Nowhere-Fast.net

Here’s a picture of a Fox News poll asking “What is the most biased news outlet in America?”  To paraphrase an old proverb, this is the pot asking which appliance is the most black.

Things to note in the picture: first, Fox News is not an option for the “most biased news outlet.”  Second, the poll is being presented as a part of the O’Reilly Factor web page.  The frightening part is that there is a large viewership who will go to this page, see this poll and honestly believe that Fox News and O’Reilly are unbiased and that the classic liberal media boogy-men presented as poll options are the real media evil.

Every media outlet is biased - it’s the nature of the beast.  The modern 24/7 networks are divided into two types of coverage.  There’s the daily coverage, which is basically a newsfeed, and there’s the prime time coverage, which is dominated by personalities.  All of the personalities are biased to some degree or another, but many of the networks do a reasonable job keeping their daily coverage fair.  The one that fails epicly on both counts, though, is Fox News.  Now the most biased show on the most biased network is asking who’s the most biased news outlet - it’s funny.

Duluth, Minnesota wants to charge people fees for using emergency services.  Aren’t emergency services (the protection of life and property afforded by the government) pretty much the primary fucking reason people pay taxes?  Seriously, Duluth, that’s messed up.

It seems as though some people, a good number of people, actually, are willing to fly standing up if that would save them some cash on a ticket.  They are willing to, in effect, be treated like cattle.  Even more people were willing to have pay-per-use toilets if that would save them some travel money.

First off, niether of these things are going to happen.  The FAA wouldn’t allow people to stand for an entire flight, much less take off and landing.  Some people have suggested that flyers could sit during take off and landing, but that raises a simple question.  If they have enough seats for people to use at the beginning and end of the flight, why can’t they be used during?

Thinking about large numbers of people being willing to fly jammed into a cabin like cattle makes me sad because it reminds me of just how far gone the romantic days of airline travel are.  Even when I was a kid there was a luxury to flying, whatever class.  The airlines were actually looking into what new amenities they could add to coach, rather then tripping over each other trying to add fees.

The New Yorker ran a cartoon of Barack Obama on their cover recently.  It caused quite a stir among liberals and conservatives alike.  For those of you who haven’t seen it here’s a link.

Everyone - politicians, the media, random punters - went out of their way to express their rage at the New Yorker and their horrendous editorial judgment.  Republicans and Democrats were united like never before as they laid into the New Yorker.

The media, especially, spent many words ensuring that everyone watching knew how enraged they were at, well, the media for that affront to all common dignity.

In short, the bullshit was neck-deep.  The comic is clearly a satirical commentary on the absurdity of the claims (still) being made by the rabidly anti-Obama.  It’s funny because these people also happen to be decidedly anti-brain.  It was very effective and the New Yorker had every right to publish it.  This is a case of people getting their panties in a twist just so they can be seen with their twisted panties.

That’s an odd turn of phrase, really.

I know that I give England a lot of crap, but the recent move by some British politicians to remove speed cameras because they’re a barely excusable tax on drivers that do nothing to improve road safety gave me some hope for the island.  Recently, another step has been taken in the right direction.

Now, in England, you can legally beat the crap out of a mugger, attacker or home invader.   See, in the States we see beating the crap out of muggers, attackers and home invaders as inalienable as the right to breath.  In the UK, for awhile, apparently that wasn’t the case.  Now it is again, so hurray beer!  Britain!  I meant Britain.  Hurray Britain!

They also have an adorable oh-so-British phrase for it - “have-a-go heroes,” as in, “Oi!  ‘E’s muggin’ that geezer!  Right, I’ll have a go a’ ‘im then!”  A-freaking-dorable.

I suppose I’ll speak briefly about E3.  It’s the yearly video game expo and it promotes all the exciting new things being done within the video game industry.

Oh how I wish that were so.  Sure, there are some cool new little gameplay things - vertical cover and movement in one game, “go everywhere” niftiness in the new Prince of Persia, really fancy looking fanciness, etc - but there isn’t a lot of storyline or artistic innovation to be seen this year.  Again we have sequels upon sequels but even the new games aren’t stepping very far away from the now-standard grungy near-future, aliens guns and robots stuff or dark bloody fantasy.  It’s the “I boil with generic rage” issue - all of the protagonists are looking to be cookie-cutter caricatures.  If gaming is supposed to be becoming a real artistic medium then the characters need to change and evolve.

