Ah Sony Music is involved.

Remember the time Sony Music installed a rootkit on peoples' computers via commercially purchased CDs because hacking paying customers' computers seemed like a good way to combat piracy?

Pepperidge Farm Remembers.

There you go. It was all OK until it impacted $$. Glad they finally did something, but wish it would have been based on an actual ethical concern.

So, like usual, DRM only fucked the people trying to play by the rules.

I swear to god I've heard that the telemarketer/robocaller problem is finally solved like ten times over the course of my life.

“You go on the metro, and people stare at you because you wear a uniform. Again, I didn't go voluntarily, I received a summons and came to the military enlistment office.

At this point I had some sympathy.

I didn't run away or hide like you. I acted like a law-abiding citizen. But when I come on holiday, they point fingers at me,” the soldier said.

And then he lost my sympathy.

It's like certain problems we have in the US, just with different players.

When "law abiding" is placed before basic ethics, problems like these arise. It's also, sometimes (maybe not here) a smokescreen people use to justify their unethical behavior.

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/big-pharma-research-and-development-new-drugs-buybacks-biden-medicare-negotiation

Last year, the three largest US-listed pharmaceutical companies by revenues, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck, spent a combined $39.6 billion on R&D. That is, admittedly, a lot of money. But less than Medicare is currently paying on just ten drugs

While Big Pharma holds vast portfolios of existing patents for prescription drugs, the innovation pipeline for new drugs actually has very little to do with Big Pharma. In reality, public sources — especially the NIH — fund the basic research that makes scientific breakthroughs. Then small, boutique biotech and pharmaceutical firms take that publicly generated knowledge and do the final stages of research, like running clinical trials, that get the drugs to market. The share of small companies in the supply of new drugs is huge, and it’s still growing. Fully two-thirds of new drugs now come from these small companies, up from one-third twenty years ago. It is not the research labs of Pfizer that are developing new drugs.

Republicans: OK, so how can we make this illegal?

DING DING DING. They can "get away with" hating trans women more easily, but it's just a stepping stone on the way to Gilead for them.

Please folks, especially those of you who like to push the "both sides" narrative. Recognize that while Democrats are not perfect, they are not these batshit insane Republicans that have wormed their way into power.

I want more choices, too. But until we have them - Republicans have been telling us exactly who they are since about 2016. Believe them. And do not vote them into power. Not locally, not at the state level, and for sure not at the federal level.

They have proven that they are incapable of seeing laws as anything more than tools to be leveraged against those not like them, and that they will skip right to violence when that fails.

I told one senator... we've got to put our heads together and figure this out. We need to be taking action right now. Because if we don't, our constituencies are gonna be fighting it in the streets. Do you want a civil war? I don't want a civil war. I don't want to have to draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so,"

Translation: "Just do what I say so I don't have to get violent."

Sounds a lot like an abuser explaining how if only you hadn't made him angry, he wouldn't have had to beat you.

Fuck these people. Get them out of power.

You know their answer will be that the homeless just need to work harder.

Just this image alone made me LOL!

Stochastic Terrorism

https://presswatchers.org/2022/08/the-phrase-youre-looking-for-is-stochastic-terrorism/

Reminder that the Uvalde police wanted this covered up so badly they threatened a local mother with violation of her probation if she continued to speak out about it.

https://www.newsweek.com/uvalde-mom-who-saved-kids-school-shooting-says-police-threatened-her-1712842

And he will face no consequence for it.

Yeah, it's the kind of article you write when you want to be sure Apple comes out looking good.

Is this the same woman the cops threatened with a probation violation if she didn't stop being so vocal about the extent of their worthlessness?

Regardless, I wish her all the best and hope she succeeds!

Edit: Not the same woman, but good time to remind people that they were scumbags all the way through even after the shooting was done. https://www.newsweek.com/uvalde-mom-who-saved-kids-school-shooting-says-police-threatened-her-1712842

A mother who ran into Robb Elementary School to rescue her two children during a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last week says police threatened to violate her probation for speaking about the incident to reporters.

Check this bit from the end:

In a brief submitted by the State of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to "convey the government’s message," and that can be accomplished through "the removal of speech that the government disapproves."

How many years did they spend sweeping the ground ahead of Trump and his cronies to support them and bring us to where we are today - only to act like they are taking some principled stand in quitting now?

They made this bed.

Republican projection once again I see. They are nothing if not consistent (and predictable).