A copyright violation claim by the Church of Scientology against the posting of one of its videos to YouTube has prompted a full-on assault by a group calling itself Anonymous.

The video, in which Tom Cruise proclaims, in part, that Scientologists are the only experts on the mind, was pulled by YouTube over the weekend at the request of the Church of Scientology as part of a long-standing effort to keep copyrighted material from appearing on the Internet. Other sites have since posted the Cruise video in full.

In response to the take-down of the Cruise video, a group of vigilantes–calling themselves Anonymous, or Anon–have retaliated against what they consider to be Internet censorship. The group includes computer experts capable of Internet mischief. In recent days, local chapter sites for the Church of Scientology have been defaced, and in some cases denial of service attacks have also prevented access to the same sites. Real-world attacks have included fax-spamming those same offices.

As an explanation for these attacks, Anonymous posted its own video to YouTube. In the video, a computer-generated voice speaks over a rolling cloudscape, effectively putting the Church of Scientology on notice:

..”Over the years, we have been watching you, your campaigns of misinformation, your suppression of dissent, your litigious nature. All of these things have caught our eye. ..

..”With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who have come to trust you as leaders has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed, for the good of your followers, for the good of mankind, and for our own enjoyment. ..

..”We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.”..

The video ends, with the following statement:

..”We are Anonymous

We are legion

We do not forgive

We do not forget.

Expect us.”..

As some of you may or may not know, I have recently found religion.

I have converted to Pastafarianism, and as such I worship His Noodliness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
(Go ahead, prove he doesn’t exist.)

It is the only religion founded by a physicist, we’ve never murdered or tortured anyone in the name of our God, you don’t have to give us money, and in Heaven there is a Beer Volcano.

Sounds pretty sweet, right?

I know some of you are probably skeptical, so I’ll answer a few questions.

What do we stand for?

All that is good.

What are we against?

All that isn’t good.

Do we have a “chosen people?”

Yes. Pirates.

Do we have a set of Commandments to live by?

Sort of. Commandment is such a strong word…

We have:

The Seven “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts
The Prophet Bobby Henderson, “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.”

1. I’d Rather You Didn’t Act Like A Sanctimonious, Holier-Than-Thou Ass When Describing My Noodly Goodness. If Some People Don’t Believe In Me, That’s Okay. Really, I’m Not That Vain. Besides, This Isn’t About Them So Don’t Change The Subject.

2. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Use My Existence As A Means To Oppress, Subjugate, Punish, Eviscerate, And/On, You Know, Be Mean To Others. I Don’t Require Sacrifices And Purity Is For Drinking Water, Not People.

3. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Judge People For The Way They Look, Or How They Dress, Or The Way They Talk, Or, Well, Just Play Nice, Okay? Oh, And Get This In Your Thick Heads: Woman = Person. Man = Person. Samey-Samey. One Is Not Better Than The Other, Unless We’re Talking About Fashion And I’m Sorry, But I gave That To Women And Some Guys Who Know The Difference Between Teal And Fuchsia.

4. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Indulge In Conduct That Offends Yourself, Or Your Willing, Consenting Partner Of Legal Age AND Mental Maturity. As For Anyone Who Might Object, They Can Turn Off The TV For Once And Go For A Walk For A Change.

5. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Challenge The Bigoted, Misogynist, Hateful Ideas Of Others On An Empty Stomach. Eat, Then Go After Them.

6. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Build Multimillion-Dollar Churches/Temples/Mosques/Shrines To My Noodly Goodness When The Money Could Be Better Spent (Take Your Pick):

* Ending Poverty

* Curing Diseases

* Living In Peace, Loving With Passion, And Lowering The Cost Of Cable

I Might Be A Complex-Carbohydrate Omniscient Being, But I Enjoy The Simple Things In Life. I Ought To Know. I AM The Creator.

7. I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Go Around Telling People I talk To You. You’re Not That Interesting. Get Over Yourself. And I Told You To Love Your Fellow Man, Can’t You Take A Hint?

RAmen.

Look bub I have to watch CNN, its part of my jaaaaab.

But you people that come home from work and turn on CNN just blow my mind. What exactly are you hoping to come away with?

Right now. As I look over at the idiot box. The top left graphic reads, CNN: Legal Brief.

