There is a book, Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun . The author is promoting it, with interviews at NPR and Democracy Now . It is a good story, of an innovative product and savvy marketing. Atlanta’s Gold Club, r.i.p., played a key role in this marketing. If the book is anything like the interviews, it will be a great read.
In the NPR show, there is a contradiction. Paul Barrett, the author, discusses how gun control is a dead issue. There are more guns available in America today, and crime is going down. New York is a much safer city today, than it was twenty years ago. Then, Mr. Barrett mentions that he does not own a gun. He lives in New York, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in America. Perhaps these tough laws are the reason that New York is safer?

PG found this in his inbox. A QUICK PRAYER Please do not break. Just 27 words. “G-d, our Father, walk through my house and take away all my worries and illnesses and please watch over and heal my family in G-d’s name, Amen.” This prayer is so powerful. Pass this to 12 people including me. A blessing is coming to you in form of a new job, a house, marriage, finances, or maybe an answer to something (a prayer, a request) that you have been waiting for. Do not break or ask questions.

Some well meaning facebooker put up a link, What’s Your Reggae Name? This is a simple test, using your initials to cop a reggaename. The first one to come up here is Bongo “Sticks” Bong. It then occurred to PG that his blog identity needs a last name. PG Zorlock has the reggaename Don “Ras Clot” Fyah .
This seemed like a good excuse for a post, but needs more than one paragraph. Rap Star Name will give you handles for pop, rock, and rap. PG goes by Will O’Day, Zane Reid, and Zee P. The country button is broken.
This might not be a very long post. Looking for a republican or communist name is not productive. There was something for a fantasy name, but it was too complicated to use. If PG wre a heavy metal band , he could choose from Medieval Cannibal, Infected Mantra, Pestilential Attack, or Corroded Casket. (The heavy metal generator is sponsored by Liberty University, Training champions for christ.) Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

Andrew Sullivan had an uplifting feature, the other day, about obituaries. As is his custom, he found an article at another site, threw out a juicy quote, and moved on. It is up to Chamblee54 to provide more detail, and put up pictures for the text averse. These pictures today are from the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church cemetery. This is a repost.
It is a common practice to look at the obituaries (aka “Irish sports page”) first thing in the morning. If the reader is not included, then the day can proceed as normal. This custom does not take into account the possibility that you have died, and your family it too cheap to purchase a notice.
The article in question is THE DEAD BEAT CLUB Ten things you don’t know about the obit biz. It starts off by saying that the family members are usually happy to help the obit scribe. They have stories about the recently deceased, like ” Eddie “Bozo” Miller boasted of regularly drinking a dozen martinis before lunch, yet he lived to age eighty-nine.”
Newspapers take different approaches to obituaries. Some assign rookies, or use the death beat as punishment for troublemakers. Others give the job to their best writer. The paid notices are usually written by family members, with the help of the undertaker.
Of course, there is the occasional oddball. Alana Baranick, obituary writer for Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer and lead author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers , likes to visit every municipality in the United States named Cleveland.
One oft repeated saying is that obituaries are about life, not death. As the source puts it: “The British “quality” newspapers — The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Independent, substantiate the old chestnut about obituaries being about life, not death. These papers rarely mention the cause of death, focusing instead on presenting a vivid account of a lived life. American papers have an unhealthy fixation on death. It’s common for “complications of chronic pulmonary disease” or “bile duct cancer” to show up in the story’s lede, never to resurface.”
Only one obituary has won a Pulitzer prize. ” Leonard Warren, a Metropolitan Opera baritone, dropped dead mid-performance in 1960. Sanche de Gramont (who changed his name to Ted Morgan), a young rewrite man at the New York Herald Tribune, banged out the obit in under an hour and won a 1961 Pulitzer in the Local Reporting, Edition Time, category.”
