Unsent letters to the editor

2009-04-07T23:28:00.002-05:00

I want to write something. Something good.

Fuck.

Chirp Chirp

2008-04-20T02:48:00.002-05:00

I like this time of year because its the only time I can be wrapping up a night at 1-3am and hear birds calling in the trees. Its really nice actually. A few hours of booze, beer and booming music and I can still come home and hear robins calling each other from the trees before I go to bed. Its relaxing.

Wash, rinse, repeate

2007-08-07T11:47:00.000-05:00

Oct 06 - Oklahoma, fees won
Nov 06 - Louisiana, fees won, $1.71 million
July 06 - Minnesota, fees won
April 06 - Michigan, fees won, $182,000
Dec 05 - California
Dec 05 - Illinois, twice fees won, $510,000
July 04 - Washington, twice fees won, $344,000 and $180,000
March 04 - Indiana, fees won, $318,000

Just sit and total that up for a second, the 5 min I used to research that, thats 10 court cases at the state or appeals level, where the 1st amendment has triumphed over laws regulating video game sales to minors. Thats not even all of them and the five that I do have final decisions details from, those states have collectively lost just over 3 million dollars to paying court and legal fees to the ESA (entertainment software association) --- 3,000,000 dollars --- not gone to police, fire departments, or schools, to argue that it should be against the law to sell 17 year old a $60 game.

Remember first that it is NOT illegal for a minor to rent an R rated movie or buy a ticket for that movie. Mind you that this is not alcohol, and that no one is trying to prevent anyone else from buying that you can't buy a game FOR a 17 year old. The 17 year old can't get in trouble for playing such a game or owning it, just purchasing. Mind you that a store clerk cannot sell a minor an M rated video game (often less graphic or suggestive than a movie rated PG-13) due to every retail store policy. And read you some interesting facts about video gamers at large:

67% of American heads of households play computer or video games
The average game player age is: 33
In 2007, 24% of gamers were over the age of 50
38% of game players are female
The best-selling video game super-genre by units sold for 2006 was "Strategy," with 27.5% of video games and 35.4% of computer games sold
55% of parents believe games are a positive part of their childrens' lives
47% of online game players are female

All that and today Governor Schwarzenegger said, "I signed this important measure to ensure that parents are involved in determining which video games are appropriate for their children" and said he could continue the legal battle to put in effect a law he signed in October 2005, and was suspended and brought before a judge immediately. How much money exactly does he want to throw away on this?

consolidation...

2007-06-23T15:42:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking, as usual, but I haven't spoken a word to anyone since about 8 or 9 last night, so about 16-17 hours or so now. What I was thinking about was that apparently to to headline news its some kind of super tuesday today and spewing all kinds of poll information that is useless. I dont need to know women prefer hillary to obama. guess what, they're women! wow. prize for the sharp tax up front who got that one.
Anyways aside from obvious issues like war and abortion, politicians just dont care about any of the issues that stand out to me. free speech issues, mommy-state legislation like video game bans, this insane school in VA that banned all kinds of physical contact what so ever, and other stuff like net neutrality all show that no one who is in charge of anything has any clue about technology or modern issues. The RIAA is still allowed to continue to circumvent the law in order to shake down anyone who's ever ran a p2p program, or hell, people who dont even OWN a computer. Or abuses of business practices, for example: Why do we have to buy a $95 package of cable internet with a massive tv package or just $80 for cable and $20 basic cable.

I'm pretty sure I just ate a day's worth, wait no make that 102% of a days worth of salt from a meal at McDonald's. Opps, but that is a little sick and wrong, but what I'm mentioned this for is to set up this little story. As I walked out of the store to my car I saw a minivan with the bumper sticker "Abortion is not healthcare" And honestly I just wonder who the hell writes these things. I wanted to stop and ask the driver what in the hell it meant. The statement doesnt make any sense. I understand its trying to say "I'm aggenit" but really now, that one just sucks, it doesn't even bother to say what all the real anti-abortionists are trying to say, "You are all sinners and I hope you burn in hell babykiller." I saw the guy loading his 2-3 kids back into the car as I went by and I wondered to myself, and nearly stopped to ask him some questions about his stance based on the bumpersticker. The first being, what would change his stance on abortion? Would it be 'healthcare' if the next time his wife was carrying, the baby was going to threaten her life. Would he just say tough luck sweetie, see you in heaven, I'm going to remarry your sister? Or if the little long haired daughter of his, who was chewing on her happy meal toy, was raped on the church's young adult group trip in the city 15-20 years from now. The non-religious stance of the sticker was really what intrigued me. I'm used to people who stand that way based on their misconceptions of religion, stupid statements like associating abortions as a form of birth control or how a fetus is the same thing as a fully grown human, I dont think anyone sees a traumatic surgical procedure the same way they see a condom. And I certainly dont think a fetus would do much living without a living mother, where as a newborn will. Anyways, I kinda want to get into it with a religious anti-abortionist (not that its some 'special' kind) and just at the end of it just say I hope that God one day changes his mind and that I would pray for him to find his way. I don't think a lot of people taking a stance like that would be able to respond to that, taking their own faith, which they are used to wielding like a weapon to control others. turned around on them, have someone treat them like they are the one going to hell, they are the wicked Jesus-less devil. So much of those kind of people's armor is made of the assurance (illusion) that they are better than others, they are above and beyond others on moral ground and have the right to talk down to people.

In other news, Joyce is pretty cool in a first date kind of way, you know where you only talk about what your favorite movies, music, books are way. She and I overlap on a lot of music and movie stuff and when we were talking it was just nice to say outright once that Jack Johnson, the Shins, and 'Dave' suck, and that even if I did, I wouldn't own up to it because I dont want to be associated with your fans.

I also wish people would use the word shiny as a replacement for good. Like "Everything is shiny" or "How did that interview go?" and respond "Shiny"

Also I haven't done my daily ritual of listening to a song abusively loud therapy in days, maybe weeks before yesterday, I just did it though and I feel excellent now.

And just a small pattern I've noticed in my life, the amount of people who have used the phrase "if only" to me in a tragic way is truly staggering and I'm going to go apeshit if I keep hearing it.

Jesus christ

2007-06-09T21:30:00.001-05:00

While the song "Leave out all the Rest" plays on, I clean up the phonebook on my cell phone.

I sit and stare at my grandfathers cellphone number, we got it for him for emergencies. He passed away last summer. I miss him. And I'm not deleting his number yet. I'm not ready for that.

I miss you grampa.

or am I looking too deeply...

2007-05-23T21:13:00.000-05:00

When we first started being proud of being Americans everyone put up a little flag sticker in their car, or bought a T-shirt with the newspaper's mast-head on the back or something like that. But thats all over, we're pissed off again, ashamed of our leaders, angry with everyone in the press except John Stewart. What I've noticed is that it all seemed to have happened as the cheap dye in those shirts began to fade and as the ink of those car window stickers turned that awful beige color. As a nation of mostly consumers I find it funny and yet unsurprising that strong emotions and convictions turned just as fast as those poorly made car stickers. - I mean anyone who actually cared about the country or had any pride in the matter would have replaced that sticker by now with a fresh new one wouldn't you think? Sticker or not, it is still the american flag which should be treated with an amount of respect and since they don't seem to mind the yellowed perversion left on their rear window, I can only surmise at their core, they didn't really care.

And this is why I'm voting for him...

2007-03-01T11:42:00.000-06:00

Doyle refuses funding for abstinence-only education

Under SPRANS, teachers would be required to exclusively promote abstinence as “the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems,” according to a WFPRHA statement.

“The issue is it requires abstinence-only education, and really the best model for preventing pregnancy and STDs is having multiple approaches,” said Stephanie Marquis, spokesperson for the Department of Heath and Family Services. “It’s not really a moral decision for us, it’s about [people’s] health.”

“When you have a population of high school students, you have some fairly sexually experienced people in that group,” he said. “When a teacher comes in there and starts with the premise that we’re going to teach you abstinence-only sex education, you’ve lost the battle before you start.”

Enough said. I dont even need to post more.

Update: More Pro-Cancerers amoung us!

2007-02-07T13:16:00.000-06:00

Proposal to ban smoking statewide unfair to bars

this one is just too good to pass up. Written by a freshman on the newspaper. Figure she need's a warm welcome to what happens when you put your opinions out there loud enough.

Now that this ban is proposed, for most people the question is: “When can we get this in writing?” Although it would seem morally appropriate to approve the ban with fervor, it is necessary to consider those who would be put at a disadvantage by the ban.

Here's a hint: I dont think its anyone she talks about in her article.

Madison is known for being a city with a European feel. It has bountiful restaurants serving food from different regions of the world and has many parks where its citizens can throw Frisbees and go running. There are bars filled with boisterous people and sports games on the TV or bars that exist to serve wines in an intimate setting. Many of Wisconsin’s cities are this way: they have their own unique feel.

You've never been in Europe. If you had you wouldn't have come with your opening line here. Nor could I imagine you've either been around Wisconsin or the other possibility you've never been to any other city than Madison. New York has a very big park, people play frisbee in it, I've witnessed that, and trust me they have a lot of different restaurants. Then again so does Chicago, I'm sure even Milwaukee and Detroit have at least one exotic restaurants and a park - but I assure you watching sports on tv and drinking beer isn't the "bar filling" draw of plenty of places in European cities.

Besides the fact that this ban would impose on Wisconsin’s unique cultural atmosphere, it would potentially violate each business’ right to choose how to run its establishment. Part of the draw of a bar or restaurant is the ambience it creates and if part of an establishment’s style is defined by smoking, it could affect the influx or type of customers. This could ultimately affect the profit the business takes in.

I argue the exact opposite point actually. Here in Madison people can't smoke in bars, except for one which is a cigar bar, taking in 40%+ revenue in tobacco sales thats a hard requirement of a place that sells alcohol. However people can just as easily get to Middleton, Stoughton, or any other near by town and watch the game and smoke in, the bar. A statewide ban however would basically kill that possibility, to smoke in a restaurant, a Wisconsin resident would have to routinely drive into Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota or Iowa; this is simply not an option for 99% of the residents, where as its a much more likely someone would drive out of city limits, town line, etc etc to get to a smoking establishment just outside of whatever local ordinance is in effect.

Each business should be able to choose what kind of place they want to run. This way people can decide whether they want to be in that environment. Families will go to restaurants that cater to them by prohibiting smoking on the premises. A person that wants to enjoy a smoke and a beer will go to a bar that allows it.

Businesses are allowed to run whatever kind of business they choose to run - within the laws of the town, state, and nation they are in. If we outlaw juice sales within city limits - tough luck orange julius. Secondly families aren't the only one who doesn't enjoy smoke - I can't stand the smell of it, I didn't stop going to bars before they banned it here in Madison but I was never thrilled, believe me when I saw your assumption that a smoking ban is purely family oriented is false. As far as the smokers' rights, they have every right to vote no on the smoking ban, and they did however in Madison at least the non smokers won out.

In order to respect the businesses and culture of Wisconsin, it would behoove Wisconsin lawmakers to find alternative ways to take action against smoking.

Is there a way to take action against smoking that isn't being done yet?

In addition to the statewide ban on tobacco, Doyle called for a higher tax on cigarettes in order to discourage people from buying the product. The higher tax would take care of a portion of the medical costs smokers acquire due to tobacco-related health issues. This action would be a wiser choice because it would give businesses their freedom.

Actually it puts more money in the budget to provide social services for everyone. I enjoy smokers, they help pay for all kinds of socially conscience programs and police and other municipal workers' salaries through the much larger portion of tax they spend when buying cigarettes, however this is not going to stop anyone from smoking. No one starts smoking and stops because its too expensive (by choice). A smoking ban is about the preventative public health increase through the lack of second hand smoke in crowded areas where many people work and patronize. Standing outside in the snow in 10 degrees below zero weather isn't going to stop those smokers from funding the state government either

If this doesnt pass I'm moving to texas.....wait, what?

