Claire's blog

Well, it was really 4/29/2006 by the time they finally started playing. I was falling asleep while watching the previous band. We were very bored.

Carolyn made a better blog about the show:

http://carolyncasl.wordpress.com/2006/04/29/agent-orange/

1. Miserlou (i think)
2. Everthing Turns Grey
3. Too Young To Die
4. No Such Thing
5. A Cry For Help In A World Gone Mad
6. It’s All A Blur
7. Voices In The Night
8. I Kill Spies
9. Secret Agent Man
10. Police Truck (by Dead Kennedys)
11. Breakdown
12. El Dorado
13. Living In Darkness
14. Bloodstains (Original Version)
15. The Last Goodbye

Well, Wednesday we saw They Might Be Giants at the 9:30 Club. Good times. I found a setlist from setlist.com, a good site that meets a definite demand. (more…)

I sometimes rent PS2 games like netflix. I haven’t done it in over a year, but I was thinking about catching up on some of the newer releases. So I researched all the online rentals, to find out which ones are most efficient for my needs. Here are teh results.

PS2: DVD Avenue: $5.6-$7/slot, 2-8, 3=$6.66, 4=$6.25, 6=$5.80

PS2: RedOctane: $8.00 /slot, 2-3 ($8/slot@5or3,$9/slot@2)
THINK THEY SUCKED BEFORE

PS2: Intelliflix.com: $8.33 /slot, 3, + $5/rental for extra slots,
DUE DATES but MORE CENTERS THAN NETFLIX

PS2: RentZero: $9.33 /slot, 2-3 ($10/slot@2)

PS2: GameFly: $10.00 /slot, 2-3 ($11/slot@2)

PS2: RENTZERO.COM: $10.00 /slot, 2-3, USA CO

PS2: NUMBTHUMB.COM: $10.00 /slot, 2

PS2: GetAnyGame: $10.00 /slot, 2,
can submit own games to be rented for $2/pop

PS2: TriggerFingers: OUT OF BUSINESS! NO SITE!
My previous favorite! 5@$30
(Used for several months, have shirt)

PS2: AngelGamer: OUT OF BUSINESS!

PS2: MyGreenMonster: NO SITE

PS2: RentaGame: NO SITE

PS2: VeeGeeZ: NO SITE

PS2: Gplay/GoVoJo: BAD SERVICE!! NO GO[VOJO]!!
(Have used for a few months in the past)

Vicky sent me this one.  She said (emphasis added):

I thought this article was interesting. 
I guess I could sort of see the source of the judge's logic, but still it's weird.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12501285/

They were perfectly comfortable with giving him .5 years jail for helping to kill a girl.  But writing about selling pot — they add on 7.5 years. 

So does that mean writing about selling pot is 15 times worse than helping kill a girl? … So growing pot is almost as bad as helping kill a girl, but it is no where near as bad as writing about selling it.

Yes, this is all-too-typical of the American police state.  Actually committing a crime isn't nearly as bad as thinking about it, and conspiring on paper.  It's the thought that counts — moreso than the action.  Can we say thoughtcrime?

(And yes, before anyone argues with me, I understand perfectly what conspiracy laws are.)

I had heard about this many months ago, but another fascinating article on the new technology that allows you to "see" through your tongue.  Blind people catching balls.  Thanks to their tongue.  Crazy stuff.  I really want to experience it:

Read the article HERE.

“MARIJUANA – What Would Jesus Smoke?”, originally uploaded by ClintJCL.

In the form of a motivational poster.

What Would Jesus Smoke?, originally uploaded by ClintJCL.

That's what.

Recently at Carolyn’s 30th Birthday party, a handful of us reminisced about the “We Have No Balls Story”.  A number of years ago, maybe even a decade ago, we were driving to Ocean City, Maryland when we passed a gas station with a marquee sign that proudly proclaimed:

WE HAVE
SNOW
BALLS!

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the S and the W fell off?” someone asked (I believe it was Jeremy Turner). (more…)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/19/cops.acquitted.ap/index.html

As usual, when police do things like this, they almost always geta way with it. Even the mayor is protesting on this one. But as long as American juries are filled with American sheep that are so patriotic that they respect authority automatically, they will rule in favor of the police even when they are wrong.

Of course, it was an all-white jury as usual.

If I was bi-racial, I would not consider all-white people to be “my peers”.

