Looking back on the year 2015, I think that this image fits it pretty well:
Let’s try harder next year.
An image to describe 2015
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Militia Member Calls TYT Out On Their Disingenuousness
Many of you are probably aware that there is a YouTube channel by the name of The Young Turks (TYT for short). My first problem with them (besides that they named themselves for the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide and are Armenian Genocide deniers) is that they are so far left wing that they fall off the side of the plane.
Their YouTube channel has been quite popular, which isn’t surprising considering that there are plenty of angsty 15-year-olds out there to pander to who are naive as to how the world works. Me, I’ve ignored them for a while. However, one of their videos caught my attention. It’s titled, “Read The WHOLE Second Amendment” (please be sure that you have AdBlock Plus on before clicking that link). In it, the host invites viewers to read the Second Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
I’m for Americans reading the entirety of the U.S. Bill of Rights. In fact, here is a link to do so. It’s not that long. It would only take a few minutes to read.
The host’s argument is that gun rights advocates only read the second part of the Second Amendment, which, when read in its entirety, is as follows:
Article the fourth… A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The host makes the case that the right to bear arms only applies to members of the militia, and not to citizens in general, and states that the modern-day equivalent of the militia is the police force, ignoring that there is such a thing as a preface separated by a comma that does not modify the intent of the message.
Like any liberal or otherwise far-left position, the host’s case is an appeal to ignorance. I’ll tell you why: According to the U.S. Code, I’m considered a member of the militia. In fact, you might be too. I left the following in the comment section explaining why:
I made a copy of my comment to share here due to a tendency of liberal fringe groups to eschew protected free expression and instead delete anything they can they don’t agree with (for more information on this, look up “censorship”). That liberal fringe groups engage in censorship in what is supposed to be a free and open marketplace of ideas (the internet) tells you what you need to know about them. History tells us that if censoring all other viewpoints is what’s necessary for a political ideology to thrive, it’s usually because the ideology in question can’t actually withstand intellectual challenge.
The host reads the entirety of the Second Amendment, which isn’t a bad thing, but then he proceeds to engage in word games as to what defines a militia. Whether or not he’s aware of it, the U.S. Code, which is the permanent law of the Federal Government of the United States, clearly states that all males, ages 17 to 45, who are ordinary citizens of the United States, are considered members of the militia.
Here is how it reads:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So, how about that? The host makes the case that the right to bear arms only applies to militia members, when American law defines ordinary citizens as militia members! The host made a pretty self-defeating case, didn’t he? What’s more, the law extends to those who so much as state the intention to become a United States citizen!
This means that the permanent law of the United States, according to U.S. Code, protects someone’s right to bear arms from the moment they state the intention of becoming a U.S. citizen forward!
There are those who would probably think that this is just some quaint relic of a law from the colonial period, perhaps a practical idea at some point, but impractical in today’s modern era. There is a problem with such an assertion: the law was last edited in the 1950s. This means that this law was intended for modern application.
One more liberal argument refuted. Not that that means that we’ll hear the last of it. Liberals and left-wing fringe groups love to prey on ignorance, so they’ll likely try to peddle the argument that TYT made, or some modification thereof.
Still, something about their argument is pretty chilling: the insistence that only police own guns. Are liberals even aware that they are working to create an environment in which dissent can be easily suppressed by force by a powerful federal agency? If such a thing were to come about, it would likely last well beyond the popularity of the liberal ideology in its current state, and come to be employed by an opposing political ideology that would have an equal or greater intolerance for dissent. That’s the kind of thing that the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights was written with the intention of preventing.
“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – George Mason
Classic Pokemon games coming to 3DS eshop
Wouldn’t it be really cool if Nintendo added the original Pokemon games to the 3DS eshop? It’s what people have been asking for since about the time the 3DS was released. If this video from the official Pokemon YouTube channel is an indication…
…that’s just what they’re going to do.
I think this is some pretty cool news. I have some fond memories of the original Pokemon games, and one of these games would help to relive some old memories of treks in the Kanto region.
Hearing about this takes me back to the late nineties. I remember going to school and having shows like Home Improvement and Goof Troop to watch on TV. And Quack Pack. And Doug. So yeah, I was happy that I had a Game Boy for entertainment.
