It should come as no surprise that the two states have some of the worst educational systems in the country would come up with two of the most poorly written excuses for legislation ever devised. After all, in Florida students are led to believe that drinking bleach prevents AIDS and in Texas they are not taught any history that is not directly related to America.
Wait a minute dude, what about the nerd porn?
Relax, we’ll get there.
Okay, do you see those words that are highlighted in blue above? Those are called hyperlinks. You can click on them and they will open up a new tab that will provide you with more information on that subject. They are the very foundation of the internet. They allow me to share, with you and only you because you’re special, all the resources I have available to me without having to provide hundreds of pages of attached documentation. They also allow me to keep the flow of my story going without having to stop and explain things like some random aside in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Well, under either version of the proposed legislation those would have been strictly limited or eliminated. That was why Google and Wiki-Pedia were having conniption fits. Pretty much the entire internet is held together by hyperlinks. They are so ubiquitous that you probably never even think about them. But, without them we may as well go back to scratching symbols into clay.
Oh, so you’re one of those freeloaders who wants digital piracy to be a religion?
No, I am not Swedish. I firmly believe that intellectual property is property and should be protected as such. If you create a statue or build a car you don’t have to give it away. The same should hold true for music and art. I have noted that many of these freedom loving piracy advocates tend to have their sites sponsored and make a tidy sum of money ripping everyone else off. Simply put they are nothing but thieving parasites who create nothing, contribute nothing and should be jailed. That does not mean that I want every person in the country to go to jail because they may or may not have possibly done something wrong.
NERD PORN!
In a minute.
Anyway, speaking of Sweden, they do have one of the strangest Twitter accounts in the world. Every week a random citizen represents their country. So you end up with a country being represented by your average lesbian truck driver.
Sweden is tweeting to the world, and this week she is Hanna, “just your average lesbian truck driver.”
Officials at Sweden’s tourism board agreed to hand over control of their @sweden Twitter feed in December to a different Swedish citizen each week.
The project — billed as “the world’s most democratic Twitter account” — has so far been hugely popular, featuring a female priest, an advertising executive and an organic sheep farmer.
Its 20,000 followers may be small in a social media world where Lady Gaga has almost 20 million, but those behind @sweden say it is one of a kind and has more than doubled its number of followers in just five weeks.
“In this age of internet and transparency, if you want to be credible, you have to let go of control and empower the people,” said Tommy Sollen, VisitSweden’s social media manager, who was part of the team that came up with the idea.
Sollen said the project, which will continue indefinitely, is less about boosting tourism and more about creating long-term branding for a nation that is often associated with tall blondes, meatballs and neutrality.
“We want to be seen as progressive, open, credible and truthful,” he said.
People from around the world have logged on in the past weeks to follow tweets and discussions that have covered everything from immigration to new and old music, food, alcohol and sobriety, religion and hunting.
“Gosh, I really enjoy being @sweden,” writes Hanna. “They’ll have to grab the account out of my dying hands.”
Sometimes @sweden talks about the weather, a popular topic in the Nordic country of 9 million, but other topics are harder hitting.
Anders Dalenius, the third Swede on the stand, kicked off his week with a photo of himself in the middle of the woods, decked out in bright orange hunting gear.
“Hi all! Im Anders and right now we’re hunting moose and wild boar. Join me!” he tweeted, sparking a huge debate over hunting.
This week, an upbeat 32-year-old who drives trucks and drinks too much coffee is tweeting on her breaks.
“Sweden won’t be a location as much as a state of mind,” Hanna told Reuters by phone before climbing into her 17-metre, 40-tonne truck on her way to Denmark and the Netherlands.
“I just am doing what I always do, writing about my life. Sometimes I write about politics and social welfare, but not with a true agenda. I mostly just express my own opinions when I see something that bothers me or I find interesting.”
Sollen said the guest tweeters have free rein, though they are asked to make clear that their views are their own.
Hasan Ramic, a Swedish immigrant who fled Bosnia in the early 1990s, was openly critical of the country’s foreign minister during his week as @sweden.
He describes himself as not trusting homogeneity.
“It strikes me as unnatural,” he said.
He would try to represent the more “colorful” side of Sweden — “the one I know.”
Relative to its size, Sweden has been among the top five nations in the European Union in taking in refugees and asylum-seekers, including those fleeing the Balkan wars of the 1990s and Iraq after the U.S. invasion.
Ramic also shared with his followers a link to what he said was Sweden’s national dish — the “kebabpizza” — calling it “a genius outcome of Swedish immigration policies.”
Just so we’re clear, everything I have done here today would have been illegal had PIPA or SOPA passed. And, in keeping with that thought, I am going to continue to break those laws.
NERD PORN?
Yeah, coming right up, if you’ll pardon the phrase.
What does nerd porn have to do with PIPA and SOPA? Quite a bit actually. It is the one form of “adult entertainment” that seems to attract straight women. It seems that some women really are attracted to men who have big …… brains.
It is also a way for people to share some very scatological humor (oddly, given the theme, this link is safe for work) in a safe environment. Nerdy men and women share jokes that normal people would simply not understand.
Simply put, you either get the punchline “not without my illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator, I won’t” or you don’t.
And those that do gravitate towards nerd porn. A subset of that would be the Suicide Girls, but that’s a whole other blog.
Anyway, the common theme with nerd porn is that its adherents share links and information. Tons of it in fact. Many of those cool cheats you found online for your X-Box, PS II or whatever have come directly from the fertile minds, and loins, of nerds. Girl gamers need love too, don’t you know.
If PIPA or SOPA passed every nerd porn site would have to be shut down. And you, yes you, would have to figure out your own cheats for your video games and no one would ever get to laugh at a porn parody again.
And I ask you, do you really want to live in a world without Sex Trek: The Next Penetration?
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/33187918 w=400&h=300]
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!