Of Disneyland for Rednecks and the protection of money

For various reasons/people/interests I've been doing a lot of writing recently, not much of it very good mind you but it's kept things interesting when I could actually get something expressed in a reasonably presentable format.

Now that its for the most part over I remembered I had a blog that no one ever visits that is a great place to write a few of the inane observations I've made in the past while. Whew, and boy were there a lot of things going on... from the colossal impact of British Petroleum to arguably the more well known impact of the latest i-gizmo and it's... performance issues.

More locally is the upcoming 'Greatest show on Earth' in my current city of residence or the Calgary Stampede (though just Stampede is fine) is just under a week away. It is a big event to be sure and it is quite something to see the entire City get into the mood by putting on their western best or perhaps just a stetson, oddly enough I've never been quite able to get into it. Perhaps it's because I've honestly never been quite a big fan of the whole 'Wild West' era, though the discovery that the event is sometimes called 'Disneyland for Rednecks' in other parts of Canada was a bit of a revelation.

In all honesty it's not that bad, I think it is the over-commercialization that makes me groan in disgust when I think of the stampede. Talking to some of the older Calgarians they mention that the Stampede was quite different and better 20 years ago... granted they probably feel the same way about everything in general.

Speaking about the number 20 (the segue is a bit of a stretch I know), Canada was also host to the wondrous G20 summit where the financial representatives of nations and banks got together to deal with the 'global economic turbulence' caused by the financial industry in the leading industrial countries... yeah. On that note a new book is coming out that should be of interest to them that looks at 800 years of economic history and how the previous leaders all thought "This time will be different".

While it may not seem like the G20 is worth the cost for the host Country (at least that's what critics of Stephan Harper accuse) by far the most talked about news to come out of it was the behaviour of the much maligned protester. I'm sure they must believe that the best way to get their point across is to damage property and in general cause mischief, though it's nothing new for the G20 summits.

As I've written before, protesting for the sake of attention is shallow and probably idiotic in the grand scheme of things. For example there was a group of cyclists protesting to demand more facilities and bicycle paths in Toronto, and they protested by riding en-mass downtown causing traffic congestion and basically inconveniencing the average motorist.

While I support cycling and believe their demands have merit - is frustrating the average person going to make your point heard? It really shows a lack of common sense to the point of a total disconnect with reality to assume that by making a lot of noise you'll get your way all the time. Sure it may work for little children but surely we have grown past such behaviour... surely...

If they really wanted to change laws, they should be working to get the public on their side instead of alienating them. Write letters, encourage people to ride bikes, push for an environmental tax break for cyclists - make people want to cycle instead of drive rather than frustrate and annoy them.

Hmm, actually got a bit off topic, what I really wanted to write about (as I reminded myself from the title), was the recent ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) take-down of a multitude of online video streaming websites. Avoiding the issue of piracy, I find the whole affair a bit disturbing, not because of any idea of rights and freedoms but rather the whole thing smells of government spending resources to protect the money of private businesses - that aren't doing too badly at all if box office figures are to be believed.

The MPAA, RIAA and any other organization have the right to protect their intellectual property, and we've all seen those FBI warnings at the beginning of DVD's. It just seems that these organizations have tried the legal route to no avail and have somehow convinced the government that these streaming sites are run by 'organized crime' out to make money from the hardworking movie industry which brought us such recent gems as, The Killers and the Last Airbender.

If ICE officials were at least honest and said directly, "We are protecting the perceived financial interests of these organizations, and while the sites may be run by fans or ordinary people the creators have a right to determine how their product is distributed"

Instead they made it sound as if they arrested career criminals masterminding evil plots against the freedom loving people of the world, it becomes comically one sided.

Though for me, if there is an organization called Immigration and Customs Enforcement trying to figure out why they would be so interested in raiding the homes of "people who have no respect for creativity and innovation" instead of dealing with issues that actually cost lives such as drug and human trafficking. The only reason I can come up with is that the organization ICE is becoming more interested in protecting money than people, they are basically doing the dirty work of the studios who don't want a repeat of the bad public image they received from the random lawsuit method of deterring piracy.

Anyway I doubt that piracy will ever truly be eliminated, and while the actions and attitude of ICE doesn't quite sit well - at least they didn't come out with a rap song about it.