- Is it time to go over the rules again? You know, the rules
about the list of tragic, heinous and catastrophic events in the course of
human history that should never, ever been used in a metaphor or analogy for
any reason at all. Slavery is one the list, along with all manner of sexual
assaults, domestic violence and of course, the effing Holocaust and everything
associated with it. Andreas Moelzer, a far-right Austrian politician running for a seat in
the European Union parliament, could definitely use a refresher on those rules
after he suggested that the EU is a dictatorship that makes the Third Reich
look "possibly ... liberal." His comments were made last month, but
somehow managed to slip under the radar for several weeks, possibly because he
is Andreas Moelzer and very few people have any idea who he is. Yet unknown or
not, suggesting that Adolf Hitler and his crew were a bit too liberal when they
steamrolled most of Europe and attempted to exterminate an entire race of
people based on sheer hate and bigotry is a sure clue that you are both totally
ignorant and living life without a brain or a soul. Moelzer is on the far-right
fringe of his FPO party, but that party has steadily gained ground over the
past few years with a vitriolic anti-EU, anti-corruption and anti-foreigner
message. Although Moelzer operates on the lunatic fringe, his party somehow regularly
polls as the most popular of all Austrian parties. That popularity does not
extend to the head of Vienna's Jewish community, who demanded that Moelzer withdraw
his candidacy. Oskar Deutsch said "such people cannot represent
Austria" in the EU parliament and if Moelzer doesn’t step down, here’s
hoping Austrian voters are smart enough to bypass this ass hat on the ballot………
- Being a professional record spinner and soundtrack maker
for Ecstasy-fueled, bounce pit-loving clubbers is a hazardous endeavor. Dutch DJ Tiësto
fell victim to this unfortunate reality over the weekend when he was forced to
cancel two shows after he was attacked without provocation by a rogue
flatscreen television. Tiësto was making his way to his decks when the
flatscreen jumped him from out of nowhere, flooring him and leaving him
bleeding and unable to go on. He reportedly insisted on continuing with the
show despite being diagnosed with concussion by paramedics on the scene, but
his management refused to allow a concussed man to surround himself with loud
music, flashing lights and copious amounts of illegal drugs. Not only did the
TV-on-human assault keep Tiësto from his headlining set at Electric Bounce
House at San Diego's SAP Center, he was too injured to spin t at the Hollywood
Palladium in Los Angeles in support of Afrojack and Lil Jon the next night. At
least the glorified record spinner had a sense of humor about the saga,
addressing the situation on Twitter. "I took that American expression 'go
knock yourself out' too literally Friday night in the Bay Area,” he tweeted. He
received support from fellow digital music jockey Skrillex, who said he could
sympathize with Tiësto after a similar experience in Mexico last year when he
ran into a bulwark at the end of his set. The chance that one or both of them
were tripping on one or more narcotics at the time of their respective injuries
can't be ruled out and given the genre of music in which they operate, it seems
feasible. Tiësto is currently working on his first studio album in nearly five
years and just to be safe, it might be wise to clear all monitors larger than
20 inches from the studio………
- It can be a beautiful thing when the little guy rises up
and fights back. It’s even better when several little guys band together to
take on The Man, as is happening right now in Madison, Wisconsin. Like so many
cities across the United States, Madison is a place where the locals don’t have
much use for a video store because of these newfangled things we call Netflix,
Amazon and iTunes. Yes, video streaming services have rendered the video store
obsolete and it’s why national chains such as Blockbuster have gone the way of
Aerosmith’s musical credibility. This harsh trend is breathing down the necks
of the employees of Four Star Video
Heaven in Madison and with the prospect that their business will be closed down
soon, the store’s five remaining employees have staged a scene straight out of
a cheesy John Cusack movie by banding together in an effort to buy the store.
