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I love the MPAA

I was sent a disturbing link about movie piracy.

Man, my heart goes out to those poor folks over at the MPAA and those destitute movie studios when pirates can so brazenly flout the law.

I can't stop thinking about their tragic plight! Every time I put a DVD into the player, I get an image in my head... You know the one...

Of course you do, because clearly you, like me, get the same image in your mind for 15 seconds before each DVD you watch.

Followed by that, it becomes clear to you that the actors interviewed in the movie don't represent the movie studio. You probably wouldn't have come to that conclusion on your own-- that's why the thoughtful movie studios were there to help you remember with a few disclaimers.

"The views and opinions expressed in the commentary on this disc belong solely to those interviewed and do not necessarily represent the views of Shitbag Movie Company, its Shitbag Distributors or the Shitbag Corporations Executives or Officers"

They kindly put it up for fifteen seconds to ensure that even those at the 2nd grade reading level will have enough time to grasp the gravity of that message. I don't know about you, but personally, I know dozens of ten year olds who find legal disclaimers riveting! Those folks in Hollywood really do know their target market to leave that message up long enough for the children to read the whole thing!

But the MPAA routinely do that one better. Even though your DVD is region-encoded to prevent those pesky pirates from spreading their vile disease across the planet, the studios have thoughtfully included this message in several other languages-- also presented for a duration long enough for a 2nd grader to read the whole thing twice over. After all, wouldn't want to leave the 3.5 billion people in the world who don't speak English out of the riveting legal disclaimer! The last thing we want is some French Canadian to misinterpret what an American actor is saying about a movie they were in, and cause an unnecessary lawsuit between the Quebecoise and Hollywood:

Les opinions et les avis exprimés en commentaire sur ce disque sont seulement appartenez seulement à interviewé et ne représentent pas nécessairement les vues de Shitbag Movie Company, ses distributeurs ou Shitbag Corporations Cadres ou Officiers.

French is all well and good, but they know full well that there is a thriving community of Hispanics in North America who don't "habla Ingles" or "habla Frances" either, for that matter:

Las opiniónes expresadas en el comentario en este disco pertenecen solamente a ésas entrevistado con y no representan necesariamente las vistas de Shitbag Movie Company, sus distribuidores de Shitbag Corporacions Ejecutivos u Oficiales

And they know, much like you and I do, that the Japanese like American culture more than life itself, so is it any surprise they've covered that base as well?

インタビューされるこのディスクの論評に表現される意見および意見はもっぱら属し、それらに必ずしもShitbag Movie のCompany 、Shitbag のディストリビューターまたはShitbag Corporations エグゼクティブ眺めをまたは表さない

Surely, you don't think they'd include the Japanese but leave out the Chinese?

看法和觀點用評論被表達在這個光碟單一地屬於那些被採訪和不一定代表Shitbag Movie Company 、其Shitbag 分銷商或Shitbag Corporations 視圖

Yep, you really gotta hand it to those folks at the MPAA.

In fact, They are so thorough, if you accidentally trip, and your fingers press upon the "fast forward" button, you'll simply see a message on the screen that says "That function is currently disabled." Now that is customer focused engineering!

I imagine the guy who came up with that idea is always talking about it at parties and social engagements:

Hey, you know when that crucially important message comes on the screen, and your dog jumps up on the couch and hits the wrong button on the remote, and your DVD player ignores the input? Yeah? That was my idea!

I bet that guy gets all the ladies, because the last time I saw something that amazingly useful was when I was flipping through a copy of "The Duller Image" magazine. Unless you've been living under a rock, surely, you've seen it too... it's a device which, if it hasn't won the inventor a Nobel prize, it's likely to do so any day now, because it is a seat belt for a toilet bowl!

Until I had the time to consider it (I don't read Spanish, Japanese or Chinese, so the MPAA graciously gave me approximately 45 seconds in which to ponder this weighty subject) I really thought that the toilet seatbelt was the best invention of all time, but clearly, the toilet seatbelt would never present me with the spare time to contemplate weighty matters such as how anybody in their right mind would actually think they would let some accomplished Hollywood actor like Heath Ledger speak for a multi-billion dollar industry responsible for such fine films as "Brothers Grimm". (My hat's off to you, Mr. Gilliam, bravo!)

No, if it's not clear by now, the movie industry is filled to the brim with geniuses and pioneers who truly understand their customer. Now clearly, I could never hope to attain that level of erudition and clairvoyance to simultaneously build sympathy for their cause in their loyal customers' minds while simultaneously preventing the scourge of piracy! I imagine the conversations in Hollywood go something like this:

I know, the way we'll defeat the nefarious crackers and determined pirates out there is that we'll display all these annoying messages and FBI and Interpol warnings!!! The criminals will be so intimidated, they won't bother pirating the movie, and our millions of otherwise innocent customers will think to themselves, 'Boy, those MPAA people sure are struggling to make ends meet, what with all those evil pirates out there, I should go out and buy another movie!'

And just when you thought that their brilliance ends at your DVD player, no, they've applied this genius to the movie theater as well! In the theater, the MPAA has deployed another stunning technology... "Cap Codes" to satisfy the needs of their loyal paying customers.