So we’re not missing out on the important feature of trading, it’s going to be possible through local wireless! Another neat thing about this announcement is the timing. At about this time, many of the original Pokemon games have depleted the internal battery that was used to store save data.
At one point, game saves were stored using battery backup, likely because the game cartridges used some sort of SRAM, which is a kind of volatile memory that loses its contents when power is no longer supplied to it. In such cases, an internal battery would have been used to keep power supplied to the SRAM even when the player wasn’t playing and the cartridge wasn’t in the system. If the battery ran out of charge, however, the player lost their save data, which was especially tragic for players that had pokemon that they liked. Recently, a Japanese man made the news after having left his Super Famicom on for 20 years because he did not want to lose his Umihara Kawase save data.
The good news is that because the 3DS games are saved using non-volatile memory, game saves would not be lost due to a depleted internal battery.
When playing the original games again, one might think about how the Pokemon series has come a long way. Some of the noticeable quirks of the original games include:
- Back then, TMs could only be used once.
- When a pokemon forgot a move, it usually didn’t have a way to relearn it.
- The Psychic type was pretty much at the top of the game.
- Missingno. was easy to find. It would be surprising if it weren’t removed.
- Mew was considered unobtainable, but that didn’t mean that some players didn’t look for it anyway. However, a glitch was discovered that made it obtainable. Whether it remains in the game is to be seen.
- The option to play as a girl wasn’t available.
- Pokemon didn’t have abilities
- They also couldn’t hold items
- You couldn’t breed pokemon, for all of Brock’s talking about it. This means that if you picked a Squirtle and also wanted a Charmander, finding someone to trade it to you was really hard.
- They might fix some of the bugs, but the original Pokemon games were so buggy, that it might have been how some players were introduced to hexadecimal.
And there’s more. None of that means that Pokemon Red, Blue, Green or Yellow are bad games. However, some players are likely to better appreciate the features available to them in newer games by playing a version of Pokemon where those features are absent.
However, some new features may be implemented. Perhaps some sort of move relearner will be implemented. Perhaps TMs will be reusable. Maybe the female main character from FireRed and LeafGreen will be selectable in a low-resolution form (that would actually be pretty cool).
Or maybe (this would be a big one) there would be a feature that would make these games trade compatible with 6th gen games, with newer pokemon appearing in the games with sprites in an older graphical style. If a person sets their expectations high, they might be setting themselves up for disappointment. Still, it’s fun to think about how a pokemon like Chespin or Goomy would look in Red/Green style.
Now that classic Pokemon games are announced for the eshop, there are other possibilities. Personally, I’d like to see the Gold, Silver and Crystal games added to the eshop. Perhaps, in time, that’ll happen. There’s also the possibility of the GBA versions, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, though they’d probably be on the Wii U eshop, considering that many GBA remakes have been appearing on that platform.
Oh yeah, here’s a cool feature that many of us who played the classic Pokemon games didn’t get to experience: playing them on a handheld with a backlit display screen. The original Game Boy (and even the GameBoy Color) didn’t have a backlit screen, so many of us had to play somewhere bright to see what was going on onscreen. Also, on the original, there was the challenge of getting the adjustable contrast just right.
Another feature that will help is the presence of a rechargeable lithium ion battery in the 3DS. When Pokemon Red and Blue were released in the United States, there was a temporary shortage of AA batteries, which were needed to power the original Game Boys.
I’m likely to get one of these games. One question would be, “which one?” I think that the Yellow version will probably be the most popular. If the Green version is released on the American eshop, I’d probably get that one. However, the Green version wasn’t released in the States, so that might not happen. Maybe I’ll get the Red version. I like the Red version’s exclusive pokemon.
Also, there’s the question of which starter to go with. I’d probably pick Bulbasaur.
Venomous snake killed by bite inflicted by toddler
That title isn’t a typo. According to Fox News Latino, a toddler killed a snake by biting it.
The child’s mother allowed him to play in the yard. When the child was strangely quiet, the mother decided to check on him. When she found her child, the child had a venomous snake in his mouth, which was still alive and trying to escape.
