hellz yeah you go John! And don't worry about the pluralization, either--All but the fanboys refer to the blocks themselves as legos. The evolution of language has always depended on common usage variations, and no PR dept is going to stem that tide...especially not this PR dept. LEGGO®™© can weepity weep their salty brand-dilution tears all they want, but they're waging a losing battle, because their prefered usage of their name is just so damn awkward. "Hey Timmy, would you like to play with my plastic bricks, by the LEGO Group, a privately held company based in Denmark?" It's worse than those sponsored recipe books insisting that you make a screwdriver with Tropicana Medium Pulp 100% Juice Not From Concentrate Enriched with Extra Vitamin C by Tropicana™.

this reminds me, where do we go for all our war-zeppelin needs? I needs me a fleet of war-zeppelins.

that should be "despair" in my comment, btw. doh!

To all of the first-time posters who came out today to support your underdog Wal-Mart, welcome! Take a look around; BB is a fun site, full of Wonderful Things(TM), and though you might not agree with the content of this post or any of the comments and documentation and news links that followed, I'm sure you'll find something to love elsewhere on the blog.

For my part, I worked at Wal-Mart for a summer while I was still in college, and it was an experience which I shall not soon forget. The desparation I felt there, particularly on the night shift (I was working 80 hours a week that summer b/w Wal-Mart and another job), was truly heartbreaking. Not a single person I ever met was happy to be there, but the question I heard over and over was "Where else can I go?" Yes, $8/hour was better than the other options for many. Sure, not everyone there was destined to remain there forever, but certainly to suggest that just anybody can pick themselves up and start a new life from scratch is to underestimate the hurdles many people face. When you have little/no benefits nor a living wage, how the hell are you supposed to pick yourself up? The longer you stay in such a position, the deeper you go both in debt and dispair.

I've managed to shop there only a few times over the past eight years (each time doing so only by necessity), but I am always filled with regret upon stepping through those doors.

(That said, I'm not a fool and I know a deal when I see one, and for those Wallyworld champions who might be interested, it looks like the garden section of my local Wal-Mart is having a spring sale on astroturf!)

Does Ford shout "It is impossible for you to succeed without us!" at any point during this film? If not, I don't think I'll be able to sit through it.

srsly...is this some kind of weird performance art thing?

"...the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space."

I can just imagine a meeting where all the Homeland Security squares are scratching their heads, blindsided by one non sequitor after another.

Video footage, anyone?

Also, any chance of “It is impossible for you to succeed without us!” turning into the next "All your base..."?

#10 Poperatzo:

This isn't meant as a flippant question, but is there any way for us to know what products are being advertised on the Olympics since we won't be watching the Olympics and/or their ads? I'm totally with you on not watching, for that reason and so many more, but I would love to have a resource by which I could find out what to boycott.

The mind struggles to comprehend how this thing exists. I mean, as far as I can tell, people work for this company. They actually go to this place of business in Sarnia, Ontario, they clock in for the day, and they do their part to move their products into the market. But it so happens that their products happen to reduce their fellow human beings to little more than cattle. So...if they manage to make flying the friendly skies a harrowing, science-fiction prison-like experience then do they all go get a beer after work and say to each other "Job well done"? What sorts of mental gymnastics must one go through to make this ok in his or her mind? What sort of person is capable of this?

BTW, the youtube video on their website is ROCKsome. Love the xenophobia. Love the scare tactics. Love the 9/11 video replays. LOOOVE the EMD "We will fucks you up but good" Technology.

RRSAFETY:

Totally valid point. And for sure, I've had enough interactions with shady small companies to be convinced of the small-time capacity to be evil.

What can any of us do but continue to call out bullshit in all of its myriad forms and sizes?

A corporation is not necessarily evil. And the little guy is not necessarily good. Gotta remember there are people at the heart of each of these things, and sometimes that heart is healthy, and sometimes that heart is cold and dead.

#4 Mark,

I'm sorry. I should have elucidated my admittedly-ambiguous one-word review, which was not intended to be a critique of the well-produced and thoughtful short film presented here, but a critique of the dire situation most of us now face. I had intended to follow up the first posting with something slightly less childish, but got sidetracked, and at this point there is little remaining to be said that hasn't been said already. Fortunately the internet is Forever, so my comment will likely remain in infamy.

Back to the topic at hand: this crisis has been a long time coming, and maybe is a necessary "correction" as some people like to cheerily point out. That fact doesn't make it any better for the people who are going to get screwed in the process. Hence: *!*

Cheers.

you can do the audio signal thing super easily with two cellphones--call one with the other, put both on speakerphone, and turn them so the speakers face the mouthpieces and vice versa. Say anything or make any noise, and the delay between the two will cause the sound to cycle nearly endlessly, reducing to a completely incoherent noise that is usually shrill and terribly annoying. But in a good way. Tis fun to try different sounds, to see how they reduce themselves.