2007-02-07T12:32:00.000-06:00

State may require HPV vaccination for sixth graders girls

This is being voted on in 26 other states...however Texas of all places, already has it on the books. Why in all that is holy did a state like Texas beat Wisconsin to this? Seriously. Lawmakers, get on your shit. Do some porkbarrelling or filibustering or some other waspy sounding bullshit political word, whatever you got to do to get this done and on the books last week. Make it required, make it government sponsered. All the horrible shit the goverment sponsors, the least they can do is take a solid "anti-cancer for all stance"

Addendum:

While Taylor said her bill has bipartisan support, one opponent, state Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, said the this bill allows government to overstep its boundaries.

“The issue of mandated or forced immunization should be the decision of the parents and not government mandated on 11 or 12-year-old children,” she said.

Let it be known that Mary Lazich of New Berlin Wiscosin is pro-Cancer. She wants children to have mumps, measles, small pox, and now newly added, genital warts and cancer. Suck to be you Mary because I hope you aids of the cancer of the lukemia of the eye.

2006-12-24T15:45:00.000-06:00

Christmas isn't worth all this bullshit. Not having the dinner table set at 3 in the afternoon isn't going to stop Santa. Its the people, not the carpet being vacuumed perfectly even though there was no dirt on it anyways.

TV would have you believe a lot of things...

2006-11-08T17:08:00.000-06:00

one of them this time of year is that you should be considering your Christmas wishlists and being consuming like good little Americans.

However for me at least the holiday season means something else as well.

This is how Child's Play got started a few years ago.

If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one, where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games.
.....
Penny Arcade has a readership of something like 150,000 gamers across the world. We are arguably the largest community of gamers on the internet. The important word there being community. This isn’t IGN, this isn’t Gamespy, we are not a faceless corporation, you are not just a number tracked by a database and then relayed to hungry advertisers. You guys have proven yourselves to be a powerful force when stirred into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real good.

Let’s give these kids the Christmas that they deserve and let’s give the news papers a different kind of story to write about gamers.

Child's Play has done a lot of good raising over a million since its inception and is partners with over 25 hospitals, going international this year. Before we start listening to the TV telling you your stuff isn't good enough, think about planning a donation into your budget this year.

2 lawyers I actually like...

2006-10-26T15:45:00.000-05:00

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

These guys have been defendants' consul of choice in RIAA cases, most of which end up in the industry turning tail when they see these guys.

what is a faceless statistic worth to you?

2006-10-18T13:07:00.000-05:00

This was part of the lecture material I saw in class yesterday.

Your american life : $6,900,000.
Essentially your life is worth 200 years of the average american's income.

News round up 2a...

2006-10-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

ASM grills students over union initiative

I'm not paying them to rip up a union that been under construction for the better part of my career here, or put union south under construction on top of it. Its insane how much construction I've lived literally next to since I first came here and I'm frankly sick of it.

One comment posted on the online version of the article read: "Half of students in the 1920s gave $50 or more -- the equivalent of almost $600 today -- to build the Memorial Union, which they would never see as students." My reaction: Unions are just fine the way they are now, both of them and on top of that I don't care what imaginary 1920's money they donated; $50 in 1920 is $50 in 1920. That statistic has no bearing on me today I dont have $50 to buy a nice bottle of wine much less literally throw away for students who won't appreciate it. If we had NO union right now, much less TWO of them, I would be concerned with donating money to the cause of building one in the first place just as they were.

Wiley: Marching Band’s future up in air

Jesus. fucking. Christ. I want to know who dropped a duce in Wiley's personal urinal because thats the only thing I can think of to piss him off this much. A top tier, prestigious, major university with a ranked football program, is threatening to REMOVE the band, dissolving it completely? I can't even count how many articles I've read in the last few years involving football and basketball players involved in domestic violence, drug charges, drunken mop-eding, assault and battery. They barely were so much as put on suspension, and only if they were actually IN a jail cell. So why in the fuck is the entire band take so much blame for this? The other day Wiley said he wouldn't disclose what the incident was because people would know exactly who did it because it was such a specific occurrence. Adults who are arrested on charges both false and true have their names printed and broadcast all the time. What the fuck happened that it is both unspeakable AND in press releases? Wiley - you are a hypocrite and a terrible leader; don't even get me started on the sweatshop issue.

UW says website causing ‘ruckus’

This is why "social networking sites" are fucking stupid. By the time they have anyone on them they are bought up, exploited, and data mined until there is no original spark of the creative free thinking minds who conceived of the project in the first place. Here's to me hoping all you self-described "facebook whores" learned a lesson about putting ever possible bit of personal information on a (in all but name) public location.

Time for bad thing, good thing...

2006-09-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

Bad thing: getting a parking ticket because you didn't have your stupid permit up.

Good thing: Taking the temporary license plates off your car and throwing the ticket away.

Who are these people...

2006-09-19T11:24:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin Rapids Common Council President Maynard Paterick also said [about a petition to put a Bush impeachment vote on the ballot] -- “If [the voters] want a referendum, that’s fine, let them have one,” Paterick said. “To me, I think the opposite — if we weren’t in Iraq right now, we might be getting bombed here.”

I can see "if we weren't in Afghanistan" without making my blood boil but IRAQ!? Jesus tap dancing christ what brain melting powder are these people snorting?

...

2006-09-14T14:11:00.000-05:00

The Onion AV Club: When we last spoke to you—it's been almost 10 years now—the last question asked was "Are the American people stupid?" How would you answer that today?

Bill Maher: They are. Even more so than 10 years ago. People come up to me all the time and say, "This is such a stupid country." And it is. Unfortunately, it is. It has millions of bright people in it. I like to think that they comprise a good part of my audience. But there's no doubt about it, it's a stupid country. It was in The New York Times last week that when they asked the question "Do you think human beings evolved from an earlier species of animal?" the only Western nation that responded "no" more often than America was Turkey. Thirty different countries, including Bulgaria. Ooh, that one hurt. I got to say, that hurt. That was like a knife in the gut. Even Bulgaria gets it about evolution more than we do. That's a stupid country.

Welcome to Fall...

2006-09-05T13:03:00.000-05:00

there is so many deserving directions I could go in that I can't just focus on one and I'm far to busy (read: lazy) to actually properly do them all justice so here is just a summation of my feelings on the particular trappings of todays papers..

Ranking Season: UW no longer top party school
Choice quotes:

“I don’t even know how they decide,” UW Provost Patrick Farrell said, laughing at the mere mention of The Princeton Review’s party-school rankings. “I am not the least bit upset.”

PACE Director Susan Crowley said the university’s drop from No. 1 to No. 4 does not indicate that binge drinking is a problem that can now be ignored.

My take:
The "party school" ranking is a travesty inflicted on the world to no one's benefit. I took a lot of shit from adults in the world noting my number 1 party school ranking and ignoring the #7 public school in the nation ranking. That said, PACE is more than just an annoyance and needs to be dissolved, forgotten, buried and spit on. NEXT!

Morning-after pill to be available without prescription
Choice quotes:

The FDA’s Aug. 24 decision reverses its initial 2003 ruling that rejected Plan B for over-the-counter distribution. While pro-life groups say this new judgment is nothing more than the FDA’s shameless rejection of science, others see the situation in a different light.

My take:
I am dizzy spinning around trying to follow the logic that leads "pro-life" (better known as: anti-choice) groups who think they to use the words "shameless" "rejection" and "science" together in the same sentence WITHOUT referring to themselves.

Knights threaten UW with lawsuit
Choice quotes:

In yet another student organization controversy, the University of Wisconsin and the Knights of Columbus, a national Catholic organization, have clashed this summer over their interpretations of the First Amendment.

In late July, SOO realized that the Knights of Columbus restrict their membership to Catholic males ages 18 and older — a violation of the aforementioned laws that had apparently gone unnoticed for nearly three decades.  According to Casey Nagy, executive assistant to Chancellor John Wiley, the Knights also violated another SOO eligibility regulation since they are not actually run by students.

My take:
So they're suing a publicly funded university, essentially suing themselves and everyone else in the state who pays taxes of any kind - how very christian of them, Jesus must be proud of their good works.

This trick’s no treat
Choice quotes:

After four years of pepper spray and riot gear, it’s clear something needs to be done to change a tradition that’s headed straight into the toilet.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has attempted to do just that by introducing an elaborate plan to limit access to State Street and charge admission in order to quell violence and offset costs. We agree in large part with the plan’s stated goals but have serious concerns about the consequences of effectively caging a group of intoxicated revelers.

In addition to the logistical issues of both selling and distributing a set number of tickets to the event, controlling entry and exit at just three State Street access points will surely prove chaotic.

Only the party’s patrons themselves can determine a way to overcome the proposal’s egregious shortcomings — and, additionally, they need the incentive of an ultimatum to make things work this year.

The city would need UW’s help.

A long weekend — or a fall break — coinciding conveniently with Oct. 31 might just do the trick.

And, just as the Mifflin Street Block Party has risen from its own ashes, perhaps Halloween could come back as a safe, fun event in a few years — something some of us might actually enjoy attending.

My take:
I actually agree with everything here. Good logical sensible and above all, honest, look at Halloween from the Badger Herald Editorial Board. Additionally I should add that if you have friends who want to come visit you on Halloween, think about why. Do they WANT to come to see you or because "MADISON HAS THE CRAZY RIOTS THAT ARE AWESOME" Think long and hard, I met a girl 'visiting' from the University of Florida, and many from the west coast.... I have to wonder why they came, and why they came that weekend. Stay home and ruin your town next time.

Established Feb 2006...

2006-09-05T11:14:00.000-05:00

Just skimmed the newspapers for the first day of class and I'm already teeming, yes, I said teeming, with malcontent and scorn for the general public. oh yes you guessed it, the blog is back in full swing, bringing the absurdity and vague liberal views since Winter 06.

What is a friend...

2006-09-03T01:08:00.000-05:00

A friend is someone I'd do favors for. Someone I'd come visit, someone I'd spend time with and catch up with them when I can't see them. Someone who I'd talk to about important issues to me, music, politics, my classes and subsequent future after classes. I would remember things they enjoy and ask a friend about. Someone I'd go to a bar with, and call back when I missed their call. Someone who'd I'd say happy birthday to and think of something nice to do for them. Someone who I would be supportive in a problem, and pick them up when they get stranded at a bus stop when there isn't another one coming. Someone who I would help move. Someone who I would cook with, someone I would drink with, someone I would bullshit with. A friend is someone I could talk to about my geeky hobbies without feeling like a geek. A friend of mine could count on me for just about anything they need. A friend is someone who I wouldn't ask to pay back $6 for lunch. I have respect for a friend and I would defend them to anyone.

I don't have many friends. There is just a few people who aren't family who know they can count on me for just about anything. But really, that sounds a whole lot like family to me. It's the way I was brought up to treat people, but it's just not how everyone defines a friend and that makes things hard.

I've learned the hard way over and over who and more importantly who isn't really my friend. Realizing that someone you had respect and trust in doesn't hold you in the same importance hurts. I really don't have much use for these people. Fair weather friends I've heard they are called. I don't like that term, I don't feel comfortable enough to call them that. A fair weather friend is someone who is only around when things are good or only when its convenient for them to be around, however you want to see it, to me thats not a friend at all, acquaintance at best. And to be perfectly honest, I don't want to maintain any 'acquaintances'. Yes I understand that you become acquainted with someone before you can become friends, but the way I tend to think of people as "people I've met", "strangers" and "friends." I'd rather not know you than have you be a fair weather friend to me. I'm not demanding that I learn everything about you instantly and expect you to remember everything I say and my opinions on every topic ever discussed but I do expect to be listened to with genuine interest. I know that may seem harsh, but I'm just not interested in sorta-knowing you.

I've been pushed and taken advantage of by people who seem to just take and take from me while being fair weather friends to me and I've reached a line in the sand, an edge. One that I won't cross or be pushed over. I'm doing one of the hardest things in my life right now and that's talking to someone if they want to actually be my friend or if I should just leave it at "I'll see you when I see you" because I'm tired of being left out and blown off by people who I care about.

