When A Leaf Turns

It’s been a so so year for me…… I hope humanity finally learns how to reality jump in the coming collection of zodiac phases …. I’ve always wanted to live in a Dali painting.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! this makes sense http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as

Asshole. Asshole is unquestioningly a term for those that try to extend their personal control of a situation, person, resources, culture, society, drunk college chick, further than is dictated by the norms of their station in society. The term itself is fraught with mammalian territorial marking behavior (i.e. excrement). So basically when you call someone an “asshole”, you are saying ” that person is making me feel uncomfortable by trying to extend their territory into my territory.” or something like that. Think of the times when the term itself is used, “that guy is a drunk asshole”, ” (x politician) is an asshole.” , ” (x evangelist/ minister/ priest/ pope) is an asshole.” “that cop is an asshole.”. Personally I use the term when describing someone with a recognized authority is attempting to extend their influence (or trying to quash mine) into territory that is quite clearly marked by my boundaries. It occurs to me that a couple of Jehovah’s Witlessness that came to my door one fall afternoon probably thought I was an asshole. The conversation went like this.

Me: Hello? oh you guys are Jehovah’s W(h)itnesses….

The pitcher: Why yes we are.

Me: I’m not interested.

The pitcher: Oh, well if I may ask what are your beliefs?

Me: No, you may not, it’s none of your business.

The Catcher: WOAH! (big smile on his face)

Me: ::: shutting the door:::

The pitcher: well, God bless you.

Me: :::mumbling something inarticulate::

In this case, they were hoping to spread a little of their influence on my face. I did not want to accept. Of course to them they know better than I do about my own salvation, and faith, is their sole (soul?) territory, so by effectively stonewalling all their little crazy arguments, I cut them out of their own territory that existed within my eternal soul. I am an asshole. No doubt they were walking away from my apartment thinking I was an asshole for so forcefully (verbally) crapping upon (claiming) territory where they were indeed the kings…. well maybe not the kings. Really I don’t think they were thinking ”asshole”, but probably the christian equivalent, “I’m going to pray for his soul”. So yes….. asshole, in my mind is clearly a pejorative term that deals with the human compulsion to claim territory. Claim too little, and you are a pussy, overextend yourself and you are an asshole.

That last part guided my brain to something someone once told me, “in the south we don’t say ‘fuck you’, we say ‘bless your heart/soul’ “. That to me seems a natural extension of the Christian ideas of turning the other cheek, The Golden Rule, and look both ways before you cross the street (its only Christian “Scientists” that just run and pray for God to help them). In short, passive aggressiveness. I have yet to find a fix for passive aggressiveness that is both effective and hilarious. Suggestions?

If you understand, things are just as they are… If you do not understand, things are just as they are…

I’ve found some new favorite wallpaper for my computers. These are absolutely amazing satellite images of Earth! From the site:

The images in this compilation are from the Landsat 7 satellite and were created to introduce the general public to the Landsat Program.

Various combinations of the eight Landsat 7 spectral bands were selected to create the vivid RGB composites that we have featured.

Go here or click on the image to see for yourself. I highly HIGHLY recommend it.

I’ve started my third (and hopefully final) blog over at Agnosiophobia. The plan is to have this blog When A Leaf Turns focus more on philosophical stuff, Venture Free focus more on sciencey stuff, and Agnosiophobia will focus more on religous stuff.

Of course, considering how rarely I post here and at When A Leaf Turns, having a third blog will probably just cut that amount even more. The hope is that there will be some overlap so that a single post can go on two or possibly all three blogs. We’ll see.

It seems that the title for worst copyright infringers might actually belong to the Record Companies (at least in Canada for now). For the last twenty years they’ve been releasing compilation and live CD’s without actually getting permission from the artists first. They would instead keep a list of the songs that were used so that they could later go back and get permission from the artist(s). At least, that was the plan. What actually happened was the list just kept growing and growing with little or not real attempt to do anything with it. Such activity has been called “exploit now, pay later if at all.”

Now they’ve been called to task for it, and it doesn’t look good for them. A bunch of artists filed a lawsuit against the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) after years of frustration trying to get reimbursed for the use of their music. I’m not sure if they’re actually involved with the suit itself, but it is known that such big name artists as Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen are among those who have yet to be paid, so it’s not just a bunch of obscure people involved.

So how bad is it for the Record Companies? Well, according to their own lawyers, each instance of infringement results in $20,000 in damages which must be reimbursed. When they were the plaintiffs I’m sure that amount seemed perfectly legitimate. But what about now that they are the defendants? All of a sudden it seems a bit on the outrageous side. Especially considering that their list contains more than 300,000 songs that are “awaiting permission”. Do the math and it seems that they might be on the hook for 6 billion dollars or more. Ouch!

Of course they haven’t been so successful at bullying people by being bad lawyers, so I’m sure they’ll find a way to argue it down to some ridiculously low dollar amount, but for now it certainly is fun to point at them and laugh.

We are entitled to our own opinions; we are not entitled to our own facts – Al Franken

One might be tempted to read more into this than can be legitimately claimed. I certainly am. Whatever you think, it is most definitely an interesting phenomenon.

I’ve never heard this song myself, but by the sounds of it I didn’t miss out on much.