I demand updates!

You ever go to a blog and wonder, "When the hell is this asshole going to update his stupid blog?" Well, I just went to my own blog and wondered that same question. "Who is this asshole, anyway? Why can't he get off his ass and post something?!"

A just question. I will continue to give myself shit until I get off my ass and post something. A little self-flagellation never hurt anybody.

The Culture is Not Coarse Enough

I hear a lot of people on both sides of the ideological aisle complaining about the "coarsening of our culture" or some similar trash. Fuck that shit; our culture is not coarse enough. People are too hung up on manners and social norms. Sure, it's nice to have polite people around, but it's also nice to have people who tell it like it is. And somebody needs to inform our "culture" that we should be fucking rioting.

Is there a nice way to say we should take to the streets and burn shit? 'Cause I'd like to say it in polite company and watch them jump into the moshpit of the streets with a torch and an axe. It's time to say "enough of this shit!" and tell The Man to fuck off. The Man in this case is the evil Bush Reich, a collection of fascists, zealots, traitors, liars, thieves and hypocritical scum-sucking whores to power.

Why should we give the Bush regime the courtesy they've never given us? It's time to stop playing nice. Do you wanna know what should really happen? Bush is a mass murderer who should not only be impeached, he should be sent over to Iraq for trial, where he will be executed like Saddam. It's only fitting. And Cheney? Shit, we should play a game with his fate. I say we play the Most Dangerous Game with his ass. We should send him out in the woods, naked, with a 30 minute headstart on the homeless people with shotguns who will be hunting him like a pheasant. Whomever bags Cheney gets his mansion. Seems fair to me.

Fuck being nice anymore. I say the culture is not coarse enough. Let's let these assholes know they can't get away with their lies, obstruction and misdirection anymore.

Apologize to Al Sharpton for your sins!!

Are you white? Are you somewhat sympathetic to Don Imus and his situation? Have you ever said an offensive word? Well, it's time to apologize to Al Sharpton.*

Now that Imus has been fired this little witch-hunt is apparently over. Is anybody else scratching their head, wondering what this little kerfuffle was all about? Obviously, Imus is a moron and used some shitty language, but I have trouble believing the Rutgers basketball team is really crying themselves to sleep at night. Who the fuck cares what he thinks/says?

Despite the thin-skinned temperance of the basketball players, I can at least understand why they are upset and demanding an apology (and groveling, 30 lashes, some ass-kissing and a book deal), but what I'm confused about is why Imus needs to apologize to Al Sharpton? ... I thought Jesse Jackson was the emperor of black people.

Man, South Park totally called this one. Yes, Imus is a fucking moron (as is Micheal Richards), but this whole scenario seems like a media-generated distraction. I mean, Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress and he still has a job. George Bush lied to Congress, America and the world to lead us into war and he still has a job. WTF?

I think our priorities are pretty fucked up in this country. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me"? Apparently, the Rutgers basketball team does not subscribe to this philosophy. Meanwhile, Bush's words led directly to broken bones, shattered skulls, crushed vertebrae, lacerated flesh and all the other attendant injuries related to dying in a fraudulent war over oil. But is the media whipping up a shitstorm over that? Incredibly, no. They are not as fawning as before, but they still treat him with unaccountable respect. He deserves to hang like Saddam, but the MSM is still treating his polices and speeches deferentially. The media could easily launch into a witch-hunt to bring down this administration. It has just demonstrated it has the power, in the case of Imus, despite Imus having the support of 63% of Americans. Bush, meanwhile, has the support of only 30%. That's quite a disparity. Can somebody explain to me how this could happen? Certainly Bush didn't call anybody a "nappy-headed ho" but he did lie to us repeatedly in order to lead us into war, a war that has left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, along with 3,000+ American soldiers. Near as I can tell Imus has not killed anybody. What gives?

Does it make me a cynic if I believe this witch-hunt was manufactured by the media to provide a well-timed distraction at a point in time when the Bush regime is increasingly on the run? Or does it make me a realist?
__________

*Apology not necessary if you are black and/or a rapper. If you are a rapper, you can call any woman a "ho" and it's okay. Snoop said so.**

** I can't believe I agree with Michelle Malkin on something. I feel so dirty. I'd better go apologize to Al Sharpton.

"Pearls Before Breakfast" -- great article in WaPo

Joshua Bell is one of the world's greatest violinists. His instrument of choice is a multimillion-dollar Stradivarius. If he played it for spare change, incognito, outside a bustling Metro stop in Washington, would anyone notice? [/digg]

It's a long article, but well worth the read. Unfortunately, things don't look good for humanity. On the plus side, maybe no one will notice (or care) when we're gone.

AWOI - Absent without internet (reasons why Comcast sucks ass)

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been working on a big post, but I've also been stranded without an internet connection at home. I canceled Comcast since it turns out they are a bunch of lying, thieving bastards. While I'm waiting for my DSL modem to arrive I'm experiencing life without a constant internet connection. It's scary and lonely. I don't recommend it.