The important rules of going out...

2006-09-03T00:22:00.000-05:00

Never wait in a line. ever. If the place is that great the people aren't going to be leaving.
Tipping leads to better service.
Just because its says "$3 you call it rail mixers" doesn't mean you don't tip.
Your always louder than you think you are while your drinking.
Don't hit on the bartender, she's working.
Don't argue with a bouncer the customer is never right.
Your friends are more important that the drunk girl you thought was winking at you.
Going out doesn't always have to mean "stone drunk."
Capacity crowds aren't a good thing.
If your angry and drunk you should go home.
If you "only do it while your drunk" you probably shouldn't do it.
Get creative, watching four thousand people order jager bombs is a little depressing.
No bar should ever play Dave Matthew's Band, Jack Johnson or Coldplay music after 9 pm.
There will be other nights, always remember that.

Lets try a little logic game....

2006-08-29T16:53:00.000-05:00

According to the GOP:
If you question the way the government carries out the War on Terror, you support terrorists.
If you question the way the government investigates and prosecutes crimes, you support criminals.
If you question the way the government handles the war in Iraq, you support Saddam Hussein.
If you question the way the government fights child pornography, you support child pornography.

So it follows that Republicans questioning the way the government handles welfare and attempts to eliminate poverty support keeping people poor.

Makes sense to me.

Brought to you by Geesie at ch54

/spit

2006-06-22T13:58:00.000-05:00

Broadcast flag suddenly reappears in telecom bill

Senate reject calls for withdrawal from Iraq

The average american wouldn't know how to question authority if it was asking a knock knock joke.

2006-06-06T12:11:00.000-05:00

As I have the chance to watch CNN for about 3 hours a day this last 2 weeks between the national guard being sent to the mexican border and the 'occupation' of Iraq gets worse and worse everyday; I've been reminded of something.

There's a reason we separate military and the police: one fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.

This is not going to get better

I always knew I'd become a hitman...

2006-06-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

and its not just because I liked the Boondock Saints!

This is Jack Thompson, and he needs to be stopped.

“Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you’re a hit man or a video gamer,” Thompson said.

I am cabable of shooting people in the face apparently. I am begining to believe he says these things so someone does kill him, so he can be some sort of junior jesus figure.

You know... I started writing this with the intent on ranting; but I dont care anymore. Jack, I hope you get arrested for having child porn. I'm not paying attention to you anymore.

I stole this directly from....

2006-06-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

here. I don't think its a secret that I find fox to be a deplorable company in general but also I think this will help hammer home another point I've been trying to get across... PARENT YOU DAMN KIDS

The penny arcade comic on the issue.
The little gamers comic on the same issue long ago

Little Jeffy Harris just thought the bright pictures of naked ladies his new friend brought him were funny. He would spent long recesses giggling quietly and conversing in hushed tones to his pal, as they both laughed innocently at the people with no clothes.

But Jeffy's new friend was not another boy. No, not at all. This friend was special. He was only about the size of a brick, with speakers instead of a mouth and a glossy screen where his eyes should be: Jeffy's best friend was the Playstation Pornable.

What mom thought was just a game is actually a very sophisticated piece of electronics that a clever kid can use to capture pornographic images out of thin air. In the school's library, Jeff was eager to show his friends his new Sony Play Station Portable, or PSP. On a dare, Jeff showed his pals how the PSP could magically display images of naked women.

I despise you utterly, Fox News. More after the jump.

Who wants to bet that "Jeff Harris" is a made-up name? But it occurs to me to wonder whether this continuing ignorance on the part of mainstream media (and mainstream parents) is beneficial to the games community as a whole, or detrimental. It's irritating that these people want to make things hard for us (see Jack Thompson, etc.), but gratifying that they don't know how.

Usually we follow a one-quote-per-post format, but this was just gold, and I had to include it:

David Walsh/National Institute on Media and the Family: "I talk to parents everyday who are discovering that some of their teenagers are not just curious about messing around with porn, but are deeply into pornography."

Adolescent humans deeply interested in portrayals of sexual acts?! Inconceivable! Eliza Gauger

Portable Porn [FOX News]

Two hours of traffic gives you time to think...

2006-06-01T10:28:00.000-05:00

How often is it that you see the phrase "legendary thespian" with the name Steven Segal?

I wonder what the hell the person in the Ford Focus ahead of me is doing when the break lights stay on from Austin to where I passed her at Canal St. Thats over a mile of highway driving with both feet on a pedal.

And I can't help but wonder if maybe I should just stop voting democrat. Now lets not get ahead of me here, hear me out. We all know business and politics are in bed with each other, and they always have. The problem is, we used to not know much about it, we didn't see it, it was like staying in a hotel, you know someone is having sex somewhere in there, but you dont know where. Now you open your room and there they are, politicians and business, right there, on your bed, and you just have to sit there and try to ignore it. And what's with this Bush and Clinton joint vacationing, speaking events crap? I give up, the democrats just seem to roll over. Not to mention, who's the biggest name in the democrat party? Well arguably you could say Barrack Obama, who I will vote for, but the other biggest name: Hillary Clinton. And she must be pushed out of office. Her entire platform is based on the same bullshit the republicans are: scare you with family values. Except she's going after video games. She wants video games to be government regulated. Why? Because spoiled, upper-middle class white boys cannot be held responsible for their actions, they play Grand Theft Auto and Doom and then go shoot people at their school. Obviously the games are what drove them to madness. There is no reason for government regulated video game systems; does the federal government regulate the movie industry? Hell no they don't. Not to mention the amount of sexual innuendo and down right raunchy content that passes for a PG-13 movie would cause a video game with the same content to be slapped with an "adults only" rating, effectively tanking the product before it ever hit the shelves. I don't want the federal, state, or district governments deciding the moral regulation of anything I do. Hell I don't even like the idea of a 21 drinking age, why would I support anyone who thinks my 'media consumption' is immoral or takes away my choice of when my kid can play a video game where someone's head explodes. I'm seriously going to start looking for independent/green candidates to vote for because this is just stupid, and if I can't find one, I'll probably stop voting rather than using my vote to support someone who I disagree with under the argument "at least its not a republican."

Hmmm...

2006-05-30T09:08:00.000-05:00

Did you ever notice whenever someone says "...for the children" or any mention of "protecting" someone that isn't themselves; we tend to lose a freedom right afterwards?

Legal adults: Please parent your children or don't have any. So long as you can handle that, I won't have to put up with this bullshit.

Drivers ed classes teach mechanics, no driving skills.

2006-05-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin law mandates teaching abstinence in sex ed

Or so the headline would read if it were drivers ed and not sex ed. All I say is the state of wisconsin disgusts me. Who the hell lets things like this get by? We're progressing backwards into a state of fear and stupidity. There is so many things wrong with the idea of abstinence education I don't know where to start. Firstly there is the issues of inevitability; children grow up. They get older and they have sex before they get married. Not that it matters its before marriage because people get married and divorced and married again all the damn time in this country. Anyways back to the point; abstinence education sends people into the world with no idea of what do to to keep themselves safe other than dont have sex. I can not accept that anyone in this country would both believe that people would decide not to have sex until they were 'married for life' and be considered of sound mind. Said more briefly, they would have to be suffering a mental defect to think people wont have sex until marriage. Abstinence is only the "safest way to avoid STDs and pregnancy" if you assume people wont have sex, and as studies show those 'pledges,' where people sign a paper pledging not to have sex till marriage, which are part of many abstinence education, more than 50% are broken within 2 years.

Personally I remember my sex ed classes, you know what I got out of it? The girl gets knocked up every time. period. Thanks a lot, great use that is to me that was.

Directly from Dan Savage himself:

2006-05-19T08:20:00.000-05:00

I've been running around with my hair on fire trying to convince my straight readers that religious conservatives don't just hate homos. Their attacks on gay people, relationships, parents, and sex get all the press, but the American Taliban has an anti-straight-rights agenda too. As I wrote on March 23: "The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no lifesaving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut."

After raising the alarm for months back here in the sex-ads section, I was intensely gratified to read Russell Shorto's brilliant cover story, "The War On Contraception," in the New York Times Magazine last weekend. To readers who think I'm being hysterical: So you don't think the religious right would seriously go after birth control? Fine, don't believe me. But maybe you'll believe Shorto when he lays out the American Taliban's plan to deny access to birth control—any and all types, folks, not just emergency contraception.

"In particular, and not to put too fine a point on it, they want to change the way Americans have sex," Shorto writes. "Contraception, by [their] logic," Shorto continues, "encourages sexual promiscuity, sexual deviance (like homosexuality), and a preoccupation with sex that is unhealthful even within marriage." Shorto quotes Judie Brown, president of the American Life League: "We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion. The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set. So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception." And there's this from R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: "I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill… Prior to it, every time a couple had sex, there was a good chance of pregnancy. Once that is removed, the entire horizon of the sexual act changes. I think there could be no question that the pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation."

I'll say it again, breeders: The American Taliban is not just opposed to straight premarital sex, with their abstinence education and hilariously ineffective virginity pledges, or gay sex, with their "ex-gay" campaigns and their anti-gay-marriage amendments. The American Taliban doesn't think married heterosexual couples should be able to use birth control. If you care about your own freedom—not just your right to have premarital sex, but your right to decide whether, when, and how many children you're going to have—you need to read "The War On Contraception." And don't comfort yourself with the notion that these are just some anti-sex religious wackos: The Bush administration not only listens to these wackos, it appoints them to important positions all over the federal government—and let's not even think about the members of the American Taliban that Bush has already appointed to lifetime positions in the federal judiciary.

This is some serious shit, breeders. You're being attacked. It's time to fight back.

Savage Love May 17th, 2006

2006-05-09T11:43:00.000-05:00

So I got in a mood to be thinking about hockey again last night and this morning and I pulled up an old writing thing I put down in 2000. I reread it a little and edited a few things and kinda wanted to share it because I felt like it was worth putting up.

Period One. The puck drops. The wingman holds his spot on the hatchmarks and a large red jersey leans an elbow into his shoulder. As the center fights the puck out of his skates, the wingman’s legs are buckling. The puck is kicked out right to the wingman. He pulls back with the puck and just wants to get it away from the red. Before the plan unfolds, the largest red jersey on the ice runs right through him. Barely aware of the last 4 seconds, he gets up to see everyone in his own end. Knowing now what made the breeze that cooled the nervous sweat on his face was the rush into his zone. The puck is a blur. While getting up, he tries to follow the puck. He cannot keep the puck in focus for more than a second. Like trying to follow a fast-moving insect in the open air, he’s not able to do it.

Stepping across the blue line, his team takes control of the puck. The defense speeds it around the boards. The puck touches the stick of the other wing and is drilled into the boards. The center sweeps down and knocks the puck out. As if galvanized by all the attention it was getting, the puck hops into the air and spins erratically as it hits the ice again. Without a second to waste, the wingman rushes behind the center as he picks up the black cylinder. Swooping like a hawk, another red jersey confronts the center. The center moves half a step to the right, bobs his head, and seemingly teleports to the left. The wingman has no time to react and the defenseman goes for him instead, the slower, dazed prey.

Somehow he avoids the hit full on but takes the hit solidly in his right shoulder. The hit ends any movement of his foot; he spun around like a top, his left still striving forward. Miraculously able to stay standing, he scans the situation. Running on his first impulse, he blazes into the corner where the puck should be in seconds. It arrived just as he had hoped. Just as he can send it back where it came from with a quick flick of his wrist, another red streak appears before him.

Again, he feels a crushing sensation all over. It quickly dissipates because he had somewhere to go. The wingman pumped his legs to get to in front of the padded wall of a goalie. While he was detained in the corner, the puck attempted escape from the attacking zone. A fellow blue jersey catches it at the line.

