Don't They Want To Know What SOPA Is?

In case you haven't heard, some pretty big websites will be shutting down for 12 hours today in protest of a bill that some out of touch lawmakers are trying to get passed. The bill is called SOPA and that stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act. And while online piracy is bad, SOPA is even worse. Basically, SOPA would make it criminal to have any copyrighted material (and the definition of 'material' is so broad that it applies to just about anything and everything) on any website. Think about that. That's impossible to work around if you're a website. And really, it wouldn't exactly stop piracy. (The bill itself seems to have little indication that whoever wrote it has ever used the Internet or understands what piracy actually is.) This blog would cease to exist because of all of the pictures that I use with neither permission, nor malice. The implication of SOPA is that so many websites would cease to exist because of this law. Thus, several websites are going dark today to not only protest, but to also raise awareness of what this law could potentially do. But shockingly enough, people aren't quite understanding that this isn't a personal attack upon them.


Wikipedia is one of the major sites that will be dark today. Now, I don't know about you, but if I found out that a certain website that I frequented was unavailable in protest of some sort of new law that might happen, I'm pretty sure that I'd find out what the heck is going on. (And actually, one of my favorite websites, Reddit, is dark today in protest of SOPA. I imagine that today could end up being quite productive once I stop twitching from withdrawals..) But that doesn't seem to be the case with Wikipedia. No, people don't seem all that interested in why. Shocking, I know. All people seem to be interested in is (brace yourself) themselves. The big picture appears to be non-existent for a lot of folks.

I say that because I've been perusing the tweets that have gone out in regard to the darkness of Wikipedia. What I've learned is disconcerting at best and hypothesis affirming at worst. (That hypothesis being that we're doomed. OK, maybe that's not so much a hypothesis as it is something that I see society inching a little closer to every single day. It's still bad.) Let's look at some tweets and see if you notice the one thing that is glaringly missing from all of them.

By the way, I wish that I could take credit for compiling all of these lovely tweets, but alas, I cannot. I found them in the Twitter feed of a (I'm sure) lovely one Katie Notopoulos. She seems like a hoot. But I'm simply basing that on her tweet that read "fight SOPA; send your congressman a d**kpic". (And by the way, under SOPA, neither Katie, nor I would be able to be putting any of this stuff on the Internet. So there's that. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, right. She's funny and she retweeted the following. Behold!







First of all, I can only hope that some of these people were tweeting these sentiments in an ironic fashion. Second, are they aware that Wikipedia, while a lovely source of information, is edited by regular people and can be changed at any given moment to say whatever you want it to say until someone else notices that Gary Oldman really isn't a giraffe or that Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice" is a "masterpiece" and then edits it to be more factual? I didn't even know that Wikipedia was being accepted by teachers/professors as a citable source. I'm not saying that there isn't great information on Wikipedia. There is. I'm just saying that it can't always be trusted to be correct. (I'm also saying that I may or may not have participated at one time in the altering of some Wikipedia entries in order to make them more humorous and to reflect my incredible disdain for people who may or may not be Gloria Allred. That's all.)

But did you notice that not one of these Wikipedia dependent individuals didn't even question what in the world SOPA is? They think that Wikipedia shutting down for twelve hours is a problem? Are they aware that if SOPA was to pass that Wikipedia would likely be shut down for good? Why isn't anyone asking what SOPA is? Why isn't anyone asking why Wikipedia will be shut down? Man, how I wish that Facebook would do something like this. Could you imagine? The country would collectively wet itself if it couldn't get on Facebook for an entire day. (And let me tell you that if SOPA were to pass, Facebook would need to be shut down as well.) And people would ask what is up if Facebook went dark.

Today might be my most productive day ever without some of my favorite websites to mess around on and waste an extraordinary amount of time on. I might even go outside. I hear that's nice.

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No Internet Sucks

9I have little to no Internet right now. It's as frustrating as it is disappointing. And while Jimmy and Rajesh (who I think might be the same person) in India are doing their best to get me up and running again, I'm slowly losing hope. Anyway, this explanation is going to have to count as today's post. I'll try and make up for it after my Internet is restored and after my celebration has subsided.

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I Want My 1995 Internet

The Internet in 1995 as documented by MTV. That is all. (Oh, and check out how cute Sandra Bullock was back then. OK, THAT is all.)

