TechTV has secured subpoenas from the RIAA and has created an “RIAA Hitlist of Kazaa users“. Wow. TechTV actually did something useful!

V to make a comeback on NBC

“reworked” GI JOE Public Service Announcements

Crazy ‘The DaVinci Code’ web-puzzle thing

Quicktime of Gollum’s acceptance speech at the MTV movie awards

Ye olde Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on easing media ownership rules today. They are considering removing the 28-year-old ban on a single company owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city (small cities are exempted). Other changes include increasing the percentage of the national audience a single company may reach from 35% to 45%, and allowing a single company to own up to 3 channels in a regional market.

The folks that come out to protest this thing are as varied as I’ve ever seen — the NRA standing next to womens groups, etc. They come out in bulk, too — apparently both the email and voice mail systems were crashed at the FCC due to extremely high volume. Something on the order of 500,000 piece of voice and email.

Is it just me, or most of these rules in place because of the ignorance of most Americans? I’m not quite sure on that position, though. Time and time again, it has been shown that if you throw enough information at a person (or a society) that they will be blindsided. When the market feeds on the consumer (as it does in most broadcasting), the free market system becomes a bit like a meat market. The average citizen doesn’t have the time or energy to keep up with the varied, shifting winds of media companies. I’m not crazy about constricting business to safeguard our freedom of speech, but in this case, I think it is much needed. A monopoly of steel, oil, or technology is one thing — but a monopoly of information is the most dangerous of all.

a simple chart of proposed rule changes (by the way, that existing 35% cap — yeah, Viacom and News Corp (FOX, et al) are already over the limit with 39% and 38%, respectively.

Oh, and Clear Channel owns 1200 radio stations nation-wide after radio deregulation, and you wonder why radio sucks? Why don’t you just go and ask Rocky and Troy.

This “COPS: Las Vegas” is spectacular. Most times, people shown on COPS don’t go into such sordid detail as this woman… she proceeds to list out the groceries bought by her son. “He bought some bologna, bread, yogurt and cheese. Well, he comes home to find that the yogurt is gone. And let me tell you, officer, my daughter and I don’t like yogurt, nosiree. So he gets upset because the yogurt is gone!”

is it wrong that i like COPS? and yet, i hate american idol, survivor and big brother. i guess i’m just in it for actual reality and not manufactured reality. i’ve said it before, but “goat house” would rule. “what is ‘goat house’?” you say? well, it’s my idea that is somewhat of a cross between big brother and running man (moreso schwarzenegger than king). essentially, we take death row inmates — lets say 8 of them — and put them in a large house with a large central area. well, each week we drop in a goat. live, televised. you are probably wondering what the fun in that is — well here’s your answer: necessity is the mother of entertaining TV. the more resourceful and crazed murderers and rapists will kill the goat, and use its various and sundry entrails and skeleton to fashion crude weapons and armor. spears, daggers — possibly even strung weapons. each week, more goat, more material. woo. last one alive gets to go free.

Oh sure, that goes against my liberal ideologies, but hey — this is TELEVISION. you don’t have to have morals or substance to be on TV. i can subjugate my ideals for a fat sack of cash and DVD boxed set of “goat house”.

No, really. criminal have rights, hell even goats have rights. reality tv viewers have no rights.

So ill. The last time I felt like this, I was 12 years old, and the Desert Shield had just turned into Desert Storm. “Is this war?” I asked my mom. Even though it was thousands of miles away, in a land I’d only seen in pictures, I felt this horrible pang in my stomach. I feel like that now, even though I’m older, and I think I understand the world better.

But this. This strikes at home. This enemy has no face. “No return address” as they kept saying on TV. This enemy is not military. This enemy has rules only governed by the most base human quality of hatred.

And at the same time, I can’t help but to feel that this could have been averted. Our foreign policy has gone to shit — we back a country that chooses to defend itself in manners in which we would never dare. Did we not rebel against a tyrranous empire? Did we not fight for our own scrap of land? Our own brand of freedom?

I try to stay as neutral as I can. But when such a horrifyingly scheme, so precise, so cunning, so evil is exacted upon civilians — whether they be on our soil or on anothers, that cannot stand.

I feel so ill. I haven’t eaten. My head aches with the images I’ve seen today. Boxed in. Trapped.

if any of you happened to see the story that was up here earlier — click below
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i apologize. it was posted earlier this morning, and due to a bug in the code (related to the billenium it didn’t show up until i fixed the bug. it was crude, and just plain wrong. i apologize again. thanks be to hunter for knocking some sense into me.

Well, i really debated about putting this one up here, but my cat, Doombringer, was killed by a car on Saturday morning (sometime). We saw him last right before venturing to Chuck and Danna’s house Friday night.

No, we never got to say goodbye, but I guess that is the comment lament among those who lose loved ones (even if they are pets). He was 1 1/2, and quite possibly the best kitty that Kelly and I ever owned (ok, so he was the ONLY one). Nevertheless, Kelly and I have been feeling that bitter pang of regret all day now.

There are so many small things that you remember about a pet, it’s strange really. He will be remembered in those small actions for ever. I hope you are doing Okay up there, Doombringer. Look down on us every once in a while.

View Doombringer’s Gallery.

Kentucky, my home state, has put all of the currently incarcerated felons up on the web, with a search engine. KOOL, with its horribly gaudy acronym, allows you to search by name, penitentiary, crime, age, whatever. Search for lost family members NOW!

Altavista has an interesting article on how the FBI picks the codenames for its covert ops. Pretty interesting. My fave is the FBI’s investigation into J. Edgar Hoover: Operation No Mo Ho Mo. Ok, so that’s not true. Go read the article.