Just above the ticker, the main banner reads: Brittany Vs. Dr. Phil: Should he have gone public?

The talking heads are actually “arguing” about this.

Click.

Let’s see what’s on the Goebbels… I mean, Murdoch… media machine…

Donnie Osmand.

I’m not even kidding.
(He’s not ashamed of being 50 years old, just ask him.)

Annnnd off.

Quiet keyboard clicking sounds for about 30.. 45 minutes.
Then.

WHAAAAANT WHHAAAANT WHHHAAAAANT WHAAAANT!!!!!!!

My new weather scanner is going ballistick.
(a Midland S.A.M.E digital weather all hazards alert radio)

I’ve never heard it go off before and it scared the living bejesus out of me. A red light is flashing and it says TORNADO WARNING on the screen. I can’t get the thing to shut up, and when I finally do hit the right button an erie, animatronic voice warns me that I should get away from any windows and head for the basement, if I have one.

Which doesn’t really work for me.

So I unplugged it.

I can tell by reading the first few comments on the boards this morning that it’s going to be “one of those days.”

Here’s my interpretation of the first of (whats sure to be) many…. “Those dang Heathens poked our ships! (poked…? hello…?) Lets bomb them back to the stone age!!! USA! USA! It’s all those damn bleedin heart libs that’s the problem!! They ain’t got the cohonas to do what needs doin!! By not sinking those ships, we’re just encouraging them to do more! USA! USA! USA!”

It won’t surprise me to soon see a reiteration of Anne Coulter’s (in)famous line, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them all to Christianity.”

Very reasonable.

And I’m fine with that. I’ve lived in Memphis my whole life.
And reading this garbage is part of my jaaab.

First of all I don’t ascribe to your false left-right dichotomy.
Lets get that straight right off the bat.

And seeing as I am a “student of history” (meaning I graduated public high school) I feel like it’s a part of my responsibility to remind the citizens (not consumers) of this country of one thing.

We have been fooled before.
Many, many times.

If you don’t believe that, please google: the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the USS Maine, the Reichstag fire, the Spanish-American War, William Randolph Hearst (“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”), et al.

This is history, not opinion.

Then theres our good buddy Rummy (”this war could last six weeks… I don’t seeing it lasting six months…”), Collin Powell’s little song and dance in front of the UN, our own intelligence reports (from 16 different agencies) show that Iran is not a genuine threat to us.

Before you get that self-righteous fire in your belly and can’t wait to run off and “protect our freedom,”
you should …. perhaps… question your own INformation.

You believe this administration, that has lied to you so many times.
You believe the garbage you see on television is real.
You believe we can’t wait for the “smoking gun that may just be a mushroom cloud.”

You can be a slave to your fear, that’s the intention, after all.

(”Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” ~G.O.)

Or maybe you should just consider that you don’t really know anything.
We only know what we’re told.
Today.

Cheers.

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
~Herman Goering, Nuremberg Trials

Yeah I said it.

I know it’s not nice to hate people, but I have to watch CNN/MSNBC/FAUX News all day long and I’m going to have to hear about her little drunken tantrum all day long. And then a horrible thought occurred to me…

“Wait… am I supposed to post… this?”

It is on the AP wire.
There’s already a link to it on the homepage….

No.
I won’t.
You guys can fire me.
But this is where I draw the line.

Brittany Spears is not news.
Ever.
Not on my website.

Maybe if she died.

In Memphis.
Maybe, then.

Cheers.

Too bad it didn’t quite work out like this… eh Al?

Oh well, I thought it was pretty interesting anyway.
Cheers.

Why Socialism
by Albert Einstein

This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible.

But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately.

In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country
.
They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

(1) Soft Rock had an “era.”

(2) It is illegal to bring a reptile to Beale Street.

(3) My transmission is shot.

(4) It is significantly harder to drive downtown when you have no reverse gear.

(5) Brangelina is a super couple.

(6) Brandonian is a genius.

(7) You can save money by getting a credit card!
(Why would TV lie?)

(8) It isn’t difficult to make others uncomfortable by not practicing basic elevator etiquette.

We will probably come back to that last one in the future…

Right now, I’m going home.

Cheers!