Psychopolitik 2.0

Everyone has their priorities.  For these people, it’s making sure you don’t whack off in your hotel room:

Pornographic movies now seem nearly as pervasive in America’s hotel rooms as tiny shampoo bottles, and the lodging industry shows little concern as conservative activists rev up a protest campaign aimed at triggering a federal crackdown.

A coalition of 13 conservative groups — including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America — took out full-page ads in some editions of USA Today earlier this month urging the Justice Department and FBI to investigate whether some of the pay-per-view movies widely available in hotels violate federal and state obscenity laws.

First of all, I have never heard of a hotel that offered any material that would actually violate legitimate laws.  So obviously, these people operate on a different definition of “obscene*” than most folks — if it involves nekkedness in any way whatsoever they go all ban-happy.  That’s no surprise.

What’s interesting is how blatantly this type of culture-war barking completely contradicts the claim of american conservatism to support a free-market.  It’s PAY-PER-VIEW, guests don’t get it unless they explicitly ask for it, objection to availability itself assumes that people are forced to look at it.

By some estimates, adult movies are available in roughly 40 percent of the nation’s hotels, representing more than 1.5 million rooms. Industry analysts suggest that these adult offerings generate 60 to 80 percent of total in-room entertainment revenue — several hundred million dollars a year.  (emphasis mine)

The majority of hotels don’t have it, yet it makes the majority of the money from in-room entertainment.  Gee, what would it make sense to do businesswise, keep offering if it’s there & start offering if it isn’t, or kill the cash cow & lose a distinguishing mark on your competition to shut up a group that already has more choices?

(* - personally I don’t believe in obscenity as a legal concept.  Provided that whoever is in the film isn’t either a) a child or b) being forced, there is no reason whatsoever to care.  I myself don’t watch porn, though not out of any moral concern.  My reason would go into TooMuchInformationVille rather quick, so I will spare you that.)

Population density in the US is such that there are huge areas of the country where your nearest neighbor might be miles away.  Cost of living is generally lower in the middle of the country.  Yet an empty lot in Manhattan, zoned for residential use & located in a landmarked district — restricting what can be put there — which just happens to be where a guy committed suicide by blowing up the entire building that once stood there, is getting offers at an $8 million asking price.

Eh, I was born & raised in “flyover country”.  This just looks dumb to me off instinct alone.

This is what I’m reading right now: “Chasing Ghosts: a soldier’s fight for america from baghdad to washington“.  The author is a veteran of the current Iraq war & talks about the kind of crap he went through.  First thing that stuck out for me was that his group started their mission on the same day that Bush pulled that “mission accomplished” publicity stunt, talk about irony…

While reading it, I find myself constantly in amazement at how we as a culture expect to reintegrate into civilian life people who’ve been in combat like that.  The descriptions of how war changed him & his peers, both out of obvious necessity & as reaction to inevitable cultural clash, alternate between sad to almost tragi-comic in a way.  It kinda makes me wonder if maybe civilization had a better idea back when warriors were bred from birth rather than picked from the masses.  Not saying “let’s go back to that”, nor that it’d be possible to, but sometimes you wonder…

For some reason I watched part of that Dateline on food advertizing. A little bit ago, there was a part where they did an “experiment” of sorts where they took a group of 6-year-olds & had them choose between two items, one with a cartoon character on it and one without. Was simple enough at first: two cupcakes, one w/ Spiderman on it, most of the kids picked the spiderman one. Then they took a cupcake w/ Scooby Doo on it & a banana & asked which one they’d want to eat — naturally they took the cupcake.

The last two were interesting: a plain cupcake vs a banana w/ cartoon stickers on it, and a plain banana vs — get this — a rock with Spongebob on it. They even specified the point was about which they wanted to EAT, and without fail most picked whatever had the cartoon character on it. After this, they predictably talk to some woman launching into the “it’s sooooo hard to tell them no…” routine, implying that someone (read: the government) has to step in to save parents from buying their kids junk food. Me, I got a different conclusion:

Six year olds are ignorant of the concept of nutrition, have little grasp of reality, and are, oh, how can I put this, SIX YEAR OLDS!!

