Yes, and Zappa also predicted, in the liner notes to his double-album "Joe's Garage," a future state of "total criminalization," in which every single average citizen would be forced by increasingly crazy and complex laws to be a criminal, subject to arrest an incarceration at will by the government. This is clearly another deliberate step in that direction.
"I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches -- its upholders as well as its defiers."
The cops and border guards will have an irresistible temptation before them. Your little nephew wants an iPod for Christmas? Don't bother buying one, just confiscate the first new-looking one that you see sitting in a car coming over the border. Welcome to the Third World.
I guess the thing to do would be delete all music from the iPod before hitting the border, and then afterward put it all back on. Maybe have it backed up on a couple of DVD-Rs stashed in the trunk.
"I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department." -- Joseph McCarthy, who was never, ever compelled to show anyone the list or provide one shred of evidence to support any of his claims, and who, to this day, enjoys the posthumous support of dumbasses all across America.
Sorry to get all political, but for what we're paying to be in Iraq we could build one of these things every single day. Imagine a country full of cancer-fighting particle accelerators, two or three in every state.
I believe you are exactly right. "Outing" corrupt public officials in China is, in and of itself, a punishable crime, for which people are jailed and tortured, and I'm sure this "website" is only an attempt to root out those with the temerity to do so in order to round them up and imprison them.
This would be a great way to silence activists and critics of governmental administration. Just have a chopper pilot say he was hit by a green laser, send cops to the activist's house, plant a green laser there, and BINGO, activist goes to prison for twenty years and is bankrupted by a 1/4-million-dollar fine. Everybody wins! Well, okay, not everybody.
See, if they start a religion based on this new model, then people will feel uncomfortable criticizing it or attempting to disprove it, and it can stay a viable alternative theory forever!
Oh, I'm sorry, you're right, in Iran, they are also partial to stoning, and raping female prisoners who are virgins in order to insure that they "don't go to heaven." A lovely, lovely people with a rich, lush cultural heritage.
I hear the computer is busy right now calculating how many public lashings an 11-year-old girl should receive before she is hauled up into the sky by her neck and strangled to death for allowing a group of adult Iranian males to forcibly rape her.
What we have here is yet another diabolical attempt to further criminalize common activities, the purpose of which is to have more and more reasons to punish pretty much anyone the authorities feel they'd like to punish.
They'll have something on everyone, eventually, and if you step out of line politically you'll be off to prison for some law you didn't even know it would be possible for you to be in violation of.
I worry that the entire concept of Public Domain will eventually be written out of copyright law, and exclusive rights to existing Public Domain works, such as The Bible, Huckleberry Finn, and The Wizard of Oz, will be auctioned off to the six mega-media conglomerates.
It sounds insane, but have you looked at the laws being pushed through the US Congress these days? They're little more than corporate wish lists written in legalese.
I remember this scene from the movie Radio Days, where the lower-middle-class family at the center of the story is out shopping, and they encounter one of the star contestants on the radio show "Whiz Kids," who is shopping with his own family.
The narrator's star-struck father suddenly becomes incensed that his own son is such a mediocre nobody, swatting the boy with his hat and hissing something like, "Why the hell can't you be like him, huh? HUH?"
And the thing that made the scene kind of painful for me to watch was knowing that the son could be just like the "whiz kid," if his own parents gave a damn about anything he was doing, which, of course, they didn't.
One thing you can say about the Soviets, they had among their ideals equality between the sexes.
In one of the paintings there's a woman standing next to a man, and they're both wearing the same outfit and appear to be equals in the space endeavor, which is a far cry from how space exploration was portrayed in the USA, with only white men permitted to go anywhere near a spaceship.
1. Pretend to give a crap about something someone is doing with your music 2. Sue the person or invite a camera crew to watch you hand-deliver a cease-and-desist order 3. ???? 4. Profit!
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and Zappa also predicted, in the liner notes to his double-album "Joe's Garage," a future state of "total criminalization," in which every single average citizen would be forced by increasingly crazy and complex laws to be a criminal, subject to arrest an incarceration at will by the government. This is clearly another deliberate step in that direction.
"I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches -- its upholders as well as its defiers."
The cops and border guards will have an irresistible temptation before them. Your little nephew wants an iPod for Christmas? Don't bother buying one, just confiscate the first new-looking one that you see sitting in a car coming over the border. Welcome to the Third World.