As if it were a pinball, the puck flew back right at the net. Everyone on the ice hears the soft thud when the goalie’s reflex-like save keeps the game even. The puck does not like being caught in the tender’s glove, it bounces out, making its way out as soon as it entered. The puck falls to the ground. In a blink of an eye the wingman instinctually slaps the puck past the tender to rest in the white stitching. The boys clad in blue gave a shout as they skated half the ice back to their bench, beating their sticks on the ice. Finally a chance to think and breath. Slaps fall on his head from all sides; in only 45 seconds, the winger made a lasting difference in the game.

Even if you dont own a computer...

2006-04-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

The RIAA just might sue you anyways.

Article highlights include:
A family in Rome, GA, (one of the 235 defendants) was very surprised when the local newspaper contacted them to ask about the file sharing lawsuit in which they were implicated: "I don't understand this," said James Walls. "How can they sue us when we don't even have a computer?"

Meet Brittany Chan, 15 now, but 13 when her mother was sued by the RIAA. The case against Brittany's mom was dropped after the RIAA was unable to produce any evidence, while the Chans refused to roll over and pay up. So a new suit was filed, this time against Brittany. While that may or may not be an appropriate thing to do, the RIAA then demanded that a Guardian Ad Litem be appointed and paid for by Brittany and her family. That's a lawyer assigned to represent children (and other persons unable to represent themselves in court) in legal proceedings, most often seen in divorce proceedings, child abuse cases, and other cases involving the child's welfare.

A perspective just too good to pass up...

2006-04-18T11:02:00.000-05:00

If you believe that, where have you been the past seven years? This summer, Republican leaders and other key counterfeit conservatives will push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, attempt to outlaw flag burning and continue to clamp down on abortion. If building a stronger America means exploiting cultural rifts that have nothing to do with governance, the GOP has done admirable work.

The rest of the article can be found here: http://badgerherald.com/oped/2006/04/18/last_7_years_of_repu.php

I thought we as a society were past this...

2006-04-12T14:26:00.000-05:00

Playboy loves Co-eds (and who doesnt, but thats beyond the scope of this entry). In my time here in madison, once during my freshman year and this spring Playboy has come to madison, selected madison students and published them in their magazine. Both times there was articles on various reactions to them coming here during the screenings, and then again when the issue came out later. This springs "Girls of the top party schools" edition just came out.

Playboy models meet fans, sign magazines at Capitol Centre Foods

They came, they signed a few magazines to nervous hs townies and older guys and who knows who else. Just skimming the article I would have sworn I thought this quote came from a stodgy old out of touch administration member...
“I think that symbols can lead to ideas and representations and if we show that UW-Madison is a school that parties by objectifying women, I think that has a powerful symbol that some people could use in a physical, very real and damaging way”

I mean, doesn't that sound typical of the crap people who confuse their job as a school administrator with "morality rule-maker." But in this case I was shocked to see it wasn't, it was Devon Heim, the Coordinator at the Campus Women’s Center, a UW senior. Unless Devon is getting finishing her undergrad degree she gave up on in 1965, that means she is likely no more than 24.

This baffles me to no end because I read quotes like that all the time and mentally react with "wow your out of touch with the modern young generation. But in this case all I can react with is "WHAT THE FUCK! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GROW UP? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU EVEN THINK OF SAYING SOMETHING SO FUCKING IGNORANT IN A FUCKING NEWSPAPER. SWEET BUTTERED BUDHA I DIDNT THINK PEOPLE WERE SO BACKASSWARD ANYMORE."

Ok now that I got that out of my system... I can get down to a more civilized response... Devon, I know you probably have some sense of reason, so I'm going to appeal to that here... No one is going to think UW-madison got its #1 ranking by objectifying women and no one who's been here for a saturday night (or a friday or thursday for that matter) thinks this place is a fucking Mardi Gras party every night. Yes symbols can be powerful, but this is not going to translate to anything damaging. No female student is going to feel any more sexual objectified tomorrow than they did 2 weeks ago, and no male student is going to think their chances of finding a lose woman is better tomorrow than 3 weeks ago because Playboy said the same thing as the damn US News and Reports did months ago.

The problem with believing the same thing as a large group...

2006-04-04T12:16:00.000-05:00

Pro-lifers desire responsibility....was a letter sent into the Badger Herald, its short enough to quote in its entirety...

I have heard many people — the latest being Adam Lichtenheld (“Sex, lies, and criminalizing abortion,” March 29, 2006) — question why those who are against abortion don’t promote contraception. While, as a legal matter, I and many other pro-lifers would not be in favor of banning all contraceptives or removing all mention of them from health class, I can perhaps understand those who are. Contraception and abortion are part of the same culture, a culture where personal autonomy and sexual gratification are the highest goods, while the human life that may result from sex is regarded as a mistake and a burden rather than as an astonishing gift.

Indeed, a child is a mistake and a burden in an uncommitted relationship, and that is exactly the problem. What pro-lifers want is a society where a human life carries more weight than a good time, and the casual sex that contraception makes possible is an enemy to that attitude.

Now perhaps that society is unrealistic (or a “living hell,” depending on your point of view). But as long as our culture tells us that we can’t help it, people are just going to have sex anyway, people will. And there will be mistakes and abandonment and abortion. But maybe if we start telling ourselves that we can help it, telling ourselves that we need to view others as persons and not as potential sex partners and to value the smallest of human lives, people might do that, too.

Matthew Bayer
UW student

I bring this to your attention because this is the first time in my life I have ever seen a reasonable argument written for pro-life (ie. anti-abortion) that doesn't immediately set off violent impulses. Matthew here even makes a few good arguments and points but he only shows the sunny side of his position. The crux of the issue is in the larger group that support it. I'm all for lower taxes for everyone, small federal government. The problem is that when I take my pick up my head and look around me at who is saying those same things, I can't stand on those principals. I say less taxes, then I hear around me "the poor don't need any more programs paid for by my dollars!" I believe, "most public schools are in disarray and need improvements" and then I hear around me, "so I'll send my kids to a private school."

As much as I would like to be for tax reductions and other issues I fall on the conservative side about, I cannot stand with the majority of the people who also believe in those things. I would love to teach people to teach every person a child is a gift (maybe not directly from god) and that parents should be happy they have a kid on the way, I have no interest in telling people if accidents happen they should love and care for a child and tell them to toss out any plans they had ever made for themselves from that moment onward. A planned child has got to be the best thing a stable couple could hopeful (I assume,) however who the hell am I to say that a couple or single parent should look in the mirror and say "fuck your plans;" much less the sad childhood the kid might grow up with in a household like that.

.
"Indeed, a child is a mistake and a burden in an uncommitted relationship, and that is exactly the problem. What pro-lifers want is a society where a human life carries more weight than a good time, and the casual sex that contraception makes possible is an enemy to that attitude."

People like Matthew should remember a few things when they condemn "causal sex," and evil contraception. Sex causes pregnancies, not just casual sex. Committed adults in stable responsible relationships have unwanted children too. Contraceptives also helps prevent a laundry list of STDs along with babies. But most importantly, your preferences on life gives you no privileges to tell anyone else what to do. If you think using a condom is immoral, or sex outside of some idealized "committed relationship," then you don't have to. Its your choice. Its your right to make that choice. And its my right to make the exact opposite choices from yours if I choose to. Thats the double edged sword of freedom. You can make a large number of choices without say so from any one else. The problem for people like you Matthew, is that you dont get to tell other people what to do in a free society. Logically since you can't prevent people from having sex in manors you deem immoral, the best thing for everyone is to make those choices as safe as we can, as a society.

Yes there will be mistakes and accidents no matter what Matthew, just like you said, but in a better society those "potential sex partners" who do have accidents and who make mistakes wont be called whore, slut, sinner or baby killer by the people you stand with.

Zero tolerance? More like zero sense...

2006-04-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

"Boy turns in knife but may still be expelled" reads the headlines in Indianapolis.

Elliot, 14, said he was walking to the school entrance in the brisk weather March 3 and had placed his hands in his coat pocket when he felt the Swiss army pocketknife in the pocket.
"I went straight to the office right inside (the front door)," he said.
He said he handed the knife to Teri Donahue, the school's treasurer, and told her he had brought it to school by mistake.
As a result of Elliot's actions, the school's principal, Jimmy Meadows, suspended Elliot for the maximum 10 school days as allowed by law and recommended Elliot be expelled. A confidential expulsion hearing is scheduled for April 10.

Zero tolerance makes zero sense; circumstance is everything in real life. This boy is going to school, to learn no doubt, probably without any intention of stabbing anyone or possibly trying to open a bottle of wine, and notices he has his pocket knife with him. At 14 years old, a pocket knife is pretty standard to have. All sorts of uses for a thing like that: boy scouts, any range of modeling hobbies, etc etc. And here in this case the boy goes "oh shit, I still have it in my coat pocket" and goes directly to the administration. Who promptly treat him slightly better than if the school janitor had to pry him off the still-warm corpse of the teacher who gave him a C on the last spelling quiz.

Though the administration did follow the exact policy set forth (Zero tolerance) it is was the exact wrong thing to do when the boy behaved in the exactly correct responsible adult manor. Most 14 year olds, I figure, would shove it back in their pocket and hope it doesn't fall out during the day. Hell, I wouldn't have even thought of turning it in when I was 14. Hopefully this article (the newspaper, not my blog, I'm humbler than that) and the children's parents and friends will be enough to overturn this completely unjust suspension and possible expulsion. I'm not really worried about the expulsion, they'll pull through that.

"The school's rules: Warren Township Schools' code of conduct addresses both the possession of a weapon as well as knowledge of possession of a weapon. Students are required to report knowledge of weapons or threats of violence to the school administration." In this case one might argue that the single student both followed and broke the code of conduct, and was punished for both. Hell even seems kinda like a 5th amendment issue to me in this particular case. But the point is, no matter how 'bad' it might sound, "special consideration will be taken in unique circumstances," NEEDS to be added. No one in their right mind would argue this kid deserved this punishment. So why would the administration punish him? Because they were just following policy? Unthinking rule following is not a characteristic I like in my teachers or school administration.

What I worry about is this kid's, and every student in that school's, faith in public administration. Some mild contempt for the common law-man seems fairly ubiquitous no matter what walk of life they come from. And its my believe that this situation occurs directly from situations like these. Unjust punishments, completely insane unwarranted reactions in elementary, middle and high schools cause kids to loose faith. In some cases it teaches them to think more independently and question authority when it needs to be questioned, but other's it just breeds apathy and contempt for authority.

Shameless personal plug...

2006-03-24T12:17:00.000-06:00

Slaves of She Devils take the IM B League championship

Full reso

mmmmm IT crowd....

2006-03-16T20:33:00.000-06:00

Adlai Stevenson, New York City (27th August, 1952)

2006-03-16T01:50:00.000-06:00

For the last 4 year or so I'd felt a strange connection to the 50s. We have a large resurgence of conservative values, a social phenomena corrupting youth, and very few liberal, level headed charismatic leaders who actually stood against the tide of conforming. Because most of the very few peers of mine who have even a remote chance of knowing who Adlai Stevenson was, I'll throw you a bone, he said something that was funny to the Soviet UN ambassador during the cuban missile crisis that was included in the movie 'Thirteen Days'.

This was a speech he made in New York City in 1952 after speaking out against witch-hunters like McCarthy, which I'm SURE we can find a parallel to in todays society... So it is my opinion that you should reread his words, conveniently copy and pasted here for you, because after a single democrat was silenced filibustering a vote on the renewal of the Patriot Act recently we are going to need all the independent thinkers we can muster.

We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power - to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime - these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

Patriotism, I have said, means putting country before self. This is no abstract phrase, and unhappily, we find some things in American life today of which we cannot be proud.

True patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.

There are men among us who use "patriotism" as a club for attacking other Americans. What can we say for the self-styled patriot who thinks that a Negro, a Jew, a Catholic, or a Japanese-American is less an American than he? That betrays the deepest article of our faith, the belief in individual liberty and equality which has always been the heart and soul of the American idea.

