Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
My Favorite Show EP05: Bring Out Your Dead
So we decided to take last week off for the holiday. But this week, My Favorite Show back with more strange news, politics, and such. As you may already have noticed, I also decided to update the artwork for the show, which I intend to do each month. Last month's cover, and the official artwork for the show "Teddy's Nightmare" was Tara's doing. So this month, I decided to use one of mine- which you likely already guessed, given the subject matter. Finally, you can also now subscribe to the show on iTunes if you'd like, and we'd greatly appreciate it if you did.
In Today's Episode: The Just-in Beaver sex doll- Naked Rage Monkeys- Black Friday Fun- Conservatives more susceptible to rationalizing their personal dogma? - A Florida woman causes an accident by shaving her crotch while driving- A Russian woman keeps her dead husbands body in her bed for 3 years- The tale of Key West's Count Von Cosel- A man is stabbed to Death by his fiance the night before their wedding- As well as a few other things.
Our Favorite things for the week: Tara talks about RiffTrax, movie commentary tracks from the creators of MST3K and I carry on about the short lived TV series Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Posted by YouTube user: RiffTrax
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Chris Dodd and The MPAA
Posted by Youtube user: TheYoungTurks
“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.
It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.
A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”
For me, this was the single most infuriating and insulting revelation to arise from the SOPA protests. Not the statement itself, which is so obviously inconsistent with reality that it's not really worth spending time on, but the realization that the messenger was a former senator who somehow managed to retire directly into a million dollar a year job as the CEO of a major corporation. A former senator that is now lobbying his friends and former co-workers in the government to grant his new employer greater legal protection. How much more obvious can the point possibly be made that the only "pawns" working in the name of corporations, are shills like Chris Dodd, and his counter parts in our government?
-CAINE-
Dodd's statement via: MPAA.org
-CAINE-
Dodd's statement via: MPAA.org
Friday, January 20, 2012
SOPA is dead, long live SOPA
Moments after publishing the last entry on the subject, I logged on to my twitter feed to discover that SOPA, had officially been declared dead. Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of of the bill, said today he's pulling the legislation, “until there is wider agreement on a solution.” PIPA, has also been pulled off the table, for now.
Smith was also careful to stress hi s that the rampant theft of "American inventions and products" by foreign entities through online piracy was an economically crippling problem that must be addressed, saying:
“We need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products. “The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore. American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60% of U.S. exports. The theft of America’s intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.”
"American innovators and job creators", that's politician for industry and corporations. But hey, they're people too, right?
As I pointed out before, there is no denying that online piracy, international and otherwise does exist, and should be addressed. But as far as American laws are concerned, I believe the issue of copyright protection is more than fairly addressed. And that the American innovators and intellectual property owners Smith and others who supported his legislation claim they're trying to defend would all be far better served if individuals were once again given favor over corporations by making the ability to defend intellectual property rights -like every other thing in America today- more than a matter of who can afford to purchase a better defense team.
As for international piracy, it seems fairly obvious to me that any solution in that arena is an issue of trade and international law, and not an acceptable excuse for tightening domestic penalties and walling off the Internet.
Look, I think it's great that we all managed to make enough noise to postpone the crippling of the Internet. But as I said before, I believe it's only a delay of the inevitable, as is clearly indicated by Smith's open-ended statements. So even if PIPA, or some slightly less virulent strain of the SOPA virus doesn't return, then republican Darrell Issa's OPEN Act (Ooh, OPEN, that means it's protecting an open Internet right? just like Mccain's internet freedom act sought to free us all from the tyranny of net neutrality right? Politicians are so clever.) or some other inbred sibling of the two, will. And whatever does come next, I personally believe it will come with same "unintended consequences" as these two. But I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.
-CAINE-
Source: venturebeat.com
Image credit: Getty images
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