Jack Valenti died on Thursday, April 26, 2007. He was the head of the Motion Picture Association of America. He was a shill for monied interests who want to rob and sue the poor. Like all people of good sense, I'm glad he's dead.
But wait, Zac, you might be saying (if you're both un-informed and a pussy), why are you speaking ill of this dead guy? What could he possibly have done to deserve being insulted after death?
Well, he said that VCRs would kill the movie industry. Which they obviously didn't. And he pushed to get the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) passed. The DMCA is the piece of legislation that allows rich fucks who own media companies to harass and sue college students who download "Hey-Ya" or whatever it is that college students are downloading these days.
Valenti tirelessly worked to line the pockets of assholes and parasites who disingenuously and cynically characterize mix-tapes as products of parasitic illegal behavior, just so they can extort people. And they use the justice system to do it!
Our deeds should determine how people talk about us after death. In late April of 1945, only assholes said nice things about Hitler. And no one should have said anything nice about him. I'm not comparing Valenti to Hitler. I'm just saying that the notion that you should say nice things about the dead is dumb. I'm sure Fox News will find nice stuff to say about George W. Bush when he dies in fifteen or twenty years, but I hope that reasonable people avoid saying that he was articulate and impressive.
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Quick Roundup
An Earth-like planet was discovered orbiting a red dwarf star 120 trillion miles from Earth. The planet's temperatures are thought to be between 30 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists working in Portugal discovered this planet.
It is my understanding that Rich Little's performance at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner was excruciating. I'm glad I didn't have to sit through it.
At the Correspondents' Dinner, the President said that he wasn't going to make jokes, because the Virginia Tech shooting had happened so recently. He joked last year, though, when there was an Iraq War going on (which, by the way, there still is). One possible conclusion that could be drawn from the President's behavior is that he does not value the lives of soldiers as much as he values the lives of Virginia Tech students. That's probably not true. What's likely more true is that the President will use anything he possibly can to prevent having to speak about his Administration, whose Vice President pushed for a war regarded as illegal by the UN, whose Attorney General got caught trying to remove all judicial checks on the Executive Branch, whose former Deputy Secretary of Defense is now being investigated by the World Bank for giving his girlfriend a position, inappropriately.
Studying the Virginia Tech shooting will not give us any insight into anything, so I'm only going to say in reference to it that I'm glad that the students at Virginia Tech are being hostile to the media.
It is my understanding that Rich Little's performance at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner was excruciating. I'm glad I didn't have to sit through it.
At the Correspondents' Dinner, the President said that he wasn't going to make jokes, because the Virginia Tech shooting had happened so recently. He joked last year, though, when there was an Iraq War going on (which, by the way, there still is). One possible conclusion that could be drawn from the President's behavior is that he does not value the lives of soldiers as much as he values the lives of Virginia Tech students. That's probably not true. What's likely more true is that the President will use anything he possibly can to prevent having to speak about his Administration, whose Vice President pushed for a war regarded as illegal by the UN, whose Attorney General got caught trying to remove all judicial checks on the Executive Branch, whose former Deputy Secretary of Defense is now being investigated by the World Bank for giving his girlfriend a position, inappropriately.
Studying the Virginia Tech shooting will not give us any insight into anything, so I'm only going to say in reference to it that I'm glad that the students at Virginia Tech are being hostile to the media.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Sam Harris's "The End of Faith"
For the past two weeks, I've been slowly and carefully reading Sam Harris's excellent book, The End of Faith. Pretty much everything there is to say against holding beliefs without sufficient evidence is said in this book. It rubs right up against my Master's thesis again and again. I cannot recommend it highly enough, but I suspect that many of the people who would most benefit from reading it are so attached to their irrational beliefs that they would not give it a fair hearing. The book is a relentless attack on all beliefs that are not backed up by evidence, and like Natalie Angier says in the blurb copy, I felt almost personally understood while reading it.