Examination by physicians has determined that there was no venom in the body of the toddler, who was deemed to be in good health. The snake, however, succumbed to its injury.
Is this child in some way related to Chuck Norris? When I see a snake lying on the ground coiled up and minding its business (of laying still or whatever it is snakes do), I admit that I don’t think of it as something I’d want to try to take a big bite of. I wonder whether this child has a normal sense of fear. Even harmless snakes are kind-of scary looking. But this kid, he sees this snake in his yard and thinks something like “I’m gonna bite it.” And he does.
I remember hearing about an ex-marine who was attacked by a mountain lion, and he fended it off with a chainsaw. As awesome as that sounds, he had the assistance of a chainsaw. The toddler who bit a snake, however, killed it using his mouth.
This child might just be starting his career in fighting off animals that grown adults would normally be terrified of. Maybe as an adult he’ll punch walruses and suplex tigers. Not that it would necessarily be called-for, but because he’d be bored and they’d need a reminder not to step out of line.
My opinion of Gamergate
Vivian James by Yahlantykan on DeviantArt
Surprisingly, I’ve gone this long without issuing an opinion of Gamergate and the controversy surrounding it. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a misogynistic movement of lonely men who don’t want women playing video games, or it’s a movement standing against corruption in game journalism and fighting back against the self-appointed social justice warriors (SJWs) that are mischaracterizing their movement.
If you believe the former, you believe the media’s official narrative about Gamergaters. If you believe the latter, you believe what Gamergaters are saying about themselves.
However one views the Gamergate movement, there is no denying how it got started: A woman by the name of Zoe Quinn released a so-so text-based game about depression, and it was given a glowing review on a gaming website. Later, Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend revealed that she was cheating on him, and that the game received undue attention because she was in an affair with the game journalist that reviewed it. As one might expect, people were outraged, and the Gamergate movement was born.
Incidentally, here is a link to a WikiHow article on how to make your own text-based adventure game.
Zoe Quinn became a target of harassment and ridicule, which is to be expected, considering what she did. But rather than accept that what was happening to her was a consequence of her own poor decision-making, she instead played the victim, claiming to be attacked by misogynists. She made her appeal to both cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian and the press, and they both ate it up.
I’m going to say straight-up that I don’t believe that Gamergate is a movement of misogynists. What I’ve seen from gamers in my long history of seeing them is just the opposite; they like seeing women in video games, and they favor the image of the female protagonist in games that is strong, independent, resourceful, and intelligent (does the name Samus Aran ring a bell?). But that doesn’t mean that Gamergaters aren’t going to be mischaracterized.
Gamergaters have challenged a corrupt press, and the results have been predictable. The press has long been in a position in which they have the trust of people and control of information, enabling them to sway public opinion in favor of positions and worldviews that are in line with those of journalism at large. It’s something that conservatism has long complained of as the liberal-controlled media has long perpetuated stereotypes of those of those of conservative persuasion.
A case in point is the recent exposure of Planned Parenthood’s operation of selling baby parts in violation of federal law. In some cases, the subjects of harvesting were infants that were extracted alive. One would imagine that, if even a little bit of video evidence of this got out, there would be an outrage, and the people behind the crime would all be held accountable. However, there has been volumes of undercover video released, and it seems like the general population is largely unaware of what happened. This is because there has been a media blackout of the video releases, except for a short time when Planned Parenthood peddled its official narrative that the videos were doctored.
Now, gamers are starting to see what it’s like to be libeled by a huge, rich, privileged media machine. To add to their problem, coming against them is another, far less sophisticated group that also cares little about facts: radical feminism.
After they became involved, a surprising group came along to oppose them: liberals themselves. After so long of being the beneficiaries of a media that presented their narratives, they started to speak up against what they see as wrong with radical feminism’s tactics, possibly because it was their entertainment that was being challenged.
As tempting as it may be for conservatives to view the battle between feminists and moderate liberals as a liberal problem, it’s an opportunity that conservatives seem to be largely passing up to point out that they too have been victims of similar targeting and stereotyping, and now that liberals are on the receiving end of it at the hands of one of their own fringe groups, perhaps they’ll be in a better position to understand that there’s something wrong with it.
