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April 27, 2011 America is not so easily fooled!So, sure, “President” Obama has released his long-form birth certificate. But where’s the proof that Hawaii is a state? WHERE’S HAWAII’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE? WHAT IS IT TRYING TO HIDE? DEMAND THE TRUTH AMERICA! OTHERWISE THIS USURPER WILL MAKE US LOOK LIKE FOOLS!!!!!
March 29, 2011 August 30, 2009 RIAA wins DMCA case: Now illegal to decomposeThe RIAA has won a ruling that the DMCA‘s provision that forbids backward engineering software to see how it work applies also to musical recordings. The ruling forbids any attempt to figure out the melody, arrangement, or chord progression of any copyrighted song, whether that figuring out is done mentally, at a keyboard, or using software. It also forbids graphical displays based on the music, including the psychedelic visualizations that come with many music players or the tapping of feet to beats embedded in a copyrighted work. An exemption has been made for those with perfect pitch, although they are not allowed to transmit or communicate the internal structures of music that they have mentally decoded. The RIAA has also announced that it will sue to protect all who claim unique musical contributions to the culture. As a result, Pat Boone now owns the Motown sound, John Lennon owns singing above one’s natural range as a way of expressing emotion, Cat Stevens owns singing below one’s natural range for the same purpose, and Van Morrison has been awarded custody of any two-chord song to which musicians improvise while high enough on marijuana that they think other people are enjoying it. An RIAA spokesmen expressed delight with the ruling and the new set of protections: “We think we’re now within sight of producing the last two or three original songs, and then the entire culture can call it a day.”
October 25, 2008 Hitler is a memeYeah, it’s Hitler. Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah, those things aren’t supposed to go together. But I think this is a terrific piece. Brilliant, even. Now let the pre-emptive defense begin [SPOILERS AHEAD]: Would the Internets have brought down Hitler? Nah. But that’s the overstatement that makes this video provocative and funny. And the statements revealed by the overstatement I think are true: The Internet is able to trivialize everything, for better and for worse. E.g., The connected culture of the Internet makes it harder to take demagogues (or at least a certain style of demagogue) seriously. Or, as Barry Goldwater once didn’t say: Trivializing the self-aggrandizing is no vice, although aggrandizing the trivial is not much of a virtue. FWIW, I can’t find a way to take the reference to “6 million views,” with its obvious call to the 6 million members of my family who were murdered, that isn’t disturbing.
July 27, 2008 Citizen media satireThe Guardian’s satire of citizen media has some biting lines, but it’ll be interesting to see how funny — that is, truthful — it seems in, say, five years.
June 19, 2008 YouTube satireI’ve been enjoying the Public Service Administration’s Election 08 satires. The Message To Ralph and Bass Motives are very funny, as well as the better known parody of the Yes We Can video. Warning: Totally Obama slanted. In fact, I think their anti-Hillary stuff is the weakest of the lot (well, the Monty Python mashup is funny).
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