I would like to quote a little bit of the Afterword, which was written a year after the book's initial publication:
"According to several recent polls, 22 percent of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to earth sometime in the next fifty years. Another 22 percent believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44 percent who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and who want to stop teaching children about the biological fact of evolution. Believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views and prejudices now influence almost every decision of national importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from these developments and are now thumbing scripture, wondering how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in our country who vote mainly on the basis of a religious dogma. More than 50 percent of Americans have a 'negative' or 'highly negative' view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent think it important for presidential candidates to be 'strongly religious.' Because it is taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs, political debate over questions of public policy (stem-cell research, the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia, obscenity and free speech, gay marriage, etc.) generally gets framed in terms appropriate to a theocracy. Unreason is now ascendant in the United States--in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 72 percent believe in angels. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and the belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world." (page 230, "Afterword")
I would like to quote a little bit of the Afterword, which was written a year after the book's initial publication:
"According to several recent polls, 22 percent of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to earth sometime in the next fifty years. Another 22 percent believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44 percent who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and who want to stop teaching children about the biological fact of evolution. Believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views and prejudices now influence almost every decision of national importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from these developments and are now thumbing scripture, wondering how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in our country who vote mainly on the basis of a religious dogma. More than 50 percent of Americans have a 'negative' or 'highly negative' view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent think it important for presidential candidates to be 'strongly religious.' Because it is taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs, political debate over questions of public policy (stem-cell research, the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia, obscenity and free speech, gay marriage, etc.) generally gets framed in terms appropriate to a theocracy. Unreason is now ascendant in the United States--in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 72 percent believe in angels. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and the belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world." (page 230, "Afterword")
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Cheney's Finances
THE MOTIVATION FOR THIS POST:
I was talking to one of my friends in America last week (I was also in America while talking to him), and I made a remark about Cheney's finances, and how Cheney was betting against the dollar while saying that America's trade deficit didn't matter. He told me that he hadn't heard about that, and that I should post about it so more people would hear about it. So, my dozen readers, here it is.
THE STORY:
Dick Cheney says that running a trade deficit doesn't matter. That means that he thinks that if a country is importing a lot more than it's exporting, things will work out for that country in the long run.
Cheney first mention of this was 2005 at the latest.
Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post says that Cheney has invested heavily in a fund that specialized in short-term municipal bonds, a tax exempt money market fund, and an inflation-protected securities fund. Also, Cheney has put between $10 Million and $25 Million into a European bond fund.
Why, if Cheney believes that the dollar is safe and that running a trade deficit is not a bad thing, has be put his money in Europe? I mention also that this is the "old Europe" that was so disparaged when the countries constituting it didn't want to support the Iraq War.
The answer is that Cheney does not believe that the dollar is safe. He's just looting the treasury of the United States.
COMMENTARY:
Usually I like to be kind of restrained when talking about elected officials, and to try to understand why they're pursuing the policies they're pursuing. Ted Stevens of Alaska seems like a crazy asshole until we realize that he brings in a lot of money for his state, and his reticent defense of all the pork projects that go to Alaska is an expression of his desire for his constituents to be given lots of money. In that case, we can recognize that his motives are bad because he's wasting money, but we can also appreciate that he does a hell of a good job as a representative, getting money for his constituents and looking out for their financial well-being. What would make John McCain say absolutely stupid things about Iraq2 and what would make him cuddle up to those charlatanic fucks, the Christian Right? Well, he really wants to be President. It's kind of charming and pathetic (in the moving, touching sense, not in the sense of "contemptible"), and when you think about that along with the fact that he spent seven years drinking his own urine in some bamboo tiger cage while black-clad dudes threw lit cigarettes in his festering wounds.
Usually I like to restrain myself when talking about elected officials, but not when I talk about Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney. I don't feel bad about calling him a shit-eating, grandmother-fucking, draft-dodging, cowardly, bald, fat, unattractive, not-getting-laid, hateful, hypocritical, ashamed-of-his-lesbian-daughter-who-is-admittedly-a-fucking-goldbricking-neocon-apologist-cunt, dropout, son of a bitch. Don't cut Cheney any slack. He doesn't cut you any slack. Life is a serious game, and Cheney plays it for keeps, and he plays it well. He has no desire to be President, so he doesn't have to say things that he doesn't believe, like John McCain might. Cheney can just prusue whatever fucked-up baby-eating, soldier-neglecting, flag-waving, Fox-News-friendly, xenophobic, provincial, hateful agenda he wants. And you can't do shit about it. You can't do shit. Do you want the war to end? Here's Cheney's message to you: TOO FUCKING BAD, PUSSIES. You're not in charge of the country. The President's been making that point for six years. No matter what you do, our countrymen are going to continue to die so that Cheney and his friends can get whatever it is that they get from making war on people of my age and status.
And now guess what? Cheney says that it doesn't matter that America's running a trade deficit, because he read that shit in Milton Friedman and people who are plutocrat fucks like Cheney love Friedman because his economics doesn't take account of the concerns of future. Friedman's economic theory can be quoted when Cheney wants to sound like he's not a fucking pointless warmongering FATHER OF A LESBIAN OF WHOM IS SO ASHAMED THAT HE CANNOT TALK ABOUT HER WITH WOLF BLITZER ON CNN, BECAUSE HE IS A BITCH-ASS PUNK. I WILL FUCKING FISTFIGHT YOU, RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY. COME TO BERLIN.