There is an The International Association of Obituarists. The headquarters is in Dallas TX, presumably near a grassy knoll. They have an annual convention, which is said to be a lively affair. The 2005 conference was in Bath, England. The 2007 conference was in Alfred NY There is also the Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
IAO was founded by Carolyn Gilbert, the lady who puts the bitch in obituary. Ms. Gilbert collaborates on a page, Remembering The Passed. RTP has a series of podcasts. They require an apple app to listen, which is too much work for PG.
Death is a part of life. Every language has a word for it, and English has a number of slang expressions. An incomplete list would include : ““passed on”, “are no more”, “have ceased to be”, “expired and gone to meet their Maker”, “are bereft of life”, “have ceased to be”, “rest in peace”, “push up daisies”, “whose metabolic processes are now history”, “are off the twig”, “have kicked the bucket”, “shuffled off their mortal coil”, “run down the curtain” or “joined the Choir Invisible”
Columbia Journalism Review (Motto: Strong Press, Strong Democracy) has a feature about Obit. “Krishna Andavolu is the managing editor of Obit an online magazine intended for those interested in obituaries, epitaphs, elegies, postludes, retrospectives, grave rubbings, widow’s weeds, and other such memorabilia of expiration. Part eulogistic clearinghouse, part cultural review, Obit purports to examine life through the prism of death. Founded in 2007 by a wealthy New Jersey architect who sensed an exploitable niche after seeing a middle-aged woman distraught over the death of Captain Kangaroo, the site is a locus for enlightened morbidity.”
OM is worth a visit. The top story features a picture of Betty Ford, who survived Breast Cancer, Alcoholism, and The White House, to die at 93. The site has an ad from Newlymaid.com, with the creative suggestion to Trade In Your Old Bridesmaid Dress & Get a New Little Black Dress.
OM has a popular feature called Died on the same day. Grim reaper recruits on July 12 include Alexander Hamilton (1804), Dolly Madison (1849), Alfred Dreyfus (1935), Lon Chaney (1973), Minnie Riperton (1979), and Mr. Butch.
No google search is complete without someone trying to make money. Obituaries Professionally Written says ” … we believe in honoring a life with respect, dignity and integrity. When needed, euphemism is used liberally. “
OPW content provider Larken Bradley says “”Obituary writing is an honor, a privilege, and great fun … I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”… After she dies she expects her obit headline will read, “Obituary Writer, Six Feet Under.”

This story is borrowed from Gartalker, who borrowed it from someone else. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn’t – so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume” The Stance.”
In this position your aging, toneless (God I should have gone to the gym!!!) thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold”The Stance”. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time).That will have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your purse,which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest,and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. “Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper -not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, ”You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get”.
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too At this point, you give up.. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket! and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, …..so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly,”Here, you just might need this”.
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men’s restroom. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?” … This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms.It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse, and hand you Kleenex under the door!

Facebook was hit by a tsunami of nouns, verbs, and adjectives yesterday, all because of the expression “tranny”. Some people, both cis-gendered and altered, do not like that word. (FYI-The word cis is the opposite of trans. A cis-gendered person is one who functions with the equipment they were born with.) Some people like tranny, and don’t care if others don’t. Esteemed elder Ru Paul is ignored. It goes on, and on, and on, and on.
A couple of passages from this snowdrift of syntax are worth quoting.
“I also don’t see how continuing to give essentially innocuous euphemisms so much power to hurt one’s own feelings is supposed to be liberatory…. And maybe it’s not even my place to have an opinion, but is it not just a stupid fucking semantic distinction? Is it really wise to make it everybody else’s job to keep you from hearing a word you don’t like because it triggers icky feelings? Doesn’t that make your happiness dependent on factors outside your own control, and ultimately frivolous ones at that? Isn’t that kinda the ultimate abdication of agency?”
