“If two men agree on everything, you can be sure one of them is doing the thinking.” ~Lyndon Baines Johnson
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” – Ronald Reagan
Information is the Oxygen of the Modern Age.
Long before there was Google, Twitter, Facebook, Napster, a dot com bubble and even Al Gore claiming to have created the Internet, there were a couple of smart guys with a crazy idea of connecting a few computers, which at the time were the size of an average-sized living room. The first data packets were sent from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute on Oct. 29, 1969, and voilà – the Internet was born! Unfortunately, it wasn’t user friendly and it took years of headache and development to come up with the Internet we all know and love today. Even my parents, who have about a 3.5-second attention span when I talk internet jargon, could feasibly create their own blog with pictures of their grandchildren in less than an hour. Never in the history of mankind have people had such power at their finger tips.
During the Internets early development, its backbone was funded by the government and largely used by various government organizations, along with educational and research institutions. Commercial uses on that backbone were mostly prohibited, with a few rare exceptions. But the free market couldn’t be held back and eventually commercial servers and Internet Service Providers (ISP) sprung up, leading to the dot com bubble. During that time, anyone with a few dollars and a good idea could have become a millionaire over night. Continue reading Help Keep The Internet Free →
Ted "Epic Failure" Hayes
The anti-immigration rally held this past Saturday provided me with 2 hours of flavorful entertainment. None of the acts performed by the clowns who participated in the rally were more entertaining than that of Theodore Hayes.
Researching and reading about Hayes’ previous work, the 58-year-old has an impressive resume. Since the 1980s, he has centered most of his energies as a homeless activist. One of his biggest achievements was founding Dome Village, a project to reduce homelessness in L.A. while at the same time offering a community for people to “learn how to live in the real world.” [*]
But when he took the microphone at the rally, you wouldn’t think he was, according to The Wall Street Journal, “a totemic figure in L.A. who has long emphasized problem-solving and individual responsibility.” [*]
He was an unfocused, incoherent, inarticulate, barren and futile speaker who was apparently only invited to speak because of the color of his skin. After listening to his speech, the only reason I can think of why the Minutemen and the Save Our State folks invited this guy out was to prove to everyone that they truly aren’t racists. This effort failed since the majority of Hayes’ speech – if you want to call it that – was focused on the issue of race. Was this necessary after the Minutemen, Save Our State folks, Councilman Bob Kellar and other supporters spent the past few weeks defending that their cause has nothing to do with race?
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the purpose of speaking at any rally is to address the issue at hand. Speakers should offer an argument pertaining to the rally, supported by facts, data and evidence.
Hayes’ lacked every thing the Minutemen/SOS needed to help their cause. Hayes essentially went on an incoherent rant for about 10 minutes just to hear himself through the PA system. Continue reading Hayes’ epic failures – let me count the ways →
Save Our State = American Idiots
By ✖ the Monk ✖ on March 7th, 2010
Big Thanks
to the MUSE for the great film work.