Think about how you were when you were six. Santa Claus, the easter bunny, the freakin tooth fairy. Why the hell is it so surprising to Dateline that kindergarteners wouldn’t know you can’t eat a rock?!? Cancel this godawful show, please!

To the parents out there, I’m about to solve your problems. Next time your brat whines about wanting something, say the following to yourself:

“I am an adult, I pay the bills. This is a child, he/she pays for nothing. If not for me this child would starve, he/she will take what I give them and shut up. His/her naivete is a characteristic of childhood, to be broken in the process of growing up into a responsible adult, I will break them of it at all costs. Saying no is crucial to this, my responsibility as a parent.” Then look them in the eye and say “No. That is final, don’t ask again.” If they do, a nice open-handed slap is in order. You should eventually get to a point where all you have to do is look at them and they’ll shut up.

Damn, I should write a book…

Shorter Andrew Young: “between a faceless conglomerate & those damn jews & ay-rabs I know who I’d pick!”

Civil rights leader Andrew Young resigned as chairman of a group intended to boost Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s image after he made remarks to a newspaper disparaging Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners.

Young told the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American newspaper, that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables,” The New York Times said.

I’ve gotta go off on something here: a lot of supposed black “leaders” have things fucked up. They see no difference between being concerned about blacks & being anti-everyone-else, and sadly people buy into it. It seems after the meltdown of things like the Panthers our capacity for anger went haywire, to the point where a sizeable chunk of blacks who’re somewhat politically active think everything is race. Stop it, you’re embarassing us.

He apologized, but the damage is done really…

“I recently made some comments about former store owners in my neighborhood that were completely and utterly inappropriate,” the statement said. “Those comments run contrary to everything I have dedicated my life to.” (emphasis mine)

You’re damn right they do. Anger at all arabs, jews, & koreans over the actions of a few who happen to own local businesses is racism, no point in sugar coating it. Not only is it that, but him supporting Wal-Mart because of it is also a contradiction: Large-scale corporations like Wal-Mart depend on government power to subsidize their operation, making it artificially cheap, and who is is that runs the majority of the government in the US? White people! So even if you accept the view of hypocritically using race as an ever present Blame-o-Matic, supporting them feeds the same thing you claim to despise!

The real key to those mom & pop shops is not race. They aren’t going out of business because they’re all bigoted & Wal-Mart loves minorities, no. They’re going out of business because through the State the market has been rigged to promote size for its own sake. Once again, government is the problem: it rewards inefficiency & drives a wedge between people, making all cultural issues into political issues. The faster that people like Andrew Young learn this, the better.

BTW: In case anyone is wondering, there is a reason I have as a sub-heading to this site “thoughts from a big angry negro”. Ever since I was old enough to understand, I’ve been puzzled by the endorsement of statism by many minority activists — even the “whitey is the devil!!” types. I remember asking myself why they show so much anger yet co-operate with the same institution they imply is beyond repair. Though it is not the focus of this site, I feel strongly that minorities in general, & blacks in particular, made a critical error in attaching the civil rights struggle to government: what is granted can easily be taken away. Having seen how throughout history the State has routinely supported bigotry, I came to see libertarianism as the logical conclusion to the arguements made.

What government in the US did to blacks, governments everywhere have done to everyone. So in a way, everyone has legitimate reason to be a “big angry negro”, whether you’re black, white, brown, yellow, purple, whatever. No man should trust their government, I don’t care what you look like.

The terrorist-surveillance program warrantless wire-tapping of US citizens, for now at least, has been struck down:

A federal judge decision’s to strike down President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was the first ruling over its legality, but surely not the last.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled Thursday that the program violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

Of course, this being the Bush regime, they vow to keep pressing on. The gist of their arguement thus far has been this:

“we have the authority to do this, despite none explicitly being laid out in the Constitution. We can’t give justification because it would reveal state secrets, and we review the program among ourselves all the time — just ignore the fact that we all agree with it. If you oppose it you want the terrorists to operate unimpeded”

Terrible arguement. What’s even worse is how easily they could retract the central problem:

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration “couldn’t disagree more with this ruling.” He said the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and “has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives.”