¡Art!

RRSAFETY: Maybe the big corporations get called out more often because the magic of marginal gains means that the bigger you are, the cheaper it is to be evil to yet another person. As the cost of evil goes down, it becomes more attractive. ?:^E

may I be the first to say it: *poop*

What? Really? Did we really just transform human suffering into entertainment? Farewell, Roman Empire!

(They Shoot Horses, Don't They? also comes to mind)

naw, Timw, it's just Mary Blair coming down from a bad trip.

I agree with IRREAL. If you think these newfangled things are sins (and I could go along with the last four, for sure) then you can simply assign each of them to the wider scope of the deadly sin(s) to which they correspond:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control (LUST)

2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research (PRIDE, probably GREED considering big Pharma would be the industry involved here)

3. Drug abuse (err...maybe GLUTTONY? The Church is on weak ground with drugs in general)

4. Polluting the environment (SLOTH, GREED, etc)

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor (GREED)

6. Excessive wealth (MORE GREED)

7. Creating poverty (GREED YET AGAIN)

This comes across as just so much Vatican Marketing(TM).

Jeff, we might not have the right to tell others how to live, but doesn't mean we should look away when we see gross violations of human rights. And also, the whole point of the Atlantic article is that the Wired Magazine mentality that "they'll eventually get access because the firewall is a futile effort against the democratizing power of teh internerd," while appealing, is ultimately misguided because it fails to take into consideration the ways in which a modern Big Brother regime operates.

Bshock, I agree with you wholeheartedly. We need to take note of these techniques, because most (though not all) of the measures in effect over there can easily be replicated elsewhere, including in our own backyards.

I appreciate WIRED using their soapbox to bring to light these things, but would it be so much to ask them to put all of the advertising money earned from the pageviews into a fund for Amnesty International or something? It is a little bit gross to see anyone profit from this sort of stuff.

Maybe they're going to do this anyway, and I just didn't notice.

These comments have jumped the shark.

why I will never be prezidint of the United States:

"Oh, hello Mr. UAE. How are you doing today? Yes, yes, oh very well. Thank you for asking. Oh, and thank you for the fruit basket, it was ever so thoughtful of you. Now, I was just calling to find out about--oh, yes. Okay, so you already know. Uh-huh? Is that a fact? Well, I'll be. Don't you think that's a bit of a...well...a crime against humanity? No? OK, well, I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to have to ask that all of your emissaries leave our country at once. What's that? No, I'm sorry, but I really must insist. Oh, and consider all of our economic ties severed, as of today. I--I'm sorry, Mr. UAE. I can't understand what you're--I'm sorry, there seems to be some static on the--" (rolling cellophane near the mouthpiece) "I said, some static on the--" *click!*

Repeat for every other filthy swine monarchy with their backwards f*ed up laws. Oh, and China. Sure, gas will go to 15.00 a gallon and the price of goods will soar, but probably only temporarily, because we're still the biggest market for the world's crap, and something tells me economics could be wielded in such a way as to get these states to see the light on human rights in a jiffy.

Of course, for this to work, we'd have to be blameless ourselves, Guantanamo. (reason #2 why I'll never be prezidint.)

Well quoted and well put, Mr. Wong. We need to bring back the concept of shame, and apply it to those industries which are so successful but which are so reprehensible to those with any sense of a moral compass.

Good parents everywhere: don't let your babies be realtors or stock brokers. Or health insurance execs. Or credit card execs.

I still love tang. Of course, the only reason they drank it on the moon was because the astronauts were complaining that their hydration systems were making plain ol' water taste terrible, and NASA needed a quick fix. That said, there's nothin' too terrible in it, and lots that is good for you.

Mmmm, tang...I particularly enjoy mine in Cosmonaut (w/ vodka) or Astronaut (w/ bourbon) formats.

could you say they turned the black all the way to eleven?

@ #13 Svenski:

Excellent point, my good sir/madam!

I'm delighted that prudes still exist to be shocked by certain little four letter words. If it weren't for the prudes among us, it wouldn't mean so much when I tell meter maids and their ilk everywhere: Go fuck yourselves. Twice.

Although, really, my usual parking ticket check reads something more subtle like "Sixty-Five Dollars and NO SENSE."