I guess the thing to do would be delete all music from the iPod before hitting the border, and then afterward put it all back on. Maybe have it backed up on a couple of DVD-Rs stashed in the trunk.
Oh, absolutely. I just realized last year on my 40th birthday what dirty rotten scoundrels the governments are. Totally ruined my party.
Space Hookers and Space Cocaine Dealers...
Just reading that a sequel to the HHG2G game was found got me choked up a little. Guess that makes me weird.
"I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department." -- Joseph McCarthy, who was never, ever compelled to show anyone the list or provide one shred of evidence to support any of his claims, and who, to this day, enjoys the posthumous support of dumbasses all across America.
That reminds me of this Carol Lay comic strip: http://www.salon.com/comics/lay/2008/01/11/lay/
And I've been using a similar product for years at the supermarket. They're called coupons. These people basically patented coupons, then?
I can't tell you how glad I am to know that I'm not the only one. I was, like, "Lose interest in WHAT?"
What is it about the phrases "business executives" and "behind bars" that, when used in the same sentence, tend to make my nipples tingle?
Sorry to get all political, but for what we're paying to be in Iraq we could build one of these things every single day. Imagine a country full of cancer-fighting particle accelerators, two or three in every state.
The word 'Rectal' didn't seem out-of-place, as these companies are known for delivering their messages that way.
I believe you are exactly right. "Outing" corrupt public officials in China is, in and of itself, a punishable crime, for which people are jailed and tortured, and I'm sure this "website" is only an attempt to root out those with the temerity to do so in order to round them up and imprison them.
This would be a great way to silence activists and critics of governmental administration. Just have a chopper pilot say he was hit by a green laser, send cops to the activist's house, plant a green laser there, and BINGO, activist goes to prison for twenty years and is bankrupted by a 1/4-million-dollar fine. Everybody wins! Well, okay, not everybody.
See, if they start a religion based on this new model, then people will feel uncomfortable criticizing it or attempting to disprove it, and it can stay a viable alternative theory forever!
Oh, I'm sorry, you're right, in Iran, they are also partial to stoning, and raping female prisoners who are virgins in order to insure that they "don't go to heaven." A lovely, lovely people with a rich, lush cultural heritage.
I hear the computer is busy right now calculating how many public lashings an 11-year-old girl should receive before she is hauled up into the sky by her neck and strangled to death for allowing a group of adult Iranian males to forcibly rape her.
What we have here is yet another diabolical attempt to further criminalize common activities, the purpose of which is to have more and more reasons to punish pretty much anyone the authorities feel they'd like to punish.
:(
They'll have something on everyone, eventually, and if you step out of line politically you'll be off to prison for some law you didn't even know it would be possible for you to be in violation of.
What a fun world that will be.
This whole Vista thing reminds me of "New Coke" back in the '80s. I don't think even Bill Cosby can turn this ship away from the rocks.
I worry that the entire concept of Public Domain will eventually be written out of copyright law, and exclusive rights to existing Public Domain works, such as The Bible, Huckleberry Finn, and The Wizard of Oz, will be auctioned off to the six mega-media conglomerates.
It sounds insane, but have you looked at the laws being pushed through the US Congress these days? They're little more than corporate wish lists written in legalese.
I remember this scene from the movie Radio Days, where the lower-middle-class family at the center of the story is out shopping, and they encounter one of the star contestants on the radio show "Whiz Kids," who is shopping with his own family.
The narrator's star-struck father suddenly becomes incensed that his own son is such a mediocre nobody, swatting the boy with his hat and hissing something like, "Why the hell can't you be like him, huh? HUH?"
And the thing that made the scene kind of painful for me to watch was knowing that the son could be just like the "whiz kid," if his own parents gave a damn about anything he was doing, which, of course, they didn't.
One thing you can say about the Soviets, they had among their ideals equality between the sexes.
In one of the paintings there's a woman standing next to a man, and they're both wearing the same outfit and appear to be equals in the space endeavor, which is a far cry from how space exploration was portrayed in the USA, with only white men permitted to go anywhere near a spaceship.
Sorry, the name "Harmony" means "perpetual joke vampire character on Buffy" to me.
1. Pretend to give a crap about something someone is doing with your music
2. Sue the person or invite a camera crew to watch you hand-deliver a cease-and-desist order
3. ????
4. Profit!
Do any of the Apple Shareholders speak jive? Where's June Cleaver?! (I think the word is supposed to be "jibes")