A real story run on the BBC's website

I pay attention to as little "NEWS" as possible, especially television news! As you all are probably aware by now, I believe that great "mind eraser" most hominids enjoy wasting what little time they have on this Mortal Coil, peering into it's cold, dead eye with slack-jawed amazement, being lulled into lives lived in sound bites.





















I do upon occasion read news in print or more sparingly read it on line. For the most part "news" isn't even news, it's gossip and propaganda. Plus, it either depresses or angers me, and we all know I DONT NEED MORE ANGER.
I will share with you this piece of propaganda I read recently from the BBC.
The story states that the U.S. will soon be taking action against on-line pharmacies and their practice of either offering expired or bogus pharmaceuticals.
This is the basic premise of the story, which I agree that the amount of pharmacy spam we all seem to hear about and the operation of unlicensed pharmacies is a valid thing to be concerned about. The meat of this article to me is this quote, "Those who sell prescription drugs online without a valid prescription are operating illegally, undercutting the laws that were put in place to protect patients, and are thereby endangering the public health," said Victoria Espinel, US intellectual property enforcement co-ordinator, in a statement.
Anybody get that?! It's not the quote itself, but the person making the quote. Still don't get it?! Ok, U.S. CO-ORDINATOR OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ENFORCEMENT... Still not sure what I'm on about?






















How could anyone readily accept a statement like that? Telling us that undercutting laws put in place to protect patients is the prime directive; when it's being spoken by someone that clearly has a different job to perform altogether?! Her job isn't to worry about patient health!!! Her fucking job seems to have more to do with protecting patents, hence her goddamn title! MAYBE SHE DID SAY PATENTS AND WAS MISQUOTED? bwahahahaaa!!! Prolly not!
And what does that usually entail these days!???? PROTECTING SOME LARGE CORPORATION, that really doesn't need so much protection in today's environment , FROM LOOSING OUT ON A FEW MORE QUADRUPLE BILLION DOLLARS IT NEEDS TO BETTER QWELL OUR MINDS INTO SUBMISSION!!






















People really need to pay attention to this sort of asshollery and at the very least take note of it or, better yet call BULLSHIT on reporting like this! News needs to be critical of such things! There are too many non-thinkers around already and we don't need to incubate more for god sake! People! Listen, you may think I'm whacky, crazy, funny, not funny, stupid, boring, or many other descriptors; but you need to understand what's going on here! This isn't an aberration or is it just about this illustration at all!
It's a bit off topic, not really, but do you know what's about to get passed by congress in the very near future? Something that, I would hope would cause us all outrage. I've talked about it before... NET NEUTRALITY! And do you know where your going to see things happen first?!? Do you have a smart phone?! Do you like how much info and freedom it's given you?!? Well, get ready to have a data charge tacked on if you like to say, use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
Courtesy of those lovable Teddy Bears known as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and surprisingly... Google!
Although they would seem to be shooting themselves in the foot to have a YouTube fee tacked on to every phone users account, unlessssss.... They know something we don't know... I could personally not care two solid brass shits if they taxed and surcharged those three I just named till they sink into oblivion. But I would be against that happening for the sake of the greater freedom to have an open, non-channelled, bottle-necked web, than the alternative!
I do digress somewhat...
The point is this really; WE, that means YOU AND I, need to get our heads out of the sand and stop this buffoonery from multiplying exponentially till all of a sudden, instead of staring at it on your tv screen or that monitor, or phone... We really will be SOYLENT GREEN!
Whatcha gonna do about it???
That's fine back to your favorite Stupor Bowl commercial brought to you by HitlerYouthOldNavyPepsiAstrazenophobiaCorp!





















ANgRY BRaDY

Google, Groupon and The Take Over of The Internet? - UPDATED!

UPDATED AT BOTTOM

Do you know what Groupon is? If not than leave this site and go back to reading the newspaper. 

Yesterday, rumors began to stir in places like the New York Times say that Google is offering Groupon $5,000,000,000 - $6,000,000,000 to acquire the company. (Thats $5 - $6 billion) As I write this they are talking about it on NPR's Market Place.

Groupon is one of the coolest "new" ideas on the internet. "New" in that is a fairly new service, starting in 2008 and "new" in that although I'm sure someone could dig up a earlier version of its services, Groupon was the first that penetrated into as many markets as deeply as they have.

Ok, if you really don't know what Groupon is; its a group-buy type service wherein consumers buy a "groupon" that gives them access to some product or service at a significant discount, typical 40-50%. The group part plays in by the fact that we only get the groupon if enough people buy in.

Now, do you know who Google is? 

If you read here with any frequency you know that Angry Brady would tell you that they are the devil. 

I don't know about that. I typically don't subscribe to the demonization of really anything. I tend to doubt that any company or person is as evil as they can be portraited...

but...

I really don't want Google fucking up Groupon. I don't want Google or any one company in charge of every-fucking-thing I do online. I don't want to hear my kids refer to the whole of the internet as "Google" like my mom calls it "Facebook".

This acquisition will be the biggest Google has made yet, but I don't think it will really put a dent into their piggy bank. If they are ready and willing to spend that kind of jack to increase their long-term ad revenue potential, how far will they really go?

Is Craigslist or Wikipedia next? I read that Amazon might be. Or how about Microsoft, eBay? Not to mention all the european and asian service/sites that most of us are not even familiar with.

They have the resources and the greed to buy them all.

The question is, even though we are a free market and capitalist and all that, should we (Americans, Europeans and Asians, et al) let one company buy up all the innovation in the internet? Do we really want to have one company decide which sites we have access to, because obviously the potential take overs listed above are friendly, for-profit ones, there is nothing to say they couldn't buy up a site to later shut it down.

Yes, yes, I know that the SEC and the Justice Dept. have jurisdiction to prevent that, but only if the merger would constitute a monopoly, which in case you haven't noticed, they tend to let just about every merger go through.

So, what do you think? Do you want Google to control the internet?

UPDATE

On Friday, Groupon announced that it REJECTED Googles take-over offer and that it plans to remain an independent company. It may make an Initial Public Offering in 2011, but will wait until after the first of the year to make any such announcement. YAY! Suck it Google.

The Chief