Where are the L.A. Riots when you need them? Those were justified. Not the violence and killing, but the rioting and protesting. Completely justified.

This beating happened at a housewarming party. Because of course, police should always patrol parties. Police said some partygoers accused him of stealing a badge, then kicked and punched Jude, de-pantsed him, and stuck a pen in his ear as they hurled racial slurs. No badge was found.

Milwaukee is 37 percent black.

Racism is wrong.

Police brutality is even more wrong.

People allowing them to get away with it are complicit in a racist beating and deserve to be beaten themselves.

ATTENTION PERVERTS: NO DRUNK TEENS SHITTING HERE!

JUST SOBER GRANNIES EATING.

HAHA! I gave you the opposite of what you wanted! Pwned! (more…)

girder-internet-event-client %MUSICSERVER %GIRDERPORT %GIRDERPASSWORD WINAMP_PAUSE whatever
wget –spider http://%MUSICSERVER/pause (more…)

From ren&stimpy creator’s interesting blog:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/lost-episodes-of-ren-and-stimpy-sneak.html

The scenes, however, are all YouTube videos.  Utterly useless for someone who wants to keep the clips on their own computer (i.e., someone who practices self-reliance).  Unless you use the VideoDownloader Firefox extension to save the FLV files and play them with VideoLAN/VLC player.

So my buddy Compn helped me out with some direct download links for these 4 scenes:

http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
download from youtube, google, ifilm, etc etc etc just copy url and paste into it

YouTube links to the 4 scenes:

• http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=vQOF5M_M4yw
• http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=7YPrzKjFXGM
• http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=t0gQxbJGoKE
• http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=91Kvxs-O9OI

YouTube embedded players for the 4 scenes:

(If you see nothing, they didn’t work. Just follow the links instead.)

All hail Ren & Stimpy!

Still, not many people have seen the Ren & Stimpy pre-pilot from Spike & Mike’s twisted animation.  They fuck a baby’s head. 

So to all the people who complained about Ren & Stimpy Adult Cartoon Party “not being like the original Ren & Stimpy”:  YOU’RE WRONG. 

Adult Cartoon Party is far closer to the original than Nickelodeon’s watered-down versoins.  In fact, many of the episodes for SpikeTV’s Ren & Stimpy Adult Cartoon Party were actually Nickelodeon episodes that got censored out of existence!

Ren & Stimpy Adult Cartoon Party is the true realization of the artists original vision for Ren & Stimpy.  That SpikeTV only produced 6-8 episodes IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

I have spoken.

20060825 update: YouTube playable videos added directly to the post.  But they don’t seem to be working right at the moment.

Honestly, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’m tired of the “freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can run into a crowded theatre and yell fire”. I actually think that should be protected speech. This is extreme, yes.

If the idiots in the theatre trample each other in a mad rush from a fire that doesn’t even exist, it was their own stupidity and lack of clearheadedness that killed them, not the person shouting fire. If your reaction to the mere threat of danger is to hurt others, you are the culprit.

For example, think of George Costanza in the episode of Seinfeld where he throws the old ladies in their rockers to the ground in order to rush to the door. Are you going to tell me it was the messenger’s fault? NO. His behaviour was deplorable and his panic was his own fault for being a non-clear-headed individual willing to hurt others just to preserve himself.

If someone tells me there is a fire, I am going to at least look for smoke so I can figure out what direction to flee. And I am not going to trample people unless I actually see a real fire about to burn me up and it’s me or them. But trampling people just to get out when there’s no actual fire? Simply because of a panic? I think that’s far worse than yelling ‘fire’.

I know I am unique in my extreme opinion.

I think painting speech as potentially physically harmful has a chilling effect: Just look at the whole Cartoon Mohammad thing for an example of that.

“Words can hurt, so you can’t say words [or draw cartoons] that hurt.”

The censoring of Mohammad in this week’s South Park was a perfect example.

Anyway: Words don’t hurt people. People hurt people.

Learn to think for yourself, and mere words will never be able to physically hurt you.

The idea that everyone must mindlessly follow whatever words they hear, in and of itself is a dangerous idea. Should we panic just because someone told us to? No. Should we panic if the loudspeaker tells us to? Maybe. Should we panic if Fox News tells us to? Quite likely. But before you go tramping people to death (and thus tramping our free speech rights by being too much of a moron to think for yourself), consider whether you are actually on fire. Dumbass.