“I view the contextual argument to be rather persuasive. When I was in prison most of the heteronormative population referred to me and other queers as sissys. I found that to be offensive because it was used as way or form of emasculation and thereby stripping me of equal privilege and rights in the prison industrial complexes sub culture. It was a term I denied and abhorred. Now, with the evolution of my thought processes and the de-conditioning of my overly sensitive personality I embrace the term at a level of personal empowerment and encourage its use by non heternormative peers because it is used as an identifying tool in our plight of personhood reclamation.”
PG got the memo on tranny a while back. It goes into the laundry list of language looloos, those words that polite people do not say openly. The N word, anatomical inventory, reproduction, excretion, alternate uses of all the above…. and this just gets started. The language police are everywhere, kicking ass and taking names.
While this facebook tragedy was transpiring, JoemyG-d had a related story, VANCOUVER: Transgender Activists Glitter-Bomb Dan Savage Again . You have to give Dan Savage credit for one thing…people pay attention to him. Four years ago, he wrote a sex advice column for an obscure Seattle alternative newspaper. When Prop 8 passed, he wrote a piece, commenting on the people of color who voted for it. Overnight, he was an icky racist, the poster boi for post modern political incorrectness. Here is the story.
“Dan Savage was glitter- bombed  before his appearance at The Vogue theatre in Vancouver Jan 21, the third such action against the high-profile sex columnist and political commentator in recent months. A group of six activists, who named themselves The Homomilitia for the event, said they confronted Savage as he entered the theatre through a back-alley entrance. In an interview with Xtra after the confrontation, activist Fister Limp Wrist accused Savage of “ableist, racist, transphobic, fat-phobic, sero-phobic and rape-apologist attitudes and views.” Activists handed audience members bright pink pamphlets outlining their accusations as they entered the theatre.”
Ableist, racist, transphobic, fat-phobic, sero-phobic and rape-apologist. Werq that word. This is so powerful, it doesn’t have to mention gay white male cis-gender privilege.
As this is written, there were 255 comments. Some people seem to have read all of these, and make comments on those posted later and later. The last comment, as of now, says “reading this thread has probably been the biggest waste of time of my entire JMG carreer.”
At the start of the thread are two choice items. “You don’t understand, ish. “Discuss it” is cis-male priveledge dogwhistle for “shut up”.”Many of us born male and female find the addition of the prefix “cis’ offensive… we all know who we are… we do not need you to add terms that many of us see as hateful. The funny thing is… we are accused of being phobic and using words that the Trans community does not like… yet they are comfortable using their own phobias and terms to hurt us’
Chamblee54 made one contribution to this thread. “Drew” wrote a few hundred words, describing the yukky things that Mr. Savage had written about transpeople. At 1100 pm, Chamblee54 asked “Do you have links for any of that?” This was followed by “Of course not, because if there were links, you’d go read the original source and find out that it’s either 15 years old, or a total twisting of what Dan actually said.” .
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

The Clown Scientists have found that all our problems can be placed under one heading: SERIOUSNESS! Seriousness is the leading cause of everything from Cancer to Reincarnation.
Clown Scientists, from the Clown Academy, have already discovered a new source of healing. It is a psychic energy point located between the heart chakra and the throat chakra. It is called THE CLOWN CHAKRA
If people are feeling miserable; if they have financial problems; if their relationship situation is in the pits; if they are in ill health; if they feel a need to sue people; and most importantly, if they find fault with their brother/sister, then obviously their CLOWN CHAKRA is CLOSED! When this happens, the scientists have observed under a high-powered microscope that the cells of every organ display a Sad Face. If the CLOWN CHAKRA is open, and functioning normally, the cells display a Happy Face
The scientists realized that if a person is ill, it is because their mind has projected “whatever” onto the cells of their body and FORCED OUT LOVE which is normally found in each of our 100 trillion cells. The cells are literally saying “I Lack Love” or “ILL” for short. The scientists also discovered that all disease is due to the fact the cells are “out of ease” or “dis-eased”
When the CLOWN CHAKRA is opened and working (or rather playing) properly, the psychic mechanism “sucks up” misery, pain, anger, resentment, grievances, unhappiness, etc and CONVERTS the energy into TINY RED HEART SHAPED BALLOONS which contain LOVE & JOY
These balloons are directed to the dis-eased cell or situation, and a happy face appears instantly. When the light enters the darkness, the darkness dissipates. Sometimes these red heart-shaped balloons are called ENDORPHINS, due to the fact that when anyone experiences them, the feeling of SEPARATION ends They experience being “back home” with “ALL THAT IS” and hence no longer an orphan. This is the well know “end orphan effect” hence END OR PHIN!
