On Not Knowing Real Oppression

Okay, I admit I've been on a real tear about all the bitching over the smoking ban. What can I say, it's gotten annoying, especially with utter stupidity like this being printed in the paper nearly every day:

Our military is fighting for Iraqis’ freedom. Who is fighting for ours? Does freedom stop at the United States borders?

You've got to be kidding me. You wouldn't know what it's like to have your freedom taken away, you spoiled asshole.

Damian's Random Ten, 07/20/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, which isn't as loud as a Random Eleven.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?

• Hoobastank - The Reason
• Groove Coverage - On the Radio
• wg feat. Tony L. - Play That Funky Music
• The Offspring - Want You Bad
• Des-ROW UNITED special +r - KAGEROW (Dragonfly)
• Taliesin Orchestra - Prayer of the Children
• Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
• Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You
• Hidenori Shoji - Infinite Blue (Big Blue)
• Sparks - Scherezade

A New Face

Welcome Felis Domina (my girlfriend) to the site. With any luck, she'll be bringing more activity to this otherwise quiet little corner of the Web.

Smokers Should Get the Hint

O plight and oppression! How terribly these smokers have it these days, what with ever-increasing taxes upon each pack and a new smoking ban in Ft. Wayne. Why, to hear their lamentations, one would think they are, beyond all doubt, the most put-upon group ever to walk the face of this Earth. They write into the paper, bemoaning taxes and bans and their utter, utter repression, all the while asserting their "rights" as smokers.
To them, I pose this question: If you're all so incensed about how being a smoker has become ever so difficult, then why not take the hint and quit? You'll save money, your health, and the health of those around you. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, they say.

Couple Neglects Children 'Cause the Internet Made Them Do It

From MyWay News via Pandagon: Nev. Couple Blame Internet for Neglect

RENO, Nev. (AP) - A couple who authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect.

The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts each of child neglect. Each faces a maximum 12-year prison sentence.

Viloria said the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing "Dungeons & Dragons" series, to give their children proper care.

"They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games," Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Just when I think that video games are out of vogue as the evil-brainwashing-force-du-jour, a story like this always comes along. How long before racist asshole Jack Thompson pushes his way into the media to spew more of his usual irrationality in regards to this?

Rhetorical Traps

Most wingnuts believe that the media is owned and run by liberals.
But these wingnuts are also against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.
If they're so concerned about the bias they believe works against them, why not bring back the one thing that would counter it?

Random Ten, 07/13/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, to bring out the tiger in you.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?

• The Birthday Massacre - Video Kid
• Jenny Rom - Senorita (Speedy Mix)
• Graeme Norgate - Elevator B (from Goldeneye 007)
• Medwyn Goodall - Cotopaxi
• Enigma - The Screen Behind the Mirror
• Yanni - Aria
• Javier Navarrete - Vals de la Mandragora
• Tetsuya Takahashi - Kidou
• The Eagles - Wasted Time
• Thuggie D. - INSERTiON (Machine Gun Kelly Mix)

Libertarian Troll Bingo

From punkassblog.com: Libertarian Troll Bingo

Zingerella and I have been watching the comment pile-up on Amanda’s review of “Sicko” with some amusement. It seems that the Pandagonians have been hilariously fending off a small influx of libertarian trolls. Said trolls are typing valiantly away in an attempt to make sure that health care isn’t extended to the unwashed masses. As the argument progressed, we noticed that the resident trolls followed a familiar script and shared certain similarities with previous libertarians we’d encountered.

Get your card now! I find this amusing on several levels, as I tore my hair out in frustration at the blithering stupidity of these trolls. Making light of it makes me feel better.

Random Ten, 07/06/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, a production of the Children's Television Workshop.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?

• Don Davis - Neodammerung
• Sangay - Medwyn Goodall
• Juno Reactor & Don Davis - The Trainman Cometh
• Blackmore's Night - I Still Remember
• Snap - Rhythm is a Dancer
• Bon Jovi - Wild is the Wind
• Sarah McLachlan - Adia
• ChiyoTia - Fly Away
• Billy Joel - She's Always a Woman
• Hirofumi Sasaki - The Least 100sec

Adding that music did pay off, you see?

Oh, that one hurt ME.

The Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette Letters page, 7/4/2007

As a former Fort Wayne resident who’s now a Vermonter, I was amused at the irony of Gregg Bender’s illustration with the Associated Press story “Free, independent Vermont? Pro-secession residents see U.S. as corrupt” (June 8).

(...)

