A few remarks on stupidity, and the like...

Fueled by a strange mix of Pink Floyd, Jack's Mannequin, Diet Coke, a diner visit at midnight, and the sleep I got courtesy of having no classes until 3 pm, I have decided to post here. I also decided to remedy some issues I was having with the internet and manually transcribed every Andy Zipf song I have. SongMeanings.net has them, though I know scavengers from other sites will copy them and try to capitalize. So it goes.

Oh, and I'm currently listening to The Snoods, a band from around here that I've heard is decent. The verdict is still out but I've decided someone needs to introduce them to YES.

Now for the fun part: Fitna the movie.
I first heard about this a few days before it was apparently scheduled to be released, and thought it rather worth keeping tabs on. There's a pretty extensive network of sites who are doing the same, and, interestingly enough, they come from both sides of the political spectrum- so much so that I've been loathe to post anything regarding the film at third-party sites on principles of not wanting to support sites so radical (and in my opinion wrong).

Long story short, the film has been in production despite the creator's (He's Dutch, and I'd be butchering his name and his organization if I tried to detail them here, sorry. Too many accents.) numerous death threats and police protection. He has a domain at www.fitnathemovie.com which, until a few days before the film's release, showed a picture of the Qu'ran and the film's title (Fitna:

chaos, change, revolution, in Arabic).

It continued showing this until the server owners Network Solutions decided that might be against the Terms of Service, and so pulled it. The questions this raises are obvious. The blogosphere (bomb it!) erupts, some people volunteer to host it themselves, and the movie makes it online a few days late. I saw it at

www.LiveLeak.com. What is there now, though,

is this film, which I've screencapped. (Low-tech ftw.)

Since then copies have been floating around, torrents have gone up, etc. I've watched it, and I don't find it as oppressive or biased as some claimed it would necessarily be. My opinion on the film isn't why I was prompted to break my apparently-almost-six-month streak of neglect, though...

I'd like to point out that the price is always too high. Freedoms should be free- and that something so basic is not demands that every action possible be taken to ensure its existence.

I'm glad LiveLeak recognizes their failure, but in

doing so I think they need to look at their very

ideology and decide whether their staff (who, in theory, share the company's mission of free information distribution regardless of content*) is more important than the principles they seek to uphold. I will argue that they are not; this same reasoning explains sacrifices that have to be made. People must die in wars, the rights of few must, on occasion, be sacrificed for the greater good. Nothing that is worth holding to is going to come without the possible cost of needing to defend it with something very important to you.

I time every journey/
to bump into you/
accidentally I/
charm you and tell you/
of the boys I hate/
all the girls I hate/
all the words I hate/
all the clothes I hate/
how I'll never be anything I hate/
you smile, mention something that you like/
how you'd have a happy life/
if you did the things you like/

Also, there's a typo in the last frame- "one anothers culture," should be possessive: i.e. 'one another's culture.'

In other stupidity news, I overheard Hillary responding to some question with economic details as to how she proposes to pay for a national healthcare system. Unfortunately, I had to run to a class, so I didn't hear what those details were, but knowing that someone whispering in her ear has come up with legitimate responses means I need to re-evaluate her as a possible leader of the country. I suppose I should keep track of reasons why people would vote for all the candidates, so I can see what they're evaluating them with, but...I don't update this blog much.

Also on the stupidity front, awesome.txt is now about twice as long as it used to be. Like as not simply because now that I'm aware of having someplace to put interesting snippets I don't write them off as easily. Meh.

*I do not know LiveLink's mission statement or governing principles, or even if they have any. What I'm referring to is the implicit intent of a hosting site, especially one which believes in "freedom of speech on the net," to be dedicated to the concept of free distribution of information and views. Nowhere is it necessary to agree with the opinions that get posted.

My apologies for the formatting; I think half the reason I don't post much is because a simple WYSIWYG editor doesn't exist in Blogger. I want options for alignment and columns and for photos to have positions relative to whatever I feel like making them relative to. As ever, if I'm missing something let me know. Oh, and my ability to type dies at about seven am. I've had to rewrite almost every sentence in this things because my fingers feel dyslexic.

Lastly, I think I need to go see Travis Morisson. Next time I and he are feeling in a public mood and we're within the same metro area I'll see what I can do.