On three subjects

Alright, I promised to comment on W's Supreme Court nominee, one John Roberts, a while back and I simply have not gotten to it. I am attempting, as we speak, to gain access to some of the released documents, but going is slow. (Everyone wants to give you a summary instead of the docs themselves.) As soon as I get them, I will be doing a much more thorough analysis of Mr. Roberts, but with the little information that I have gathered thus far, here is my initial assement:

He's a conservative.

Surprise! He wants to prevent citizens from suing the federal government if it violates environmental regulations, he supports military tribunals, he advised Sandra Day O'Connor to be misleading and indirect during her confirmation hearings, etc. People left and right are saying "It could be worse." Well, yes, I suppose it could... but not really. Bush pushed the nominee he thought would be well looked-upon after looking at some real nutters. The timing, by the way, is incredible. Have you heard about Karl Rove recently? Of course not... anyway, I'll get to that. Bush has chosen the man that will fit his party's concept of "justice" (which generally involves British PD-style tactics), which, if you ask me, is horrific at best. I am digressing, however, so I'll get back to the point. Roberts is not a jewel here, folks. We'll see in the next few days what happens, but some serious shite should come up.


On to the next topic, how the hell is Karl Rove getting away from the media? He should be in some serious hot-seat style trouble, but I haven't heard anything about him in a week or two, and actually had to go searching for news about him. HELLO! Why isn't the White House Press Corp crucifying Bush right now? Didn't he say something about a dismissal, possibly involving the leaker? I have no idea how this administration manages to pull away from everything so cleanly, but they certainly know how to get out of the stall without falling in crap. PR genius at it's best. Seriously, though, Rove needs to pay. Page 2.

It has happened yet again. Everytime I go to my neighbor's house, we have a couple of drinks and I end up sitting around talking politics with him and his old man. Not a big deal, seeing as we have "agreed to disagree" on a few issues. However, this last time he was having some family in, who were all very nice people incidentally, and one of them just happened to be an ex-marine. Invariablly the Iraq "war" topic got started, and being the only long-haired musician in the group, I got the brunt of the flag-waving bravado. (Actually, Jim was possibly one of the nicest men I've ever met, and had a very open-minded outlook on a lot of things.) We supported each others rights to opinions and speech of that opinion, but he really didn't understand mine. The conversation went something like this:

Jim: I think it's good we're there, because the people there need a fighting chance. They need a chance to live.
Nate: Alright, but we're there under completely false pretenses. We didn't vote to go over there to overthrow Saddam because he was a horrible despot, we voted to go over there because we were told he had weapons of mass destruction
Jim: Doesn't matter. We're there now, and they need our help.
Nate: Granted, but if we were going to start the charity missions, we could have started a little closer to home. Let's head to South America for a big ol' Democracy cake-walk. Or we could go to Africa and help the people that are dying because they can't get any food or water. Or we could tell the governing powers of Uzbekistan to stop killing their own people for being political dissidents...
Jim: But these people need a fighting chance, man. They need a chance.

It continued like that for a while, until we both agreed that it was two in the morning and we had run out of beer. Again, Jim was an incredibly nice man, and my kind of guy (jazz nut), but we just couldn't get with each other on this one. I liked him in every other respect, but rational logic seemed to have kotowed to military obedience training on that one. That, however, seems to be the train of thought of the right. We're there, it doesn't matter how we go there, but something needs to be done. It does matter, though, because now you're accepting the premise that Iraqi lives are more valuable than Iranian lives, Uzbeki lives or Tutsi lives. I know we can't save them all, but seriously, come on. Stop the sanctimonious bullshit. We're over there for oil. Thats it. The Iraqi Freedom project just happens to be a great cover story. Thats all. Seriously.

