Politics

Totally Unrelated Gratuitous Harem Pic

A blacklisting censorship bill is being considered by a committee of the United States House of Representatives this week.

Censoring the Internet is, of course, something totally unholy. Demonic. Immoral. Something that the Santorum-worshippers would do.

Naturally the people of the Internet are up in arms. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has issued a call to action, complete with a toolkit for activism.

A New Breed of Engineers?

An updated version of the Stop Online Piracy Act, as the bill is called, was released Monday afternoon. Read it! Most of it reads like an engineering specification document for modifications to the DNS system, essentially mandating that the system should FAIL when presented with an input that matches the contents of the government blacklist.

Thousands of hard-working engineers have endeavored, over many decades, to create the Internet that we all know and love. It’s a system that has proven amazingly useful, resilient, and adaptable. The Internet – and its essential constituent components such as DNS – have raised humanity to a whole new level.

And the engineers are still working! They’re implementing IPV6. They’re implementing DNSSEC. Constant improvement is the task of this global community of engineers. And it’s a task they are up to because they have the education and the experience and the creativity to do the job.

But the folks in Congress think they can do better engineering work than the guys who, you know, have actually been doing the work!

Wow, these Congresspeople are smart! More educated and more experienced and more creative than the people that engineered the Internet???!!! Wow… wow… wow…!!!

Ptthheew! Sorry, I just snarfed it. These people are idiots.

Threats Generally Work

I’m not talking about physical threats.

I simply suggest you call, e-mail, complain in person… Threaten your Congressman that if he or she supports S.O.P.A., you will vote for the other guy in 2012, and that you’ll encourage your family and friends and colleagues to vote for the other guy, and that you’ll donate to the other guy, and that you’ll complain on the Internet and in other public forums about how your Congressperson helped ruin the Internet and ought to be voted out of office for doing so.

The Internet is holy. It must be defended.

You know… it’s awfully hard to come to grips with the bat-shit-insane political situation in American right now.

Just last week, for instance, the U.S. Senate passed the Glenn Greenwald Assassination Act– no, not it’s official name, but nonetheless an accurate description of what it intends to accomplish.

Now all of America is a battlefield. Anyone whom the American Regime considers to be a “terrorist” can be summarily killed by the military. And only the Regime gets to decide who’s a terrorist and who isn’t. No courts are involved. There is no trial.

Just imagine if Nixon had this power! The power to kill whomever he wanted would have been the ultimate trump card against all sorts of political difficulties. Daniel Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers, for instance, would have certainly qualified as a terrorist act. And then Ellsberg could have been shot in the head. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of the Watergate scandal could have been labelled a terrorist act too. Shot in the head, and shot in the head.

With a bada-bing and a bada-bang, all of Nixon’s problems could have been solved! Then there would have been no scandal for Dick. No resignation for Dick. Long live King Nixon!

So now, going forward, when regular critic of the American Regime (and Salon blogger) Glenn Greenwald gets a little too mouthy, or comes across some significant evidence of malfeasance that might resonate a little too much with the generally disinterested public, he can be labelled a “terrorist” too. And then the Regime will shoot him in the head. Bye, bye, Gleeny-boy! Republicans will cheer! Democrats will cheer! God bless America!

This is going to be a politics post. Excuse me for that. Perhaps slapping some bizarre nude pic up here at the top will somehow make up for it, so here ‘ya go:

Now, about the politics:

Have you been paying attention to the whole debt-ceiling thing?

It was like a season of a mediocre TV series. The tension was fake. The characters were empty and predictable. Everyone knew how the season would end.

But of course the season finale yesterday was still dramatic: The House of Representatives decided, at the last minute and at Obama’s urging, to not impose an immediate financial catastrophe on the world.

America gets to live to borrow borrow borrow another day… YAY!

Gabrielle Giffords, whom you might remember from last season as “the Congresswoman who was shot in the head in Tuscon”, came back to work for the first time to cast her vote. As her presence became known, there was a long round of thunderous applause, just like Chancellor Palpatine got after he was disfigured by Samuel L. Jackson in Star Wars III.

There is an ominous development: a Super Congress has been created to make sure that the small players in the legislative business– mostly the Tea Party “terrorists”– don’t get in the way of the big fish anymore. We can’t have those annoying dweebs obstructing the will of the mighty Establishment, can we?

So I reluctantly admit that the finale was somewhat interesting. But the season overall was nonetheless mediocre; and the series as a whole is booooooring.

Maybe they could work the cast of Seinfeld into the storyline for next season? That would be an improvement, don’t you think?

I remember the day when I became a libertarian.

It happened when I was in sixth grade Social Studies class. I was about 12 years old. All students were assigned the task of designing a country. We were supposed to determine the style of government, and describe in writing the customs and laws of our society.

This was back in the mid-Reagan era, when the Cold War was in full they’re-gonna-nuke-us-anyday-now mode. The project was probably intended to make each student choose an American-style system for himself. Any kid who designed a communist country like the big bad U.S.S.R. would have to answer some tough questions when he presented his design to the class… such as: Do you really think that badass Russian Dolph Lundgren should have won over Rocky Balboa? Cue the shame!

