Bit Torrent a Bit Short

This article might interest those Bit Torrent fans out there. Hollywood got to them, too! I didn't hear anything on the radio news but I found one tiny little article on Yahoo. I wonder if it's just that the MPAA carries less weight than Metallica. Does this mean we have to sit through more of those "don't hurt the little people" ads before the movie? These people make so much money - whether building sets or filming them - that I have little sympathy when they cry over things like Bit Torrent. They still get credit for doing the movies; they just don't get as many royalties. What happened to the time when it was about art for art's sake? Now it's just all about the money.

Cleanin up the streets

Discovered a few interesting articles this morning. Apparently, there have been many significant archaeologic finds in the Middle East published just this week.

• David & Goliath
• An ancient Christian church
• A Persian burial mound
• Even the Alphabet

All made possible by deposing a dictator who made tourists disappear. Now imagine what we'd find if that region was as safe as say, Kansas. Proving once again that razing the region to the ground is not a viable answer (much as we might want to).

Cows for Brains

The attached article did not surprise me but it did make me sad. Americans seem to be so revulsed by homosexuality that they are blind to the people they hurt, just as we have been (and continue to be) blinded by race and gender. If history has taught us anything, it's that banning people and activities just makes them worse. Reference the Roaring 20s when a U.S. Constitutional ban on alcohol funded the mafia and organized crime; and the riots of the 60s and 70s due to racial segregation. That's just our country's recent history. The sad truth is that a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage would pass in this country today, simply because the majority of our voting body is made up of ethnocentric, uninformed WASPs. Witness the last election. However I honestly believe that should a President be stupid enough to put a Constitutional amendment on the ballot on this issue, history will rue the day, just as we hate ourselves for banning alcohol and women's and minorities' rights to vote.

Roe v. Wade a Minute!

Unless you've had your head in the sand, you've heard that Bush has actually nominated a judge to fill the empty seat on the S.Ct. However the anti-abortion groups throwing confetti seems like one more sign the Apocalypse is on its way. If Scalito successfully throws out Roe v. Wade, I'm moving to Canada. For example, "Alito upheld a requirement for spousal notification in an abortion case more than a decade ago." He was the only dissenting judge. What kind of ethnocentric moron thinks it's a good idea to tell the possibly angry and gun-toting husband about his wife's (possibly soon to be ex-wife's) abortion? Why not just hand her a death sentence while you're at it?

And then, "Earlier this year, with O'Connor casting the deciding vote, the high court threw out a death sentence that Alito had upheld in the case of a man who argued that his lawyer had been ineffective." Talk about irony that he's taking her job. Some would call that a bone to pick.

I hope the hearings and confirmings tear this guy apart, but sadly, I think he'll take the office right next to Roberts. How does that song go? O' Canada, O' Canada...