Editorial & Opinion
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Why Is There A Nascar Track At The Oklahoma City Bombing Site?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on September 3, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Sure. Call it a “street”. That’s like calling a mosque an “Islamic center”. If we don’t dismantle this affront to our way of life, the rednecks have already won.
 Why did we let the rednecks build a Nascar track here? |
The other day I mentioned that I thought it was strange that given so many Americans’ universal hatred of Muslims because of September 11, I found it odd that we don’t hate all rednecks from Michigan for the Oklahoma City Bombing . Fortunately, some friends set me straight on a few facts. First of all, many Americans ARE rednecks. And secondly, the ones who aren’t, DO. Hate rednecks, that is. Ironically, that second point was made by a Russian friend of mine, who also said – on behalf of rednecks – that at least “they don’t go around burning the American embassy after we draw them in funny ways“. To which I replied with something like “yeah, they just blow up abortion clinics and stuff“. The irony in my Russian friend’s defense of rednecks being that not too long ago, Russians were the enemy. Which for me is the real bitch in all of this. Anyone who bothers digging deeper than the frothing idiocy of ratings-driven anchortainers or polarized partisan blog punditry knows very well that this irrational contempt for all things Muslim has its roots in the fact that when the Cold War ended, the military industrial complex had a serious problem on their hands, i.e., an enemy crisis. Who better to fit the bill than a culture that most Americans know nothing about? Which frankly could be just about any culture. But handily, most Americans – in spite of being incredibly ignorant of history in general – are experts on the wars between Christians and Muslims, and strangely eager to start them again, even if they don’t really believe in God. The level of ignorance swirling around the whole topic of “Islam as our enemy” is frighteningly depicted in the Onion satire Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims. I say “frighteningly” depicted, because the satire is so close to reality as to be nearly indistinguishable. So if an Islamic center at “ground zero” is going to be a test of freedom and tolerance in America, I think we should at least be consistent and remove the Nascar track that’s in front of the Murrah Federal Building site, and ban all sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon in Oklahoma City, and eliminate any other redneck insults to the federal government in the area. And don’t try that “it’s not a Nascar track it’s just a street” argument on me. That’s like saying a mosque is “just an Islamic center“. I hope I’m sounding utterly irrational with what I’m saying here. Because it would be un-American of me to do otherwise.
We Are All Prostitutes – Everyone Has Their Price
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 23, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, August 23rd, 2010And ours is pretty low. Learn how you can peddle influence and curry favor with Dissociated Press for as little as five dollars.
 This is not a prostitute. This is a Hooker. |
We talk a lot about the demise of journalistic integrity here on Dissociated Press. We in fact probably contribute to it daily with our shoddy writing, weak fact checking, re-purposing of content, and lack of an actual editor. In spite of our concern about this issue, that doesn’t mean we don’t like making money, which is why we’re launching a funding drive. In the interest of transparency and serving the public good, we’ve created some donor levels so that you can know exactly where your donations are going, and feel good about them. This whole scenario could of course have been avoided if more people would show support for our sponsors by clicking on their links once in awhile, or buying the amazing things we recommend on Amazon
, but no. Our content is our gift to the world that didn’t ask for it. Unfortunately, as our traffic grows, our hosting company’s bill is their gift to us. Learn below how easy it would be to rent, own, or pwn us. Read the rest of this entry »
Righthaven LLC: Suing Bloggers For Fun & Profit
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 19, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Thursday, August 19th, 2010Although the music and film industries seem to have eased up on suing as a business model, an opportunistic lawyer has filled the gap by doing the same for online news.
 Mickey Isn’t The Only One Shackled By Copyright Law Abuse |
Sometimes I wonder if poor Sonny Bono ran himself into a tree while skiing on purpose, to punish himself for his part in helping drive forward the endless onslaught of frivolous and abusive lawsuits and copyright trolling of the past decade or so. We’ve touched on issues relating to this before, mostly in reference to the RIAA or MPAA, but it appears there’s a new copybully on the block, and he’s here to save the world from all the money-grubbing bloggers that are apparently solely responsible for the continued demise of the news industry, with their felonious linking and article-citing practices. That Wired article just linked to sums up the story pretty well, but if you want to keep up to speed, visit RighthavenLawsuits.com, which is NOT the website of Righthaven LLC, but rather a site set up to track the insane number of lawsuits being served up by these greedy bastards. I say “greedy”, because the main guy behind this all has stated publicly that he’s doing it primarily for profit, and I say “bastard” because I think anyone could tell by looking at the bloated, smug, self-satisfied jerk in this photo that he is one. Interestingly, Righthaven doesn’t seem to have a site themselves, unless they’ve sued into oblivion everyone with a link to it. If you want to be sure you avoid any of the many news organizations being represented in these actions, a list of Stephens Media Newspapers can be found here, and Clayton Cramer’s Blog has a simple Firefox-based solution here. And to “avoid their wrath”, see this blog post by Las Vegas trademark and intellectual property attorney Ryan Gile.