Similarly, non-gamers seem to view Gamergate as a gamer problem. However, it’s another symptom of the corruption of the press that has long been preying on the masses. It’s interesting that it has been gamers that have taken a position in the battle against corruption in the media, and more surprising still is their passion to continue, long after many people would have just given up.
But that’s not so surprising considering that many of them have been influenced by an art form that allows them to vicariously experience the battles of heroes, and encourages them to keep trying until they win.
Feminist slander campaign backfires, perpetrator loses job
When you voice your opinion on the internet, there is a possibility that someone is going to issue disagreement with you. That’s a possibility to prepare for in just about any marketplace of ideas. However, not everyone has that kind of maturity.
Recently, a YouTuber with the handle Thunderf00t expressed criticism of Anita Sarkeesian’s methods as a radical feminist. In response, fans of Anita Sarkeesian have (issued polite disagreement? No, they) threatened him.
One in particular by the handle of Laughing Witch took things a little further. She decided that the best way to handle his criticism was to invent a lie against him, and then attempt to ruin his life by telling that lie to his local newspaper, his local police department, and even to his own employer in an attempt to get him fired.
I’ve expressed before that modern feminism has serious honesty problems. However, this case takes things to a whole other level. I’ve disagreed with people on the internet before (I might even disagree with a few things Thunderf00t has said). But to this day, I haven’t decided that the best way to handle such a thing is to try to attack their job. Yet, Laughing Witch has found someone who has disagreed with the methods of radical feminism, and made up a lie about him being a Nazi and a hater of Muslims. He has also been accused of being a member of a conservative group, but that’s not an insult. Again, the lie was propagated to his local paper, his local police department, and his own employer in an attempt to destroy his livelihood and his standing in the community.
If you’re interested in a legal reason why this is a bad idea, look up the word “libel”.
Obviously, these claims aren’t even consistent. For one thing, Nazis historically didn’t hate Muslims. In fact, even Hitler expressed admiration of them. Also, the term “Nazi” is short for “National Socialist”. Conservatives are not socialists.
Of course, things like “facts” haven’t been known to make much of a difference to radical feminists. Not only did Laughing Witch slander Thunderf00t with these claims, she actually bragged about her actions on YouTube using her real name. That’s some kind of confidence.
Afterwards, radical feminists on YouTube celebrated getting Thunderf00t fired. This is in spite of the fact that Thunderf00t was not fired. This tells us what we need to know about radical feminism, it really doesn’t matter to them what’s true.
Laughing Witch bragged that she was immune to backlash because she was the vice president of the company that employed her, which was headed by her husband. She even expressed that she was pleased with her sudden influx of subscribers, probably not realizing how many of those subscribers were just interested in watching a ship sink fast.
As it turns out, the ship sank faster than expected. Laughing Witch was actually fired from her job as Vice President of the company that employed her. Meaning, yes, this overconfident radical feminist was actually fired by her own husband. What’s more, she also removed her own YouTube channel (possibly at the request of her husband, who likely saw her online activities as being a serious liability for his company).
There are few things that I dislike more than slander. Because of this, it brightened my day to see that someone who attempted it fell into her own snare.
We probably haven’t heard the last of Laughing Witch. Persons such as herself usually love attention. She might appear again later with a new handle or with a Patreon account begging for donations, claiming to be the victim for all the problems that she brought upon herself.
Still, that someone would consider doing what she tried to do is pretty alarming. I think it’s a sign that radical feminism is quickly becoming more maladjusted, especially with someone like Anita Sarkeesian for them to get behind. Her fanbase has already demonstrated itself to be one of the most dangerous fanbases among YouTube personalities.
Are liberals secretly inept at tech?
The first batch of Hillary Clinton emails since the Benghazi testimony have been released, and one of the things they tell us about Hillary is her choice of cell phones. It seems Hillary is a Blackberry user.
I admit that my cell phone of choice was a Blackberry at one point. It was a Blackberry Torch, which I liked because it provided a combination of touchscreen and keyboard interfaces. It was an okay phone. However, the Blackberry brand is well past it’s prime. Perhaps the most significant reason that the Blackberry brand has as many users as it does is because it’s historically been favored in the business world. It was a pioneer at one point, and may have even been favored for some reasons. Today, the Blackberry brand doesn’t have the same kind of relevance that it used to.
