Thomas Jefferson on Changing Times

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

- Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816

Leave Fox News Alone!

I'm serious, folks. Murdoch is in some heavy shit across the pond and looking like the US is coming down the pike after him for hacking into 9/11 victim cell phones (despite his "Oh my, what's going on? Where's my pickles?" bullshit feigning senility).

Now I'm hearing some clamoring from the left: make Fox old news, knock down Fox, bring it to an end. Like hyenas circling the wounded zebra, some of us smell blood - we note the chink in Achilles' heel and feel the need to strike, to kill the stinking, hulking monstrosity while we are able to.


M'f'ing Shadow of the Colossus style!

No.
Stop.
I'm goddamned serious.


Success?

IF there is a groundswell grassroots push to knock down Fox, to take out the network, that would be a bad thing. Please: follow every legal outlet to investigate and prosecute to the fullest of the law should wrongdoing be found. But if there is a serious rising of liberals with online petitions and firey blog posts decrying Fox as an attachment to Murdoch and a call to tear down the beast, all we will garner is ridicule. With good reason. We will truly be hypocrites.


What is Fox?

Fox is a tool (in both senses), something that Sean Hannity this week referred to as a "weapon" of conservatives. It is right-wing machinations donning a mask of "news." This is a heavily-weighted propaganda machine that uses "Fair and Balanced" as their primary slogan.

But because of all that, Fox is a joke. Fox is a news station that exemplifies conservatives in humor by launching and immediately killing their answer to The Daily Show (they don't get humor). Fox is conservatism manifest, an aggregator in that Rush Limbaugh today said Heat Index was invented by the government and has never been passed off as a real temperature and Fox stressed the heat index (for rational, safety reasons), and tomorrow, somewhere, Fox will show duress over this clash. Manifest in the multiple personality hydra it sometimes seems to be in attempting to cater to conservatives and tea party and Republicans and RINOs with a reach-around for the Libertarians.



So What Do We Lose?

Fox is our beacon, our early warning sign for the pulse of stupid, our klaxon, our open playbook. Fox is a tool in a third way: our periscope.

If this goes away, we'll still have some spastic jolts of conservative reality in AM radio with the classic nutters like Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, and that asshat they call the Great One, but nothing like the heart monitor we have now.

It's the monster we know, the nooks and crannies we're accustomed to, the madness we've accepted. And what do we lose? Exactly that. And Murdoch will get over his temporary insanity and bring something to life even more malicious. The devil you know and all that?


Right now we have a speaking template of how stupid the right can be. It's been limbering around since the Tea Party popped their heads out from another universe, but they're trying. And this Murdoch horror has brought red, steaming blood to the party.

Ignore the blood.

Let it stand, let it stumble, let it rant, let it mumble.

You can both be not a hypocrite and help the liberal cause. Woohoo!

Leave Fox alone.

Srsly.



Ignore it.

Problem With Eastern Protests? Geometry!

This is Tahrir Square




This is Pearl Square



Neither appears to have straight lines or corners. I say: first geometry, then freedom!

Help Nathan Buy Firefly

Reposted from Cal's Canadian Cave of Cool.



[Note: For those who don't know, Firefly is one of the best shows ever created with a huge fan base, mostly of scifi nerds and geeks like me. It's the old west in the far future where you might find yourself with a bullet in your back and won't get very far without speaking Chinese. The writing is phenomenal. It only ran for one season because anything cool Fox stabs and moves to Friday to let it bleed out. It will be re-aired in its entirety in HD on The Science Channel in March. (Thanks Blue for reminding me not everyone in the world has seen it!)]


Help Nathan Buy Firefly

On Feb 17, 2011, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nathan Fillion said: “If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet.”

The Plan:

Phase 1) Generate momentum. We’re going to setup a way people can pledge funding towards the mission of putting the rights to Firefly back into the hands of people who care about it. Since Nathan said he’d be game to be those hands, we’re going to watch for …

Phase 2) Nathan chimes in towards us and approves the effort. At that point, it’s a real mission and we’ll switch into…

Phase 3) We’ll setup a way for the funding to be collected into a Non-Profit Organization. We’ll then want everyone to make good on their pledge and contribute.

Throughout all of this, we’ll have up the running tally of pledges and actuals.

How Can You Help?