This Link May Be Subject To Copyright
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on August 9, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, August 9th, 2010Why we’re instituting a “Don’t Link, Don’t Share” policy. Please do not view, link to, or share these links.
As we mentioned last week, there’s something funny about the way some people develop a sense of ownership when sharing a link, to the extent that “decent” people will add a “via” credit when re-sharing the link. This is especially funny given that the web is, when all is said and done, NOTHING BUT A SERIES OF LINKS. It’s also amusing that this kind of “link valor” still exists at a time when all you find at the top of most Google search results are Scraper Sites. Obviously, some people not only don’t care who’s link they’re sharing, they don’t particularly care who’s content they’re sharing. Which is why I’m going to have to point out that this brief article and the links within it are subject to copyright. So please do not share them. You may review our detailed terms of service and linking policy here. Actually, that’s Ticketmaster UK’s legal page, but we like the way they phrased things. So just replace “Ticketmaster” with “Dissociated Press” wherever it’s appropriate. And especially mind the bit that says “”You also agree not to deep-link to the site for any purpose, unless specifically authorised by Ticketmaster Dissociated Press to do so.” And if you think we’re crazy for instituting these policies, check out this collection of sites that ban you from linking to them. If a policy’s good enough for Jimmy Choo, it’s good enough for us. So on with de linking… Read the rest of this entry »
Why 7 Year Old Julie Murphy Should Go To Jail
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 7, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Saturday, August 7th, 2010Lemonade stands have recently become an excellent symbol for everything that’s wrong with America.
Back in July, Terry Savage of the Chicago Sun-Times posted this amusing piece about little girls that were (brace yourself) GIVING AWAY lemonade and candy bars at their lemonade stand in some unidentified “upscale neighborhood”. The gist of what he was saying was summed up well in the sidebar of the piece, which read: “Three girls giving away free lemonade isn’t cute, it’s indicative of the lack of economic responsibility we’re passing on to future generations“. Which I personally disagreed with in many ways; if these were children of today’s nouveau riche who have little sense of how their wealth obligates them to a certain amount social responsibility and leadership-by-example, then the kids were actually teaching their ignorant yuppy parents a lesson in sharing your excess for the good of the community that helped make you wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with being rich, but historically in America, those who have possessed the most enduring wealth have always understood the importance of giving back some of the prosperity they enjoy. All of which may lead you to believe that I’m some sort of socialist hippy tree hugger that would support the recent goings on in Portland, Oregon, in which the local health department shut down poor little 7-year-old Julie Murphy’s lemonade stand (sending her home crying), because it was operating without proper permits. Well, Oregon being Oregon, the public outcry forced the health department to reverse their decision, and now we have former accused criminal Murphy saying she’s not bitter about the whole thing. Not bitter? This is like Karl Rove saying he’s not bitter about the failed subpoenas against him when he hid behind executive privilege in the Bush era. No, I think Julie Murphy and her mom should go to jail. They were not only violating public health laws, there’s a good chance they were violating child labor laws as well. Who knows what – if anything – little Julie Murphy was getting paid, or if appropriate taxes were being levied against the lemonade stand’s gross revenue or the staff’s income. And the local health department bowing to public sentiment is yet another example of what’s wrong with America today. Good governing is based on reasoned public discourse and letting knowledgeable leaders present sensible options to the public to vote on, not knee-jerk regulatory reactions to public sentiment. If you don’t already doubt the wisdom of the crowd theory, just ponder American Idol, YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo Answers, or read this piece by Fark.com‘s creator to see where this kind of “wisdom” takes us. Letting these lawbreakers continue to operate unregulated sets a horrible precedent. Soon you’ll have companies like British Petroleum setting up oil rigs without proper permits, manning them with children, and claiming that it was the kids’ idea and that they saw nothing wrong with paying children the several hundred dollars a day a typical rig worker gets paid. Read the rest of this entry »