By the way, your party thinks that your daughter is an abomination. To have a consistent political philosophy, either you're going to have to side with your daughter or your party. I can't even imagine the hell of self-loathing inside your poor, deluded daughter's lesbian brain.
P.S. If you're a future employer, and you've blogged me and you found this and you don't like it, then fuck yourself, you crypto-hateful shit!
I was talking to one of my friends in America last week (I was also in America while talking to him), and I made a remark about Cheney's finances, and how Cheney was betting against the dollar while saying that America's trade deficit didn't matter. He told me that he hadn't heard about that, and that I should post about it so more people would hear about it. So, my dozen readers, here it is.
THE STORY:
Dick Cheney says that running a trade deficit doesn't matter. That means that he thinks that if a country is importing a lot more than it's exporting, things will work out for that country in the long run.
Cheney first mention of this was 2005 at the latest.
Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post says that Cheney has invested heavily in a fund that specialized in short-term municipal bonds, a tax exempt money market fund, and an inflation-protected securities fund. Also, Cheney has put between $10 Million and $25 Million into a European bond fund.
Why, if Cheney believes that the dollar is safe and that running a trade deficit is not a bad thing, has be put his money in Europe? I mention also that this is the "old Europe" that was so disparaged when the countries constituting it didn't want to support the Iraq War.
The answer is that Cheney does not believe that the dollar is safe. He's just looting the treasury of the United States.
COMMENTARY:
Usually I like to be kind of restrained when talking about elected officials, and to try to understand why they're pursuing the policies they're pursuing. Ted Stevens of Alaska seems like a crazy asshole until we realize that he brings in a lot of money for his state, and his reticent defense of all the pork projects that go to Alaska is an expression of his desire for his constituents to be given lots of money. In that case, we can recognize that his motives are bad because he's wasting money, but we can also appreciate that he does a hell of a good job as a representative, getting money for his constituents and looking out for their financial well-being. What would make John McCain say absolutely stupid things about Iraq2 and what would make him cuddle up to those charlatanic fucks, the Christian Right? Well, he really wants to be President. It's kind of charming and pathetic (in the moving, touching sense, not in the sense of "contemptible"), and when you think about that along with the fact that he spent seven years drinking his own urine in some bamboo tiger cage while black-clad dudes threw lit cigarettes in his festering wounds.
Usually I like to restrain myself when talking about elected officials, but not when I talk about Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney. I don't feel bad about calling him a shit-eating, grandmother-fucking, draft-dodging, cowardly, bald, fat, unattractive, not-getting-laid, hateful, hypocritical, ashamed-of-his-lesbian-daughter-who-is-admittedly-a-fucking-goldbricking-neocon-apologist-cunt, dropout, son of a bitch. Don't cut Cheney any slack. He doesn't cut you any slack. Life is a serious game, and Cheney plays it for keeps, and he plays it well. He has no desire to be President, so he doesn't have to say things that he doesn't believe, like John McCain might. Cheney can just prusue whatever fucked-up baby-eating, soldier-neglecting, flag-waving, Fox-News-friendly, xenophobic, provincial, hateful agenda he wants. And you can't do shit about it. You can't do shit. Do you want the war to end? Here's Cheney's message to you: TOO FUCKING BAD, PUSSIES. You're not in charge of the country. The President's been making that point for six years. No matter what you do, our countrymen are going to continue to die so that Cheney and his friends can get whatever it is that they get from making war on people of my age and status.
And now guess what? Cheney says that it doesn't matter that America's running a trade deficit, because he read that shit in Milton Friedman and people who are plutocrat fucks like Cheney love Friedman because his economics doesn't take account of the concerns of future. Friedman's economic theory can be quoted when Cheney wants to sound like he's not a fucking pointless warmongering FATHER OF A LESBIAN OF WHOM IS SO ASHAMED THAT HE CANNOT TALK ABOUT HER WITH WOLF BLITZER ON CNN, BECAUSE HE IS A BITCH-ASS PUNK. I WILL FUCKING FISTFIGHT YOU, RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY. COME TO BERLIN.
By the way, your party thinks that your daughter is an abomination. To have a consistent political philosophy, either you're going to have to side with your daughter or your party. I can't even imagine the hell of self-loathing inside your poor, deluded daughter's lesbian brain.
P.S. If you're a future employer, and you've blogged me and you found this and you don't like it, then fuck yourself, you crypto-hateful shit!