But I got interested in the project in a way that was subtly sexual. What distinguished my design was that, in my ideal country, beachwear would be see-through! Something like this:

I remember one girl who I had a crush on asked me: What’s the point of having see-through bathing suits?

The true answer, of course, was that it resonated with my nascent hedonism and horniness in a way that I couldn’t elucidate. But instead I told her: That’s just the way it is in my country. We must, I explained to my fellow Sixth Graders, respect the customs of people in other societies, even if we find them a little strange. We must not engage in ethnocentrism!

Then I went on to describe how every single aspect of my society was based, in one way or another, on the see-through bathing suit concept. The government would be honest and transparent; they could not tell a lie. There would be total freedom except for the fact that hot women would be forbidden to don any swimwear that was not see-through. My teacher tried to steer my presentation in another direction– any other direction!– but I persisted with the idea that this was just how my country was. I had a presentation to give and was not going to accept being censored! Free speech! Free speech!

More Photos After The Jump…

A few hours ago, New York State approved gay marriage.

And I’m shocked. I’ve ranted and raved and been furiously angry with The System for so long that, when something genuinely good gets done, I don’t know what to think.

I want to find the contrary angle. I have an instinct to hunt out the hypocrisy and corruption that permeates government… What’s up y’er sleeve? Who’s got their fingers crossed?

But there ain’t any bad stuff here. This is true progress for liberty and individualism. Good fucking job, New York!

UPDATE: Oh wait… Here’s a contrary angle from Reason’s Hit & Run Blog:

A libertarian friend writes, “When did states setting the terms of exchange become an expression of right to contract? The only rights-based approach would be states to stop setting the rules of marriage at all. Sadly we just get a stronger but fairer state.”

Eh… doesn’t seem like an argument that would cause it to rain on the gay pride parade, does it? I guess it’s good that someone tried, tho’…

Here’s a quote for ‘ya… Try reading it out loud in an impassioned voice:

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is it’s justice; that is it’s morality.

That’s from the 1851 book General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century by French dude Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Even now, after more than a century-and-a-half, it remains an inspiring rant, especially when appreciated from a modern libertarian perspective.

More History After The Jump…

So this morning I tried something new: I went to see a psychotherapist.

Yes, my dear readers, I sought “treatment”– just like dirtbag Congressman Anthony Weiner has.

But there’s a difference. Anthony Weiner entered treatment because he has a seemingly irresistible desire to tweet his cock and fantasize that he lives the life of a lesser Charlie Sheen minus the tigerblood.

Not me. I’m happy with where I am in my sex-picture-posting life. Very happy. My problem is a little different: I can’t stop thinking about politics. I can’t stop hating the corruption and the fakery and the manipulation and the lying. I hate that America is turning into a police state. I read The Agitator and it makes me… ummm… agitated!

I’ve entered therapy in the hope that it will help me stop worrying about Anthony Weiner and his ilk. I want to focus on relatively moral and honest things like porn and pot, and not concern myself with obscene, morally-repugnant things like what happens in Washington.

A Benzo Morning Appointment

Only problem was that my therapist appointment was bright and early in the morning, at a time when the early surfers are surfing and the roosters of Oceanside are cock-a-doodle-do’ing.

I am not a morning person.

Before I posted the Hegre-Art girls last night, a little before midnight, I took three benzos so I would be able to get to sleep.

Then, when 7am rolled around, I got up and had some coffee… from my now-functional fucking coffeemaker, thank you very much! But I felt anxious that I had taken so many benzos eight hours earlier. So I took two more benzos to alleviate the anxiety.

After the therapy session, I realized something: Therapy is just like the Catholic sacrament of confession. The only difference is that with therapy you don’t have to feel bad about it.

Well… that and instead of paying in prayers, you pay in cash.

Maybe Others Will Seek Political Therapy Too?

So this morning I’m reading Zero Hedge and Glenn Greenwald– the normal fare chronicling the decline and fall of the American Empire– while waiting for the coffee to brew.

Waiting. And waiting. And waiting…

WTF?! The fucking coffeemaker just stopped working! This is not supposed to happen.

As I unpacked and set up the new replacement coffeemaker, I realized that this portends the future of America. One day we’ll wake up and expect America and the American government and the American Dollar to all work, but they’ll refuse and demand to be replaced instead.

That replacement cannot be done with a quick run to Wal-Mart tho’.

Which Brings Me To Weiner…

Actually, no. I’m not going to go there.

I was going to write about the dick-tweeting and man-slutting Congressman Weiner, but he ain’t worth mentioning on this esteemed porn blog. My dysfunctional $25 coffeemaker is more important than he is. I just don’t fucking care about him.

I will point out that he is in “treatment” now. Maybe he failed the seven-orgasms-per-week test? Did you know that there is a seven-orgasms-per-week test? Oh how the mind boggles!

Dr. Marty Klein says that Weiner is no worse than the other miscreants in public office. I guess he’s correct about that. But I still hate them all. I hate the constant lying and constant groveling and constant busybody-ing and constant posturing.

C’mon, guys, let’s see The Face:

That right there– that’s the face of your government for ‘ya. The face of fucking fuckwads. The face of the Weiner Republic.