So if you think someone is attacking you, Clown Scientists recommend that you visualize sending that person red heart-shaped balloons filled with Love & Joy. Remember to keep your CLOWN CHAKRA OPEN and remember to LAUGH
This message is a recycled email, not a red heart shaped balloon full of love and joy. The clown scientist is Philip Princetta. He will be in Atlanta this March. Pictures for this message today are from The Library of Congress .

An English-Arabic site called “Free Iraq” has a story, How the U.S.robotizes their ‘Brave’ American soldiers . The feature is links for two stories, Erase their war crimes’ PTSD memories , and Have their wives/partners jerk them off online .
The Pentagon is starting an $11million study into the use of a drug to help with PTSD. Emory University is participating. The process involves a substance, D-Cycloserine (DCS), and a treatment called exposure therapy.
“Exposure therapy is thought to work by allowing patients to revisit traumas in safe settings. Every time the mind remembers an event, it “rewrites” that recollection. By helping a patient rewrite traumatic memories to be less frightening, studies suggest that exposure therapy can significantly improve symptoms like nightmares and flashbacks.
Adding DCS seems to hasten that process, targeting the precise brain pathways responsible for regulating fear responses.
Of course, the idea of using drugs to tweak memories isn’t without controversy: An online debate flared last year among … arguing over whether the existence of such drugs would “alter something that makes us all human,” or open a Pandora’s Box of illicit use “by people doing things they’d like to forget themselves, or that they would like others to forget.”
Wired magazine has a more detailed version of the same article. In the comments, readers talk about the effectiveness of medical marijuana for PTSD. Here is one story: “Thank you for standing up for the one safe thing that has helped me so much. Medical marijuana has NO recorded deaths, but pharmaceuticals kill people every day. I am a disabled Marine w/PTSD. Got my prescription, husband grew it under an attorney’s guidelines, and the local (not Federal) cops destroyed my house, took the plants, edibles, everything. They even took pills that the VA had prescribed for me. They took everything that was in total compliance with the state laws. They broke in the door and threw me on the ground while I was home alone with my baby. They had already arrested my husband while he was out, so that we would be alone when they “got us”. I haven’t been able to work since I got discharged. I begged the officer to understand that I am a Marine Sgt w/PTSD ans fibromyalgia. This has cost my husband and I thousands of dollars. He never even made any profit from growing. He was growing medicine for us because I personally need a lot. It has replaced tylenol 3, xanax, antidepressants, and muscle relaxers for me. Or DID until the local police decided they can make their own laws and terrorize people for choosing alternative medicine. After that I have a whole new level of PTSD. Underweight, can’t sleep, back on TONS of benzos and muscle relaxers, and my marriage is falling apart. I volunteered to die for my country as a teenager, when my parents wanted to send me to college instead. The attorney told us that these cases take about 2 years to end, and that dragging it out is part of their tactic to get medical marijuana users/growers to stop. My husband’s last court date lasted 6 hours, most of it waiting around. Our tax dollars are paying for this! I’m not saying that I’m above the law, but this is unconstitutional. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?”
The other link is to PC Mag, with a feature called ” A Thousand Dildos For The Military Wives ” It is about teledildonics, or computer controlled sex toys. It is a brave new world.
