Drowning in Debt

Joss Stone on Piracy

Joss Stone explains, from a musician's standpoint, the merits of free and unrestricted media sharing.

Troops Waking Up

I love it when veterans get troll's remorse. Look, he was human after all! I love it when soldiers wake up, but I think it's best when people wake up before deciding to enlist.

My New Year's Eve With Pigs

On New Year's Eve I went to a party. So did an undercover cop. I was on the guest list and got in for free, but the undercover cop was charged $20 at the door. The undercover porker found this to be unacceptable, as the party throwers apparently didn't pay racketeering protection money (aka apply for a permit) with the City of Los Angeles.

So the undercover cop called about 8 squad cars and kicked everyone out of the party. 500 people. At 11:30pm on New Year's Eve, everyone was standing on the street amongst overweight, insecure, jackbooted pigs.

But the tables were soon to be turned. At around 11:45pm, the pigs squealed off, all of them. So the partygoers did the only logical thing and resumed partying in the facility. They got to do the midnight countdown, and the party wasn't ruined after all.

The cops were out in force all across the city that night, with paid undercover agents (overtime pay no doubt), looking to bust up peaceful parties that were charging at the door but hadn't paid blood money to the parasites in City Hall. Let's break this down a bit more.

8 squad cars and a dozen or so pigs feeding from the overtime trough is going to cost more than the "permit fee" for the party itself. Essentially, the city is spending extra money to punish those mundanes who didn't give them money to begin with. Leave it to a government to double down on a financial loss.

Additionally, due to pressure on the cops to bust as many parties as possible, they left the scene as soon as they kicked everyone out, leaving it vulnerable for reacquisition by the partygoers, which makes the pigs' punitive actions rather ineffective. They won the battle, but lost the war.

The city failed to extort blood money in the form of permit fees.
The city spent additional money on terrorizing peaceful partygoers who did not pay such fees.
The pigs shut down the party for a measly fifteen minutes, thus failing in their punitive objective.
The party organizers still made a profit at the end of the night.

Partygoers: 4, City: 0.

Why do we have permits and fees? Why do we even have a police force, aside from the obvious Stockholm Syndrome answer? Why do we have a City Hall? Not only did the police and City Hall work exclusively against the people (on the people's dollar no less), but they spectacularly failed in every objective they set out to do!

But who ultimately pays for this failure? The police department? City Hall? No. The taxpayers are the one who ultimately pay for this failure. They pay money to be subjugated by incompetent pigs and councilmembers who cannot even subjugate properly. The taxpayers are paying for a punitive and detrminetal service that can't even punish or cause detriment properly. It is a metafailure sprinked with Stockholm Syndrome pixie dust.

Yet, despite everyone's best efforts (taxpayers included), the party was a success.

Here's to 2011!

An Angry Redneck Pwns Wall Street

This man is knowledgeable and angry. When even the rednecks know what's happening, you know you're in trouble.

The Fed, Inked

Fixed link.