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The Situation Room Meets Photoshop

Remember how about a week ago everyone was a-clamoring to see the photos of Osama bin Laden with his head all blown to smithereens? (Insert Osama bin Laden joke here: What happens when Navy SEALs find Osama bin Laden? It's a no brainer. End joke.) There were a few reasons thrown around as to why that wasn't going to happen. But do you know what it came down to? Us. You. Me. That's right. The Internets.

According to Politico, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a bunch of Marines at Camp Lejune in North Carolina, "One of the things that I think concerns Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton and I is the risk not only of the pictures themselves inflaming people who were bin Laden's adherents and radical extremists, but we were also worried about the potential for manipulation of those photos and doing things with those photos that would be pretty outrageous in terms of provoking a reaction that might in fact put our troops at greater risk in both Iraq and Afghanistan." You know what that means don't you? Photoshop.

The Internets are creative places. And Gates knows it. First-hand, it would seem, as he went on to say: "I have gotten from friends all over the country copies of the picture that was this iconic picture taken in the Situation Room while we were watching the operation. And they have been photoshopped in every way you can imagine, including putting you know, coming after the royal wedding, one of these had all of us in one of these big, wide-brimmed hats from the wedding." Huh. I wonder what ever he could be referring to?

No, I don't. I knew. I knew all along. He also went on to say: "Another had various football players seated at the table that had been photoshopped in." I know what that's in reference to also. Behold!

At least, I think that's the one that he's referring to. They're not really seated at the table, per se, but there are football players there, so I'm going to green light that one. If those are the only ones that he's seen, however, he's really missing out. I call this one "SNAFU". Behold!Then there's the Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino Room:Then there's "Everybody Get In The Situation Room":

And my personal favorite, The Hall of Justice:I really enjoy seeing Hillary as Wonder Woman. I don'tknow why they made Joe Biden The Flash. He looked so complacent in the original photo. It seemed like he was thinking about trains and not much more. I think the point here is that if Bob Gates was afraid that the Internets would Photoshop the hell out of the bin Laden death photos, he's probably got a pretty good point. And I'm OK with not seeing them. Dead is dead. I'm good with that. Photoshop on!

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Internet Safety Circa Mid-1990s

Let's take a walk back in time to an era when the Internet was just beginning. And let's watch a video that gives us some tips about online safety for kids. Because sometimes things will come up on your screen that you haven't seen before. Hell, there will be some things on your screen that most adults haven't seen before. (Granted, now that the Internet has been around for a while, there isn't much that anyone hasn't seen before. I find it unfortunate that you can't unsee things. I have some pretty disturbing images blazed into my brain.) And this video aims to warn you of them. It also gives you a lovely image as to what an online perv might look like. (Hint: If you imagined him with a child molester moustache and a sleeveless T-shirt, step forward to claim your prize.) And look, I'm not trying to say that the messages in this video aren't valid. They are. And the bottom line is that people lie on the Internet (Great Scott!) and there's a lot of porn out there. I just find this little snippet of nostalgia a rather amusing way of trying to keep everyone safe. (And just in case you were wondering, no, I don't know why they're chatting with what appears to be Microsoft Word.)

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The Internet Lies

I really don't understand a lot of stuff. That's kind of why I'm here. To figure stuff out. But I am convinced that there are some things that I will just never understand. Crimes where the victim needs to play an extremely crucial role in the wrongdoings are some of the things that I don't understand. And I'm not talking about scams where people are bilked out of their life savings. While I don't profess to say that I totally understand how those can happen (and I tend to subscribe to the "A fool and his money are soon parted" explanation for most of them), they sometimes (rarely) have a (microscopic) shred of plausibility to them. (I don't really think that. I'm just trying to be nice. Really, I don't get how they ever happen, but that's probably just me.) But when the crime involves having to coerce the mother to engage in sexual acts with her child, it really boggles the mind. Wait. When they...what now?

Yeah, I'm still trying to noodle this one through. According to an AP story which appeared over yonder at the Huffington Post, the individual that we're describing here is a one Steven DeMink. The article starts off confusing me, as it reads "Online...he presented himself as Dalton St. Clair, an attractive single father and psychologist". Now, I don't know if he included a picture of himself online, but this is the perv we're talking about. Behold!

