Extremely Lame

People always complain about the nanny state in the United States, the grotesque amount of video surveillance that goes on in the United Kingdom, and the love of censorship that’s seemingly inherent in Australia’s government. I think we may have found something more onerous than any of those. Congratulations, Australia, you’ve finally made it to the big time.

Apparently, the Australian government is in negotiations with the U.S. music industry to broker a deal where you could be thrown in jail “for being in possession of commercial-scale quantities of copied music” when you come into Australia and are forced to give up your laptop and iPod for inspection.

[Read more →]

The other day I got lambasted at a gathering because I and another philosophy geek were discussing existentialism. People who weren’t even part of the discussion overheard us and because they thought that we were talking about religion, we were not-so-politely told to shut up because religion and politics aren’t  appropriate for “polite conversation,” never [...]

[Read more →]

It’s as if the spirit of Rudy Giuliani has been summoned to the land of the snow birds. A man in Orlando has rented several billboards to promote his CD and website, which also encourages people to not vote Democrat. Okay, fine, whatever. It’s dumb and a cheap marketing ploy. The bonus is that he’s invoking 9/11 to encourage you to vote for Republicans.

[Read more →]

At the beginning of the year, I was really excited about this election cycle. Several months later, I’ve not only lost my excitement, but I’ve pretty much gone to dreading it. By now it seems that no matter who wins, we all lose.

[Read more →]

I think this article deserves one of the many many facepalm macros living out there on the tubes. Seriously.
A pair of Vietnamese valedictorians have caused quite the uproar in the bayous of Louisiana. During one of the girl’s speeches, she decided to honor her parents with a single utterance directed toward her parents in a [...]

[Read more →]

I just finished reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, so maybe I’m a bit paranoid of the government right now, but even if I hadn’t, I think this has BAD IDEA written all over it.
Buried deep in a Senate bill for housing financing reform created because of the subprime adjustable rate mortgage crisis, there’s a [...]

[Read more →]

McCain has been irritated that Obama keeps saying that he’s running for Bush’s third term and that he’s trying to run against Bush and not McCain. McCain says that couldn’t be further from the truth. ORLY?

It’s McCain 2008 vs. McCain 2005! McCain 2008 says that he’s nothing like George W. Bush. McCain 2005 says that [...]

[Read more →]

This is just classy. While the rumor of there being some tape of Michelle Obama using the term “whitey” has been around for a couple weeks, it’s gotten worse since Tuesday when Obama locked up the nomination. It reached critical mass yesterday when Barack Obama was asked about it by a reporter. Until then, it [...]

[Read more →]

According to the Urban Dictionary, the nonpology is “an insincere apology or expression of regret, often blaming the aggrieved party for being offended or bringing up an irrelevant topic to distract.”

While that’s a pretty succinct definition, I think that it’s leaving some nuance out of it, especially with regard to recent trends in nonpologies. The most recent nonpology comes from Vice President Cheney, after his comments where he said that he had Cheneys on both side of his family tree, and that he wasn’t even from West Virginia.

[Read more →]

Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld part of a child pornography law that required five year mandatory sentences for leading people to believe you owned child pornography regardless of whether you actually had any or not. I’d provide quotes, but since it’s an AP article, they’d want $17 for me to do so.

[Read more →]