Right wing dicks in their boiler suits

Just posted a bit on watchblog about Fahrenheit 9-11.

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Music will set you free

It seems that the new CD by Velvet Revolver is heavily protected with Digitial Restriction Management software. This is causing a problem for anyone who owns an iPod, and in fact for anyone who doesn't run Windows. So, for me at least, there's no point in buying the album. Which is a shame, as the idea of Guns 'n' Roses without Axl is very appealing to me.

I wonder if the band knows that their label decided that the tens of millions of Mac and Linux and BSD users around the world probably don't want to buy the new CD. They can buy it on iTunes, fortunately, but for anyone outside the U.S. and a few parts of Europe, that's not an optoin. Nor is it an option for the 60% of internet users who are still on dial-up connections.

Of course, the album came out a week ago and it's already on usenet in MP3 format, so the DRM clearly was very effective...

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There's no sex in your violence

One area in which I tend to be very very conservative is in regards to particular types of criminals. And here is a fine reason why. This is not someone who was busted once for flashing. This is someone with a history of violent sexual assault. The recidivism rate for sex offenders is over 40% and over 50% for offenders whose victims are minors. Even those undergoing the latest and greatest treatments repeat at almost 20%.

Now, clearly a large number of those convicted clean up their act. I'm of the opinion that once someone recommits, and it's a type of violent sexual assault that's it. Game over. Get 'em out of the populace. The response tends to be "but they can't control themselves". No kidding. That's *why* they need to be kept out of general circulation. That's why we have a criminal justice system, to protect the general public from people like that.

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