“I’m not sure if he’s being skeezy or sweet here. Let me start with the technology. RealTouch is a slightly terrifying, synthetic orifice that lives in a plastic tube and connects to a computer. Based on data from an Internet connection, the unit warms up, lubes up, pulses and grips any item stuck into it. On the other end of a connection, a “performer”—who could be a paid “cam girl,” or the aforementioned military wife—hand-operates a sensor-covered rod to run the motors in the RealTouch. I really hope I didn’t just freak out anyone reading this story … As an intrepid reporter, I stuck my finger into a RealTouch unit while performer Kirsten Price hand-rubbed a nearby, Internet-connected dildo. The sensation was very strange; what felt like a whirring, rotating, feathery object made of a moist latex-like material was almost polishing my finger. Afterwards, my finger smelled like lube. I’m not going to judge. ”
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

PG didn’t mean to start any trouble. It just sort of happened. Pictures are from Gwinnett County.
Before we get to the main event, there is a detour. PG was trying to get to Futility Closet An idler’s miscellany of compendious amusements. When he typed those fun loving initials FU in the browser window, what should appear but funnypaperz, the google home of Christian cartoonist Joe King. There is a video on his site, to the effect that many American food companies use a flavor enhancer. This chemical is made by senomyx , and is alleged to contain stem cells. A google search showed a few Christian websites that said the same thing. PG sent an email to senomyx, asking “Do you use stem cells in your research and or products?”
Yesterday, there was a post at Futility Closet, Inspiration. Here it is.
The author William James told the story of Mrs. Amos Pinchot, who in a dream thought she had discovered the meaning of life. Sleepily she wrote down what she believed to be a profound poetic statement. Fully awake, she saw she had merely written: Hogamus, higamus Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamus Woman monogamous. – Malcolm Potts and Roger Valentine Short, Ever since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality
PG thought the rhyme in this post was amusing. He posted it on Facebook, with a link to the entire post. There was a reaction.
Err, just to put it out there — I find this sexist and problematic. // Kinda goes along with the whole, “women wanna trap men into marriage,” and “men are essentially sexual while women are essentially pure,” and reminds me of the victorian-era “women as keepers of the home and hearth.” I’m not trying to attack or anything, just want to comment and express my thoughts. // so, I hope it doesn’t read as attack, is what I’m saying. I am really terrible at this…. // Oh, wow. I just thought it was a jab at Newt “Porky the Pig’s Standin” Gingrich– didn’t even realize until I followed the link it wasn’t a political jab. // you read my mind! I second this!Sexist it is indeed. // I will add though that in species similar to us, males are frequently biologically driven to mate frequently and widely and females to be more selective (whether by choosing one male and living in a harem, or by seeking “the best male” to tie down), for the future of the offspring. While pair-bonding does occur in many species, full (long-term) monogamy is a relatively rare concept, so, this occurs on a much less stringent scale. (And of course that biology is not equal to destiny) // Not really sure what the point or intent is… // I call all fact, quotations and laws political and sullied by frame of reference. I’ll take my harem of all gender mates because I’ve reproduced and I take care of my own shit and now I want to get laid. If you say marriage or monogamy, you exit the harem. In “typical female” form I am selective for std safety // Misogyny! Gender essentialism! Anti-feminism! This shit has no place in a community who has, since it’s inception, been dedicated to fighting patriarchy. If you are posting this kind of shit, you are perpetuating patriarchy in this community. Check yourself. // but with a dose of love and understanding that we all need help with our deprogramming, as well. //Thus, our community. // To clarify my second post, it was more about the base subject. I don’t find the consideration that we are potentially predisposed for specific patterns of behavior problematic in and of itself. I do agree that adding a value component like notions of chastity versus sexuality, and inherent double standards, sexist. Being common or unique isn’t the problem (following the same biological patterns as our animal brethren or being more distant in our actions), however labeling either option as proper or improper and enforcing it, is problematic. // Your gender essentialism is actually deeply problematic and incredibly hurtful and alienating to large portions of the queer community. Justifying gross and inaccurate summarizations of women’s behaviors and preferences by comparing them to “females of other species” is not only dehumanizing, it is cissexist and gender essentialist. There is no excuse for this kind of misogyny. Don’t defend it. Instead, spend some time educating yourself about how your social programming around this subject is really fucked up and destructive to other people. Some of these very smart Atlanta folks might even be willing to help you figure it out if you’re having trouble. // “Writers commonly quote the experience of William James who, while under anaesthetic dreamt he found the secret of the universe. What he was left with was the doggerel ‘Higamus Hogumus women are monogamous – Hogumus Higamus, men are polygamous.’” but then we also have: // “The author William James told the story of Mrs. Amos Pinchot, who in a dream thought she had discovered the meaning of life. Sleepily she wrote down what she believed to be a profound poetic statement. Fully awake, she saw she had merely written: Hogamus, higamus Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamus Woman monogamous.” // So either way, we could ask Luther his intentions in posting it, // but I don’t think we should shoot the messenger. As a believer in nonviolent communication, I wish we could learn to dialog without put downs, labeling & name calling. // Yo there is a difference between name-calling and naming oppressive behavior.