It’s tempting to pick on Hillary because of her favoritism toward the Blackberry brand, but Blackberry phones are sometimes standard issue among large corporations (I suspect that they’re a means of keeping the staff on a leash; if the company gives the employee a phone, it can enable the company to contact the employee at any time). What I found interesting is that after spending time with a newer Blackberry, Hillary went back to an older Blackberry for it’s familiarity. It’s interesting enough that, instead of adapting to something new, she went back to an older phone for it’s familiarity. But on top of that, after going back to her old phone, she found herself missing the emoticons from the newer phone.
Hillary Clinton is one of the most serious-looking women I’ve ever seen, so it’s hard to imagine that she’d have a strong attachment to emoticons. She even asked whether there was a way to add them to her older phone.
What we’re seeing so far is actually far different from the image of the privileged coastal technocrat that liberals largely picture themselves as (some also view themselves as an oppressed minority that is part of an underground movement, and they see very little problem with being both). What we’re seeing is someone who, instead of adapting to something cutting-edge, instead went back to something older for comfort. And what’s more, she likes smilies. If she were to later come out saying that she plays Candy Crush Saga, that would lend to the idea that information like this was being fed to the public to make Hillary seem more relatable.
She also asked “How does this work” about a request to “connect” on the website LinkedIn.
Say what?
LinkedIn has over 300 million users. Each of these users likely figured out how to create an account without asking for someone else’s help. If she was really asking for help on how to connect on LinkedIn, perhaps she didn’t make her Facebook and Twitter accounts by herself.
To put this into perspective, the guy behind Time Cube was able to make his own website.
What’s more, Hillary asked one of her aides what her New York Times password is.
I get the idea that Hillary Clinton isn’t that good with tech. It seems like ineptitude with tech has increasingly become a liability for those of liberal persuasion. One example would be Lois Lerner, who played a part in a conspiracy to target conservative groups because that’s one way that a fascist can abuse power. When she was subpoenaed for her emails, it conveniently turned out that they were deleted. It’s pretty obvious that she or her cronies deleted her emails because there were things in them that could have gotten her in trouble. However, the emails were recoverable. It turns out that a supposedly-sophisticated organization like the IRS didn’t do a good job at covering its tracks.
Then there’s the scandal involving Anthony Weiner, who attempted to send a woman a picture of his genitals, but posted it to Twitter instead. I can picture a person mistakenly sending the wrong person a text message, but how does a person try to send a private message but accidentally make it public instead?!
Considering cases like these, I get the idea that liberals actually aren’t as tech savvy as they would like you to believe. Of course, the bigger problem for liberalism would be its ideology, and that they provide just the right environment for fringe groups such as radical vegetarians and feminists (the latter of which has been becoming increasingly fanatical).
Liberalism is like a high-IQ club that’s free to join with no IQ test required, and everyone involved high-fives one another for having the same opinion. Of course, if they don’t come to the right conclusions, they haven’t actually been using their heads right, and that wouldn’t change just because they know how to use smartphones (which have been made so that they’d be simple to use for just about anyone).
The Pivoting Spork: Worst Utensil Ever?
A while ago, I found the utensil pictured above: a spork with a pivot.
At first glance, it’s hard to imagine that this spork would be an adequate eating utensil. For one thing, it’s a spork. Sporks are inherently flawed. They attempt to be both a fork and a spoon, but they don’t quite measure up at either task.
Here is how the typical spork does at both the tasks they are designed for:
- At being a spoon: Horribly. Sporks don’t hold much liquid, if at all, because the liquid easily spills between the prongs.
- At being a fork: Horribly. Sporks generally have short prongs, so attempts to skewer food with them typically don’t work well.
It’s quite obvious that sporks are inherently flawed. For one of the tasks that they are designed for, the prongs are too short, and for the other, the length of the prongs becomes a liability. Because of this, it’s easy to see why we have separate utensils for carrying out the functions of a fork and a spoon.