The quintet has started an IndieGoGo campaign to raise $50,000 by the end of
April, when the lease on the State Street building must be renegotiated. The
building’s current owner wants to close up shop and move on, but doesn’t seem
to have much of a preference as to who buys it. Four Star Video Heaven has
rented movies in downtown Madison for years and employee Lewis Peterson doesn’t
want to see the ride end. "'Empire Records' is almost the exact situation
we're in," Peterson said. "Doom is coming down from the sky, and you
have to get some amount of money somehow." The store has more than 23,000
movies ranging from top films to obscure foreign flicks and its employees
believe that mix can keep them going. Raising $50,000 in an economy where fried
cheese curds cannot be used as currency will be difficult and if the money
cannot be raised, the DVD collection will likely be sold off and the plucky
employees who tried to save it will go their separate ways………
- The balance ‘twixt online privacy and finding the
information you need on that there World Wide Web is a tricky one to strike.
Enter Disconnect,
a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup founded by former Google engineer Brian
Kennish and consumer-rights attorney Casey Oppenheim. The two have teamed up to
create Disconnect Search, a search app for mobile devices and the web that lets
users seek information online without handing over the keys to their digital
privacy. On Monday, the company introduced a faster, more secure version of its
Disconnect Search app for Android and a new Web app that works with Chrome,
Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. To round of the catalog, an iOS version
is in the works and in a world where paranoia is growing and they really are
after your data, being able to search with protection should go over very well
with the masses. When a person uses a traditional search engine like Google,
Bing or Yahoo, that search engine sees information such as what a person
searches for, what sort of device they’re using and who they are. That data is
then sold the marketers, furthering Google’s soul-sucking market capitalization
to greater heights. In the fight against this digital spying, companies like
Duck Duck Go have created their own search engines. Oppenheim applauded Duck
Duck Go, but believes it’s time to take this a step further. "Duck Duck Go
is a great product, but a lot of people who care about their privacy have
trouble moving away from Google and Bing,” Oppenheimer said. Disconnect Search functions
as a proxy for online searches, passing search queries it receives on to one of
those aforementioned search engines sans personal information. Google will
still know that someone is searching for a pill to enlarge their manhood, but
they won't know who conducted that search. Disconnect also does not log
keywords, personal information or IP addresses. "The thing we've heard
routinely from customers is what you search for is just incredibly personal
information," said Oppenheim. "The fact that this information is
going [to] your search engine, ISP, websites, and potentially to government is
something people have a real problem with." Oppenheimer just dropped a
bomb on search engines as we all know them……….
- Clearly inspired by his short-lived stint on the current
season of “Survivor,” Miami Marlins president David Samson has a directive for his sure-to-suck team to follow this
season. Samson was the first contestant voted off the island on “Survivor” and
now he wants his team to wrap up its losses in similarly expedient fashion. In
their last game of last season, the Marlins won in two hours and change because
their pitcher threw a no-hitter. That stood in stark contrast to the other
games in the series, which all took approximately three hours. "Pace of
game is about our fans," Samson said. "It's very much a TV issue and
an in-game-experience issue. No one is complaining about pace of game where it
goes 12 innings and it's 3 hours and 20 minutes and it's a 5-4 game. That's not
the issue. If it's a 3-1 nine-inning game that goes 3 hours and 12 minutes,
that's not enjoyable." This mini-rant is hilarious because Major League
Baseball has been working to speed up games for years and has failed miserably,
yet Samson is barreling in like he’s stumbled upon some new concept by which
his team can revolutionize the game. Interestingly, games at Marlins Park last
year took an average of 2:56, which tied with Kansas City for second fastest in
the majors, behind Toronto's 2:55. "My hope is that we lower our average
game time from last year to this year, and that we have the highest-percentage
decrease of any team," Samson added. Blaming the pace of games is an easy
scapegoat for a team that lost 100 games with the worst offense in the majors
and finished at the bottom of the NL East standings for the third consecutive
year…and completely missing the point. The Marlins gutted their roster leading
into last season, stripping it off virtually all of its valuable pieces and
resigning itself to a last-place finish. "If we want to engage fans 18 to
49, we have to play faster," Samson said. "We're not going to put up
with 3½-hour games. Our fans don't want it." He added that he has spoken
to manager Mike Redmond about picking up the pace and that he plans to make
sure the team is aware of the goal. Yes, because a team president who meddles
and tries to tell his team to do something asinine like speed up games goes
over really well………
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