As an added bonus, I ran across a Craigslist posting offering a “vintage” 1996 laptop for sale.  That’s some ballsy marketing.

A town council in England came out and said what everybody knows - traffic cameras are worthless at increasing road safety but very effective at raising revenue and constitute an additional usage tax.  Thank you for restoring my faith in England.

So it seems as though China is violating a UN arms embargo against Sudan.  Here’s the way it works - the arms embargo against Sudan says that no nation can provide them with weapons that will be used in Darfur.  China sold weapons to Sudan and said, basically, “hey now, don’t use these in Darfur, OK?”  Sudan replied, “no deal, we’ll use them wherever the hell we want.”  China replied by sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling “la la la la la” until they got their money.

This is a Very Bad Thing.  The west and China are diametrically opposed on their approach to Sudan.  China thinks that the Sudan needs trading partners and an influx of cash in order to stabilize and the west thinks that the Sudanese need to stop killing hundreds of thousands of people in genocidal attacks in Darfur.  Now that it’s been shown that China supplied military technology to Sudan that they knew would be used in Darfur in flagrant disregard of the UN some type of confrontation is inevitable.

China is engaged in a land grab in Africa.  People bitch and moan about American neo-colonialism but China is the real culprit in this regard.  If tensions between China and the west substantially increase then Africa will be the sight of the proxy wars.

The internet is an impressive thing.  First, it’s an impressive piece of technology.  Next, it’s more impressive for the value it holds as a source of information, a labor saving tool and an entertainment medium.  It’s impressive because it has fundamentally and permanently changed how people communicate.

It’s also impressive in how effective it is, how stunningly effective it is, at making you embarrassed of any group you might consider affiliating yourself with.  Here’s a link to a post on Gamepolitics.com about the possibility that Sony’s PS2’s could have, along with other electronics, inadvertently fueled conflict in Africa because certain resources required in their production were found in contested regions.  I found this to be a sad commentary on how our consumer lifestyles can effect other people in ways that we are completely unaware of.  I had no idea that my PS2 could, potentially, have cost a child their life in a dark, dirty mine in some war-torn corner of the world.  If I did then I wouldn’t have purchased a PS2.  I don’t need to play games that badly.

The response to that feeling was, in effect, “fuck them” and “why shouldn’t I buy a PS2?  It’s already been built so the damage is done” or “it’s not our fault, it’s the people who are exploiting the miners and starting the wars.”  With very few exceptions that was the consensus - the gamers over there who felt compelled to comment on that story were saying, almost to a man, that they value their PS2s over the life of an African child.  That is fucked up.

The actual situation wasn’t simple, but I’ll do what I can to simplify it.  There is a certain mineral that goes into the construction of transistors.  This mineral can be found in parts of Africa that have been engaged in violent conflict for years.  In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the price of this mineral skyrocketed due to a massive increase in demand that was fueled by the tremendous upswing in electronics consumption.  Basically there was a period of time when everyone in the Western world who didn’t have an electronic gadget of some sort was purchasing at least one.  The PS2 was released around this time and was a major contributor to this demand - although clearly not the only cause.

Due to this increased demand miners in parts of Africa were forced to work themselves nearly to death and wars were fought for resource-rich regions.  The mineral was heavily exported and companies who needed it didn’t ask too many questions.  It would be foolish to imagine that it didn’t end up in some PS2s.

Is Sony directly responsible for this?  No, our Western consumerism is.  Of course any valuable resource can be the cause of conflict.  That’s human nature.  The fact remains, however, that money was funneled into the hands of violent men who used it to main and kill because Western corporations didn’t ask any questions when they got a good deal.  Should Sony, or any of the companies that profited, be considered culpable?  On some level, yes, but the burden of guilt is shouldered by all of us.  Now that this circumstance is known, should Sony or any other company be vigilant and ensure all of the resources used in their products comes from sights that have a minimum standard?  Yes, of course.

Even if Sony had no idea that there was any possibility of any part of their product coming from a conflict area but that turned out to be the case, I still wouldn’t purchase the product in question.  Unless you’re in a hospital there are very few electronic gadgets that you need to have and if you imagine that any of them are worth more then the life of another human being you are morally bankrupt.

My point of all of this is that the internet has made it possible, once again, for me to be embarrassed to associate myself with gamers.

There is an elected County Commissioner in Dallas who believes that “black hole” is a racist term.  I’m not kidding.  People chose this man to represent them and make decisions on their behalf.  I shudder to think of who his opponents must have been.

There’s really nothing I can add to that.