Awww Mom,
Why can't I have a blog?
Everyone else is doing it...
| May 2004 | ||||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
Friday, May 28, 2004
So the RIAA BrownShirts went after a poor single mother with a music luvin' daughter.
I have an idea. Offer to pay them. Yes, she doesn't have the money, and there's no way in hell anyone is going to loan her $4000. But she can offer to give them $5/month out of her daughter's lunch money. The only alternative is for her to declare bankrupcy, which she probably can't afford to do either, but for the RIAA it's blood from a turnip.
At this point, she's negotiating. They can try to sue her, drag her into court for $500,000 or whatever damages they can trump up, and she can bring her 15 year old daughter in with her so the world can see what a bunch of vicious bastards the RIAA really are. When they "win", guess what, she can't afford to pay them, so now they're out real costs, not just the trumped up damages they claim the daughter cost them in profits. It's like contesting a ticket and making the cop show up in court. But in this case, if they show up, it costs them real dough, and since she doesn't have any, it won't cost her anything but her time and the time of a pro-bono lawyer, of which I suspect one or two would agree to take her case. Not all lawyers are as heartless as the RIAA's blood-sucking leeches - or am I being a a pollyanna optimist about this...? Hard to say.
But offer the $5/month. Oh, and tell her daughter to share her music from other people's houses, 'cause mommy's broke.
Heck, I'd donate money to the pro-bono lawyer just to see those bastards in court. I don't think anyone's made a real court challenge yet, since they "reduce" their damages to something most people can afford, albeit painfully. For this woman, they'd need to reduce it further to around $400 before paying would be worth it to her but still cause her significant pain.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 09:59 AM PST [Link]
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Finally!!! Pet furniture for the 21st Century Pet.
Cats are tired of the same old crap. Carpeted crap. Mouse-shaped crap. Crap shaped crap. They want what we want - their lives and furnishings updated to meet today's exacting standards and challenge the latest advances in modern material capabilities.
I especially liked the sisal lined scratching swirl.
With furniture like this, maybe the White House could see its way clear to bringing back Ernie, the polydactl cat deported to California for being "a little rough on the furniture". Well, Shrubs, this cat furniture likes it rough.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 10:24 AM PST [Link]
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Ugly baby spawns birth-bed confession
But can you sue if the guy (or girl) is just a good old fashion asshole? I suppose that one goes under irreconcilable differences...
---
Man divorces and sues wife over ugly pastA Chinese man has divorced and sued his wife for £55,000 after discovering she'd had plastic surgery before they met.
Jian Feng, 38, was said to have been "horrified" when she gave birth to an ugly baby daughter. He suspected her of having an affair.
His wife then confessed to having plastic surgery costing £70,000 in South Korea before they met and showed him a picture of how she used to look.
He filed for divorce two years after marrying her following a whirlwind romance.
The Heilongjiang Morning Post said Jian successfully sued for deceit.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 05:05 PM PST [Link]
Monday, May 24, 2004
Off a secret joke list among those in the know:
Intel recently hired several cannibals.
"You are all part of our team now," said the Human Resources rep
during the welcoming briefing. "You get all of the usual benefits and
you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please do not
eat any of the other employees."The cannibals promised that they would not.
Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard
and I'm very satisfied with you. However, one of our secretaries has
disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"The cannibals all shook their heads "no".
After the boss left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others,
"Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?"A hand rose hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals shouted,
"You fool!!! For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one
noticed anything! But noo-ooo, you had to go and eat someone
important!"
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 05:47 PM PST [Link]
How's this for Spam? I'm not sure what they're selling, but this arrived in my Spam Filter today:
Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. In that order.
I never worry about action, but only inaction.The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.
The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.
You have to be tough.
Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.
Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
In my end is my beginning. Begin --
to begin is half the work, let half still remain again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
Ability without honor is useless.
Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 09:38 AM PST [Link]
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Eric Idle presents... The FCC Song."Here's a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with
a judge. It's a new song, it's dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it,
it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."Posted by SpasticMutant @ 12:57 PM PST [Link]
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Mancha the Jaguar has a taste for fingers.
I think they need a sign for all the morons out there - "Help us feed Mancha the Jaguar! Stick your fingers through the fence!"
Mancha especially loves to eat human-fingers when chicken-fingers aren't available. Perhaps that ought to be in the brochure. [more]
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 01:47 PM PST [Link]
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Today only, May 13, very lucky people from Alabama (how can anyone living in Alabama consider himself truly lucky?) up through the east coast but confined in a band about 80 meters wide will have the privilege of watching the planet Jupiter eclipsed by the International Space Station for only a moment. Still, to be able to watch an earth satellite cruise through the sky and darken the largest planet in the solar system even momentarily has to have a severely high Coolness factor.