Yeah, not so much in the attractive category if you're asking me. It also doesn't seem like he would have much going on in the smarts category either, but his little ruse seemed to work. I'm going to tell you what he did and then you tell me if these mothers, who were unthinkably somehow unknowingly complicit in his little scheme, should really be parenting at all, OK? My answer is a massive NO. Maybe they could be good parents one day, but clearly right now is not that day. Perhaps give them something to practice taking care of first before moving up to actual humans. I'm thinking of a perhaps a houseplant. Not much can go wrong there...unless you're the plant.

This guy would go into chat rooms on the Internet and somehow convince "...single mothers...to sexually assault their children as a form of therapy." And he did this for (wait for it) more than a year! That he was able to do it even once is astonishing to me. What kind of mother would go along with this sort of advice? Well, in some cases, this perv "...promised the women a date if they followed through with his directions." A date? In exchange for sexually assaulting your own child? THAT was a relevant factor for some of these idiots? Are you dry shaving me?! How is that possible? Who ARE these people?! I guess they're people like this woman: Apparently, "In one case, Demink started online chats with an Oregon woman about the sexual development of her 8-year-old autistic son...He told her to engage in sexually explicit conduct with her son as a way to teach him about sex...and she did so while Demink watched on a web camera." Excuse me for a moment while I find a wall to bang my head against.

They were on the freaking Internet! Don't they know that the Internet lies?! He said he was a psychologist, so that was good enough for them?! Have they also recently lost a lot of money to a Nigerian prince? Are these women being allowed to continue caring for their children? I don't think that it's an overreaction to ask that question, nor do I think it's an overreaction for someone else to be in charge of these particular children. What kind of person are you who has some guy on the Internet tell you to engage in some form of sex with your autistic son and you think it's a good idea and you do it?! WITH a webcam running?!

Well, the answer to that is right there in the police report. See, "Demink intimated to these women that the result of the therapy would be healthier children." Oh. OK, then. I didn't know that he told them that it would help their children. That makes all of the difference. Totally understandable now. Of course. I should have known that there was a reasonable explanation for all of this insane lunacy. Sweet fancy Moses, what is going on here?!

Oh, look! Here's some information about one of the women! This might help us. OK, it says that this particular individual met this guy on "....an online dating site called singleparentmeet.com." All right. Nothing wrong with making friends online. But then, "She told police she performed sex acts on her young son as directed by her online male friend." All right. There's absolutely something wrong with that! As directed by?! The direction I can fully comprehend. It's the following through with it that still boggles me! Maybe her mother (who was inexplicably interviewed for this story) can help shed some insight on what her daughter was thinking. She said that "...her daughter was "depressed and lonesome" after her divorce." Uh-huh. I'm going to need more than that. "I don't know how he wrangled her in...She could have turned off the computer and gone the other way. He must have had a power over her." Oh, for cryin' out loud!

A power over her?! How about just admitting that your daughter is a complete dumbass?! Power? What kind of power? I've read this story several times (in hopes that I read it wrong at least once) and it makes no mention of him being overly tricky or magic or anything like that. He's just a big, perverted dope who managed to convince not one, not two, but at least seven women from all over the country to sexually assault their children because it would "help" them.

Seven. I have just lost all faith in humanity. I have nothing left. Seven. Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon New Hampshire, Idaho and Florida (of course). Those folks are spread all across the country. If it was contained to a particular region (like Florida, as I had expected), maybe I would have some faith left. But it's not. It's from one coast to another and everywhere in between. I don't really know what else to do with that other than to completely abandon any shred of hope that I may have ever had. For cryin' out loud, "Because the Internet told me to" is about the worst excuse I have ever heard in my life and it happened in this instance at least seven times. Yeah, I give up. Good Lord...

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Best Picture On The Internet

According to the Internets, this is the best picture on the Internets. And while I can't totally agree with them, I'm finding it a little hard to outright disagree, you know what I mean? You will after careful consideration of what may actually be the best picture on the Internets. Behold!

See what I mean? Hard to know, really. Hard to know.

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Doggone Weird

Look, we all know that there is an awfully lot of weird stuff on the Internets. I mean, really weird stuff. There's cool stuff, too, but it's the weird stuff that really props up the Internets. Well, that and porn. Of course. But even a lot of the porn is pretty weird, too. I guess I don't have to tell you that. Where was I? Oh, yes. The weirdness. Even though there are a lot of really weird things on the Internets, I have to say that I have not encountered the type of weirdness depicted in the video below. That is, until today. Today I encountered it and I still don't know what to do with it. It's a woman and she's showing viewers how to exercise. It's unclear as to which viewers she is trying to reach, as she is also exercising with giant poodles. Oh, did I mention that she herself looks like a giant poodle? Yep. She does. And she looks like a giant poodle right down to her poofy arms and her poofy legs. Seriously, I have no idea what in the hell this is other than so bizarre I'm having trouble putting words to it. I'm open to suggestions. The video is below. It's probably the weirdest thing you'll see all day. You're welcome. I think. (Oh, and PS. I have no idea what that's a picture of. I simply Googled "weird" and that was one of the images that came up. And it is, unquestionably, weird. So I went with it.)

