Never Censored

God really does work in mysterious ways, doesn't he? Apparently Ann Coulter broke her jaw and has, as a result, had to have it wired shut. Change truly has come. :P

Seriously, though, I wonder what she'll do in the interim. Consider: her job consists, essentially, of pissing on anyone either not in the majority or not big business; so, losing her voice reduces her ability to work by half. No doubt in the meantime she'll write a book or two ostracizing gays, atheists, and/or democrats, while complaining that Christians are somehow persecuted despite being in the overwhelming majority. Nevertheless, she'll still make ends meet (and then some).

Still, I'm not the type to take glee in other people's misery, but I have to admit, this is very poetic nonetheless—someone who makes a living trading bigoted prose for a paycheck gets her mouth wired shut. But, at the end of the day, despite many people hating her guts, I still have to wish her a speedy and safe recovery. As much as liberals and many conservatives alike would like to see her locked up in some insane asylum, hyper-polarized, inherently wrong people are, believe it or not, valuable.

From psychotic PETA members spouting nonsense like "no animal experimentation" to psychotic evangelicals spouting nonsense like "god hates fags," viewpoints in the polar extremes serve a valuable purpose: to the rational among us, their faults help to emphasize why rational discourse and compromise truly is the best option. Idiots provide us with a frame of reference to making informed, rational choices, because they can be relied upon to give us the wrong answer the vast majority of the time. From there, the right answer is a lot easier to derive. Silencing Ann Coulter would be a great loss to us, because without knowing what's inherently wrong (i.e., the opposite of what she says is "right"), it becomes a lot more difficult to know what's actually right.

So on behalf of all the rational, sane people out there, Ann Coulter: get well soon. We need you to tell us what you think is wrong so that we know what's truly right.

Cheers. :P

Since it looks like the market's spiraling out of control, I figure I'll offer up some advice on how to fix it, since I can't actually fix it myself. It's not like the right people are going to be reading this anyway, but I figure I might as well write it out so that I can get it out of my system.

First, how to fix the economy: in short, elect Obama. It sounds goofy, partisan, and overly simplistic, but let me explain in business and historical terms. First, please read up on the quick history of the first Great Depression in the United States. You'll notice by the graph that things literally did not begin to turn around until the labor-appeasing, labeled-a-socialist Democrat was elected to office.

Why did the turnaround happen? Simple: he increased government spending to benefit the working class significantly. He increased regulations on business and the free market, founded the SEC, and did a bunch of other things that made him the ire of the upper class. Why did he do this? He realized that the only reason the depression happened in the first place was due to the overpowering business-oriented government from the prior several decades.

... is this starting to sound familiar? And remember, the GDP began to climb pretty much the second the liberal took office and started screwing over big business. Because of that, the GDP continued to rise substantially over the remainder of his 3 terms in office. McCain is claiming that he'd do the exact opposite and freeze government spending, give more tax breaks, and basically take the path of Hoover. Moreover, McCain has been very clear in pointing out that Obama favors significantly increased government spending-- something that Roosevelt not only endorsed but clearly engaged in. And, look at where it got us: out of the depression.

So the choice this November is simple. If you want 4 more years of things getting worse, vote McCain. If you want 4 years of things getting better, vote Obama.

...and I assure you that I'm right. It just sucks that, like always, I've gotta sit in the backseat and let people decide their own path. Either way, it should make for an interesting show. :P

Cheers.

The total cost of the Iraq War has now exceeded $845 billion dollars. It occurs to me that if we are willing to spend $845 billion dollars and thousands of lives, for much less we could have solved the problem without bloodshed.

Before the start of the war (when Saddam was still alive), we could have simply bribed him to do whatever we wanted. In fact, we could have sent him yearly checks for $1 billion dollars and he'd have recorded 2girls1cup if we asked him to. No, he'd have even played the part of the cup. More importantly, it would have only cost us, at maximum, around $35 billion dollars to keep it up for the worst-case duration of his natural life (he was 65ish before the war). Since he was a dictator, and since he had a natural power over his people, we could have simply made the stipulation that the only way he can keep receiving the money is if truly made steps to convert the nation to a democracy, and, obviously, it would be important to allow us free access to the country for inspections.

It's a pretty simple idea, and, it would have worked. Think of it: no bloodshed, no terrorism, no economic collapse, and, most importantly, $0.99/gallon gas. Best of all, it'd only be 35 easy payments of $1 billion a year (and inflation would be on our side). Instead, we've got this debacle, which has cost us 5 easy payments of $169 billion dollars a year.

I'm just trying to plan for next time.

Cheers.

So it looks like Conservapedia suffered a database crash. Guess it was because they were kind and tolerant of homosex— ermm... wait no. Maybe it was because God hates liberal— oh wait... no.... Perhaps it was because they supported evolu— hmm.

I guess that's what happens when computer "science" teaches both sides of the issue, because clearly constant data backups aren't needed, as God will watch over your data.

Let us not forget, though, that when data corruption happens and/or hard drives fail, it's only God testing your sysadmins...

... riiiight.

I was recently skimming over the Wikipedia article on Scientology controversies and came across a particularly interesting bit of text:

The Church maintains strict control over the use of its symbols, names and religious texts. It holds copyright and trademark ownership over its cross and has taken legal action against individuals and organizations who have quoted short paragraphs of Scientology texts in print or on Web sites, in some cases asserting their scriptures constitute "trade secrets." Individuals or groups who practice Scientology without affiliation with the Church have been sued for violation of copyright and trademark law.

I thought this was kind of interesting. Arguably, the point of copyright law is to protect businesses (including sole proprietorships) from other businesses trying to make pure profit off of the former. That is, copyright law is there so that should Joe Schmoe want to create a book called Joe Schmoe's Guide to Modern Cults, another profiteer by the name of Jane Doe couldn't come along and copy, verbatim, Joe's Guide to Modern Cults and claim it as her own work while making pure profit.

So, when I see Scientology trying to delve into laws made to protect businesses, a red flag is raised in my head: they're a church— not a business. By definition, they're technically a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization. Therefore, I have but one question: why should they be covered by copyright law if the fundamental goal of the organization, legally, is not to turn a profit, but instead to benefit mankind? More importantly, is it valid to use patent/trademark law in matters of religion to begin with?

Above all, if the legal protections designed to protect profit-oriented activities of businesses and individuals are allowed to be applied to churches, then how, exactly, could you even legally distinguish a religion from a business? This one's fairly intriguing, because if the only method for doing so are the tax reporting and exemption statuses delegated by the IRS/states, then we have, in effect, created the largest loophole to a tax code ever known by man. Not only is a religious organization tax-exempt, but unlike every other non-profit organization, it also does not have to report its income to the IRS. Therefore, if religious organizations like Scientology are afforded the same luxury protections as businesses, they are essentially tax-free/tax-reporting-free businesses.

Now, can you imagine how profitable (and dangerous) a business would be if: it never had to pay taxes; it never had to tell the IRS where it's getting its money from; it never had to tell the IRS how it's spending its money; and, it could sue anyone who said anything bad about them? Yikes.

If religious organizations are allowed to be covered by copyright law, and they're allowed to trademark their religion's name, and, on top of that, they can actively bring suit against people who use the name when the religion doesn't want them to, then they are demonstrating business behavior. Essentially, they sue in order to "protect" the corporate image of their "brand name." That makes them even more indistinguishable from businesses. Using the power of the government, they can proactively suppress political dissent, preying directly upon the financial disparity between them, a multi-million dollar organization, and their target, a multi-hundred dollar citizen.