links for 2009-03-31

• VIDEO: Netflix Raising Blu-ray Prices By 20% Starting April 27th
  Still probably worth it.
  (tags: media video prices Netflix rentals BluRay increases)
• WAR ON TERROR: Officials: Torture confessions not proven useful – The Boston Globe
  Duh. I bet if someone tortured our officials long enough, we could get every single one of them to admit they are in Al Queda. :)
  (tags: politics torture GuantanamoBay WarOnTerror terrorism rights freedom DC military Washington WashingtonDC news articles war government waterboarding OverlyHarshPunishments interrogations AbuseOfAuthority CIA humanRights WhiteHouse AlQueda intelligence AbuZubaida Boston.com)
• COPYRIGHT: PRS Demands License Fee To Play Music To Horses
  You gotta love corporations that want money for you to play the damn radio on your own farm in front of your horses and/or 2 employees. Watch the dinosaurs in their death flails.

  Nevermind that real classical music is public domain. We're not even protecting the artist here, we're protecting session musicians who may have recorded it recently. You wanna get paid? Do some work. I wish I could sit back and continue to get paid for my work for 70 years. Or paint a house, and get paid everytime someone sees it.

  (tags: politics media intellectualProperty corporations UK music licenses copyright GeekPolitics FM farmers farms PerformingRightsSociety PRS MalthouseEquestrianCentre Bushton Wilts PRSForMusic FMRadio)
• SEXUAL FREEDOM: Elder and Disabled Porn Targeted By Massachusetts Lawmaker — democrats want a nanny state
  Ridiculous. I guess 60yo people aren't allowed to find porn featuring people their age. Wow. Talk about selective enforcement. First they come for the pedophiles… But like all government movements, it never stops at the first drawn line (child porn), but instead continues to creep and creep and creep. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."

  Of course this is from the Democrats who are big big fans of legislating behavior between consenting adults. Who do you think gave us smoking bans and put people in jail for 45 days for selling a bacon-wrapped hotdog in California? The nanny-state Democrats. They're as selective about human rights as the Republicans; just in a different way. Two sides of the same coin.

  (tags: politics rights freedom SexualFreedom disabled sex Democrats pornography porn Massachusetts elderly adults WarOnPorn ConsentingAdults NannyState mentalyDisabled Kathi-AnneReinstein consenting)
• MOVIES: Strange Days vs The City of Lost Children
  Cast your vote [not here].
  (tags: media video movies flickr W00tpwnage StrangeDays CityOfLostChildren)
• WAR ON DRUGS: Idiot mexican attorney-general Medina Mora vows to win drug war
  HA. HAA HAH. HAHAHA HAH AHAH AH AH AHAHAHAHAHA HAHA. Really? After 70 years of this shit, there are really people who think that a drug war can be won? Who are the fucktars idiotic enough to vote for such people?

  Anyone remember Thailand a cpl yrs back? When the cops just decided who were drug users and shot them in the back of their heads execution style? Notes sent to people telling them to report to the police station, where they were then shot?

  3000 dead. And the drug war didn't get won there. It's not going to get won in Mexico (with 1,000 dead in drug-related violence this year alone), it's not going to get won in America, and it's not going to get won in Thailand.

  Or anywhere.
  Not in our lifetimes, and not in our grandchildren's lifetimes.

  Get over it, prohibitionists. You've lost. And you've caused thousands to die or lose liberty by forcing your morals on the rest of the world. And thousands more will die because of your freedom-hating stubbornness.

  (tags: politics freedom WarOnDrugs drugs violence deaths news articles Mexico AlJazeera MedinaMora)
• GAMES: Violent Video Games Can Improve Vision
  Neat! Though a better headline might be "Action Video Games Can Improve Vision", since I don't think it's the violence that is the mechanism here…
  (tags: science news articles Slashdot studies research games contrast videoGames FPS senses UnrealTournament2004 CallOfDuty UnrealTournament TheSims TheSims2 vision contrastSensitivity)