As far as my dear, departed cable modem goes, please allow me to bitch (god i love having a blog). FUCK COMCAST!!!
Why does Comcast suck? Oh, I'm glad you asked; let me explain. Long ago, in a time known as 2005, things were good. I had a fast internet connection through Time-Warner. It was about 6 Mbps and it set me back about 43 bucks a month.

Then, I get a letter informing me that Comcast swapped all of Time-Warner's Minnesota subscribers (like me) and that I would now be a Comcast customer. Okay, this is where the creepy, ominous music kicks in.

The letter makes clear that there will be no price adjustments. In fact the FAQ is still online, which says exactly:

Will my monthly fee change with Comcast High-Speed Internet?
Price adjustments will not be required because of this change. All prices reflect the increased value of our service, new product enhancements, and investments to continually improve the quality of our network and customer service. Any price adjustments going forward will be planned and communicated to customers well in advance of any change.

You can see where this is headed, can't you?

"Price adjustments will not be required" -- weasel words, if I've ever read them. Fucking liars. Despite the promises, both of stable prices and advanced notice, it turns out that Comcast is run by a bunch of lying, thieving scumbags who exist only to squeeze every last dime out of their unwilling customer base in order to fatten their own undeserved bonuses at the end of the year -- you know the bonuses, I'm talking about. They're 10 times the size of their average employee's yearly salary.

I must say that every Comcast employee I dealt with -- 3 customer service reps and a technician who picked up my modem -- were great. Fine folks, didn't lie to me any more, and were very apologetic. But the fact remains that they work for fascist goons who are planning to rape, pillage and plunder this fresh, unearned subscriber base in an apparent effort to show just how stupid and short-sighted management teams can be. They're going for the gold medal in poor decision-making skills. Bravo.

So, do I even have to tell you what happened? Isn't it obvious from my venom? Well, I'll tell you anyway. Comcast sent me a notice, dated December 26th (yes, the day after Christmas -- "Happy holidays from Comcast! Fuck you!") informing me that my rates were going up to 60 bucks a month -- plus modem rental (3 bucks a month), starting.... February 1st! Yay!

So the lying fuckers tried to squeeze me for 20 bucks more a month and gave me only a month notice. This left me no choice. I wasn't going to stand for this shit. 20 bucks isn't much, but 20 bucks every month adds up to quite a lot. It's almost $250 more per year. I am not that rich, Comcast. But idiotic, greedy ploys like this explain how they can afford to pay their CEO 27.8 million dollars a year. I guess I know where my $250 would've went.

And so, instead of sending them a check for 40-some bucks a month they managed to convince me to send them a whole lot of nothing every month. Congrats, Comcast. Your short-sighted greed and stupidity has only managed to cost you subscribers like me. Fucking morons.

Instead of collecting money from people like me, Comcast managed to piss away subscribers like a drunk after a night of drinking cheap domestic beer. Instead of getting my money every month they've assured Qwest of my business instead. Bravo, fuckheads!

Check out MNspeak for an awesome thread full of pissed off former subscribers. Comcast's goose-stepping management team deserves an award for monumental stupidity. It's hard to motivate internet-addicted people like me to do without and overcome the inertia required to make the switch. But Comcast managed to fill me with so much revulsion that Qwest could implement a policy of jabbing me with sharp objects and I would still be happier with them.

Fuck off, Comcast. Take your golden parachutes and cram them up your ass.

The media's reaction to E. Howard Hunt's JFK assassination confesssion reveals their complicity

When E. Howard Hunt died a few months ago, there was speculation that he would leave behind a confession. At first, it appeared he had not, but now Rolling Stone is running with a story based on a confession Hunt made to his son, Saint John Hunt (who fucking names their kid "Saint"? A fucking narcissistic fuckhead, that's who).

The confession is compelling, but Hunt is a well-known liar. Indeed, his confession is his own version of a limited hang out. He claimed to have refused to take part in the plot, but his own lies tripped him up, as he also claimed to know the command structure (from LBJ on down) and who was the the marksman on the grassy knoll. It's pretty clear he was up to his ears in this thing. My favorite part of the Rolling Stone piece is when Hunt's son shreds his dad's alibi like grated cheese:

"And then, like an epiphany, I remember '63, and my dad being gone, and my mom telling me that he was on a business trip to Dallas. I've tried to convince myself that's some kind of false memory, that I'm just nuts, that it's something I heard years later. But, I mean, his alibi for that day is that he was at home with his family. I remember I was in the fifth grade. We were at recess. I was playing on the merry-go-round. We were called in and told to go home, because the president had been killed. And I remember going home. But I don't remember my dad being there. I have no recollection of him being there. And then he has this whole thing about shopping for Chinese food with my mother that day, so that they could cook a meal together." His father testified to this, in court, on more than one occasion, saying that he and his wife often cooked meals together.

