Posts Tagged ‘british’

Censorship Backfires Again

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

It’s institutionalized buffoonery gone amok! The UK government decided to ban access to the massive file-sharing web site known as The Pirate Bay. As a result, the UK Pirate Party has seen their online rankings skyrocket by more than 100,000 spots.

The impressive jump comes as British law-makers, much like their counterparts from around the world, are bending over at the waist to serve powerful media giants. These old behemoth industries can’t reshape their business models fast enough to keep up with the ever increasing rate of progress so they use their clout to pass laws in a vain attempt to cripple the competition.

But here’s the kicker: the government’s blockade is so easily circumventable that it’s practically a joke. Anyone who has a basic understanding of the Internet (i.e. the majority of file-sharers affected by the ban) will quickly find out how to get around the censorship.

So movies and games will continue to flow freely and the media giants will go on viewing piracy as lost sales rather than a form of advertising. But now, thanks to idiotic policy at the highest levels, Pirate Party UK have been launched into the limelight and are cleared to follow in the footsteps of German’s Pirate Party, who’ve already secured 20 seats in parliament and are polling at 11%.

Awesome stuff. It shows humankind still has a fighting chance against the encroaching corporate dictatorship. Let freedom prevail!

fu bp

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

BP messed up, bad. And they’ve kept on messing up, too.

Why haven’t they stopped the oil? Seriously, its been what, 2 months now??? It seems as if their priority is not to plug the hole, but rather to keep it flowing and try to catch it – which is a big FU to the environment.

deepwater oil spill

(deepwater horizon oil spill as seen from space)

Considering BP’s disregard for the environment, their utter lack of a back-up plan, and overall gross incompetence, protesters in Atlanta have concisely summed up the voice of the people:

fu bp

(this message was sprayed on a bridge. time-lapse video below of it being made)

Given enough time, the ecosystem will recover. It just sucks for now.

One thing we aren’t hearing enough of is how dirty fossil fuels are. Bad for the environment, it seems. And on that same note, it bears mention of our shared responsibility for this catastrophe – our dependence on oil and reluctance to shift to greener solutions.

It also bears mention of how corporations are pushed to profit and cut corners wherever they can. Corporations will try to get away with as much as they can. It is up to us – average consumers –  to hold them accountable for their actions. When corporations grow too large and too powerful, both people and planet can suffer.

Examples of corporations run amok can be seen with the big oil companies in Africa, where what has happened in the gulf apparently happens there all the time. In fact, further highlighting the importance of fettering corporations, companies like Shell have THEIR OWN FREAKIN ARMIES. Hired goons to enforce the company’s bottom line… glorified security teams complicit in human rights violation. Privately funded, unaccountable forces are just one of the scary prospects that can happen when corporations have too much influence.

So the lessons that the 2010 Gulf Oil spill can teach us are:

  • It is time to do a major shift towards renewable energy. Let our burning of oil be to propel us forward into a new age of greater technology.
  • Keep corporations on a short leash! Corporations need to fear the will of the people, not bend the will of the people.
  • Maybe have a backup plan when you are doing something potentially catastrophic