It reminds me of that Monty Python (Oops! Kids in the Hall! Thanks Anton, for the correction!) sketch where the actor "pinches" the heads of other people by framing them at a distance between his thumb and first finger and then bringing them together, all the while proclaiming his power over them.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 09:41 AM PST [Link]
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
I saw the video of Berg's tortuous beheading by his Iraqi kidnappers. His family seems to be under the impression that it was quick and painless; nothing could be further than the truth. It wasn't chopped, it was sawed, and he screamed in agony almost all the way to the end.
If you don't want to sleep for a few nights, have a look:
(text accompanying the video)
The 5:30-minute video of the murder of Nicholas Berg shows that it took about 45 seconds to cut off his head in several passes while he screamed and was held down. At the beginning of the beheading the time-frame on the video jumps sequence by some 11 minutes and the time text changes color from white to orange. Little blood is shown, even from the severed head.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 02:30 PM PST [Link]
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Hey look, everybody! Unintended Consequences!
Sooo... Is it torture, or gross mistreatment? The text of the Geneva Convention uses the word "Outrage", as in, "(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;", in Part I, Article III of the General Provisions.While watching some of the Senate Hearings on this matter, I'm amazed at the hair-splitting that's going on in the wake of this scandal. It all sounds like a bunch of prevarication and equivocation to me. Of course, these are not precisely the same as lying¹, and torture is not the same as gross mistreatment.
But Rummy's doing a great job. Thanks, Rummy. If your plan is to spur the entire Muslim world to rise against us so we can go to war and take their oilfields, you're doing a great job. [more]
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 09:55 AM PST [Link]
Monday, May 10, 2004
Who's being held at Getmo? Have a look!Unfortunately, only the first couple of pages have pictures.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 04:32 PM PST [Link]
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
More from Boing Boing about the alleged mistreatment and murders of Afghani Taliban in the desert:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/05/thousands_of_afghani.htmlI'm not exactly for this sort of thing, but War's Hell, ain't it? Maybe the Taliban should have thought about this more carefully before they protected and sanctioned a terrorist organization that sent almost 3000 totally innocent, unrelated Americans to their deaths in a flaming choking inferno. Being a vital accessory to the commission of a heinous act of war and then whining about the consequences doesn't really wash with me. They started this one. The Japanese weren't exactly thrilled about getting firebombed and nuked either, but that's what you have to expect when you start a war.
And before anyone brings up the Iraq thing, Let's get this straight: I wasn't gung ho about that war, and I'm pretty sure the Law Of Unintended Consequences is going to catch up with the United States on that one. But the Afghanistan operations have my complete and total support.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 12:06 PM PST [Link]
Spotted on BoingBoing:
You do need to know French to understand this article about the French version of the RIAA (SNEP) cracking down on French music downloaders, but you don't need to know French to understand SNEP's new logo at the bottom. The image is an internationally recognized symbol; the slogan reads, "Free music has a price". (No, I don't read French, just other people's translations, though Google translations are better than nothing.)
http://msmvps.com/xpditif/posts/5887.aspx
Nor do you need to know French to understand the very first response to the article, posted at the bottom - one word that about sums it up just right. I must say, it's the most articulate, succinct remark on this issue I've seen yet. I may have to rethink my position on the French - maybe some French folks have a little fight left in 'em after all. We'll see.
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 07:18 AM PST [Link]
Monday, May 3, 2004
Got a Linux box and a USB jumpdrive? Configure your Linux machine so you can read it!
First, pick a mount point and create the directory:
mkdir /mnt/myjumpdriveThen, In /etc/fstab file, add this line:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/myjumpdrive vfat user,umask=0 0 0Now, you can just mount /mnt/myjumpdrive, cd to it, and the contents of the jump drive will appear.
Some folks have hacked their systems to autodetect. I don't use mine enough to bother, but maybe I'll do it in my copious spare time. $;^D
Posted by SpasticMutant @ 12:10 PM PST [Link]
[Archives]
Search entries:
 |
DISCLAIMER: This web page
was constructed with 100% recycled electrons (or, during shortages, at
least 35% post-consumer electrons). No electrons were harmed in the making
of this web page, although several were accelerated against their
collective will. No files have been charged. And Remember: the only Good
Cow is a Dead Cow. © 2000, 2001, 2002 Spastic Mutant Productions. All Rights Reserved. |