Like and Share our Facebook page (there's also the original Bring Back Firefly FB page AND the Firefly Fan Page). We’ll get a Twitter setup today as well (still waiting on that one, but you can follow @NathanFillion). Tweet about this page via #HNBF #Firefly! Here’s a short URL for that purpose: http://dft.ba/-firefly

Who's Still Sponsoring Glenn Beck?

Just a little FYI from Media Matters for those of you with a few extra minutes on your hands:

At least eighty advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Glenn Beck's Fox News program since he called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for white people." Here are his February 8 sponsors, in the order they appeared:

Rosland Capital
Vermont Teddy Bear Company
Loan Modification Hotline
Aspercreme
Mesothelioma Families
Chattem
Tax Masters
Lifelock
Sokelove Law, LLC
Wall Street Journal
Goldline
American Advisors Group
Pro Flowers
Hydroxatone
The Jewelry Exchange
NBC Universal
Credit Card & Debt Relief Hotline

Cheers!

Verizon Sponsors Coal Teat Event

Check this out from the folks over at Think Progress:

On Labor Day, tens of thousands of people will be gathering for the coal-powered “Friends of America Rally” in Holden, WV. The point of the gathering is to rail against the Waxman-Markey clean energy legislation. It will feature right-wing guests such as Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent (who once ranted about killing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), and is being pushed by mountaintop-removal mining company Massey Energy. Last week, Massey CEO Don Blankenship even recorded a video inviting people to attend the rally, saying they would learn about how “environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs.”

Click that link above and follow it to the action link. This is bullshit. If you use Verizon, make certain you do something. Your money is your voice in this case.

The Green movement has NOTHING to do with employees of the coal industry losing their jobs, nor is it a current threat. The single largest reason why people in the coal industry lose their jobs is the greed and increasing efficiency of the coal companies themselves. To avoid backlash they blame it on the environmental movement and ignorance reigns, especially if you're CEO of Verizon and apparently suckling at the money teat of the coal industry.

TheyTookArrrJubbs!

Official Million Can March Post

RevPhat has put together the official Million Can March post over at Les Enrages. I suggest you get over there right now, take a gander, get the code for that lovely dancing can badge (now in my right column), and start organizing! We have less than one month to donate 1 million cans.

Comments disabled 'cause: do it over there!

Yes We CAN!

Million Can March

RevPhat over at Les Enrages had this fantastic idea - while a couple dozen teabaggers per city were raising the false alarm of socialism on July 4th - that us liberals could get together and organize a horribly socialist event of our own: feed the hungry. I know, how wonderfully evil, right?

Check out the link (over 100 comments!), join the brigade, and here's a sample of an animated badge:

Once I get the final tweaks and go-ahead I'll figure out a way to get the code to all of you so you can embed it as well.

Be back soon with updates.

UPDATE: The code has been passed and I'll be blogging about the results in the morning in order to send you all over to RevPhat's place to get it and add it to your sidebar.

UPDATE 2: RevPhat has put together the official Million Can March post Getcha Code ovah theya fo ya sidebah.

Stop Starbucks ...?

I got an email today from Brave New Films, a great group known for bringing some of the evils of Walmart into the light for everyone to see. They sent me a link to the following video and a website to Stop Starbucks:



The shitstamp on the forehead of Starbucks, according to this video and its sources, is that Starbucks is engaging in union-busting activities. Okay, bad on them. That should stop.

But Brave New Films goes a few steps too far in demonizing Starbucks as something equivalent to Walmart. And they're not. And that's not fair if we're going to be claiming to stand upon principles based on all the facts.

How about the differences between Starbucks and Walmart?

• Starbucks has always paid well over minimum wage and offers benefits to part-time workers as well as quick advancement to dedicated employees.
• Walmart trims corners everywhere, refusing to pay anywhere close to a living wage, seldom offering benefits, has issues with equal pay and advancement for women.


• Starbucks gets involved in local, community projects to improve the neighborhood in which they're located.
• Walmart creates acres of parking lots, local traffic problems, and barely-scraping-by poor.


• Starbucks has engaged the Free Trade program, making sure the coffee growers are getting a fair cut for the product they supply.
• Walmart is known for strong-arming their suppliers into shifting their manufacturing to China, killing thousands of manufacturing jobs and exploiting millions of Chinese men, women, and children.

