Tag Archives: Rants

Songwriters Guild Joins MPAA and RIAA in call to steal our freedoms

Posted by drahkar on

Once again a group is calling the US government to carve our personal freedoms and liberties like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.

‘What am I talking about?’ you might ask. Well I’ll be happy to explain. Ars Technica recently published that the Songwriters Guild of America is calling for FBI investigation of all potential piracy crimes because they investigate ‘lesser’ crimes like Bank Robbery. That’s right. Apparently robbing a bank is not nearly as big of a deal as downloading a file off the internet without putting an bit of money into someone’s pocket. I don’t see why I never saw it before.
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The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

Posted by drahkar on

By: Aesop

A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”

Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey with you and your hulking son?”

The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:

“Please all, and you will please none.”

Hypocrisy 2010!

Posted by drahkar on

I like to scan across the Internet and see whats going on now and then. This morning I came upon an article that just made me shake my head. The article was ‘Why I Regret Buying an iPhone’ by Don Tennant. In this article Mr. Tennant goes on a preaching spree about the horrible practices of Apple suppliers in China, strong arming and threatening it’s employees, sometimes to the point of death ([Foxconn employee Sun Danyong] leapt to his death from his 12th-floor apartment window a few days after he told his superiors that one of the 16 iPhone 4G prototypes which had been entrusted to him had gone missing.) and how they are such a security tight group in the states, its likened to a form of business gestapo. (“You may want to know about their Worldwide Loyalty Team,” Tom told me recently in an email. I read what he had to say. It felt like a description of the Gestapo, without the torture and killing part.) The problems with his viewpoint are many, but I’m going to focus on three core ones that bother me the most.

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Rampage of Darth Cheney Continues….

Posted by drahkar on

So I’m scanning the news this morning and I come across an article going into detail how Cheney is making a major annoyance of himself even after the fiasco he and Bush made of the administration not even 8 months ago.

The article goes on to talk about how that now, not only shouldwe be calling for this guy to be tossed into prison for violations of human rights, and violation of our Constitutional Rights,  now they are finding he was creating secret programs and not disclosing their existance to Congress or the Intelligence Committe. A huge action of questionable legality.

When faced with this and the long litany of actions Cheney had done of the 8 years the Bush Administration was in office, what does elements in the government do? Do they show signs of horror at the abuse of the sytem. Do they call for justice in outrage?

No, they only show mild concern:

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “Director Panetta did brief us two weeks ago — I believe it was on the 24th of June … and, as had been reported, did tell us that he was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress.”

Asked if the matter should be investigated, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said: “Absolutely.”

“The executive branch of government cannot create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark. There is a requirement for disclosure,” Durbin said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“It has to be done in an appropriate way so it doesn’t jeopardize our national security. But to have a massive program that is concealed from the leaders in Congress is not only inappropriate, it could be illegal.”

Nice strong stance from Congress and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Its nice to know there is still passion in the government when a real wrong has been discovered. We certainly wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand where everyone stands on this issue.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told “Face the Nation” he said he believed the allegations against Cheney will be investigated.

Asked if he expected the situation to be looked into, Sessions said: “Well, I’m sure it will be.”

“I don’t know what the facts are. But I believe that Vice President Cheney served his country with as much fidelity as he could possibly give to it. And he tried to serve us in an effective way. And I hope that nothing like this would impact on his outstanding record.”

Outstanding record… Human Rights Violations, Play part in the largest disruption of Personal liberties to this nation since the Civil War, Creating Programs of Questionable Legality… On yea. This guy is a pillar of the community. We should be erecting monuments for him, not thinking about putting his dirty ass in jail for a long, long time.

Its times like this, when I see things of this nature, that I truly understand and am disgusted by the level of corruption that has settled into this nation. Someone with power is caught flat out doing something treasonous and the most people can come up with is ‘I hope this doesn’t tarnish his good name’.

StarCraft 2 News Updates

Posted by drahkar on

Doing my daily scan of news across the board, and I came across this article on ArsTechnica about StarCraft 2.

The first thing to know is that I’m not a avid news watcher for upcoming games. I don’t actively review them for anyone, though I’ve thought about adding a section specifically for that here. Still might happen in the future. I do, however, feel the need to comment on game news I read when I think there is a point to be acknowledged that nobody is really commenting enough on. That is the case here with StarCraft 2.

I’m an old player of Starcraft. I enjoyed the first game a great deal and it’s expansions. As a matter of fact, I though they were so well done for their time that I still, on  occasion, load them up and play them.

That being said, following the news on the sequal has been interesting. First off we have the fact that it has taken them a really long time to get it made. A really long time. We’ve gone through several interations of the Windows Operating system since the last release of Starcraft.

Second, in all that time of development, somehow they have concluded that they don’t need to keep support for LAN games. This mindset truly baffles me because one of the largest group of people who played Starcraft was people who regulary played at LAN Parties. Starcraft was a staple game for them and everyone had a copy. So if that was they case, what would bring a company to the decision that slapping those fans of the game int he face would be a good idea? Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to that.

As it stands, I’ve seen the three ‘Battle Reports’ for the game and seen the screenshots. It looks like a solid RTS game. I’m hoping that the storyline from the single player can hold muster with the rest of it.