In the case of this pivoting spork, the typical problems associated with sporks are aggravated by some serious design flaws, which become apparent with close observation:
The prongs are dull, so this spork isn’t going to do well at skewering much. And if a person does succeed in skewering a piece of beef with these prongs, they aren’t likely to stay in place, not only due to the fact that the prongs are short, but because the prongs narrow with a wide angle. This means that just about anything skewered with this spork would quickly slide right off.
But there’s more:
This picture might not be ideal, but does give an idea of the depth of the spork. Because of this, not only would we have the typical problem with liquid falling between the prongs, this spork is very shallow. Even if it weren’t pronged (and therefore were a spoon) it wouldn’t be holding much liquid.
As shown in the following picture, the handle is designed to fold back and snap into place:
The pivot is a thin layer of plastic that folds to snap the handle into place. Therefore, if the pivot were to snap, you probably won’t be getting much more use out of this spork than you would be to begin with. I would have preferred that this spork’s handle did not include a pivot, considering that, for most tools, the more moving parts it would have, the more potential it would have for failure.
So, why would someone design something like this? It would seem that the idea was to both save space and to be convenient, which is probably why a person would try to combine their utensils. Here is a picture of the spork with a ruler to give an idea of it’s size:
This thing isn’t going to take up much space. However, is this really much of an issue to begin with when it comes to spoons and forks? It’s hard to imagine a person having such a problem saving space in their travel pack that they have to take out a metal fork and spoon set to put this thing in there. A person might get the idea to make a mint tin kit of some sort that might include something like this, but they’d probably want to quickly replace this thing with another tool better suited to it’s purpose.
Looking at the picture above, it becomes apparent that the handle would only come to about seven-and-a-half centimeters long (about 3 inches), so it likely won’t rest comfortably on one’s hand as one holds it correctly. The tip of the handle might poke into the skin on the hand between the thumb and index finger, which would probably be uncomfortable. In this position, it’s easy to imagine that the pivot would snap out of place. I haven’t used this spork yet, so I don’t know for sure.
One positive thing about this spork is that it’s made of plastic. This is positive because after a person gives this thing a try and discovers that it doesn’t perform it’s task as a utensil well, there wouldn’t be much in terms of waste when it is simply thrown away. That might not be an expression of confidence in the utensil on the part of its designer, but it does show some foresight on his part. He probably knew that people would just want to throw it away.
This pivoting spork seems like something that a cheap fast-food restaurant would include with their drive-thru meals in an attempt to save money, and because they wouldn’t care very much about how their customers or employees felt. It’s easy to imagine that such a company is also attempting to save money with abrasive dollar store cleaning detergent and one-ply toilet paper. This is the kind of utensil that says “This company is pinching pennies and doesn’t care what you or our hundreds of thousands of other customers like you think. Also, we pay our staff minimum wage.”
This might be the worst utensil I have ever found. How about you? Have you found any utensils that are objectively bad at what they do?
Fat shaming and Nicole Arbour
A recent video by Nicole Arbour on YouTube caused quite a stir for it’s topic of fat shaming. In it, the host, Nicole Arbour, called out fat people for the claims that they make about themselves and pointed out that they have a problem. As you could probably imagine, the video got a lot of criticism. So much in fact, that the video was taken down for a short while before being placed back up and comments on the video have been disabled.
While her video did have it’s problems (such as that the host was mildly annoying), on her point that there is a problem with body fat in America, she mostly nailed it. America does have a problem with body fat.
So, why is Nicole Arbour so heavily criticized for her position? Because people don’t like admitting that they have problems that are their own fault. Yeah, there are some cases where people are fat because they have legitimate disabilities that affect their growth, and there are other causes that people can hardly help. However, cases like those are rare. In the case of nearly all Americans that are overweight, they got that way because they weren’t exercising very good self-control. We live in one of the few cultures in history that has an abundance of food, and people still treat it as though it might not still be there the next day.
In fact, in America, our own police forces have a problem with overweight officers. Considering that people count on them to protect them, that’s a scary thought. A physically fit perpetrator could easily outrun them. There are also security guards, though they’re not the same thing (if that’s the kind of thing you want to do with your life, that’s your choice).
People generally don’t like having it pointed out to them that their bad state is a product of their own choices, and is therefore their own fault. Because of this, people tend toward those who tell them what they like to hear, regardless of what’s good for them. This enables them to write off as “mean people” those who are pointing out what’s wrong.
