I won’t be participating in SOPA black out day, since changing my theme is a pain in the rear, and I’m not really a big enough fish to have as much impact as Wikipedia and Google. But I do want to raise awareness, which I can do by linking to some humorous pieces folks have done to promote blackout day, including editing this note from MPAA Chairman and former Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd. We certainly heartily approve of this kind of mockery, especially directed to Senator Dodd, who’s family has been an enemy of freedom and the Second Amendment through their respective political careers.
Also amusing is this SOPA public service announcement. Just a warning, however: while it may be a funny cartoon, it’s not… entirely appropriate. You’ll see what I mean. If you’d like to take action against SOPA, visit either Google or Wikipedia, who are pulling out all the stops to save the Internet from the critters and the MPAA.
I don’t know much about wordpress but I just added a custom block with the javascript in it. I was like you and didn’t want to change it because it’s a pain in the ass.
Then I realized I could just create another custom block. With where I put it it also has the benefit of blacking out the site title when the clock rolls back over.
I called and wrote my congress critters. Twice. I’ve lost count at the amount of petitions I signed.
The only person to respond so far is McCain. He basically said he will fully support and vote for it. I replied saying he was a freedom hater and should be living in china. I suspect the same of Kyle as well. Not sure about my congressman though.
It’s telling that the opposition to this is near universal outside the media and entertainment industries and even there it has some opposition. Yet with all the attention and opposition they would still vote for it. One needs to make this issue as big as the ‘assault weapons’ ban was during that election. Hammer home that if they vote for this they will NOT be re-elected.
I would think that either of these would end political blogging forever on the internet if not all blogging period. But then again SOPA is not meant to protect copyright, it is by design intended to destroy free speech on the internet and maybe the internet itself. As it is for the most part free. Old media is unable to complete and they are no longer the only source of information. It’s hard to push an agenda on the news if people don’t get their news from the TV. So they try to kill the internet as a whole.
Beleive me if either of these bills pass EVERY gun blog domain that exists in the entire world WILL be seized. That goes for EVERY conservative blog as well. Old media seems to complain a lot about blogs. You don’t think that would happen?
We are fast reaching the point of no return, The government has subverted the will of the people, and it will soon be time to press the reset button. The Second Amendment !
“But then again SOPA is not meant to protect copyright, it is by design intended to destroy free speech on the internet and maybe the internet itself.”
It’s not well known, but the original intent of copyright was for the government to give the right of the printing press to a given individual, to publish a given book. In other words, it *started* as a mechanism to squash free speech (at a time when the idea of “free speech” was virtually nonexistent).
Is it any wonder that so many schemes to enforce copyright end up having the squashing of free speech as a side effect?