If it were this limited in scope, then they could simply go get a warrant like they were supposed to. I strongly doubt the FISA court would’ve rejected it, they’re basically a rubber-stamp court & this is the kind of thing that most wouldn’t mind rubber-stamping. Thus, by claiming a narrow scope & still avoiding a warrant they implicitly admit the opposite.

Damn, you’d think a former FoxNews employee would be more skilled at defending Bush administration policies. They’ve had all that practice…

I have the following to say at the moment:

Wall-to-wall cable news coverage on a crime that happened ten years ago is ridiculous.  Most don’t remember, & among the few that do most agreed regardless of any thought about the case itself that the parents were creepy as hell sluttin’ up a little kid like that.  Besides, the emphasis on the deaths of certain types of people — I will not say what type, you already know — suggests a sort of deep-seated psychological issue among the media, a fetish of sorts.  The whole thing makes me sick, and this is all I will say about it.

Sorry about that, the inability to change channels without being bombarded with this shit pissed me off so much I had to write about it.  Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging…

Another unsuccessful scoring drive by the Washington Fearmongers: the cellphone terrorism cases are falling apart.  The group in Ohio had the terrorism & money laundering charges dropped, and are now only being charged with “lying to the police” (Ha!), while the group in Michigan is being subect to charges locally even though the feds themselves admitted they see no reason to believe they’re anything but tourists.  Barring a lucky break, I smell a lawsuit in that prosecutors future.

Let’s have a word with the defensive coordinator of the Fearmongers, Alberto Gonzales.  Al, how do you explain this hype?

“I don’t know how many of you have ever gone to a store to purchase 80-100 cell phones at a time,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday in Chicago. “I would consider that somewhat unusual and I think it would be perfectly legitimate to say, ’Hey, is there something going on here?”’

By that logic everyone who buys multiple kitchen knives at once ought to be accussed of plotting a murder.

Nice to know that things are so calm that all we have to worry about is giant crosses:

A gigantic cross in San Diego that has been the focus of a 17-year court battle became the property of the federal government yesterday with President Bush’s signature.

Supporters hope the legislation enabling the federal government to purchase the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial — featuring a 29-foot cross — from the city of San Diego will protect it permanently. A series of court decisions have deemed the cross unconstitutional because it stands on public property.

Note the assumption at hand here.  Not only is the term “public property” invoked as being synonymous with government “property” (the State has no legitimate title to land, what it has is either stolen or bought with stolen money), but now there are levels of “public property”.  Having a giant cross on land that allegedly belongs to the city government somehow becomes allowable if the same cross on the same land is transferred in title to the federal government.  Somehow I doubt that this is what the veterans — at least those who signed up for the military willingly & were not enslaved — had in mind.

Ok, obviously there’s the property rights issue with this (government cannot hold a legitimate title), and also the question of this implicitly endorsing the idea of the US military as “crusaders” despite many who fought in it not being christians.  But honestly, you can diffuse this entire thing, as well as any other “so what if it’s government-owned grounds, you’re just anti-religion” arguements against the aspiring Roy Moores out there w/ one question:

“So you wouldn’t mind me putting a giant statue of Vishnu up at _______(insert government building here)____?”

Found this amusing:

Iran’s president has launched a Web log, using his first entry to recount his poor upbringing and ask visitors to the site if they think the United States and Israel want to start a new world war.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose speeches are riddled with anti-U.S. rhetoric, also described how he was angered by American meddling in Iran even when he was at elementary school. […]

Analyst Saeed Laylaz said the site — available in Persian, Arabic, English and French at www.ahmadinejad.ir — may be seeking to win support from abroad.

“Do you think that the U.S. and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?” the president asks visitors to the site, offering them the choice to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Somehow this dude amuses me.  I’m sure part of it is that he resembles Steve Carrell w/ a beard & a tan.  Seriously, here’s a comparison, Carrell already has the beard from that movie he did recently.