Oh, and another thing. If you're in LA, or DC, or one of the other fucking cities that contracted Lockheed Fucking Martin (look it up) to do their ticket management dirty work: contest every ticket, no matter what. Even if you're parked on top of a fire hydrant in the middle of a parade route, contest that ticket. Last time I checked, Lockheed's deal with each city was to split revenues 50/50. However, they agreed to pay all managerial expenses, such as checking into a contested ticket--which, supposedly, costs them about 40-50 on average. SO...if you contest a 40 dollar ticket, and LM has to deal with it for 40 dollars, and they still make you pay it, at least the city gets 20 and Lockheed Martin makes a profit of NEGATIVE 20. w00t! To me, this seems like the easiest corporofascist shit to deal with, because all you have to do is remove the profit incentive.

Note to Lockheed Martin: Fuck you. Twice.

Modest Proposal for Flying Saucer Fanatics Who Live in the Middle of Nowhere: Digital Video Camera with a fisheye lens, on your roof, filming at all times. Then, when you see crazy sith, you've got your proof.

Even better: Two cameras, side-by-side, so that when you catch your crazy sith, you can accurately judge its distance.

Even better: You and all of your crazy friends, creating a network of roof-mounted cameras that cover a significant portion of the Southwest United States or other UFO-frequented locales.

Best: You and all of your crazy friends sending your footage through an algorithm that watches for anomalies and dumps the rest, so even if none of your crazy friends are watching the skies at any given time, you can still find the aliens or top-secret-aircraft or what-have-you without having to sort through gazillions of hours of footage.

Throw it all up on a website, sell some t-shirts, and you're good to go: Your very own close-range, grass-roots, crazy SOB version of SETI.

And done!

Tony Lux

I'm not a huge fan of Dawkins, but I must disagree with the idea that Sam Harris is a better spokesperson for free thinking than any of the others in the popular media. A few months back I saw Harris manage to turn a very friendly auditorium at UCLA against himself in a debate where his argument boiled down to a particularly vehement form of imperialist racism.

In the larger scheme of things, though, mostly the current crop of pop-sci atheism comes across to me as just so many attempts to rephrase Bertrand Russell for profit. Russell managed to be both entertaining and extremely thought-provoking--and accessible on many different levels. The current group, however, appeals to people who don't have a thorough background in philosophy, and who were probably looking for some sort of authoritarian validation for the budding atheism which was in them already but which had not yet found expression. There is a sense of that need for belonging in this brand of atheism which is (not-surprisingly) similar to that which drives much of organized religion. I don't think any of this advances the cause for or against religion, but a good deal of money is being made in the process.

The important issue, of course, is whether or not they'll continue to use Ray Bradbury's beautiful and inspiring narration script. Any word on that? Actually, I haven't been on the ride in years...maybe they cut his contributions out of it already.

"We are not in the business of paying claims, we are in the business of collecting premiums."

Then you god damn shouldn't be in charge of our health care system, should you! If you want to be in charge of health care delivery, you should be in the business of paying claims. If that is not a viable BUSINESS plan, then BUSINESS has no god damn right to be involved. The health of our citizens should be the first priority. Why is this such a difficult concept to get around? (Answer: Because the people in the business of collecting premiums pay a lot of money to the people who are in the business of representing citizens, to make sure that this concept remains difficult for the latter group to understand.)

Fuck you, Blue Stick Blue Stone, and all of your cronies in Washington and elsewhere. Your days are numbered.

the problem, Peterus, comes into play when you realize how few broadband providers there really are. For so much of the country, a person's choice comes down to "My way or the highway" with Time Warner, Comcast, or other serving up the (potentially) flawed contract. When I was living in LA, I ran into some problems with Comcast customer service, so I switched to Adelphia. Fair enough; the better company got my business....Then, of course, the two of those merged into Time Warner, and then all hell broke loose. Time Warner customer service was worse than either of the other two companies, but then I had no other options for cable internet. Sure, I could have probably signed up for Verizon DSL, but not at nearly the speed of the cable.

Even if you do have multiple broadband options where you live, is not each of those companies campaigning against Net Neutrality? Do you really expect that there is going to be one "good guy" ISP out there that refuses the lucrative contracts made possible by a lack of Net Neutrality, when the opportunity comes along?

I was a Series of Tubes for All Hallow's Eve last year, went down to West Hollywood for their famed craziness, and exactly one (1) person noticed, shouting at me from across the street--"It's teh internets!" Sad.

Internets for Halloween is sooo 2006.

Now, a question for Gabe and Max: Why is it that people on the internets spell things in funny ways, using numbers in place of letters?

Does a rich person's toothache have more of a right to remedy than a poor person's? If you say "yes" to that question, fuck you. The socialized medicine debate is as simple as that.

testing, testing, 1, 2...

yep, works now. thanks.