jcm's blog

I’d like to give money to help bolster the Democrats in removing Republicans from office, but I’m very confused about the legal position of donating as a foreign national. From what I’ve read, you need to be a US citizen or a permanent resident for this – is that actually true? If it is, are there any groups I can legally financially support who actively work to support the work of Democrat representivies? I’m not looking for volunteers to funnel money through – I’m interested in lawful ways for non-citizens to help effect useful change.

Advice welcome.

Jon.

I’ve added Bill O’Reilly and his “O’Reilly Factor” to my list of dangerously negative media coming out of the United States. For those who don’t follow US happenings, Bill runs a nightly show on Fox called the “O’Reilly Factor”, which he claims is spin free. It’s also hosted on Fox, which claims to be “fair and balanced”.

Listening to this guy, it’s very clear where he stands. While he reads out mails from readers around the world, some of which go against his politics, he’ll always come back with a Republican answer to the points raised. Mention the number of troops who’ve died in Iraq? He’ll talk about the reasons retrospectively given by the administration for the invasion. Talk about media coverage? He accused the BBC recently of being anti-American. And he’s fallen into the trap of believing everything that’s made in the US is of high quality. Actually that’s a worrying xenophobic viewpoint that keeps the US from innovating in the wider world.

After watching the “O’Reilly Factor” and various other content on Fox, I’ve decided that the greatest thing a US billionaire could do would be to invest in a national NPR-style television network with high quality content, mixed in with general shit about pointless crap (so the average person is interested in watching it too). Thank goodness for BBC America, ABC, NPR and a few other bastions of high quality news over there. Nevertheless, millions of people in the US have no idea what they’re missing and that is truly very shocking to me indeed.

Jon.

So, I went to see the first in a series of movies coming out this summer that they made about the 9/11 attacks. Initially, I was opposed to the idea of making movies about the attacks, but it was inevitable that they would and curiousity got the better of me. I was glad that I did because this was very well put together and helped to put the events into perspective. If you’re got over 4000 planes over the US on a September morning, it takes a lot of work to figure out when you’re under a co-ordinated attack and track down the bad guys. They didn’t have enough time or resources to do this properly – and I doubt they do now (since it’s not glamerous enough in the “war on terror”).

“United 93″ is more of a documentary than an action movie and wasn’t over dramaticized either, which is a good thing. In fact, it was a very good movie, though it did seem to be based purely on the official 9/11 report – I guess that’s better than sticking in a few conspiracy theories or something. The movie shows how these Islamic extremists took over various planes and the FAA response to each of the hijackings, obviously with a focus on United 93 (the only plane to miss its target). The heart wrenching bits are how well the movie portrays the people caught up in the hijackings as just ordinary people trying to get home/to work/wherever. The people on those planes weren’t making US foreign policy or trying to alter the lives of those who blew them up, they were purely innocent bystanders that served as an easy target. That’s what makes it all the more shocking.

As I watched the movie, I reminded myself how damaging religion can be in the world today. I’m aware that religion helps many people get through their lives, but the fact remains that you’re very unlikely to see atheists going around blowing up planes and crashing them into buildings. Only someone who believes in an eternal reward for their actions is going to consider doing something like that. Too much fighting takes place around the world every day for extremely stupid reasons.

Jon.

Currently listening to: Team America – World Police (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) – America, Fuck Yeah!

I like this track enough to have spent two hours the other evening in reconfiguring/building SharpMusique, DeDRMS and various other tools to allow me to actually play the track that I had bought on my Linux workstation, before figuring they had actually rebroken their DRM in iTunes 6.blah. No, it wasn’t my machines. Finally, after I’d played spot the latest Apple annoyance, I just got pissed off with iTunes broken skippy, poppy audio functionality under CrossOver and decided to buy the album mail order instead. Well done, Apple, you’ve made your DRM – Digital anal-probing Rights Munching – so absolutely crap I’d rather just buy CDs that I can encode and actually play back somewhere…

Remind me, aren’t we in the 21st century? We were supposed to have flying cars by now and world happiness, but instead we can’t even play music we’ve paid for. I guess it’s just a shame we’re not products of the Canadian schooling system or we’d have been brainwashed by the RIAA from an early age to just accept a world without music. Just think, we live in a world where Russia will have a tough time joining the WTO because it plays host nation to an mp3 filesharing website – let’s just remember who’s really running the show. Now go pay the RIAA for those unpure thoughts and the oxygen you’ve used while you’ve read this. Oh to have a few billion dollars and infinate time to bankrupt repressive arseholes everywhere.

Jon.