Psychopolitik 2.0

re: those exit polls: How long is the gap between that and knowing the actual result, on average? Who started the exit poll thing anyway?

Yes, that’s the closest I will come to talking about todays primaries, because to be honest with you I’m wrapped up in multiple layers of don’t give a fuck, and the Cavs play in a few minutes.

The “war on drugs” claims another one:

A man who was denied a liver transplant largely because he used marijuana with medical approval to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C has died.

Timothy Garon, 56, died Thursday at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center, said his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class. (emphasis mine)

Clearly he didn’t HAVE 60 days, huh? Dumbasses like this get medical licenses?

The case highlights an ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant: whether using marijuana with a doctor’s blessing should be held against a dying patient in need of a transplant.

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use “illicit substances” — including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it — are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Uh, yeah, because all “illicit” substances are the same, and marijuana being the only thing that kept him functional during his last days still made him a junkie in their eyes. Do they turn away alcoholics? And if not, why not?

May this tragedy earn them a huge malpractice suit.

If this story qualifies as a “top story” for Yahoo News’ frontpage, then they need to slap whoever programmed that computer algorithm that picks those.

“Oh, those poor, downtrodden record & film companies!“:

A House committee passed an anti-piracy bill yesterday that would stiffen penalties for illegally copying and distributing music and movies and would create an “intellectual property czar” at the White House level — a job that the Justice Department warned would “undermine” its independence.

The bill, introduced in December by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and 17 co-sponsors and known as the Pro IP Act, is championed by a broad base of intellectual-property holders, including entertainment companies, auto parts manufacturers, drugmakers and unions. It now heads to the House floor, and advocates hope it will pass this summer.

In addition to creating the position of IP czar, the bill would amend federal copyright law to add resources to the fight against piracy and raise the ceiling on damages that could be awarded by a civil court to a rights-holder whose work had been pirated.

It’s a sign of just how idiot-to-the-core this idea is that the Justice Department actually opposes it. Clearly the media conglomerates wanted this, and they convinced Conyers to go along with their idea by throwing in his state’s particular dying industry. The drug companies are just extra money behind it — tax dollars end up subsidizing their research anyway, and how often does anyone in the US come across counterfeit drugs?

“Intellectual Property” is a crock, an inherently unenforceable concept created out of thin air that in practice does nothing but facilitate the separation of creative content from its true creator. The music industry itself might as well be a sweatshop, as unless you’re Madonna or 50 Cent you have no leverage to get what you deserve on a label. The movie studios should really just shut up, because one look at how much they rake in despite the overwhelming suckitude of Hollywood these days shows just how much “piracy” hurts (read: zilch). In the US the only people that can download movies like that have souped-up higher-tier broadband connections, and just because they download some movies does not mean that they don’t buy DVDs — besides, in case you hadn’t noticed, thanks to the ISPs dragging their heels on network capacity, it’s kinda a hassle downloading large files, part of the reason why they actively try to dissuade people from taking literally their big flashy ads for “Unlimited access! Blazing speed!”. If their prime concern is overseas piracy then they’re even dumber than I thought: somehow I doubt the average person in China has enough money to buy the real thing anyway.

The old content regime is dead, it just doesn’t realize it yet. Eventually we’re going to get to a point where CDs, movie theaters & video rental stores are obsolete, everyone just downloads it all. People won’t distinguish between “mainstream” and “underground” musicians anymore, as they’ll have the same access to either, and compensation for their work will go directly to the artists, with no middleman. Except for a die-hard traditionalist fringe, films will be released online & downloaded directly into your TV, and it will take the same amount of effort to watch an indie flick as it will to watch the type of films that are mass released now, and star power alone will not guarantee a jackpot, so there’ll be incentive to make sure that all costs are necessary to making the film & not mere self-aggrandizement. We’ll look at this turn of events and wonder why we tolerated it any other way in the first place. Who will we have to thank for it all? Our friendly neighborhood pirates, for showing the way forward.

This bill = pissing into the wind. With your mouth open. After drinking two 40s of Olde English and eating General Tso Chicken all day.