I leave you with the poem from IloveKarlRove.com [Link]

There once was a weasel named Rove
For Bush's agenda he strove
Now Bush and McClellan are hiding the felon
all three should wind up on the stove

Hot Steamin' Cup of Joe

Let me come out and simply say this post has nothing to do with George W. Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court. I'm still trying to learn more about Mr. Roberts, and will be posting about it tomorrow, more than likely. No, this posting is about a conversation that (long absent) fellow poster JR and I had this weekend. It went something like this:

JR: "I guess the Hot Coffee mod is present in the Playstation version of [Grand Theft Auto] San Andres."
Me: "No shit?"
JR: "No shit."
Me: [continues playing Freaky Fliers]

Now, that may not seem like an extremely interesting conversation, but I guarantee it was by far the mildest conversation to invoke the Hot Coffee "exploit" in GTA: San Andres. The Hot Coffee "exploit", for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a mini-game inside Grand Theft Auto: San Andres. It's a sex game, in fact, involving pushing buttons and rotating joysticks in a rhythmic sequence in order to give the girl an orgasm, thus winning the game. To access this, however, a long series of codes must be entered, and then you must take your character on several successful "dates" with one of his many girlfriends. Then your character gets invited back to the ladies house for a cup of coffee, which is apparently code for "badly-vectored, fully-clothed simulated sex." Hot.

Now, people are up in arms about this recent revelation, and I would be able to understand it if it were about the right thing. Rockstar, the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andres, basically lied about Hot Coffee's code being present. That's dirty pool and bad business on all fronts, and what I would be upset about, if I felt it nescessary to get upset about these kinds of things. What people are upset about is the fact that Hot Coffee is present inside the game at all, since the game is owned and played by children. (Despite the fact that it is rated M and shouldn't be played by anyone under 17.) Now, I understand the concern, but a thought came into my head when I was reading a few stories scolding Rockstar over including this soft-core (at best) porn: We're talking about Grand Theft Auto, right? A game in which you control a character who runs about committing crimes, the least of which is car-jacking? The same series in which, two years hence, I went on a killing spree in a park simply so the National Guard would show up and I could steal one of their tanks? (Which, by the way, I did successfully. Danny will back me up.) Well maybe, I though to myself, the game has changed a bit. Become a bit milder over concerns over video game violence. So I decided to play just a bit. Here's what happened:

After getting used to the controls for a minute, I pulled a man from his Ford Taurus look-a-like, jumped in, and proceeded to run the old owner down, resulting in a satisfying squish. After driving around for a minute or so, I started driving on the sidewalk, mercilessly slaughtering pedestrians with a rather peppy tune playing on the radio. I ditched the car, walked down the street, beat up an old woman for the hell of it, and then hijacked a big rig cab, which I figured I could do more damage with. After driving around a bit more, I found some gangsters and ran them over, then ran over more people, only to find a cop chasing me. After pulling some daring maneuvers, many of which involved blowing through red lights, I jumped out of my truck and confronted the cop in a fist fight. To say it was a glorious battle would overstate the officier's ability to defend himself, and soon I was brandishing his billy club and driving his police interceptor. This took all of around 10 minutes. Later, I entered a weapons cheat, pulled out a sniper rifle, and started shooting old ladies from the top floor of a parking garage. Good wholesome fun.

After playing this game for around an hour, I suddenly realize why people are upset about the Hot Coffee hack: They are criminally insane. There is no other rational explanation for their outrage. In a game where you are encourage to steal, maim and kill, a little good, wholesome sex is apparently not welcome. I basically look at it like this: It's not rape. Hell, you have to have a damn good Appeal rating (attractiveness, effectivly), AND take the woman on a few good dates before she invites you back to her place for a little digital hanky-panky. I'd say it presents a fairly decent representation of a piece of social interaction. The fact that the guy has to try and the girl isn't a total slut really make it the least appalling portion of the game. Seriously, I don't understand people sometimes. Horrible, deplorable violence is okay, as long as you don't see any breasts or hear any cursing. Whats that all about, besides being completely ridiculous? I think it's time for a reality check for the United States. Time to focus on our moral values with a questioning, rational eye and the will to change our views when presented with a rational arguement against them. Then maybe we'll see less outrage over things like Hot Coffee, and more outrage over things like The US PATRIOT Act.

