Joho the Blog » satire

America is not so easily fooled!

davidw — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:39:51 +0000

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!!!!!

Angry Birds – Dictator levels

davidw — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:28:19 +0000

Brilliant. (Via Ethanz)

RIAA wins DMCA case: Now illegal to decompose

davidw — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:04:41 +0000

The 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.”

[Tags: satire copyleft copyright dmca riaa ]

Hitler is a meme

davidw — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:19:02 +0000

Adolf Hitler Is A Meme

Yeah, 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.

[Tags: hitler internet_culture lolcats satire banality_of_evil evil_of_banality ]

Citizen media satire

davidw — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:38:21 +0000

The Guardian’s satire of citizen media has some biting lines, but it’ll be interesting to see how funny â€” that is, truthful â€” it seems in, say, five years.

[Tags: satire media journalism citizen_journalism ]

YouTube satire

davidw — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:15:27 +0000

I’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).

[Tags: satire humor politics obama ]

Diebold accidentally releases result of 2008 election: The Onion

davidw — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:51:31 +0000

From The Onion. [Tags: politics humor satire diebold ]