Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!

Yes, it’s Round-Up Day again and it’s been a long time since the last one.

Usually on Round-Up Day I offer up a collection of links to prior posts that you may have missed or might benefit from enduring again. Since I have been remiss in posting recently I’ll serve up a collection of links that I was gathering with the honest intent of blogging about them - but just never got around to it.

That was the plan.

But then I took a look at this idle collection of links and discovered - to my horror - that it ran longer than a conversation with my son about the Transformers movie (he’s obsessed - someone help me!) so I’ve distilled it to some major (and obvious) observations and then thrown in some choice links just so you at least have something to click at. See how I take care of you? I’m such a nice guy.

And now for the late breaking news:

• The fascists running America are still a bunch of lying, hypocritical peeny-sucking dickwads. No big surprise there.

• The dying media corporations sucking the world dry are still a bunch of self-defeating dumbass fucktards. It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Get the popcorn!

• The telcos and cable companies are still doing their best to prove how relentlessly dishonest, grasping and moronic they truly are. I’m sure they can sink even lower. Let’s wait and see.

• And Mark Cuban is an extremely rich asshole.

Say what?

Yeah, as reported in Ars Technica, Cuban issued an open letter calling for all ISP’s to block P2P traffic. This is in the wake of the revelations of how Comcast and others (that’s Bell and Rogers in Canada, thanks a pant load Ma and Mr. Ted) are not only traffic shaping but also directly interfering with and blocking transmission of data to and from their customers. The Telco/Cable jizz wits attempted to claim they were doing nothing wrong but in this world of No Secrets their true activities were easily revealed and they’ve been left looking like the little kid in the kitchen with a fist full of icing and crumbs around their mouth as they attempt to innocently deny having anything to do with the gaping hole in the cake: “Nooooooooo.” That’s cute with kids - with large corporations you’re just left with the justifiable impulse to kick ‘em in the teeth.

As Ars Technica states:

And this raises the question: what, exactly, is wrong with users saturating their connections? They are, after all, paying for that connectivity, and most ISPs are keen to market their higher-cost, higher-speed services. Dictating how bandwidth can be used will not make bandwidth any faster or cheaper, nor will attempting to play favorites with what kind of Internet traffic is legit or not.

So Cuban comes out and says ISP’s should shut down all P2P traffic to better serve their customers. Bullshit. For a guy who’s done a lot of good works like Redacted it’s baffling to see him talk out of his ass this way. Maybe it has something to do with wanting to save all the bandwidth for his own HD ventures, turning the internet into television. Sheesh!

Ahhhhhh - it feels good to be back.

Here’s some more links for you, in no particular order and mostly out-of-date but still worth the read:

• A rather long list of great reports from Ars Technica on just how fucked in the head ComCast is.

• FEMA still doing a “helluva job” but improves in creating their own fake news. There’s another report from the Washington Post.

• A great and very detailed article from demonbaby on the inevitable demise of the music industry.

• Donald Rumsfeld goes to France and gets served with lawsuit for torture and crimes against humanity. The wheel turns slowly but it does turn. Guess Donny’s travel plans will be gradually reduced until he ends up spending his vacation time in the same undisclosed location as Kissinger.

• DRM-Free music outsells protected tunes 4 to 1. Duh.

• Mickey Mouse versus Mickey Mouse. I always knew Disney was a fucking weasel.

• Lawrence Lessig draft version of his lecture on Corruption. This guy’s amazing.

• Another amazing person, Susan Crawford, on Transformative Technology and a more recent post on Verizon and ComCast.

• Nine Inch Nails tries to do the right thing and steps in industry bulshit. I have faith in Trent to pull this one out and grow roses.

• MP Dan McTeague is an asshole. This is the same numbnuts who traitorously went behind his own government’s back to consult with Washington on how to defeat Canada’s attempt to reform the drug laws. Thanks, Danny Boy. Fuck off.

• Meanwhile, the Ontario Courts have again ruled Canada’s prohibitions on cannabis are unconstitutional. That means it’s legal. Listen! Hear that? It’s the sound of society not crumbling around us. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

• Michael Geist reports on how the CRIA hired a shill in their attempt to debunk a Canadian study that linked P2P file sharing with an increase in music sales. Dip shits.

And just so it’s not all a bunch of stories that make me cranky, here’s a brilliant piece done by the writers of the Daily Show explaining what the strike is all about. Show your support in whatever way you can - in fact, check out the FaceBook site for the upcoming International Day of Solidarity (Wednesday, Nov. 28th) where you can march in the streets and laugh and play and freeze your nuts off for a good cause.

That’s it for now.

I owe emails to so many people, including my pal Mark with whom I hope to embark on a film commentary series - and I do have an article for his web site on one of my personal favourite Maverick Directors. There are scripts to finish. Video to edit. Toe nails to clip. The list goes on.

Enjoy your weekend wherever you are.

Cheers.