What can we say for the man who proclaims himself a patriot - and then for political or personal reasons attacks the patriotism of faithful public servants? I give you, as a shocking example, the attacks which have been made on the loyalty and the motives of our great wartime Chief of Staff, General Marshall. To me this is the type of "patriotism" which is, in Dr. Johnson's phrase, "the last refuge of scoundrels."

The anatomy of patriotism is complex. But surely intolerance and public irresponsibility cannot be cloaked in the shining armor of rectitude and righteousness. Nor can the denial of the right to hold ideas that are different - the freedom of man to think as he pleases. To strike freedom of the mind with the fist of patriotism is an old and ugly subtlety.

And the freedom of the mind, my friends, has served America well. The vigor of our political life, our capacity for change, our cultural, scientific and industrial achievements, all derive from free inquiry, from the free mind - from the imagination, resourcefulness and daring of men who are not afraid of new ideas. Most all of us favor free enterprise for business. Let us also favor free enterprise for the mind. For, in the last analysis, we would fight to the death to protect it. Why is it, then, that we are sometimes slow to detect, or are indifferent to, the dangers that beset it?
~Adlai Stevenson

NYC from a urban perspective...

2006-03-15T17:32:00.000-06:00

What the hell is with Zagat's survey? 70% of the restaurants we walked by in Little Italy, SoHo, and plenty of the under midtown areas, you could not escape a Zagat's review clippings next to ever posted menu outside a restaurant. As far as I could tell it said "EAT HERE FRIGHTENED OUT-OF-TOWNERS." Thats not the way to have a goo time on vacation, and its not the way to get me into your shop. Its surprising though, I wonder who is these people that treat that book like its the freaking bible.

I like older cities though, unlike newer cities, you see big name shops and restaurants and even chain stores you recognize, in buildings that they do not belong in and it looks awesome for that. An Applebee's in a 5 flat, barely 600 ft wide but 4 stories high, thats cool. Times square is small chunk of the Las Vegas strip, cool. The various neighborhoods all felt like areas of Chicago, just bigger. In fact the whole town, just felt a lot like Chicago, but bigger, except our tallest building is taller. :P

The only time I ever thought, "...only in New York" was when we visited 3-4 art galleries where we saw the largest collection of Tiffany lamp and pieces in the world. There is only about 10 Tiffany dealers in the nation, they all know each other, and they all have showrooms or collections in New York, I saw 5-6 different styles of Tiffany then I ever knew existed. Sotheby's and Christi's often have auctions of these lamps because they are simply amazing.

Tiffanies are incredible works of art and I've just been awestruck by them. But the most surreal thing I can think of though is that people own these things AND are in museums, hell I kept having scenes from Indiana Jones pop in my head where Indy beats up some guy for a artifact yelling "That belongs in a museum!" And then I saw this... that piece is modest in market value, but very nice piece of large turtleback glass and glass beads all around, there is a nob missing on the base though. This lists in on my desk. I own something that could be in a museum. Wow, I just can't get over it.

Lastly though, the 6-8 year old girls in Uggs and big sunglasses made me realize something, these coasties just weren't raised to know the difference between right and wrong, they cant help it. I won't look at them with irritation and disapproval.... now its more like...oh well...

I'll post more probably.

extra blog...

2006-03-15T00:11:00.000-06:00

linking as follows...

Continued Ravings...

I felt resticted as I want to keep these posts more formal...

so crazy it just might...wait.. no it wont

2006-03-12T21:50:00.000-06:00

Russ Feingold has either lost it completely or the only sane human in congress. Moving to censure President Bush...
"It's a big step, but what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered."

Man he's got BALLS. Especially for a guy who as ALMOST as many farmers as urban city voters.

Think someone else in congress may be sane? Not bloody likely; exhibit A ) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, also speaking on ABC, said Feingold "is just wrong...He is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," said the Tennessee Republican -- also a potential presidential candidate in 2008 -- adding that "attacking our commander in chief ... doesn't make sense."

WHAT?! Why is not agreeing with Bush a bad thing? Oh yeah, you get called a traitor by fucktards like...well...everyone from Tennessee.

12 steps to making gamers not look like social outcasts who like guns

2006-03-10T17:10:00.000-06:00

As I read at Ars today...

12-step plan for the games industry (Game Marketing Conf Keynote)
1. Talk up the rating system. The goal here is to inform people that videogames are rated just like movies, and no one is suggesting that the federal government start regulating those.
2. Extol the virtues of video gaming. Let your friends and neighbors know all the wonderful things that videogames can do for you. Geohegan used examples from the book Everything Bad is Good for You to make his claim that videogames can boost reflexes and intelligence.
3. Do research. Game developers should partner with respected universities to conduct accurate testing on the good and bad effects of videogames and publicize the results. (If you're wondering why the step comes after the step in which you tell everyone about the benefits of videogames, you're not the only one.)
4. Remind people that youth culture is often opposed by those in authority. The obvious example of this is rock 'n roll, and Geohegan believes that videogames are just the latest example of the trend. His point is that new forms of culture usually don't turn out to destroy society after all.
5. Encourage both moderation and good parenting. Just because people like to game doesn't mean they should do it round-the-clock. Parents who are concerned about what their children are playing ought to get involved and start making decisions about what is and is not appropriate; in other words, they should start being parents.
6. Benchmark against sex and violence in other media. Gamers should point out the frequency of sex, violence, and profanity on television and in the movies, thereby proving that videogames aren't so bad after all.
7. Embrace the Constitution. Gamers need to wrap themselves in the flag and start talking more about freedom of speech.
8. Lobby. Find some willing congressman and start throwing cash their way.
9. Get good spokespeople. Find gamers who are also respected for their work (like Peter Jackson) to helped promote the industry and change the stereotype of gamers as children.
10. Show people the best games. Make sure people know that there's more to video gaming than dropping opponents with head shots. Tell them about the wonders of Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, Katamari Damacy, etc.
11. Put the issue in perspective. Eighty percent of all games are not rated M, so the extreme violence so often referenced when talking about videogames only occurs in a small section of the market.
12. Be proud. Gamers should not feel shame about their hobby, and they should get better at explaining to friends and neighbors just why they enjoy it so much.

Games aren't different than any other form of entertainment, except its the scape goat for anytime a kid goes apeshit in a white neighborhood.

Stop shifting blame

2006-03-02T13:48:00.000-06:00

I can honestly say this is a great summation of my feelings on "video game violence" in convenient Tshirt form

Music: theories and commentary

2006-03-01T17:22:00.001-06:00

I don't know how often you listen to music. I listen to music. We all do really. Except robots, I don't think they like music much at all. Everyone can think music as playing a part of his or her lives. We all run to soundtracks of our own makings. We characterize the 60s by the revolution of rock; the 70s by disco, the 80s by the synthesizer and the electric keyboard, 90s by grunge rock and the emergence of hip hop and rap, the new millennium by MTV exploitation and artificial pop....

I personally can't go 5 minutes without a song forcing its way into the front of my mind, and it’s not something I mind either. There is just far too many theories and thoughts I have on music for me to keep a continue in an organized fashion, so I have to admit I'll just have to wing it and hope you keep up. Organization isn’t what music is really about anyways so expect random tangents and interjecting thoughts, after all if you ended up where you thought you would be at the end of a song its not a good one is it?

Foremost in my mind, I cannot stand people who disregard a type of music to be ‘worthless’, or ‘not music’ or ‘not art.’ I consider it a type of racism to consider a genre of music to be worthless. I will repeat myself; I cannot take people discounting a whole range of music as "not music.” I cannot stress enough that it tantamount to racism; as generally its rap that weathers the brunt of “that’s not music” comments. Classical music snobs (as the most common music racist) call rap and hip-hop as a medium of bitches, cars, drugs created by no talent ex-drug dealers. Well clearly because of their enthusiasm for music so steeped in European history, they have the right to decide what is or is not a performing art. I wanted to write a strong, emphatic article but I cant promise clean, fuck them. If you can't find artistry in an entire style of music, you are clearly uninterested in looking. If you think hip hop was never a real art and are dancing on its grave then you need to listen to ‘The Documentary’ by ‘The Game,’ its an amazing album; even if you haven’t been to the hood recently or never sold rock on the street corner, that album can move you. On the other side of the coin, to be fair, if you think classical music is all Bach and elitist snob music then you need to find the scores for the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and the Batman Begins score. Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams worked magic on these soundtracks. I've so far gone after the obvious targets of music hate, hip-hop and classical; but what about music's other rivalry?

Lets not ignore Country and Rock, these two have not exactly been at war with each other but with themselves for some time now; country has had the obvious problem of manufactured fake country that lasts as long as an artificial sugar high, luckily this kind of country has crashed and burned as the community of country music fans seem quite good at spoting fake artists; unfortunately Rock has suffered from a collapse from a civil war. Rock is actually second generation Rock and Roll which is characterized by the Rolling Stones, Blue Öyster Cult, Led Zeppelin, and the late Jimi Hendrix. Modern Rock was the first new genre to come out as the new mainstream rock and roll music, but eventually they cut the bullshit and called it Rock when they realized it was no longer modern or able to stand up to the now "classic" rock of the greats. The alternative rock scene breathed life back into Rock, bands like Nirvana, Bush, Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Godsmack, anything grungy, and fast. I find it interesting that a generation of Alt rock fans now generally goes nuts over bands like Coldplay, Dave Matthews, and the Killers; but I might get into that sort of commentary later.

What makes music important? Music can make you remember things (remembrance value), feel things, change your thinking or your mood, and make you feel connected either to other people or to something greater. Remembrance value is a term that came up in a discussion I had about Abbey Road about 5 years ago and the term stuck. Abbey Road was the greatest album ever created according to my friend; his argument was that at the time he was listening to the album heavily, he was going through an episode with a close friend, or love interest or something like that. The point is, every time he heard an Abbey Road song from then on, and he remembered those feelings he was having about this girl. He claimed the remembrance value of Abbey Road was the highest of any album/song/music because of the vividness of the memories that came to him every time he heard the songs. We all have those songs, thinking “Ah that takes me back” is a big clue the song has a large remembrance value to you. Any time a song makes you want to close your eyes and just listen, is a great song. Songs like that are important to us because they give us a moment of clarity and peace, no matter if we are stuck on a subway train. Songs that change your thinking/mood are also important, the song that makes you smile by 30 seconds in, that is a great song. Songs that make you feel connected, to me, are usually some of the same songs that give me the 40 seconds of peace. I can’t really describe it better than this: some songs make me feel there is a higher plane, a connectedness among humans that only exists when we’re all listening to the same rhythm. This brings me to a new point…

Music is a religion to me because of songs like that. In a practical sense, a religion is a construct designed to make you feel good in the moment, feel assured about the future, and connect with other people. Music does all of these and more. If you can’t rattle off 5 songs that make you feel just GOOD…change your oil because you are a robot, if you can’t share an emotional connection or a certain song/album that is either private or with another person (ever have an “our song”?) go stock up on WD-40 because you are still a robot. I don’t want to declare any new paradigm about what music is, but as far as music causing a connection between people, I have 2 pieces of evidence: the concert and the church. Concerts tend to form a sense of community, people who find they were at the same concert talk about it and get excited hence the obligatory concert t-shirt purchase. Church is also another good example, its historical record that adding music to the Catholic church increased its popularity but even when you considered yourself ‘stuck’ at mass, you can’t help but feel something… especially at holidays, its slightly out of reach to describe to me, but I feel like you probably know what I mean.