Vermonters love to make fun of our own naïve earnestness, and the secession movement deserves an especially big laugh. Still, it’s this same naïve earnestness that led Vermont to be the first state in the union to outlaw slavery, the first to allow poor landless citizens to vote, the first to institute public schools for all, the first to provide health insurance for all children, and in 2000, the first to grant equal citizenship to all couples. That might not hold up in the annals of legislative history to Indiana’s decades-long struggle to figure out what time it is, but, hey, it’s not bad for a “bastion of countercultural dissent” one-tenth Indiana’s size. So be nice, and next time, please, no soup-pan helmets. That’s what really hurt.

As the kids these days say, OH SNAP.

On Libby, Terror, and Timing

I was at work when I heard the news of Bush essentially giving Scooter Libby a free pass for his crime. I was so angry, I threw my hat, then spent the rest of the day with a sour attitude. I was that angry. Not surprised, not shocked, just angry. I see it as a form of treason, giving someone who aided in the criminal act of hindering an investigation a way of avoiding jail time. It's a slap in the face to the rule of law, that rule which we're supposed to hold up as some kind of beacon to the rest of the world.

Now, with that said, I'm also not surprised at the timing of this, either - being as most of the news these days is focused on the usual parade of celebrity garbage, pretty dead white girls, and other non-news, most people are too busy thinking about their holidays, cookouts, and entertainment (though I must admit, I'm a little excited about going to go see Transformers), and what news that isn't focused on what Paris Hilton ate last night is focused on making us afraid because of all the "terror plots" in Britain, of course W picks now to give Libby a way of never seeing the inside of a jail cell.

I know somebody's going to take this the wrong way. They're going to say that I must be espousing some kind of crazy conspiracy theory, since I seem to think that the timing of these "terror plot" stories coincides with the timing of Bush's little favor. That's not what I'm saying, so don't give me that crap. It's quite the opposite - the timing of Bush's favor to Libby coincides with the terror plots. We're so busy being told to be afraid of brown people that we supposedly won't notice a traitor skating free. It might not work out that way, but that was the reason for it all.

In Which I Become Angry About Idiotic Pseudo-Libertarian Garbage (or, Damian Tells Smokers to Shut Up)

Thanks to people who like to buy papers and leave them behind, I find myself reading the Journal-Gazette nearly every day I work. Between huge walls of text about FWCS petition color coordination and pithy defenses of Matt Kelty on the opinion page, they occasionally print yet another whiny letter about the Ft. Wayne smoking ban. Beyond the BS arguments about the ban "reducing business", there's a lot of flap about "smoker's rights", always phrased as either "the gummint's takin' my/business owners' rights, yours'll be next!!1" or "why shouldn't I be allowed to smoke in public?"

To this, I still ask, why is it that smokers have some inherent right to smoke inside a building, but non-smokers like myself don't have a right to not breathe poison? And no, the arguemtn of "well, you should just go somewhere that doesn't allow smoking" is and has always been a load of utter horseshit. Why shouldn't the smokers go outside? Why shouldn't the smokers go somewhere else? Why do their "rights" trump mine?

The answer? They don't. Smokers, you're making a choice to harm yourself, so you can at least have the courtesy to not harm us. Your rights do not trump ours.

On the recent mAnn Coulter clusterf**ks

Yes, I know Ann Coulter is a horrible person. I know that better than many others. I know she's a homophobic, racist, sexist bitch, and I know that the media can't get enough of her (or, rather,t he people who own the media can't). I also know that a lot of people will still indirectly defend her hatreds by saying that the Edwards campaign is "using" Coulter garbage for "attention" and "fund-raising".

The worst part, though, is the people who think ignoring this kind of crap will make it go away. It doesn't work in the schoolyard, and it sure as hell won't work with people like this. The TV network owners, the newspaper publishers, the book publishers, all the same people, and all with the same agenda.

Don't turn your back on something wrong. You wouldn't in any other situation, so why do it in this one?

Random Ten, 06/29/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, brought to you by the letter F.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?

• The Beatles - Penny Lane
• Jeff Wayne - Forever Autumn
• Lali Puna - Left Handed
• DHT - Listen to Your Heart
• Garth Brooks - Rodeo
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
• David Bowie - Let's Dance
• Eminem - Cum on Everybody
• Enigma - Beyond

All that extra music I added has to pay off sometime.

Random Ten, 06/22/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, because you're worth it.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?

• Eminem - Kim
• nc feat. FINALFORCE - SEDUCTION
• Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
• Garth Brooks - New Way to Fly
• Eminem - I'm Back
• All Girl Summer Fun Band - Dreamy You
• Modest Mouse - Bukowski
• Masato Nakamura - Hidden Palace Zone
• Barenaked Ladies - Leave
• Lullacry - Nothing to Lose

Hey, it's more than last week's Random One.