If we're going to complain about something - and something that by all counts needs to be exposed - then do it fairly and without the sensationalism. Otherwise we're filling our pleas with as much bullshit as the Right Wing anytime they raise an issue. And then who would believe our causes?

Happy 420, Marijuana Fans!

(2nd International Cannabis and Mental Health Conference Programme [PDF] Logo)

Out on errands today, I saw a state police sheriff's car sitting at the local gas station. And I knew he was there not to educate or enlighten the youth of America, but to intimidate anyone coming into the store to buy rolling papers.

Reminds me of the year I spent teaching high school. On 4/20, the staties came in about 1/2 of the way through the day, everyone was evacuated to the football field to tool around and not learn while the school was locked down and the drug-sniffing dogs were run through every building. The entertaining part of that day was explaining to other teachers what 420 was. The ironic part was that the War on Drugs for the Big 420 Show knocked every kid at that school out of class for half a day and not one arrest or find was made. Why? All the stoner kids skipped; they were at home getting high. Dur.

One day the majority and those in power will realize we're not only being stupid about policy but losing billions of dollars in potential taxes. One day marijuana will be legalized.

Until then, be informed. About today: 420 Origin Story. About the reality and progress of marijuana reform: NORML.

Annual Turkey Cruelty

This is undercover footage of an enormous turkey breeding operation in West Virginia, Avigen. Their website says "The spirit of innovation lives on." And by innovation they mean stomping on turkey heads and slamming them into other objects to kill them.

No boobs or swearing or human suffering, so I guess it's safe for work. Not safe for your mental health or Thanksgiving plans.



I had to turn it off after about a minute.

The Hackabilly Vote

DVICE has a great article/app that allows you to click on your state and see exactly how susceptible to hacking those voting machines that you'll be seeing on November 4th are.

DVICE link above: article. Click picture for app.



Ohio? Not so good.

How does your state fare?

Send Rove to Jail

Go to Send Karl Rove to Jail, and sign a petition that's already over 100,000 strong.

Sean Tevis for State Rep in Kansas

If you haven't heard, Sean Tevis, an information architect and fan of XKCD is running for State Representative in Kansas. For good reason.



"No candidate for state representative in Kansas has ever had more than 644 donors."

As of this post, Sean has received 4,662 donations, which is more than 7 times the record.

This is not just activism, it is responsibilitism, not affecting the outcome from outside, but stepping inside to be the change. Thank God for Sean Tevis.

Be a part of history for less than $10.

Quitting? How About Joining?

Ricky the Dolphin from e-Reef News

As many of you may know, one of my favorite ways to read blogs is to get them sent to me via Feedburner. Which is why I joined for the pleasure and ease of others (except for the embedded videos that never appear in the email), so they may receive Ricky in their box.

I do not have many official subscribers (hey - now's the perfect time to enter your email on the left to subscribe via Feedburner!), and yesterday I received a cancellation from Feedburner for "Reason 2: Offensive, does not agree." What-what?

How do you read my blog for the regular offensive, often witty, and sometimes even inspired commentary about everything from tech gadgets to local and world politics to parenting to - very often - religion - long enough to say "Hey, I want to see these posts in my inbox every day" and then say "Ooh, that's distasteful! Shame!" Huh?

I appreciate and love all my readers. I appreciate and love all comments, even those from trolls. I'm almost at 500 posts and my actual numbers increase every month, slow and steady. And it gives me a jump to see that people like it. But I want to lay it out, just in case I haven't offended you yet:

I'm a liberal, a progressive. I'm a registered Democrat and will vote for either of the current candidates despite what may happen in the coming months, despite my vigor for Kucinich's reasonable, not-for-profit health care plan and the media's rape of the electoral process.

I believe in god, but not God. I believe in spirituality, but not religion. Jesus rocked out, but he was a radical that went directly against conservative thought of the time and now he's embraced by conservatives who stand for exactly what he stood against. I think all organized religion has the same potential for good and evil and that balance is constantly in flux. I have tattoos and piercings. I smoke. I drink. And when we finally realize that marijuana is not the devil and put it on the same footing as beer, I will smoke the shit out of it. Again. I do not fit in a box.