I dug at MTV in this article’s opening so I feel a need to justify that comment. I do feel contempt for MTV. Since I was born, MTV has revolutionized and has attempted to destroy everything that is important to music. MTV is really an entity that started with good intentions and went from bad to worse. The first day of airing, MTV ran music videos non-stop; quickly this got old as you can imagine. MTV began running game shows, award ceremonies, the Real World (which is actually the pinnacle of scripted reality, network TV’s shows don’t even come close), and various crap like “Pimp my ride” or as I like to call it “Destroy any value my car may have had when sold for parts.” MTV has helped foster, extend the life of, and even create its own pop music icons. Fake music is the bane of all creative musical endeavors. The 1-hit wonder pop groups and the boy bands are the biggest offenders. If its been test marketed and remixed into an entirely different sound its not music any more. That is my biggest problem with MTV, not only does it feed off music, but it feeds off itself creating its own hype for itself. In the last few years one other problem as occurred, the music video became extremely popular. There are many good ones but they are far outnumbered by the bad ones. As Lewis Back once said, “Music goes in your ears and your brain creates an image. But now we have music videos, those go through your eyes, and if your brain makes an image that looks like the music video… kill yourself, you have no reason to live.” I can’t think of a better way to put it, there is nothing special, unique or inspiring in most music videos and it very well might destroy the special meaning you might have associated with that song. The loss of the special, personal, meaning in music is an assault on my religion, so I avoid it as much as possible.

I have talked a lot what makes music good to me but not at all about what kind of music I like. Music that is good to me generally has a few characteristics that they seem to hold in common. First and foremost, FULL. Music has to be full; it has to be big and robust, not loud mind you, but complete, full. Fullness to me is using the entire spectrum of audio, I don’t mean it has to have all different type of instruments and played from high treble to low bass. From left to right, the music has to occupy the entire range, a good example of this is why I like orchestral strings so much, it’s very common to hold the entire range of sound left and right. The score to The Chronicles of Narnia that I have mentioned before has these characteristics too. Other good examples could come from live rock, and electronica like BT and Chemical Brothers. Electronica is a very BUSY medium, I have listened to certain songs on repeat dozens of times trying to mentally isolate every track running through the song, and then once I think I had then, follow certain ones through the whole song, or attempting to tap a finger to each beat, that’s a challenge. One I would like to single out as well is “Hart of a Champion” by Nelly, however only the version of that includes a large vocal band remixed into the song, it sound much like Carmina Burana with rapping over it, odd but its good.

Music that can make you feel good about life in the moment are the ones that make you smile to repeat myself. An entire album that can do that for me is Dosage by Collective Soul, I’m a sucker for 90s rock because that’s what I started listening to when I independently, its just good rock sound that is more uplifting than angry. Interestingly enough the score to both the Last Samurai and Batman Begins also do this in some of the songs.

Heavy, powerful voices are also make a sucker out of me, Crash Test Dummies is a one hit wonder with a powerful vocal lead, though Depeche Mode is the ultimate example of a powerful vocal to me, Creed is also right up there. Depeche Mode is also a great example of full sounding music in many of their singles, the best one I can think of is “It’s No Good.” Most Better than Ezra songs, Guster, and Eve 6 songs also are insta-mood-improvement

Songs that make me question the existing of something more, quite aptly named for how I described this, is “More than This” by Peter Gabriel. Various other songs strike me from time to time but not quite as constantly as “Under pressure” by David Bowie and Queen. “I see death around the Corner” by 2Pac, “Headful of Ghosts” by Bush, “Lucky Man” by The Verve, “Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)” by DJ Shadow, “The Best things” by Filter. God, ok I’ve saved most recommendations for a list I’ll put at the end.

Hip Hop is also a huge favorite of mine; different types for different reasons though; some songs the lyrics seem just incredibly powerful, like “Dream” by The Game just… it just kills me every time. Early Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg are lyrical masterpieces. On the other side hip hop with good beats generally could replace their lyrics for instructions to assemble Ikea furniture, the beat is just that good. In the words of Chris Rock, “If the beats all right, she’ll dance all night.” Hip Hop may be misogynistic and crude to some, but those who enjoy it, could not care less. And either do I.

Classical music is a bit of a mixed bag for me, Bach, Beethoven does not interest me in the slightest, and it violates the fundamental law of music being full. Carmina Burana (mentioned before) is epic in quality and many of the songs in the set are a joy to listen to at very very loud volumes. Same goes for Holts’ The Planets. ‘Liberi Fatali’, the opening song to Final Fantasy VIII, is amazing, as is a good chunk of the Original Soundtrack pieces from Final Fantasy X especially ‘Suteki da ne’. I swear serenity is in that song.

As far as live music I have seen, I will always remember this one all-day outdoor concert set. It was at the Rosemont Horizon, later called the All-State Arena but who wants to call it that? Anyways, it was getting into the evening and the sun was just fully set where the sky was dark purple but not black yet. Airplanes had been flying directly over the stage because the airport is right next to; and it had been pissing off people and the performers all day for the most part until Kill Hannah showed up. These guys had a very very strong fan base, extremely loyal people and they were going nuts with them on stage, I was standing a small distance from the main crowd and they had just launched into ‘Welcome to Chicago’ one of their best known songs and just as the chorus was starting, a plane went over and they didn’t miss a beat, the fans didn’t notice. The sound normally drowned the music out but for some reason I just didn’t hear anything, I have this perfect image to the band performing, the crowd moving back and forth, up and down perfect with the music I knew they were hearing, hands in the air…rocking. The lighting of the stage playing off the landing lights of the plane strangely complementary, perfect, soundless. Whoa.

Not really recommendations, but these are a small sample of songs I consider to be good examples of the qualities I enjoy most in music : a taste of music

Keeping PACE

2006-02-23T13:31:00.000-06:00

The last think I think we need in this country, region, state, county, city, campus is more laws and regulation based on moral 'standards'.

I love this campus, I love this university, but I do not even so much as hold a neutral opinion about the people who run this university. I am convinced the Board of Regents have a desire to ruin what the University of Wisconsin is.

More than three years ago the Regents formed a committee who's sole purpose was oversight on any and all Alcohol related issues, transactions, and service in the city of Madison, they called it PACE, Policy Alternative Community Education project. They will not leave students here alone. They have a very short list of accomplishments, and even fewer of them are positive from anyone's perspective. First, they extended the hours of operation at the 2 workout / recreation facilities on campus on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In three years, that is the only thing positive they have done.

Since that, their only accomplishment was the artificial raising of prices of downtown Madison bars by pressuring bar owners into a Thursday-Saturday drink special ban; after all, PACE did have a say in who alcohol licenses are given to. They insisted this ban would help curbing binge drinking among students. Anyone who has been to college could have pointed out to them that their actions would do no such thing, and it didn’t. The statistics showed pre-ban and during ban numbers of “alcohol related” incidents did not show even the slightest decrease. PACE’s measures were statistically insignificant. A lack of specials didn’t cause anyone to drink less, just put a few more dollars in the bar owners’ pockets and eventually the city’s through taxes.

Luckily enough, a small group of Madison alumni filed for a class action lawsuit against the bar owners in the spring / summer of 2004 calling the specials ban “price fixing” and monopolistic. While the bar owners may not have been to blame for the artificial price hike, the lawsuit threat removed the bans and students can once again drink on the weekend and have about $4 more left in their pocket. All studies done related to the specials ban showed no less drinks were bought, only more expensive drinks.

PACE and university officials worked from a new angle since September 2005 though that has turned PACE from a mere annoyance into a threat to this campus in my mind. Around mid, late October, the university, and PACE, has been trying to shame us by saying that from the start of the fall semester to early November there have been 30 kids sent to detox centers. How terrible is 30 out of about 45000 students, 0.06% of the students. Or how the administration publicly claims that that is the worse in the Big Ten, and yet have never released any numbers of how that compares to other universities.

As a small personal note, every survey I've ever taken, on this campus or otherwise, has defined a 'binge' as more than 3 drinks in an hour or “in one sitting." If I had 3 beers in 1 hour I would be mildly buzzed. One might also wonder, what is a sitting? Does it mean one bar? If I go out to a bar, stay from midnight to 2am and have 5 drinks I might as well stay home, I'm barely gonna be buzzed. Goddamn right I'm a binge drinker in PACE’s eyes. I might as well get soda all night because my BAC is going to be about 0.0 at that pace. Or one house party maybe? Hell you go through 3 cans of beer in a standard game of Beer Pong! That certainly isn't enough for even the lightest of drinkers to get sick, or become seriously drunk. Apparently I need to 'binge' to feel accepted with the growing 'peer pressure' to drink here.

The worst part is they released their claims in the most public way possible, what they are really doing, is ruining our school’s image, and I don’t know why. Maybe they thought it would curb our drinking if they kept telling us we’re the worst students they ever had come through the school. I don’t think so, but I do resent them attacking mine and their reputation in order to gain some kind of public support for their policies. It obvious to me that the administration’s ability to control the students in ways they have no business doing is more important to them than upholding the great long standing reputation. Not only does the University of Wisconsin-Madison happen to be ranked as high as Ivy League school in academics, 34 in the nation overall at the moment, 8th if you consider only public universities, but continues to be in the top 10 party schools for as long as I can remember. That is an impressive feat, a diploma from UW-Madison has a tangle respect in this nation and the administration is currently trying to tarnish that reputation to serve their own ends, and that should be considered an unforgivable act which cannot possibly serve to better our education.

The most recent and hopefully last motion PACE attempts to legislate is a keg registration law. This law would force liquor stores to keep a record of EVERY keg sold, who bought them, where the keg would be, and a signed document pledging the keg will only be served to Of-age people. These records would have to be maintained for a full year after the sale date, and the police would be allowed full access to this information, without any kind of reason or probable cause. The keg registration law would also permit only 1 keg to be registered to a single address without a permit purchased from the City of Madison.

I cannot as hard as I can think, see a reason to support this proposal, and neither did the Madison Police department when they dropped their support for it. Kegs of beer attract people, yes. The thinking is without multiple kegs, house parties (the declared enemy of PACE) will not get out of control, less people, less drinking, less problems. However what they do not seem to understand is that beer is their friend, it has a low alcohol content, it cannot be drunk in quantities large enough to be dangerous easily. By making kegs harder to come by, its not hard to think of viable alternatives like cheap handles of hard liquor. Unlike beer kegs, a bottle of vodka is can be mixed into drinks only god knows how strong and can be drunk extremely quickly. Shots, shooters, and very strong drinks are extremely hard to keep track of. One may never know how much they had to drink only drinking vodka, rum, Jack, and god knows what else. Injury and hospitalizations due to alcohol can only go up by discouraging beer drinking. Also as, you remember, the police has full right to inspect the records kept by the liquor stores at any time without any cause. Clearly its not hard to imagine an officer spending an hour on a Friday afternoon, listing all the addressed to drive around and inspect. Having a keg should not be considered probably cause, it reeks of extreme judgment and privacy invasion. No commercial transaction should be a handed over to any law enforcement official without some kind of investigation; this is not right and it frightens me that they think this is a legitimate way to curb drinking.

The police departments in Madison had even dropped their support for Keg registration days before it was voted on, and failed to pass after that. When it would seem campus was safe from PACE’s keg laws, the District 9 alderman of the City of Madison has reintroduced the bill to what end I cannot fathom. His district includes no part of campus or surrounding neighborhoods, what he could possibly want out of the keg registration, especially without the support from the Madison police officers who will be enforcing the law, is anyone’s guess. Maybe he should spend more time worrying about his neighborhood than meddling with students’ lives.

It amazes me how much influence PACE, an organization who clearly does not have the students’ best interest at hart, who have repeatedly failed to make any progress to their group’s goals, continue to be able to influence the legislation drafted and voted upon by the Madison legislators. Last Thursday an article appeared in the news paper that showed a typical interaction of the people of Madison, bar owners, and PACE.

A quote follows:
“The starter yelled, “Go!” and nine 96 oz. glass boots filled to the brim with beer were lifted from the bar and pressed against the lips of nine patrons.

Just a few minutes later, the team “Uhhhh, drink?” narrowly edged out “Sir Chuck Norris and His Mustache Riders” in a team speed drinking contest held Wednesday night at Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry on North Frances Street.

As Dotty’s gave free french fries to the participants and as the bar calmed down from the cheers and screams of the contest, Dotty’s manager Rachael Stanley looked out across the Wednesday night crowd occupying the warmly-lit room and smiled.

“This is fun!” she said. “This was successful.”

However, some city officials would not agree with Stanley.

