newsblurb: August 2001 Archives

AOL sued for language in chat rooms

Of all the ignorant, idiotic, overbearing, close-minded, tea-tottling, militaristic, bone-headed, asanine moves...

An American citizen sueing a company based in the United States over things that were being said.

Said.

Said.

Let me repeat that:

Said.

How did this person make it out into public if they failed 4th grade history class. Which they surely must have if they have never heard of freedom of speech, one of the founding requirements of this country.

To support what I would weakly call their 'argument', they cite a portion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits "discrimination in public accommodations".

Ohhhhhhhkay.

Would Mr. Noah please explain to me when and how the discrimination occured? Speech is not discrimination.

Discrimination is an action taken to prevent someone else from exercising their rights. There is no way in a chat room to prevent other people from talking. Therefore there is no way anyone could have commited discrimination.

Was there hateful speech and ignorant views expressed. Damn right. That's the best part of being an American. You can make a complete jackass of yourself whenever and wherever you want.

Considering this, the idea that a chatroom is a public gathering space and needs to be protected -- well, that argument just falls apart. All parties had equal access to the chat room and equal opportunity to express their views.

It's been said many times in many spaces, but apparently not quite enough:

Freedom of speech is not truley valuable or even needed unless it is protecting the expression of the most heinous of thoughts.

Any speech that is so whitewashed as to not offend anyone is very likely to be so damn boring I don't even want to hear it.

So fuck you all. Be offended.

Powerball is up again. Somewhere around 280,000,000 USD. And since it hit a hundred million, I've been playing.

Like a lot of people, I think about what I might do with all that money.There's obvious things like paying myself out of debt, and getting a better place to live. Of course, you want to take care of your parents too. But with an estimated win after taxes of $70,000,000, that is gonna leave me with a lot of denero. And not a lot of ambition.

I've thought about going into business for myself. Who cares if you lose money when you have another 69, miliion in the bank. I don't doubt I could live very comfortably off the interest alone for the rest of my life.

I had a more appealing idea recently. Well appealing to me anyway. Most people have noticed my interest in photography recently. The reasons for that are left to another post,, once I've had time to figure out what they are.

So I just wwant to drive around the country for a year or so. Taking pictures. That's all. Imagine being able to do that without a care in the world.

This of course would be proceeded by a couple months of learning how to drive. When I can devote all ,y time to it, I'm sure it shouldn't take long.

And I gotta find the perfect vehicle(s) for the (criss)cross country trip. Probably a convertable. Maybe a jeep cherokee.

In the long run, I might extend my travels to include the whole world. I'll certianly want to travel internationally.

Don't give me crap about wanting to do something productive with your life. Professionally, Designers have little direct influence on the course of human events anyway. I believe a person's mere existance is the greatest impact they make on the world. Their interactions with the people n their lives (a la "It's a Wonderful Life").

My first job once I win will be to protect my ass anyway. I have no intention of turning in the ticket immediatly. First I get a new private phone number. A financial adviser. A secure place to stay. There will be a lot of people out there who hate or covet me just for the money.

Helms set to opt out of Senate race

And the world breathes a collective sigh of relief.

D.C. Police Brace for Next Month's IMF Protests (washingtonpost.com)

Bah!

That's all the intellectual effort that the DC police deserve.

Of all the ignorant, power-tripping, bull-headed people in the world, why them?

I'm still noticing distinct efforts to rewrite history to exploit. When the IMF protests took place last year in DC, the Post was stating the number of participants as over 30,000. This article in today's post declared that there were only 20,000 protesters.

Doesn't seem like much of a difference at first. But imagine 10,000 people, all actively working for the same thing at the exact same moment. It probably took less people than that to build the Great Pyramid, at any one time.

And this is just the DIFFERENCE between the 2 numbers reported by the same media outlet.

(Should I mention that i was in the thick of the protests throughout the day, and I doubt there was 10,000 people there altogether?)

I don't blame the Post... too much. They are most likely reporting the number given them by the DC Police department. But come on! It's called fact checking people.

I am blatently ignoring references to the other IMF protests throughout the world. I have never experienced them first hand, and they have thus far borne no resemblance to the protests locally.

I lay down a bet now, for everything I own (total value: $3.14), that if something tragic happens at the Washington IMF protests this Fall, it will have been instigated by, or massively aggravated by the police involved in the event. I'm not too worried about loseing my shirt. If anyone remembers correctly, the DC Police were sued multiple times last year for the way they behaved during the IMF protests, citing illegal arrests, no due process, and outright hazardous treatment of people already under arrest.

Since I moved here it has gotten to be standard procedure. The police respond the any large gathering with an overwhelming show of force, blatently placed where it will be most visable to the protestors/attendees.

There is a fine line between deterance and antagonism. A line that each time has disappeared beneath the boot-heel of the shocktroops that the DC police become. I have had shotguns cocked in my face. I've watched police and secret service agents lie and attempt to intimidate people. I've seen hidden preparations designed to prevent and/or disrupt government sanctioned protests. I was nearly brought to patriotic ecstacy watching a squad of shock troop officers in full riot gear defend me and my city from a group of 40 year old women in their old-fashion Sunday best.

So we're going to erect a big fence to keep people away. First of all, who said you had the right to keep people away. Why don't protesters have the right to protest where they can actually be seen by the people they wish to influence. But doesn't anyone on the police force remember that last year, the only violent action that occured on the part of the protesters was when they ripped down a fence and assaulted the police with it.

My math skills are getting rusty. Otherwise I would be able to figure out why 30,000 protesters last year required 7 million dollars in security and 2 to 3 times that many protestors this year require 5 times as much money for security?

Protests in this city could bore a cat to sleep. If anything is ever going to push these protesters to behave as they have in Europe and Seattle, it is going to be the antagonization of the city police.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine Martin Luther King, Jr standing on the steps of the National Women in the Arts museum (because the Lincoln Memorial was barricaded), waiting for hours while the crowds found their way around detours set up to delay them, to give a speech to a crowd where the police outnumbered the activists, with a row of mounted officers carrying automatic weapons sitting in the background.