Thursday, 12 April 2007
DEATH BY FRIENDLY FIRE ON YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV_16PdWnBo
Here's what it looks like when people get murdered during a war.
Here's what it looks like when people get murdered during a war.
RIP Kurt Vonnegut
(Nov. 11, 1922 - Apr. 11, 2007)
Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday. So it goes.
He made my life in high school much more tolerable. High school was a very bad time for me, but Kurt Vonnegut made it more bearable and I have always been grateful to him for it.
He hated war.
Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday. So it goes.
He made my life in high school much more tolerable. High school was a very bad time for me, but Kurt Vonnegut made it more bearable and I have always been grateful to him for it.
He hated war.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
McCain versus Reality
Senator John McCain spent the weekend in Iraq. McCain is the Republican senator from Arizona and took the seat vacated by lovable and upright Republican senator, jet pilot, ham radio enthusiast, UFOlogist, and all-around ass-kicker Barry Goldwater in 19871.
McCain said that Iraq was safe, Then he said that the news doesn't report on Iraq being safe, because news organizations are using old information. This happened during an interview with Wolf Blitzer.
In newer news, there was a bomb attack in Iraq today that killed 151 people. It was the deadliest attack in the history of Iraq War 2.
A CNN reporter named Michael Ware, who has a wicked crooked beak of a nose and seems like a scotch-drinking, Lucky Strike-smoking motherfucker who's seen some serious shit, said that John McCain was crazy and that McCain was not in touch with reality, because it was absolutely not safe to walk down the street in Baghdad.
Who should we believe? Should we believe John McCain, or Michael Ware? I think that we should believe Michael Ware. He's not running for President. But McCain is running for President. McCain has more reason to lie than Michael Ware has2.
FOOTNOTE
1. Goldwater is an admirable man who made good use of his life. When I read about him, I feel better about the world. I think there should be more people in the world like Barry Goldwater, and I would probably vote for him if he were alive and able to run for President. For more information on Barry Goldwater, contact your local library.
2. McCain might be lying about the situation in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to say nasty things about him in the way that people in the so-called news say nasty things about political people. McCain has been an engaging, attractive figure, and he was a goddamn prisoner of war in Vietnam and he refused special treatment when they offered him the chance to be released from custody because he was the son of the commander of operations in the South Pacific during the Vietnam War. If you want to learn more about that and cry your goddamn eyes out, you are directed to David Foster Wallace's essay on McCain's 2000 Presidential campaign, which essay is called "Up, Simba," and can be found in his excellent 2006 collection of essays Consider the Lobster. The upshot is, let's not all besmirch McCain's character just because it sure seems he's lying about Iraq. He just really wants to be President. He wants it so much he'll say false things about Iraq2. That doesn't mean that he's not a courageous hoss.
McCain said that Iraq was safe, Then he said that the news doesn't report on Iraq being safe, because news organizations are using old information. This happened during an interview with Wolf Blitzer.
In newer news, there was a bomb attack in Iraq today that killed 151 people. It was the deadliest attack in the history of Iraq War 2.
A CNN reporter named Michael Ware, who has a wicked crooked beak of a nose and seems like a scotch-drinking, Lucky Strike-smoking motherfucker who's seen some serious shit, said that John McCain was crazy and that McCain was not in touch with reality, because it was absolutely not safe to walk down the street in Baghdad.
Who should we believe? Should we believe John McCain, or Michael Ware? I think that we should believe Michael Ware. He's not running for President. But McCain is running for President. McCain has more reason to lie than Michael Ware has2.
FOOTNOTE
1. Goldwater is an admirable man who made good use of his life. When I read about him, I feel better about the world. I think there should be more people in the world like Barry Goldwater, and I would probably vote for him if he were alive and able to run for President. For more information on Barry Goldwater, contact your local library.
2. McCain might be lying about the situation in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to say nasty things about him in the way that people in the so-called news say nasty things about political people. McCain has been an engaging, attractive figure, and he was a goddamn prisoner of war in Vietnam and he refused special treatment when they offered him the chance to be released from custody because he was the son of the commander of operations in the South Pacific during the Vietnam War. If you want to learn more about that and cry your goddamn eyes out, you are directed to David Foster Wallace's essay on McCain's 2000 Presidential campaign, which essay is called "Up, Simba," and can be found in his excellent 2006 collection of essays Consider the Lobster. The upshot is, let's not all besmirch McCain's character just because it sure seems he's lying about Iraq. He just really wants to be President. He wants it so much he'll say false things about Iraq2. That doesn't mean that he's not a courageous hoss.
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