Edit, 9/12/2007, comment from below incorporated into this post:

Fyngyrs (http://slashdot.org/~fyngyrz) says:

“There is no harm in yelling fire. There is no harm in filing out of a building that isn’t burning, There is no harm in filing back in. These are the acts of reasonable people. In fact, the practice would do people some good. We used to do it all the time in school. The fire alarm would go off, and out we’d go, not knowing if there was a fire, or not. No one ever got trampled. The theatre owner has, as an owner of a private business, the option to no longer serve that customer. Of course, should one patron fail to file out reasonably, and in the process trample another, then a crime has been committed, that of assault by that patron upon another. The idea that it is acceptable for people to trample one another — or that it somehow “isn’t their fault” — is just one of the things that is wrong with the cliche, aside from the initial, completely incorrect, idea that one could not yell fire — or anything else — in a crowded theater. It’s socially retarded, and if it were *my* theatre, it’d be the last time you ever got in the door, but other than that, there you go. Free speech trumps all. Every time. That’s the basis of liberty.”

http://www.okgazette.com/news/templates/cover.asp?articleid=423&zoneid=7

 Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Next step, Washington?

It seems everything is a bait-and-switch conspiracy nowadays.  Give them what they think they want:

Called the “Computer Spyware Protection Act,” House Bill 2083 would create fines of up to a million dollars for anyone using viruses or surreptitious computer techniques to break on to someone’s computer without that person’s knowledge and acceptance, according to the bill’s state Senate author, Clark Jolley.

But really, make it exactly what they don't want:

That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel — Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it. Additionally, that phrase “fraudulent or other illegal activities” means they can:

• Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month.
• Let the attorney general know that you play online poker.
• Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn’t pay the state tax on them.
• Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number … etc., etc., etc.

“I think in broad terms that is still a form of spying,” said Marc Rotenberg, attorney and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

And I'd agree.

 So basically, Microsoft uses spyware as an excuse to spy on us.  Corporations manipulating lawmakers into changing the law so that our computers testify against us.

Nothing is sacred, and this is only the beginning.

First off: Write your congressman HERE: http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=46

“Agriculture Department Imposing New Program to Drive Family Farms Out of Business”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is busy implementing the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a corporate welfare program for surveillance technology companies. NAIS will drive family farms out of business, raise the price of your food, and increase red tape in nightmarish proportions.

NAIS will force owners of farm animals, even non-farmers who keep them as pets, to obtain a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) number for each animal they own. Every time an animal moves beyond the premises it is normally kept, its owner will have to file a report. If a pet goat crosses the street, a report would have to be filed.

But these rules won’t apply to corporate-owned factory farms!

They will need just one Group/Lot ID number to account for scores, even thousands of animals!

NAIS addresses a “problem” of animal disease control that current laws and agencies already cover, and its remedy is to punish innocent family farms. Factory farms are at greater risk of disease outbreaks than are smaller farms, and most contamination occurs at the slaughterhouse or later in the process.

NOTE FROM CLINT: Although DownsizeDC is a rather new political group, and could use some refinement of their press releases — they are completely on the right track with the various things they are working against.

Just in case you thought it couldn’t be worse — Attorney General Gonzales has recently been saying the Bush Administration could extend its wiretapping to all phone calls.

And yet, it can get worse.  Now it’s come out that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a brief that claims AT&T has been forwarding internet traffic directly into the hands of the NSA.

I guess no warrant is needed, if a corporation is doing the government’s dirty work, huh?

Some relevant comments I have found, by random people:

And you wonder why the feds have no problem with the AT&T monopoly getting back together? Can we file this under the “You-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-your” department?

It has been intimated in the press that George W. Bush’s illegal wire tapping went much deeper than has been admitted to. This is it. All Internet and Voice communications in the United States of America is now or was at some point being recorded by the NSA. It makes sense and it was certainly not just AT&T. Sure you can write that it was only a selected few messages or phone conversations that actually were brought to the attention of real people at NSA, probably measured in the tens of thousands out of many millions of people. But the computers, which were programmed by people, went through every message of every conversation. It is the only way to wiretap the internet in a centralized way without actually physically tapping wires.