There was a bit of poetry. There was a community that likes to discuss certain issues. It might have been better to post the entire link, rather than just the poem. When you write down things that come to you in your sleep, you are likely to read strange things when you awake.
The source book, Ever since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality , got several revues at Amazon. If you want to read the positive ones, click on the link. This one is more fun. Is this what Price meant by “Party like it’s 1999? “The worst example of poor scholarship imaginable., February 19, 1999 By A Customer … This book is worse than bad. It pretends to have facts yet it provides no evidence for some of the most preposterous lies I have ever seen put to print. It is difficult to imagine how the authors convinced Cambridge University Press to publish such unsubstantiated babble. The book is badly organized as well, and adds nothing to the current literature on this subject. You would be better off buying virtually ANY other title on this subject.

As you may have heard, SOPA was in the news last week. There was a massive internet protest, and Congress announced they would not push for passage. In a possibly coincidental move, a file distribution service, Megaupload, was busted. It turns out that the government already has the power many were afraid of. As with the forfeiture laws used against drug users, the assets were seized upon indictment, not conviction.
Kim Dotcom , the boss of Megaupload, is not a very sympathetic character. There are indications that he knew, and profited from, illegal use of his site. This is again similar to the way that forfeiture laws were first used against drug dealers, many of whom are not nice people. The government starts to take things from unpopular people, and then moves on to you.
Julian Sanchez has a piece about how companies like Megaupload work. It is what is called “cloud” computing. Instead of having files on a stationary hard drive, you put them on a “cloud”, which is available anywhere. Companies like Megaupload are the servers for this “cloud”. In this case, the files stored on Megaupload were seized by the government. If you had your “cloud” there, your files are lost. It doesn’t matter if you are a legal file user. The good get punished along with the bad, without a day in court. This does not look good for the future of “cloud” computing.
As you may imagine, there is a lot of pixelage devoted to this issue at the moment. Glenn Greenwald has a few thousand words, very few of which are reassuring. Pure Film Creative offers a bit of common sense, before telling you much more than you want to know about Marky Mark. Huffington Post has an article about the failure of the bills, along with a tidbit that has escaped the public.
It is no secret that these internet regulation measures are supported by the entertainment industry. Hollywood, meanwhile, was going all-in on the airwaves. Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Chris Dodd, a former Democratic Senator from Connecticut, even threatened to cutoff campaign donations to Democrats if the bill didn’t get a hearing. “Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,” Dodd said in an interview with Fox News . “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”
This is what happens when people leave Congress. They go across the street to represent the industries they once pretended to regulate. Even if they are “liberal democrats” like Chris Dodd. When it comes to serving their corporate masters, a liberal former Senator will go talk to Fox News. One day people will learn that the words liberal and conservative mean nothing.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These images are in the public domain, unless the laws have been changed.