kennedys next to Deerhoof next to a track from the most recent David Byrne album next to three indistiguishable indie rock songs in a row? Perhaps while listening to random selections from my own collection, but, otherwise, nowhere, that's where. And the fight-the-power factor is through the roof.

"Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson urged his nationwide audience Monday to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives." [CNN]. It looks like he prayed really hard, too:
Please, god, kill those justices...

Monday, July 14, 2003

Nielsen: file sharing is down because of RIAA lawsuit threats [CNN]. This completely contradicts recent reports that usage was up 10% [TechNews]. As Paula Zahn said earlier today on CNN, "all media -- excluding CNN -- are subject to errors..." I think perhaps she misspoke...

Federal attorneys reject court order in Moussoui case on grounds of national security:
The Government recognizes that the Attorney General's objection means that the deposition cannot go forward and obligates the Court now to dismiss the indictment unless the Court finds that the interests of justice can be served by another action. [findlaw]

It seems lately that no conversation can be had on any subject without someone being called a "liberal," wherein the term "liberal" is intended to mean "traitor" or "Hitler" or something similarly pejoritive. Sample conversation:
Person A: "I prefer rollerball to ball-point pens." Person B: "You liberals sure do hate America. Why do you hate America so much? You should be in jail."
This trend annoys me more every day. Especially when it comes from my parents. I reveal very few of my opinions to them, other than to criticize what I think is bad logic in miscellaneous topics. Criticizing a conservative view doesn't mean I hold a liberal one, though. Two "liberal" opinions that I have expressed openly include: President Clinton shouldn't have been impeached (a defense of the sitting president -- how revolutionary -- usually a conservative attitude); Gore won the election in Florida and the Supreme Court decision was inappropriate (though I acknowledge that the Supreme Court has the final authority in the matter). Another opinion that got me labeled as a "liberal": nothing said or done by the middle-eastern-descended medical students in Georgia warranted the one-day "terror scare" that led to their arrest. You don't need to be liberal to believe that; you just need some fucking common sense. In light of all this, I thought it might be helpful to write down some definitions, just so we can keep fresh the meanings of our divisive political labels. I took these from dictionary.com.
lib·er·al - Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. [makes me shudder just thinking about it] right wing - The conservative or reactionary faction of a group. con·ser·va·tive - Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. One who desires to maintain existing institutions and customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in politics; -- opposed to revolutionary or radical. Resistant to change. Opposed to liberal reforms. re·ac·tion·ar·y - One who favors reaction, or seeks to undo political progress or revolution. An extreme conservative; an opponent of progress or liberalism.
It seems that these terms are rarely applied with much accuracy. During the past few years, radical changes have been made in the powers of the Executive branch. The justice department has the authority to make secret arrests, detaining citizens and non-citizens for indefinite periods of time without public release of their names or the charges against them. They can be prevented from contacting their families and lawyers. Public accountability is eliminated due to "national security," and we must simply take their word for it that the detainees deserve what they get. Was it left-wingers or right-wingers who are nervous about too much police authority? Or was it neither and both? I'm just trying to figure out which wing I'm on so that I know which rhyming slogans to chant, and who to throw poop at, and who I can be friends, and which of my family members to denounce and so on.