According to representatives of the Policy Alternative Community Education project, Wednesday night’s contest represented the side of Madison’s culture that needs to change.

Earlier this week, Sue Crowley, coordinator of the organization, spoke with Stanley and asked her to call off the event.

“We’re putting a lot of resources in trying to change the culture of this community that the only way to have a good time is to drink,” Crowley said in a phone interview. “This contest sends the message to students that it’s okay to drink as much as you can.””

Why the hell does drinking have to be a bad thing? Drink as much as you want, as much as you can, have a good fucking time, your not hurting anyone. How do people so clearly disconnected with the population of voters can possibly hope to achieve their aims, or stay in positions of power long enough to do this kind of damage.

I'm glad at least three people agree with me on this

Tried to dig this up eariler...

2006-02-20T13:37:00.000-06:00

Hollywood hates you. They hate Tivo users, they hate people with DVD burners, they hate people with children who make backups of Disney DVDs for when the kids scratch the original Toy Story 2. They hate consumers who want options.

DRM vs. fair use, and why you're caught in the crossfire

Goddamn, it keeps getting better...

Movie studios may be moving against region encoding hacks, other exploits

The RIAA wants your soul.

2006-02-15T16:48:00.000-06:00

Technology news that everyeone should be concerned about

My first non-retaliatory post

2006-02-15T12:39:00.000-06:00

Ah. Video games. Master of my spare time, and a portion of it that should have been spend on making my elementary school book reports better.

Most of you won't relate to this on a personal level but you have some kind of similar feelings for something, like I dunno. Cars. How you lament the day when GM stopped making cars that people were proud to drive (too young to know if they ever did), or how the new lines of a 2005 Mustang make you weep and pine for a 67 Shelby GT.

There once was a time when people would crowd around an 12" tv disconnect the tv's rabbit ears and play Mario, humming along with a melody composed of a beeps and boops by a 4 fingered keyboardist.

That day has gone and the video game industry has gone to shit. Almost, entirely gone to shit. Until recent years I couldn't figure out how to walk into a Babbage's or Funcoland without walking out with something new. Half the NES games I have today I "borrowed" from my cousins (they never got any of them back, and I still play those games today). My friends decided who's house to go over to based on which game we decided to play. Everything was good in our 8 and 16 bit universe.

Then came along the Playstation. Sony, a new comer to the video game console scene. Just as Sega was realizing it was going to die a slow punishing death at the hands of Nintendo and their quality games, innovative controllers and lovable characters (Not to say Sonic wasn't cool). l The Playstation product announcement was premiered on MTV. Which as we all know, hardcore gamers watch religiously. MTV, the monolithic beast that has nearly singlehandedly destroyed music in my lifetime.

It was designed to play games on CDs. Holy shit. WOW. This was going to be awesome, think of how great the games are going to be on this thing, Cds hold so much storage space (more on this later). Turns out optical media means things like "Loading..." screens. I cannot tell you how much time I spend looking at that screen playing games. Its the bane of the casual gamer. What games do people play when they are short on time? Tetris, Minesweeper and Harts, because you dont have to wait for 3 company logos to come and fade, then wait for the game to "load." I would guess I've stared at a "Loading..." screen damn near 20-40 hours of my life waiting to play a game from optical media. And don't forget how easily a CD can get scratched, there is a $35-50 opps right there. And to top it all off, you now had to paid another $30-40 to save your games. Wonderful. Was the Playstation any better than a N64? Not really, but you could play your CDs on it! And thus the N64, an extraordinarily innovative system with an amazing controller (the PS controller was essentially a rip off the SNES) was outsold by a Sony creation because it doubled as a CD player.

Another issue with optical media based games, (cds on the Playstation, dvds on PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360) is the capacity is wholly unnecessary. The Game Cube, Nintendo's first console to use a non-cartrage delivery method, is a 1.5" dvd. And make no mistake, all the cross platform games fit on the GameCube disks. The vast majority of PS2/Xbox games fit on 3Gb or less. All that extra space is wasted and makes the console outlandishly bulkier when compared to a GameCube; but cheaper to produce (and yet marketed at a higher price).

First to market this last generation, the Playstation 2 ran under the same concept as the PS, it could be your DVD player too! The Xbox from Microsoft also comes into play here. And this is really where the videogame industry goes insane. Nintendo continues to maintain its celler-dwelling sales numbers with once again, an amazing console every bit as capable as the PS2 and XBox, with once again, the most well designed controller (The PS2 controller is identical to the PS controller, and the Xbox controller was redesigned based on huge negative feedback from gamers), but doesn't play DVDs and can't rip your music cds to be used as soundtracks for racing games. The industry is now more focused on the pissing contest between Sony and Microsoft as to who can perform the most operations per second, a statistic completely worthless to making games that are actually interesting with high replay value. Most of this is done publicly at E3. E3 (the biggest most important industry convention) is now filled with booth babes because they appeal to the gamer who is swayed by the bigger numbers. How that became the case, I blame EA, because most of them are selling Madden 200x from a company that used to make good games and now supports itself by purchasing small innovative companies, all their licensees, and shitting out a new version of Madden, NBA Live, and NCAA Basketball every 12 months, and Sony/MS because they know they can't compete with Nintendo on quality.

In college, I found myself in the dorms, shocked and amazed at the people now spending their time playing video games: Jocks, meatheads, and fratboys. These people frighten me, they buy up those Roster Update 2006 titles the day they come out and sign up for the Madden tournament sponsored by Miller at your local tavern. Most of them own only that one game. These are the people driving sales of dull, played out games, forcing innovative, unique games to become "nitch market," "cult classic" games.

Through the 2000-present period, with all the glitz and "improved graphics" of modern games, there have been casualties in the console wars. Replay value has diminished significantly. I find myself pumping Mario 3 through 5.1 speakers far more often then shooting drug dealers and miscellaneous mobsters in the latest Grand Theft Auto simply because the games are boring. They offer very little potential to become classics. How many games from the Playstation era are going to be considered must-play? How many people can think back fondly on the hours wasted playing Grand Theft Auto, how about Contra? Mario Kart?

The PS2 and Xbox have offered gamers extraordinarily little as far as innovative game play; and you would think with those powerful processors they argue over, one would expect better AI, which is not to be found. The most recent Metal of Honor nazis as just as stupid as the peons in GoldenEye. The games are no more challenging then they ever had been; and the "difficulty" settings almost never change how the NPCs react, the game only lets you find less ammo and health packs to make it "harder". The only evidence of slightly increased AI from the last/current generation of consoles is Halo's aliens. On the higher difficulty levels, the aliens can be smarter than the average player. However they also make the damage you take far greater as well and that doesn't count as any kind of solution to a pervasive problem plaguing all platforms.

Sony and Microsoft's solution to this problem has been to stick their head in the sand; oh and they offer online play for a subscription fee. You buy the hardware, the games at $50 a pop and then a few more bucks every month so you can play against other humans without picking up a phone or any effort at all for that matter. Lovely. All the connection issues of a LAN event without all the hassle of enjoying people's company.

So the new paradigm for this latest console wars is graphics, already the Xbox 360 made waves saying all games will have surround sound and up to 1080i HD quality visuals, and the PS3 claims it will deliver 1080p (as of the time of writing current evidence says Sony will miss this mark). What is the matter with that? Compare GoldenEye to Halo, Resident Evil 4, etc. We're hitting a wall. They can't possibly look that much better, and reviewers do not recommend anyone with a standard definition TV to get a xbox360 yet, the graphics improvements just don't exist over a composite video cable. And unless you get the "premium" package, you have to buy the HD cables separately. Hows that for customer appreciation? I can't see how that bodes well for a full bundle which can cost as much as a modest HD tv that it needs to be attached to.

Maybe I got it wrong though maybe the new crux of the industry is the new "will play your cds/dvds" feature of the game industry, interpolarity with the home PC. Today's TVs look a lot more like computers and computers are looking more like TVs, is your console's pc/internet connectivity the new main function? I can only hope it isn't. The only true video game company left is Nintendo, who has forever operated on the model "its all about the games." Sony and MS never seem to grasp this, but then again neither does the current average gamer apparently.

The one thing I will say is a positive about the video game industry in the last 5-6 years is the sports game evolution. The only sport game I have ever enjoyed before NHL 2003 was NBA Jam T.E. on the Sega Genesis. Perhaps thats where the influx of meatheads have come from, and if thats true I'd gladly trade the back the improved sports games for what used to be important to the majority of video gamers. The huge boom of game devlopers' budgets, player numbers and social awareness of video games has only lead to booth babes, high profile hollywood licensed generic movie games, a shift in the focus from quality, replay value and innovation to 'bling', 'glitz', a quick profit, unnecessary sequels, and higher prices of consoles, games, and the required "accessories"

2006-02-15T10:19:00.000-06:00

Based on some feedback...

My last entry has nothing to do me trying to build some kind of stable coherent argument. Its just a big fuck you to anyone who can't keep thier disparaging opinions to themselves. If your promoting your own disapproval of the personal, private lives of other people, you should shut the fuck up and worry about yourself.

Struck by my own moral indeciency

2006-02-14T12:25:00.000-06:00

Once again, Beckstrom, an opinion editor/writer for the Badger Herald, has found a way to get under my skin extraordinarily quickly. Her article is linked : "Open relationships have drawbacks" However, as we have seen before, her article headline, isn't always accurate. Her article is far better characterized by the front page blurb "Valentine's Day advice: monogamy the only healthy relationship."

I cannot contain any semblance of calm writing here because I can only ask, Who the hell does this bitch think she is? How does one get to the point where one thinks, "Well I'm just so damn right about everything all the time I should start telling everyone else what to do"

Same format as last Beckstrom article...

"Back in the day, we had a name for those who defied the definition of monogamy. They were called swingers. But today, it seems the rules have changed and the prevalence of open relationships has increased significantly."

As you can see from the article if you chose to read it yourself, there is no point made after this. I can only assume Beckstrom finds the word itself evil and immoral, "swinger," did it send a shiver down your spine? Me neither.

"But a better definition may be cheating without the guilt.

Over the past few years, the social stigma of engaging in polyamory has greatly subsided on college campuses — and this university is no exception. It is a common occurrence for someone to proclaim this so-called “relationship” status on Facebook or to engage in a sexual rendezvous with another person while in a supposed relationship."

Cheating, by definition, implies an other party be unaware of the situation, can it be cheating if the other party knows, or *gasp* is in the same room witnessing the cheating?! Beckstrom did get one thing right, "polyamory" as she so clinically puts it, has degraded from some weird social sigma to a common occurrence. And monogamy is declining, and why shouldn't it? Should we go back to the way it was "back in the day" as she says? Should we start hanging black people on a whim again? Take away women's right to vote? Burning wiccans, protestants and schizophrenics at a stake? Cultures don't move backwards, they evolve. It's possible to see resurgence of movements and ideas, but its never the same phenomenon again.

"Maybe the Kinsey Report was the start of this deviation from traditional values. But the prevalence of open relationships was precipitated by something more."

Or many shows like "Who wants to marry a millionaire, or "The Bachelorette" have so eroded our concept of marriage and the social tradition of dating and relationships, that views like yours no longer apply to a post 1960s America.

"The back cover promises a book that will “introduce you to the open marriage concepts — trust, liking, role flexibility, individual freedom and growth, and love and sex without jealously — that can do wonders for your marriage.”
Somehow, I’m not buying it."

Who said you have to? Why do you think because you don't like something, we all have to follow suit? This is the crux of any argument I've ever had with conservative view points; why do you care what other people do so much?

"There are obvious health concerns for engaging in an open relationship for all participants involved. Having multiple sexual partners greatly increases the probability of contracting a sexually transmitted disease and becoming pregnant. But there are other problems for those who engage in this lifestyle."

Contraceptives and STD prevention is a fact of life in this country. Statistically for a couple to become pregnant while using a condom and some flavor of 'the pill" is near 0.12% I am not a betting man, but I'm positive I'll take those odds. The "other problems" mentioned here are never discussed, only mentioned to exists, kinda like Bush's WMDs.

