The End of Spiderman?
Published June 25th, 2011 | 
Read a report in The Guardian about Marvel killing off Spiderman. Gotta hand it to British reporters — that they can reveal the death of a major comic book hero icon as nonchalantly as a sale on table tennis equipment is an amazing feat. Seriously, shit like this is why I stopped reading comic books. Too many comic book series with too many narrative threads. Kill a hero in Universe A so you can reboot and recon the whole thing later. It gets old after awhile. I guess it’s how they maximize sales and keep the comic book junkies hooked. But, Jesus! Spiderman? What the fuck is the point of killing off one of the most popular heroes in comics? I understand why the did the whole Death of Superman? They’d pretty much ruined that comic at the time and no one was reading it. But Spidey still rocks and there’s no way Green Goblin could take him out.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Means Nothing To Me
Published June 16th, 2011 | The other day I was reading this story about debt collectors. Basically, debt collectors are whining because they don’t get any respect. I was as bemused by this as the reporter who wrote the article seemed to be. Having had my own run-ins with debt collectors I’m not sympathetic to their plight. I recall one woman saying to me over the phone while I was still battling cancer that she “didn’t care [if I] fucking died.” Yes, debt collectors will lie, threaten, scold, berate, humiliate you. They will call your friends and relatives at home and at work. They don’t care about you or whether you even owe the debt legitimately since all you are to them is a name in a file somewhere. And they depict debtors as lazy good-for-nothing deadbeats who are trying to skip-out on paying a legitimate debt rather than unfortunate individuals who have simply fallen on hard times. While fat cats can skip town on bad investments in Branson real estate and investment bankers can blow there wads on junk investments, collect a big payday from the government as a reward for fucking up the economy that helped drive those small debtors into debt in the first place, it makes me scream when some bottom-feeding scumbag tries present themselves as a victim. Guess what? Their attempts to go on a "charm offensive" will fail.
Censoring the Search Engines
Published May 11th, 2011 |
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act? Huh? Yes, this is the current name of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) bill that sprung from Congressional hearings on the subject a short time ago. Basically, it’s a bill that, should it become law, will make it legal to ban certain sites the government decides is dangerous like torrent and warez sites. Essentially, under this law, search engines would be required to block these sites from showing up in search results.
I’m firmly against this bill. Not because I have <3 for Internet pirates, but because I think this bill sets an unhealthy precedent and goes against everything America and the Internet are supposed to be about.
When I mentioned this topic before, I said outright that the federal government has the right and responsibility to go after Internet pirates and prosecute them provided they have evidence of wrongdoing. What the government shouldn’t have the right to do is prevent Internet users from searching for any web sites even if those site promote illegal activity or unsavory ideas nor should the government have the right to monitor your search activity online.
What? Are we children, America? Should we be told what web sites we can and cannot view? Should Congress be given that much power over our lives? Hell no!
And really, there is no wholesale Insurance against intellectual property theft; any pirate who has the means to hack, steal and redistribute software and other types of intellectual property can probably figure out a way around the ban anyway, so who does this bill hurt? Average Internet users. But saying it’s okay to block one type of website, they creating the possibility of newer laws that can ban any web site the government doesn’t like.
