There's Nothing Wrong With Capitalism

Naturally, this is one of my favorite Oingo Boingo songs. WSJ once named it one of the great pro-capitalism songs of all time. I've long wondered how much of the song is sarcasm, though. Someone once ask...ed Danny Elfman if the song was sarcastic or serious and he replied, "Both." It's sarcastically serious, he said. Elfman has also been quoted as saying, "I've traveled around the world. I left thinking I was a revolutionary. I came back real right-wing patriotic. Since then, I've kind of mellowed in between. It affected me permanently and totally." Elfman has always seemed fairly moderate to me. But I love this song along with the rest of Oingo Boingo's debut album.

Obama Keeps 'Em Riveted

As you can undoubtedly tell by this picture, the students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA were hanging on the President's every word. If you're a parent who is afraid of your child being influenced by party politics, you might want to confirm that they're even remotely interested to begin with.

What do we have here? Students looking bored, a couple people resting their heads on their fists, someone more interested in grooming his finger nails with his teeth, and some sinister guy in the top left who looks like he's planning to blow the place up. At least there's one girl here who is interested enough to be taking a picture... wait, she's pointing the camera in THE OTHER DIRECTION. Good thing there were level headed parents out there who had the right mind to keep their kids from hearing the president of their country. The kids in this picture probably suffered severe brain damage as a result of the speech.

For a speech to be effective, people first need to think that the words are pertinent or important. So before anyone freaks out about what the president is saying to students in America, we may want to first teach them that what the president says is, in fact, consequential.

Ah it's school time so let's let the readers know what's on my mind.

First and Foremost, I'm back for a bit of a blog update. I thought I'd go over the items that most make me go wow, in order.

First off space travel. I've been watching a program called When We Left Earth, and I must say space stuff gets my attention like no other. I have even been caught watching the Nasa channel on television once in a while and that stuff is stuffier than most turkeys. But the problem for me is that space tech is super elite and there's no way I'll get to do it in my lifetime unless...

Biotechnology gets up and awesome. I've been reading about many different things like the ability to use mushrooms for antibiotics, pollutant clean up and teraforming in deforested areas, and by just getting to understand some of these incredible fungi we can extend life span by a couple of years. Anything that can do that, stem cells, implants, inoculations and the like are things that are right up my alley. If I'm to live for my want of 5000 + years we need to seriously work on things like alzhiemer's and understanding how to perform maintenance on our bodies. I'm all for maintaining mine as long as I can afford it. I realize a more real life expectancy is like 85 but lets shoot for the moon here people nobody wants to die.

Next I'll go for the fantastic, I hear more and more about a singularity. It's the exact opposite of the end of the world at 2012 that people all want. (by the way I'm hosting the Zex's I was right you were wrong party on January 1 2013 more details later) The singularity is the hope of all technogeeks that technology will grow so fast that everything will be fixed, the world will completely change and everyone will be in a state of superadvanced awesomeness. In a word heaven. I'm not thinking it will happen as most of these people can not make a concrete prediction about what is coming in the next 5 years let alone after technology can make us gods. But that doesn't mean that I think they are crazy. The world is changing, not always for the better, but If we work to improve it, (e.g. going to school and using your education, making a better ice cream cone) we can definate make the world a Zexier place.

Finally a confession, I'm an art major. I like to draw and watch cartoons. I see science and cheer it on but don't actively participate in it. So if you're working in the field Go Team! I like to send a nod every once in a while to people who can show interesting things.

As I go I leave you with this advice if you're going to travel abroad buy your condoms before you go. Just ask Douglas Adams.

Tintin au Congo Taken Off Shelf at Brooklyn Library

A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Librarians are trained to listen politely but stand firm when patrons object to the presence of a book or other item on a library shelf. But patrons who persist are entitled to file a challenge.

Another public library trying to justify America's latest censorship: Tintin au Congo.

No one has a right to not be offended and censorship is far worse and far more threatening to liberty than offensive material being out in the open. I also wasn't aware that "tolerance for what some may consider detestable" translated into "we will hide away anything we find detestable." Your tax dollars hard at work, ladies and gentlemen.

At any rate, the offending material is all over the internet. Imagine that. Tintin au Congo can be downloaded here: http://rapidshare.com/files/3481040/Tintin_-_02_-_Tintin_au_Congo_-_www.freecomicbooks.blogspot.com.cbr.

New Leona Lewis and Justin Timerlake Song Leaked

The song is called Don't Let Me Down (mediafire link).

MTV reports: "SyCo thinks that the track was leaked by hackers and not by someone within the industry." To be clear, I do not support hacking. I think it is a clear breach of personal property. Hacking someone's computer is the same as breaking and entering as far as I'm concerned. However, intellectual property is not real property. Once digital content is out floating around the web, it is impossible to but the genie back in the bottle and fruitless to try. Since the digital content is not physical, people use their own property to distribute it. It's their own bandwidth and hard drives they are using. Anyway, I reserve the debate on IP law for another time. Enjoy the song. And get it while it lasts. It's being taken down left and right.

Gaiman Gives it Away and... Voilà!

Gaiman and Doctorow Discuss Giving It Away

Neil Gaiman on giving away free ebooks: "It’s been really fun in my own slow way nudging HarperCollins out of the stone ages and into the dark ages. As far as I’m concerned the entire argument was won at the point where I got them to put American Gods online…we gave it away for free for a month, and during the course of that month and for about four weeks after, the number of copies of all of my books…went up three hundred percent. As far as I’m concerned, that answered that question."

'Nuff said.

Wry ©ensorship

Some of you may have read in the news recently that an unauthorized sequel of The Catcher in the Rye was blocked via court order from being published in the U.S. Being the anti-censorship and anti-copyright individual that I am, I immediately found the book on eBay and purchased a copy from someone in the UK.

I think it's ironic that for the latter half of the 20th century The Catcher in the Rye was one of the most censored books in the U.S. Salinger has even been (rightfully) accused of hypocrisy. The author of the sequel commented, "I am pretty blown away by the judge's decision. Call me an ignorant Swede, but the last thing I thought possible in the U.S. was that you banned books." Pretty sad. Well, I got my copy. Might I recommend you go do the same?