St. John pauses and leans forward. "Well," he says, "I can tell you that's just the biggest load of crap in the fucking world. He was always looking at things like he was writing a novel; everything had to be just so glamorous and so exciting. He couldn't even be bothered with his children. That's not glamorous. James Bond doesn't have children. So my dad in the kitchen? Chopping vegetables with his wife? I'm so sorry, but that would never happen. Ever. That fucker never did jack-squat like that. Ever."

It is pretty funny, imagining him at home with the wife, helping out with the cooking. Hah! This guy was a misogynist asshole, not Julia Child. If he ever used a knife for something it was to cut somebody's fingers off, not make a dainty meal for the kids.

Anyway, that's not to say his confession is unimportant. Even a partial confession is vastly more than what we had before: denials, denials, denials. His history as a liar makes it suspect, of course, but I think St. John's story is compelling. He alone knew how to extract this information from his father (read the whole thing for Kevin Costner's half-assed attempt).

This has to be one of the biggest bombshells in recent memory. These revelations will make the cover of every major news-magazine and the headline of every newspaper, right?

Wrong.

The story is over a week old and no major media have picked up on it yet. And they won't.

I've been telling people for years that the mainstream media is utterly controlled by the Oligarchy. If this example doesn't make that clear, I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, it's not like the allegation/confession even has to be true to be newsworthy. The media has covered all the people claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's orphaned daughter. They can't all be right (the parade of people claiming to have fucked Anna Nicole is like one of those clown cars at the circus).

This is newsworthy. That is not really up for debate. If somebody confesses to murdering the president, that's fucking newsworthy. So why the deafening silence?

The media is part of the conspiracy, that's why. The media was one of the biggest parts of the cover-up right after the fact (and some would say, before it). Shooting the president is fairly easy. Getting away with it is damn near impossible... unless you control the levers of power. The rich and powerful men who make up the Oligarchy are the same men who own and operate the mainstream media. These levers of power are known by many names: Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. But they all serve the same master.

Is there anything else the Media isn't telling you? (and how would you know?)

Eulogy for DRM: Apple & EMI Ring DRM's Death Knell

You hear that bell ringing in the distance? That's the sound of DRM dying.

What is DRM and why is it dying? Well, DRM is the collection of anti-copying technologies that record companies and movie companies use to try and prevent their products from ending up on the P2P networks (like Limewire and eDonkey). DRM stands for either Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictions Management, depending on who you ask (I say the latter).

It is my considered opinion that DRM sucks donkey balls. It impedes fair use and generally creates havoc. Files were meant to be copied, but DRM tries to erase this feature. DRM is even built into Windows Vista in an attempt to make DRM more effective since earlier designs have failed miserably.

That brings us to Apple and EMI. Their announcement today is the first crack in the industry facade. Previously, the industry titans were aligned and spoke in unison of DRM's necessity. Now it has become clear that many in the industry recognize that DRM is a failure, a waste of money and (this doesn't seem to matter to the RIAA) virulently anti-consumer.

Steve Jobs started things off with his broadside against DRM. He said:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Right now an iPod can't play music purchased from Microsoft's stores, just as a Zune can't play music purchased from Apple's iTunes store. This is a ridiculous state of affairs since both companies went out of their way to make their songs incompatible -- at the RIAA's request. Every MP3 player can play unprotected MP3s, but once you start putting DRM on those songs it gets really sticky.

That's why DRM must die. The only thing keeping our portable music players from being able to play any song out there is simple human greed. The technology is there, but new technology was erected to prevent sharing. Worst of all, it didn't work. Every major DRM-scheme has been broken. Geeks like myself know how to avoid and circumvent it, but the average user probably doesn't know what the hell DRM is -- until it smacks'em in the face. This lamentable reality took a body-blow today.

EMI agreed to sell DRM-free music this morning, with Apple at their side. This is not an ideal scenario since the songs cost $1.29 instead of the customary 99 cents, but Apple sweetened the deal by bumping up the bitrate to 256 kbps -- double the previous amount -- granting audiophiles the extra sound quality they need. Many of the tricks to eliminate DRM (including simply burning the files to CD and re-ripping them) result in reduced sound quality. This solution manages to fix both problems and should satisfy most geek/audiophiles.

In short, today's announcement was a long time coming (some may argue that it's 4 or 5 years overdue), and it is just the beginning of DRM's death. Even as I celebrate DRM's passing new anti-consumer technologies are being developed by the MPAA and others in the music industry. Indeed, the 3 other major labels are still heavily invested in DRM and committed to using it as a bulwark against the internet age.

So maybe I'm digging DRM's grave while it's still on the operating table, but I'm not the only one who wishes it would go away. We can't sit down and start slacking now. We need to keep letting these huge companies know that they can't control our content after they sell it to us. They want to have their cake and eat it, too -- and that just ain't happening.

Burn in hell, DRM!