Now, honestly, I admit this is a brilliant idea, but to be fair to the toilet seatbelt, the order of the most brilliant inventions of all time is clearly this:

1. The FBI/Interpol warning
2. The DVD Interviews disclaimer (a very close second)
3. The toilet seatbelt (think about it, you don't want to fall out of the throne while wiping, do you?)
4. The Cap Code

It's clear the guys behind the warnings and disclaimers came up with the Cap Code. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

"Hey, I figured it out! The way we'll protect our movies is to put these annoying red dots on our screens! Our most avid customers won't even notice them, and those that do will probably think the digital copy of Madagascar or Toy Story had some sort of dust or scratches on the original print! Of the few left over who realize it's an anti-piracy measure, they'll probably smile and say 'Hey, good for the MPAA. They're busy at work targeting those scummy pirates and preparing to take them out in a surgical SWAT strike!'

Now before I get any hate mail from you guys for putting the Cap Code after the toilet seatbelt (don't knock it 'till you try it!) I want to be really clear: I'm a huge fan of the Cap Code.

It's just that I can't put any technology that, if you blink at the inopportune time, you might miss these codes and forget that the MPAA is fighting a vigilant and noble fight against those dastardly pirates when it matters the most! I know all you Cap Code fans out there are going to deluge me with your protestations that "the Cap Code got cheated", but perhaps you'll go easy on me if I tell you that my grandfather died in a violent bathroom accident which, had the toilet seatbelt been invented at the time, would have saved my family a lot of grief and heartache.

Surely, if you can't agree with me on an intellectual level, you've got to be thinking to yourself, "Well at least I can see where he's coming from." And that's all I'm really asking for from you die-hard Cap Code fans.

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Committing Political (and Literal?) Suicide

It's not often that I start off a blog entry with a disclaimer, but just in case a few searchbots from the Secret Service pick up on this entry, allow me to disclaim:

1. I solemnly affirm that I support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. 2. I do not endorse violence as a way of redressing criminal negligence.

Having made this disclaimer, I feel I can now make my controversial prediction:

George W. Bush will be assassinated (or at least there will be an attempt on his life)... [99% certainty]

Before the end of his term... [80% certainty]
Before the end of the year... [50% certainty]
Before the end of the month... [20% certainty]

by someone who lost family in the aftermath of Katrina [99% certainty]

or by someone who lost a friend in the aftermath of Katrina [80% certainty]
or by a "Timothy McVeigh" who is disgusted by the response of the Federal Government [50% certainty]
or by someone for whom the Katrina response was the last straw (i.e. someone who lost a family member in Iraq) [20% certainty].

Now before you lambast me for making such an outrageous claim, imagine that you are poor, and already disenfranchised. Imagine that the appropriate agencies give you less than 24 hours to evacuate a city. Imagine that a natural disaster sweeps in and destroys all of your personal belongings, and sweeps away your loved ones. Imagine an aftermath where you have no clean water or food, or medicine, or sanitary conditions that literally threaten your own life. The smell of urine, feces, moaning elderly and crying children in sweltering heat oppressing practically every sense. Imagine watching people around you die of starvation, the lack of insulin, the lack of potable water. Imagine you're thrust into a situation where life has literally become nasty, brutish and short, and thugs with guns rule the streets. Then imagine that you were promised to be given help, but no help comes. If you try to leave, the people who are supposed to help, point guns at you.

Then imagine that when help does finally come (too little too late for those who already died around you), and you finally get to see a newspaper or a TV story, you hear of the documented failures of the agencies that were supposed to be equipped in a post 9/11 world to handle such a traumatic event. You hear public officials suggest that the victims need to own part of the blame. And you start to build a connection between the incompetence and failures of those in charge and the fact that your friends and family are no longer alive.

If you can imagine that, then it's not tough to imagine that someone who has already lost everything worth living for to eke out a little measure of revenge on those they perceive are responsible for an inadequate response in their greatest time of need in supposedly the greatest democracy in the world.

Again, I close with a disclaimer: The most appropriate outcome for those responsible for the incompetent response to this disaster (read: criminal negligence) is to suffer the disgrace of forced impeachment and removal from office, and to see a jury of their peers sentence them to an appropriate term in a federal penitentiary. Here's to hoping my prediction doesn't come true, but if it does, you read it here first.

Now, if you're still interested in lambasting me, you might want a small reality check, and read a dose of what real anger looks like.

DHS & FEMA were informed that levees were at risk, but didn't know until 36 hours later that they had failed
FEMA wasn't aware the Convention Center was being used as a shelter
Criminal Negligence
Bob Scheiffer on Katrina
Sen. Landrieu tours the damage
Sen. Landrieu frustrated by Bush's opportunistic Photo-Op
Bush cracks jokes at New Orleans Press Conference (source: whitehouse.gov)
Broussard: Been Abandoned by Our Own Country
Col. Ebbert: FEMA response criminal
FOX NEWS lambasts Federal rescue efforts
Brown says Katrina victimes bear some responsibility
Paula Zahn holds Brown accountable as Brown implies the reason why people are suffering is that they didn't leave
Why didn't they leave?
Koppel asks Brown "don't you watch television?"
Chetoff suggests National Guard isn't deployed unless it's "some huge emergency"
Your Red Cross donations aren't making it to New Orleans-- Thank DHS & FEMA!
White House says "zero tolerance" for "looting" food and water... because help is on the way!
False: The Feds didn't come to help because LA officials didn't declare an emergency.

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