When George Walker Bush says they only intercepted messages of terrorists and terrorist associates, it is a lie. They intercept everything and sorted it out later. What he is trying to assure you of is that they don’t really care about what you had to say unless you are plotting terrorism, which is probably largely true. But how long until such a powerful tool is directed towards lesser threats? We already know that during the 90’s NSA intercepted foreign communications regarding a civilian airbus deal were used by US government to help Boeing win European civilian contracts. How was that for a national security purpose? I am sure they went through mental hoops to think what they were doing was right. And before the mid 1970’s the FBI used domestic terrorism as an excuse to wiretap political civil rights and anti war activists when there was no reasonable expectation that these groups or individuals would resort to violence in support of their causes.

You know what the irony in this is? We make hideous fun of countries like China where this kind of thing is standard operating procedure, but when we do it, it’s supposedly to protect us from the terrorists. How does something like this come about?

There seem to be two kinds of people. Those who are willing to give up rights that don’t seem that important to them in exchange for a little extra “security” and those who don’t want to give up their rights under any circumstances.

The first group needs to wake up and realize that once you give your rights away, they are not coming back. This stuff only goes one way. The government will take every inch that is given to them (and then some) and never yield. It may not seem like such a big deal to have a national id card or to give up a few small rights (only criminals should care!), but it is a slippery slope. This is all going to snowball unless people stop it from happening now. Our rights will be slowly eroded until we’re living in a police state with no freedom.

I’d much rather risk being blown up by terrorists to be free than be safe, dumb, fat, and happy with no freedom

The FISA Law covers “electronic surveillance” and that includes email. The government is therefore prohibited from domestic eavesdropping without a warrant or FISA court order.

did anyone notice also that a republican committee recently shot down the net neutrality bill that wouldve stopped AT&T from abusing their position to extort more money from web companies?

The April 2006 edition of Atlantic Monthly has a fascinating article ( http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200604/nsa-surveillance ) about what the NSA is already doing. A subscription is required to read the whole article, though.
It’s a good read for techies since it explains (in general terms) how and what the NSA is collecting. It’s also an excellent primer for anyone who still believes that since he’s not doing anything wrong he doesn’t mind being watched.

It seems I could go on and on and on . . . .

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6058223.html?part=rss&tag=6058223&subj=news

"A Republican controlled committee has defeated a bill that would have guaranteed fair access and stopped companies like AT&T and Verizon from charging high-bandwidth sites for allowing their customers to have priority access to them."

Yes — as Stacy McMahon mentioned — the corporations are trying to create an illusion of scarcity on the internet, so that they can sell "premium" service and not carry certain websites that don't pay a bribe to them. 

The internet is supposed to be a level playing field.  ISPs should have a "common carrier" status, just as the phone companies do.  They should remain neutral with respect to the content.  Verizon should never tell me where I can or cannot surf.

If you're voting Republican and are a fan of an open internet, you're voting against your own best interests.  I hope it's worth it.  Just remember, most republicans (and most democrats too, but possibly not as many) will do anything to put more money in the hands of corporations.  This does not help you.

And the Bush administration’s trend of government secrecy and information hiding continues to continue unabated.

(Anyone remember the medical marijuana commission congress created? When they determined that, yes, it does have medicinal value, the same admistration chose to ignore the science. As usual.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502150_pf.html

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. … [There is a] danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing. … In November 2005, they agreed to issue a release on a different climate-related paper, Milly said, but “purged key words from the releases, including ‘global warming,’ ‘warming climate’ and ‘climate change.’ “… Several times, however, agency officials have tried to alter what these scientists tell the media… It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States,” he told the crowd. … “American taxpayers are paying the bill, and they have a right to know what we’re doing,” he said.

Unfortunately this is just business-as-usual from an administration that is doing everything humanly possible to ignore rational thought processes.

And don’t get me started on the immigrants. It has nothing to with racism, and everything to do with money, and knowing right from wrong. People can’t come here and drain $50 billion out of our economy when they only pay $12 billion in taxes. It should not work that way. We should not pay higher taxes to support non-citizens (who also bring the average wages down for all hard-working American citizens.)

20060511: Added some insightful comments by Greg Spaulding, but you will have to view the comments for this post to read them, as they are related to the immigration debate that exists only in the comments of this posting.

Recently, I have determined that the Irish emmigrated to Hawaii.

And became the “Hawaiirish”.

And their most common last name is O’Loha.

(Also posted here: http://oranchak.com/?p=214 )