So I've come across two forms of stupidity in the news today.
Both have their merits, but I'll leave the politically motivated form for later. Firstly, let's focus on why the zodiac-challenged among us are superior human beings.
This article from the BBC shows several things. It shows that chinese people like to be born in the year of the dragon. It's auspicious. There are several problems here - not least that their zodiac only contains twelve animals. This means everyone shares their sign with a few other people, and by a few I mean more than five hundred million others. Clearly, not everyone can be successful, or angry, not everyone can demonstrate the traits of their animal; thus rendering this entire belief system pointless. It's almost as pointless as worshiping (worshiping doesn't look right, I think it needs two p's) a deity who rapes a woman every two thousand years in order to create a son who dies and magically comes back to life after a few days, but not quite.
Having derailed my own thoughts with that aside, I feel it important to note that this website debunks the myth that global warming has consensus among all scientists everywhere the world over. In the states there are thirty odd thousand scientists who aren't employed by Al Gore, so presumably there will be a few more knocking around Europe. Then again, scientists are people too; I expect all European scientists to have been swept into a carbon frenzy like the lay person (you and I) and be frothing at the mouth at such outrageous suggestions. Frothing at the mouth, like the whole of humanity will be when we poison ourselves in an endless quest to dig up the planet in search of minerals and resources that we can re-use and recycle. But of course, combating the natural tendency for this planets climate to change is more important than giving everyone cancer.
Anyway, half a billion people being identical in zodiac terms isn't enough apparently, so mainlanders are trying their best to create even more dragons. I can't see anyone actually trying for a child at this juncture just to make sure their sign is dragon orientated. Sure, being Dohvakin might be fun for the first few hours, but all the shouting will ruin your throat pretty quickly, not to mention the blocky faces and ugly textures.
Sorry, I slipped away from reality again there.
The point of all this is simple: superstition and religion are stupid.
I find the spiel accompanying each animal extremely interesting reading, not for their accuracy, but for their use of description. They describe people so well (just not the people associated with the signs). It's obviously an art that bears fruit from watching people (obviously) but I do wonder how they spent aeons looking for characteristics and traits without being sucked into the oblivion that is humanities' stupidity. Maybe they did, maybe this is the true fruit of their labor.
Anyway, the other stupidity on display today was demonstrated by the americans. Of course, the two biggest groups of idiots are the two superpowers. Or the one superpower, and the aging old fart who is in so much debt they have to invent new numbers to describe it, while feeding it fried chicken to keep the obesity from dying down.
This article describes the successful elimination of competition within the boundaries of american internet domains. Except it's not just within their own boundaries. I can no longer access the site, and I'm in Japan (I think). This means a pissed off american billionaire conglomerate permanently shut down a website based in Hong Kong (I think) and had civilians arrested in New Zealand at the same time. This is one of the myriad reasons why the world hates you america - it's also one of the reasons why the world laughs, because your collective fat rolls seem to cover your eyes and at least partially blind you. Shutting down one website is like banning, er, well it's like banning something that's easily replicated and spread ad infinitum. Like a website. So destroying one website and grievously denying the human rights of several individuals is like shutting down a website, because ten thousand will pop up and take its place. Those ten thousand will host significantly less information, but as a whole will contain vastly more. Try shutting ten thousand websites, when it took you five years to wobble your way to a resolution on this single site. Good luck, fatso.
Why this is particularly important right now, is the ill-timed demise of two bills, SOPA and PIPA. They essentially grant the power for a website to be blacklisted from within the US, despite it being hosted outside the US. It also grants a number of exceedingly murky powers enabling the usage of individuals to be monitored.
They're essentially asking for more power, which is ludicrous in light of the latest action. Non-american individuals have been arrested, in countries that are not the U.S, over crimes committed that are nothing to do with them in the slightest. They run a website, other people upload the content. If someone drives my car (without my consent, as they regularly take down copyrighted material, not to mention the myriad warnings on their ex-website) into another person and kills them, I'm culpable? Makes sense to me!
They need more power than they already have, despite having infinite power to do whatever the hell they want. Sounds like a legitimate cause for concern on behalf of they. They being anyone who produces content within america, which essentially boils down to a handful of companies (think Time Warner, Sony et al.)
A lot of people (worldwide) are against these bills. If you live in america, I can understand your reluctance to sign up for this particular brand of skulduggery, but the rest of the world SHOULD FULLY SUPPORT THESE BILLS.
No really, we should be parading around the streets getting this bill passed. We should raid forums and boards with Pro-SOPA pro-PIPA messages.
The reason is extremely simple. SOPA and PIPA are designed to ensure that established mediums, such as TV, film, radio, magazines, newspapers and the like (controlled by aforementioned obese billionaires) maintain a monopoly over internet based innovation. Startups like google, youtube, facebook and so on, would simply no longer exist on american soil. All these require user generated content and most users prefer to, inadvertently or otherwise, use other products and ideas within their videos/recordings.
The death of innovation within america would create infinite opportunity abroad, as innovators would turn to Europe in order to house, store and create their billion dollar websites. Of course they would no longer be billion dollar websites, but billion euro websites. If trends continue, this would obviously be a trillion euro industry, then a quadrillion euro industry, then a pentillion euro industry in-line with the imminent collapse of the value of a euro.
Imagine if facebook (soon to be floated for a hundred billion dollars) were in England. 60% (the going tax rate for those individuals who earn a decent wage in England (of course businesses pay in the region of 15%, unless they're really big in which case they don't pay any tax, but we can all dream right?)) of 75 billion pounds could pay for some of the MP's sex toys and moats, leaving the actual tax money to be spent on bribing FIFA officials. Imagine that! We could be rolling in FIFA officials if facebook were English.
So the reason we should be marching and campaigning for SOPA and PIPA is the same reason the american politicians are shooting it down now. They want more money, we want more money, everyone wants more money. FIFA will have to continue as a parasitic entity on the sparse millions it's bribed with at the moment.
Those poor millionaires.
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