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What Is Internet?

Technically, the Internet hasn't been around that long. Granted, I have a hard time remembering what I did in my spare time before the Internet. (I'd like to think that I was productive, but who knows?) Then again, I was an early adopter of the Internet. Are you kidding? Something that allowed me to do stuff without actually having to talk to other people? I'd been waiting for something like that my entire life!

And when I was first introduced to the concept of the Internet, while I didn't quite understand all of it or the immense capabilities, I was able to grasp the concept of the "@" symbol. It's pronounced 'at'. You know that. I know that. You know who didn't know that? Katie Couric. (Are you really that surprised? Of course you're not.)

I'm including a link to some video from 1994 that has surfaced. (I would have just embedded the video, but for some reason, YouTube wasn't giving it up.) It was when Katie Couric was on Today with the insufferable Bryant Gumbel. Not only did they have a discussion over what "@" stood for, they were both completely flummoxed by the entire concept of the Internet in general. That kind of explains why they were calling it "Internet". No the. Just Internet. As in, "Can you explain what Internet is?" Even after they get their explanation, they're still not completely sure what it means. Bryant Gumbel is completely perplexed by email addresses and has no earthly idea what they mean, let alone what they're supposed to do. Click here to be taken back to the glory days of 1994, when Internet was just beginning.

And while I find it amusing, I'm a little perplexed on why those folks don't do any research for their job. Seriously, if they knew that they were going to be talking about "Internet" that day at work, don't you think that they maybe should have brushed up on what the heck it was first? I mean, they're already completely morons. Do they really want to appear to be complete morons? Hmm. I guess if I look at how things turned out for them today, I guess it really doesn't matter. Nope. Doesn't matter if you're stupid, you can still get ahead in media. We're scroomed.

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He's Keith Fenimore

I'm all for an experiment. I'm really all for an experiment where the results don't seem like they'd be all that exciting, but just might turn out to be rather interesting regardless of which way things turn out. And if I can do my part and have it count for a daily post, I'm in!


Here's the scoop: There's this guy. What's his name...um....hold on...oh. That's right. Keith. Keith Fenimore. Now, Keith's name might not be all that familiar to you (as it took me a full minute and a half to remember it), but his face just might be really familiar to you in the very short future. Meet Keith. Behold!

That's him. That's Keith. Remember that face because you're (hopefully) going to see a lot of it. At the very least, you're hopefully going to be hearing more about Keith. According to our friends over there at Asylum, Keith is "...pursuing his goal of being named "America's most recognized face." According to the article, the premise goes something like this: "to build momentum via various media platforms until everyone in America knows who he is." Apparently, wearing that shirt is part of his plan. (No, I don't know why the "I'm" is in the middle. Some unknown textile recognition implement, perhaps?)

I wasn't sure if I needed to know who one more person was in this world. I'm perfectly happy not meeting anyone else for the rest of my life (as so many folks turn out to be bat nut crazy). But since I don't actually have to meet Keith, I figured this was an experiment I could totally get behind. (If he shows up on my front porch, however, deal's off.) And he's not even going to TRY to get me to like him. He just wants me to know who he is. As he puts it "To be recognized, I don't need people to like me. I just need them to see my face and recognize it." (I realize that kind of sounds very similar to the way that I just put it, but at least you know that I know what I'm talking about.)

When Keith started this quest, he didn't have an online persona at all. Brace yourselves. He did NOT have a Facebook! (I know! The horror!) He didn't have a Twitter account and thus, did not tweet. (You've really gotta respect a guy who doesn't tweet.) He didn't even have some fancy-shmancy web page proclaiming how great he was. (He has a website now, but that's because of trying to become recognized. Duh. I still wouldn't call it fancy-shmancy, though.) Nope. He was just anonymous Keith. But he's hoping to change all of that by just getting pictures of his face out there so that people can become acquainted with who he is.