A person who tells it like it is doesn’t always have to resort to satire. However, sometimes it takes a little more than gentle pleading to get people to change for the better. Most people seem to be familiar with only one kind of encouragement. I think it would be plenty motivating to take care of myself if it meant not becoming misshapen and disfigured, and if it also meant that I could avoid being made fun of for my weight, that’s also a plus. Potential suitors do pay attention to physical characteristics, and some of them can indicate lifestyle choices which are not ideal.
As a person who has been both skinny and borderline overweight, I can tell you that it’s a lot more fun to be skinny. I enjoy having that energy and sound health. There’s also the perk of being attractive. That might take some effort to maintain (perhaps more so for some than others), but it’s worth it.
If a person is overweight, what can they do about it? They could make the choice to take better care of themselves. However, it seems easier for many of them to write off people like Nicole Arbour as those who don’t know what they’re talking about as their paunch steadily grows and sags.
The disgusting heavy-handedness of copyright law
Copyright law is a topic that a lot of people feel sensitively about. It’s apparent that there are some strong feelings about it.
Before continuing, I think that it does benefit to first point this out: If you should have paid for music, movies, or video games, but did not, and downloaded them anyway, then you broke copyright law. “But Raizen,” you might say, “I didn’t steal them. I just made a copy. The media company still has the original.” You can call it what you want. The action that you described is illegal under US copyright law.
The point of this article isn’t to try to hammer people who download music illegally, however. I brought that up because I thought it would be productive to address that point that’s made by those who break copyright law, to help them to better understand the relevance of this article to them.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not friends with the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). Not by a long shot.
I have a problem with the RIAA because of their heavy-handed abuse of the law. How heavy-handed? A US court ordered a Minnesota woman to pay $220,000 after a suit by the RIAA.
That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. With a claim that high, one would think that she was the webmaster behind a huge web-ring that provided free music downloads to visitors to her web page in exchange for clogging their browsers with cookies and ads.
Nope. She downloaded 24 songs illegally. Not 240,000, only 24. Simple division time: $220000 / 24 = $9166.67.
“We are pleased with the appellate court’s decision and look forward to putting this case behind us,” said the RIAA. Of course, it would have been easy for the RIAA to put the case behind them because the RIAA is rich. They don’t have an immediate need for $220,000. As for the woman, a single mother with two children, things might be more difficult.
As if the RIAA didn’t have enough money, they also went after a former Boston University student in a $675,000 case. His case was aggravated by the fact that he redistributed the music, but the fee is still outrageous considering the fact that it was only 31 songs ($675000 / 31 = $21774.19).
I’m thinking that maybe that all that money isn’t going into fostering creativity from music artists, but is instead going right into the pockets of music execs who would then use it to buy more expensive automobiles for their children.
Talk about a punishment that doesn’t come anywhere close to fitting the crime. If I were to walk into a record store and walk out with a CD that I didn’t pay for, I doubt that the store would sue me for half a million dollars.
The product that the music industry offers isn’t worth as much as they are claiming in damages for it. That they think it is is an idea that they should get out of their heads.
Ideally, the law should be fair, not showing favoritism on the basis of wealth and class. In America, this is not the case. This is especially true when it comes to copyright law, much of which was brought about by the strength of the wealthy, who then use the legal system as an arm for themselves.
Concerning the $675,000 ruling, the RIAA stated that “We are pleased with the District Court’s decision”. That’s like a pro-wrestler patting himself on the back after sending a 12-year-old to the emergency room. The guy downloaded less than three dozen songs and uploaded them to the internet again, and wound up in more trouble than if he had uploaded videos of himself drop-kicking puppies onto YouTube.
I don’t know about you, but I find it very distasteful when the legal system is heavy-handed to the point of insanity. It’s even worse when the entertainment industry then wields the legal system as a tool for it’s own agenda.
What’s next, a $70,000 fine for jaywalking? I don’t know, but it’s hard to imagine that things are going to get better while people are tolerating the way things are going. Perhaps as people are becoming fatter and increasingly distracted, they’re becoming more passive toward the people that abuse them.
Magnetricity 