"More importantly, how can one consider an open relationship to be, in fact, a relationship? Normally, a relationship requires a commitment between two people. If this doesn’t exist, then what differentiates an open relationship from mere dating — or friends with benefits? I’m drawing a big blank. Nonetheless, using the word “relationship” to define the aforementioned association diminishes the significance of a monogamous relationship between two people."

Languages, like culture, are ever evolving. Deal with it. However her definition is incorrect. An open relationship is one where two people share a deep connection as traditional relationship does, the "other people" are periphery, non-essential, unnecessary.

"Intimacy can only come when two people can engage in sex knowing there are not other sexual partners on the side. Sex is meant to be a bond that brings two people together — which is why waiting until marriage is the ideal situation."

I can't even decide where to begin with this last statement. Clearly even to the more conservative people, like Beckstrom, sex IS important. However it is impossibly dumb to get hitched and then find out if you enjoy having sex with your husband or wife. What if you can't stand it? What then? I guess I'll just not enjoy sex for the next 50 some odd years after waiting 20-30 years to have it? I don't fucking think so. I need no more evidence than can be found here here, and here. If you want an marriage to last, you better damn-well know if your compatible before you get married.

"Rather, sex is frequently used to either fulfill some mere physiological desire for both sexes or satisfy the lustful mind of an inebriated male after his beer goggles are firmly in place following a night out. It is disheartening to see so many people relegate sex to “it’s just sex.”"

Is she blaming men or finding another outlet for her anger against beer? I can't really tell, in case its the former, just remember, girls get beer-goggles too.

"A question I have, though, is if someone can’t be monogamous before marriage, who is to say they will practice monogamy within the bounds of matrimony? If people are accustomed to relationships without a commitment to remain faithful to one another (i.e. open relationships) during their dating years, why would marriage be any different?"

What makes you think that rational, sound decision making adults who are accustomed to open relationships WOULD NOT be ok with doing something they have done their whole adult lives? Clearly we've seen words change meaning, importance, connotations, and definitions all in this entry, so why would we keep a rigid definition of marriage here? Its a word. It can be changed, there used to be a point in time where a divorce was a shameful affair, that wasn't talked about, and embarrassing for all parties involved; now we televise "Divorce Court." Marriage is as special, scared, important as you make it.

"According to “The Monogamy Myth” by Peggy Vaughn, 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will break their marriage vows at some point during their lifetime — and these figures represent only those who admit to engaging in infidelity. The increasing prevalence of open relationships before marriage will not improve this statistic."

Neither will "Divorce Court."

Its my theory that open relationships evolved out of the influx of young adults going to college; specifically the students who were in relationships before leaving for higher education, and chose to go to different schools. I ask why not have an open relationship under such conditions if thats what two people want. Why not even a marriage, if two people can agree what a marriage should be, then that marriage is fine with me.
Next time you want to make yourself feel better about your high moral ground Beckstrom, keep it to yourself, especially if you want to try and ruin people's Valentine's Day.

One should note that this reactionary post does not, in fact, champion any relationship style, encourage any believe about other's values, or attempt to make people ashamed of what kind of relationship works for them. My only point is that different people find different ways to happiness and I'm glad for them, unlike Beckstrom who finds them morally remiss, sexually unhealthy, and advocate their reform to her standards.

Underage drinking hurts...

2006-02-08T12:43:00.000-06:00

..People who are underage.

There is an article in my local college paper today entitled "Underage drinking hurts economy" by Darryn Beckstrom. This girl is the Editorial Board Chair of the Badger Herald, and has been on the staff at that paper for at least a year and a half. This girl's compositions have never ceased to piss me off; so much in fact I generally try to avoid the opinion section of the paper routinely and only pick the paper up for the high quality comic strips they some how manage to keep.

I will quote excerpts for me to respond to; the article is linked here : Underage drinking hurts economy

"Wisconsin unfortunately does not have a strong dram shop law — which allows one to hold an establishment financially liable for damage a patron may cause after becoming heavily intoxicated. Yet bartenders can still be held liable for providing underage drinkers with alcohol. And taverns can also be held civilly liable for the damage caused by an underage patron if it is found that they have not checked identification with a “good faith effort.”"

So Wisconsin does the right thing by not punishing bars financially liable for overly intoxicated patrons. And the bartenders can lose their job...if they don't check for proper ID. This is the underagers fault? This is not a situation where grey area exists, the patron comes in, generally getting carded before stepping 4 ft into a bar, or at the bar by the bartender himself. The employee makes a decision from here on the validity of the ID. The patron is promptly given a drink or kicked out. If they drink and a police officer coincidentally comes in and asks for the drinkers ID and then it proved fraudulent, the offender is fined, the officer asks the bartender, "Do you check his ID?" Clearly the bartender did in this case, the employee is happy to have the underager out of the establishment.

I feel no sympathy for the bartender who get a ticket, or fired for not checking ID, or habitually letting underagers with poor IDs in. Thats simply a case of someone not doing the job they are suppose to do. How does that constitute the employee as the "victim" of the underager's crime?

Next point: According to a widely cited study by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, the costs of underage drinking are estimated at more than $58 billion annually. And this amount does not include the cost of enforcement or prevention of underage drinking.

I wont even begin to estimate how much profit is made at bars and liquor stores by underage purchases; That figure cannot possibly include "cost of enforcement or prevention of underage drinking" because the Madison police department makes no secret of the impossibility of writing as many underage drinking tickets they can; in fact they were quoted saying as such in very same paper not more than 2 day ago. Underage drinking tickets are mainly given in situations where other violations have occurred, underage drinking tickets most often are paired with disorderly conduct related tickets, the police do not spend their rounds giving Breathalyzer tests to random pedestrians on State Street.

Onward: Often, a person’s prefrontal cortex portion of their brain — which controls such functions as providing a person with the ability to use judgment and reason — does not completely develop until they reach their early 20s. This helps to explain why college students do not always make the smartest decisions. Alcohol does nothing more than retard the ability to use sound judgment and reason even more.

Her reasoning that the drinking age is 21. My only response can be; and yet with our unsound decisions, we can be entrusted to defend this nation's freedoms and the citizens who enjoy those freedoms. An 18 year old has EVERY legal responsibility that a 21 year old; and yet drinking is illegal. I'll consider 21 to be a proper drinking age only when a 20 year old doesn't have to worry about being drafted.

Continuing: Police officers were also making fewer house calls in the middle of the night to tell parents their son or daughter had been killed by a drunk driver.

I would LOVE to see where Darryrn has her numbers from.

Yet more: The Court in Dole was correct in asserting that withholding five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not increase their drinking age to 21 was not compulsion, but rather only “mild encouragement.” States can take the carrot — but by no means are they forced to eat it.

By a quick cursory google search of "federal highway funds received by Wisconsin" turned up an article that said for the construction of pedestrian walkways/ bike paths, along with highway related funds, for Wisconsin's FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT ONLY was over $60 million in federal grants. That would be $3 million in funds gone if Wisconsin decided to change its drinking age again; excuse me for being crass but "mild encouragement" my fucking underage ass.

Nearing the end: the states’ rights thinkers among us who argue the law violates the Tenth Amendment and an individual state’s autonomy should be more concerned with asking why states are even taking federal money in the first place.

It was my understanding it was the federal government's job to support the states.

Lastly: Often, underage students feel they need a fake ID to get them into bars so they can hang out with their older friends. It is unfortunate, though, that socializing on this campus needs to revolve around beer and the retched stench of fermenting yeast.

I won't even stoop down to blast the author on their apparent distaste for beer and overly personal opinion on the smell of bars and any drinking. I simply wonder why bother to end the article with such high horsed personal hatred of drinking in general rather than some kind of solution to solve the "problem" of underage drinking or alternative to it.

If you are going to decry something as a pervasive problem, offer solutions. Darryn doesn't offer anything but flimsy justification for a law that keeps thirsty people out of bars and a platform for her distaste of drinking at any age.

As a final note; I'd like to note how little this artical actually did to claim underage drinking hurts the economy, on any scale: local, regional, statewide or nationally. And how much is it mearly an unwarented defense of the current drinking laws.

The evils of facebook

2006-02-07T14:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I honestly wonder how law enforcement can be so incredibly insulting to me without ever actually coming into direct contact with me. Not more than a few minutes ago I received an email from the badgerbeat... a newsletter I am subjected to receiving for using a university email account from the UW police department. The very first order of business reads as follows...

<>Warning About Facebook
A large problem facing law enforcement today is Internet based financial fraud, one aspect of which is “phishing” where suspects obtain personal information like bank account numbers, social security numbers, and credit card information under false pretenses. Law enforcement has invested heavily in prevention strategies to help combat these crimes, attempting to educate consumers on how to safeguard sensitive information <>

Why, Oh Why Facebook?! Legitimate concerns about facebook aside, where college students of all sorts publicly display their addresses, email, phone number, classes, spring & winter break plans, interests, favorites, friends, graduating High School, and current relationship status; I find it funny to note the police alerting us to all of this obvious data-miner's dream... because campus police and school administrators all over the country have begun using Facebook as a tool to bust students. Photos submitted by themselves and their friends are being used as evidence in cases of underage drinking, and for violations such as drinking in dry dorms/campuses. Not only should this stir conflicted feelings about methods and practices of law enforcement; but I would have thought they would have had the decency to mention "Also don't post pictures of your bong or we just might kick your ass out of the dorms."

A lesson in treating fans right

2006-02-07T13:18:00.000-06:00

Ever hear about writing unsent letters to people who you have unresolved issues with? Well I made one of those the other day; but it wasn't to some childhood nemesis, or a girl who wronged me or anything like that, no indeed. This is far more personal; this is to the Athletic Department at UW-Madison...

Dear Administration,

I hope you actually listen here to what I am taking my time to write to you....

I've been a student here for a few years; and I know for a fact that large majority of the athletic fans are not going to believe me when they read in the Daily Cardinal the other day that "the athletic department appreciates student fans." I personally find that to be outrightly contradictory to the actions of the department since I've been here.

If the athletic department cared about the student fans, you wouldn't have floated "speculation" of a price hike in student tickets. What I think you did was allow that to reach the student body early so we would simply roll over when it officially became the fact that it is.

Hockey fans and basketball season ticket holders alike would not have to wait outside in the cold, scrambling to get groups together after hearing of the 'suddenly decided' ticket distribution date; holding only towels and hopefully a a warm jacket to keep us from getting sick at night. In the 2003-04 hockey season, which was predicted to be a rebuilding year (read: not a large draw) we were offered shelter inside the last night along with some
juices/bagels in the morning as a thank you for being diehard fans. As the predicted successful 2004-05 and 2005-06 years came, we students were left literally out in the cold and kicked out of line for having pillows under the guise of some insultingly thin cover story about camping laws, and class attendance rates. I can not possibly fathom why these decisions were made other than we simply were not worth your time and effort because the badgers were going to have a good season and we'd show up anyways. Which brings me to the ultimate support for that argument, the basketball program.

If the athletic department cared about student basketball fans, there would be a much larger student section, with more seats available for your biggest fans. However this is not the case as the athletic department would rather non-student tickets be sold in their place at a much higher profit margin. I would in fact, have seen more than one badger basketball game in the last 3 seasons, if the athletic department actually wanted more students at the games. The only game I did see was made possible by a friend on Iowa's basketball team. When student season tickets sell out, and they seem to do so often and quickly, and the demand is so high for student tickets, one would think the athletic department would expand the student section; but since that hasn't happened the lottery system continues to keep a growing number of students out of experiencing badger games.

Its was my belief that the athletic department was suppose to help promote badger athletics FIRST to the students here today who become the alumni members of tomorrow. But it would seem to me that the athletic department if far more concerned with keeping the Kohl Center's seats filled with the heaviest wallets than helping create a solid, unflinching core student base regardless of our teams success rates. We may not stop attending games today or tomorrow but know I wont be the only one not coming back for more if you continue to treat students like this.