I'm OK with this idea. Think about all of the completely useless people out there that we know who they are for no particular reason. Paris Hilton? A total waste of space. Kim Kardashian? Nice ass, but again, a total waste of space. Neither one of them did anything other than shove their face out there for all the world to see over and over and over again until we had to know who they were. The problem with those two is that once they became recognizable, they someone convinced themselves that they had done something. Meanwhile, we're still stuck with them.

I don't think that Keith is a guy who we are going to mind being stuck with, provided that all goes well. He claims via the Asylum article that "...his intentions are pure and have nothing to do with being famous as a means to make more money, sell more books or any other end. " And I think I believe him. But even if he does end up making some money or securing a book deal (which would make me jealous as hell and I had at least better secure a mention in said book), good for him. At least he's doing something to warrant it. Do you know how many crappy books are out there by people that we've never even heard of? Exactly!

So I wanted to do my part. I like getting in on the ground floor of things. I became his friend on Facebook and that exposed him to my vast network of friends. (I use the term "vast network" extremely loosely and simply because I can!) And I'm writing this post and including as many pictures of Keith as I can. (I was going to mention that I thought Keith was kind of cute, but I just read over on his website that he's married to a "sexy woman", so there's no sense in that now.) I'm interested in how this one is going to turn out. I'm hoping that he can get himself so recognized that it blasts the Kardashians and Paris Hilton into obscurity. God, wouldn't that be great? That's why, as much as we want to count on him to succeed, he needs to count on us. So remember his face. Remember his name. It's Keith Fenimore. And he's better than the Kardashians! Good luck, Keith! We're counting on you!

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Dear Uncle Bryan

You know, it's never too late to share things that you learn with the ones that you love. No matter what the time, no matter what the topic. You might be the holder of a vestibule of information that needs to be opened up so that the world might benefit from the wealth of information which it holds. I'm guessing that's what this little girl was thinking when she sent her Uncle Bryan the letter below. Thank goodness for the guy on Reddit who posted it and said, "My friend's niece sent him this letter. He thought it only belonged on the the refrigerator. I thought it belonged on the Internet." It absolutely belongs on the Internet. This is what the Internet was made for! Well, this and porn. Behold!

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Do Not Buy That On The Internet

Sometimes I read things and I just think to myself "Who are you people?" Then I immediately retract that thought because I really don't think that I want to know in most cases. That's what happened when I stumbled across this headline over at The Vancouver Sun: "Don't buy breast milk on the Web, doctors warn". Good Lord. What now?

Seriously? Is this a warning that needs to be out there? You don't already know that you shouldn't be buying some random fluid from some stranger on the Internet and feeding it to your baby? Really? What part of that is the toughest for you to noodle through? I'm guessing all of it is a pretty novel concept to certain folks, as the sub-headline reads: "Lack of medical information about donors can result in problems, Health Canada says". Huh. In what way?

Of course it can result in problems! What is wrong with you people?! Who can't figure that out?! Who is buying breast milk over the Internet and feeding it (presumably and kind of hopefully) to their infant? Well, apparently the kind of people who joined a "...breast milk sharing program launched by a Montreal woman on social networking website Facebook". Why does Facebook have to be involved with everything?! I'm sick of hearing about Facebook, for cryin' out loud!

Look, do I really have to delve very far into this entire concept before I can just get to the common sense part of it that would tell any normal person that buying breast milk over the Internet is a BAD idea? According to the statement (that is clearly for people who are not going to read it, comprehend it, nor care what it says) that was released along with the whole "Don't buy breast milk over the Internet" shpiel, "There is a potential risk that the milk may be contaminated with viruses such as HIV or bacteria, which can cause food poisoning".

Really? Are you the sort of person who is going to do something so reckless that it potentially puts your child at risk for contracting HIV? Or any other sort of disease? Really? Powdered or pre-made formula is sooooo terrible in your mind that it is a better option to risk your child contracting HIV than to feed them milk not directly from a breast? You should not have children. At the very least, you certainly shouldn't be allowed the feed the children that you do have.

I'm sure that this sounds harsh and judgmental. Good. It's supposed to. Remember, a word to the wise isn't necessary; it's the stupid ones who need advice. And here's the advice: Don't buy breast milk over the Internet to feed to your baby. If you're wondering if it could possibly be so simple, trust me. It is. Just don't do it and you'll be fine. And, probably to your surprise, your baby will be fine too. Lots of people weren't breast fed and they turned out just fine.

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