I Have Returned

I apologize to my readership for not having posted recently, but I have been busy doing other things. I spent a week in Pennsylvania with bass-luthier and living legend Carl Thompson [Link], which was, of course, incredible. I learned a variety of things, one of which is that I must own one of his basses. *sigh* Guess I have to work for a bit longer. Work, recently, has also been out of hand, with a whole section of our network going down, and with the mantle of responsibility being placed squarely on my head. However, rejoice and be glad, for I have returned, and you may once again waste hours of your precious time reading my vitriolic rantings and ravings. One more point of order before we proceed: Several of my readers have spoken to me about the rather pointed (some say obscene) language that I have used in my posts. Recently, I have been steering away from the use of obscene language for the benefit of my readership. However, be warned, that it may return in the future because of this simple point: this is my personal page. You are reading my thoughts. If you don't like them, or the way in which I present them, you don't have to read them. This isn't Russia. (This isn't Russia, is it Danny?) So, to recapitulate, Welcome back to Get on the Bandwagon, now with 98% less cursing^*!

There is an issue that I would like to adress that has me worried. Not only am I worried by the substance of the incident, but also by the fact that the general public doesn't seem to care. (On a whole, the revelation of the apathy of the public isn't as horrific for me anymore. It's like watching the same slasher flick again and again, only to become desensitized to the horrendous gore.) However, the issue of which I speak is that of the rejection by the Supreme Court of "The Reporters Privilege." Reporters privilege is a strange beast, being different in each judical district, but the general idea of the deal is that reporters should not face jail time for refusing to reveal the sources of information that they may have published, referenced or gathered. Recently, in the national trial dealing with the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, Judith Miller of The New York Times has been jailed for being in contempt of court after she refused to reveal her sources. She is sentenced to stay in jail until October or until she decides to acquiesce, which she has said she will not. [Link]

Now, while I disagree with the subject she is being protective over (you don't reveal agent's indentities unless they are committing crimes or have received consent to do so), she still has that right, and that is the main point. The reporters privilege laws were introduced for a very good reason; that of Freedom of the Press. If reporters were forced to reveal their sources, American investigative journalism would fall to it's knees. It most likely would never have existed, nor, more than likely, would our country. (A large portion of incitement towards revoltion was done in published newspapers at the time. As a side note, what happened to the time when public officals and leaders had flowing prose, or at least a decent sense of the language? I digress.) That may be hyperbolic, but investigative journalism, as a whole, is generally another check in the governmental power system, albeit a weak one. What if Woodward and Bernstein were dragged in front the courts and forced to reveal Deep Throat and other information sources or spend time in the clink? What justice would be done there? None, says I. Generally, when reporters are subpoenaed, it is nothing more than the standard tactics of a school yard bully, shaking down the kids, yelling that the kid who ratted him out step forward or the beatings will commence.

On another point, if hard-hitting, blow-it-wide-open journalism is what the American public really wants, the forced revealation of sources by journalists is only going to hinder it. If I had incredibly sensitive information about the goings on of a large company, say, dumping something somwhere where they shouldn't oughtta be dumping something, I would speak to the press only on the condition that my anonymity be absolutely guaranteed. Who knows what danger, either financially or physically, I could be in for disclosing information such as that? However, it would be in the public's best interest to know it, so if anonymity could be guaranteed, then I would spill. I'm sure the same is true for many, many people, whom would like to do the right thing, but don't want to be punished for it, as is the style of our "civilization" at the time. This is why these laws, statutes and safe-guards need to be kept in place. Not for the reporter's sake, nor the source's sake, but for the American public's sake. If no one is safe from retribution for doing what is right, i.e. disclosing potentially harmful information, then we, as a society, are doomed.