I think people should have the aid of the community if they fall on hard times but have no tolerance for people riding the welfare wave. I have pity on sorrow but no tolerance for "poor me." I've lived in - and occasionally return to, for a brief hour or two - complete and utter despair, but have no tolerance for depression as an excuse. Maintenance medication in general is an oxymoron.

Sex education should be taught in schools; condoms should be given out. Kids are having oral sex at 9 years old, if not younger. Abstinence programs have resulted in more pregnancy. And that is the fault of the parents. Not one parent, but unless all of us give a shit, it is all our fault. See Violence, Apathy.

I love my wife, my daughter. I love cats, like dogs, and am allergic to both. I love listening to the trees and staring at the clouds, the stars. I love Necco Wafers, Spree, and Penn Station Artichoke subs. I love nuance, irony, and people-watching. I play video games.

If these things turn you off, rile you up, or simply get you pissed: subscribe. You may just get the motivation to fire your own rockets into the blogosphere. If these things resonate: subscribe. You'll only get more of the same.

Either way, here I am. The center may not hold, but I promise to. Regardless.

Stop Uwe Boll

For those of you who are not familiar with the travesty that is Uwe Boll, it is safe to say that he has horrified gamers and moviegoers alike by turning successful video games - namely House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Bloodrayne - into horrible, embarrassing movies. How bad? All three of the aforementioned movies are on the IMDB Bottom 100, more than any other director in the world.

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that Uwe Boll give proper weight to the wishes of the video game community, the horror community, and the film going community in general and stop directing, producing, or taking any part in the creation of feature films. His distasteful handling of the subject matter and lack of acknowledgement of his failures simply cannot be abided any longer.

Mr. Boll has repeatedly shown a complete lack of comprehension regarding the videogames he has dragged, kicking and screaming, to the silver screen and his ham-fisted approach to horror has soiled future possibilities for anyone else who may attempt to bring videogames to film.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Visit the website. Sign the petition. Stop Uwe Boll.

U.S. Armed Forces = God's Army?

The Real News Network has been doing some great work providing the public with information you can't get anywhere else. This story is about the separation of church and state and how the evangelical movement in the U.S. Military is raping that dry.

Warning: this will make you angry.

URGENT! Orphan Works Act of 2008

'Girl Sketching' - Sir Henry Raeburn (1756 - 1823)

If you're aware of current copyright law, you know that as soon as you create something - written piece, sketch, composition, sculpture, anything creative - it is immediately copyrighted. This copyright is good for your lifetime + 70 years. The Orphan Works Act will destroy this structure.

From Drawn! Blog:

This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would (indirectly) require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.

Main points based on research and interviews:

• This piece of legislation was written under the guidance of Peter Jaszi, a deconstructionist who believes all creativity is - and should legally be - communal


• This specifically affects pictorial, graphic, and sculpture works


• Nothing you have ever created or will create will be protected, even if you've already copyrighted it


• The only way to protect your works will be to pay a fee to Commercial Registries


• Commercial Registries do not currently exist


• Congressional representatives state that Commercial Registries will be created by the private sector - without regulation, oversight, or standardization


• It is your responsibility to monitor any infringement and your burden of proof should you discover such - your legal financial burden as well

There is terrible, terrible money here, and the reversal of logic running against international law is terrifying and mind-boggling. Basically, nothing created will be protected. And once these political asshats get a taste, how long before you think they'll generalize it to anything written or filmed (although filmed probably falls under "pictorial").

This is a horror and a fucking travesty. Listen to this interview with Illustrator Brad Holland for a more thorough and chilling view of exactly what this legislation means. Check out S.2913: Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and H.R.5889: Orphan Works Act of 2008.

Got that? Good. Now contact your congressional representatives. Now. Use these templates to automatically send emails or find and write your rep through the government site. The Illustrators' Partnership of America has plenty more information.

This is frightening. Act now.

The Berate Debate - WTF ABC?

For any of you who watched the debate the other night and thought "WTF?" you are not alone. From MoveOn.org:

Editor & Publisher called this week's ABC presidential debate "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."

Moderators George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about--gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channelling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously.

Davis Fleetwood Up for YouTube Video Award

Davis Fleetwood, everyone's favorite Hermit, is up for YouTube's 2007 Video Awards for his video Students: A Challenge For You:



Go to the YouTube Awards Page, check it out under Politics and unless you enjoy watching Huckabee and Chuck Norris cross swords, cast a vote for Davis.