Joe Szilagyi

This website is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s an insanely bizarre news hybrid of weird far right, weird far left, and just… odd. I’m probably misreading it because some of it’s over the top, but it reads to me at times like the Weekly World News doing hard political news almost at times:

BATBOY FOUND IN OVAL OFFICE WITH SECRET KENYAN 9/11 FILES!

A random hodgepodge of crap I just clicked into, as a preview: “A little discussion about Revolution and the Declaration of Independance.”

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Quoting the Declaration of Independence? Sure, we’re off to a good start. We could be heading up the crazy train to Wasila, Alaska for a Tea Party, or we could be heading for a rousing and soul-baring discussion of what it means to be American.

The question is not if they are allowed to continue, as they have violated the Constitution for the majority of the last 100 years. There is historical validity to eliminate the government we currently have.

The question, is who will fire the first shot?

I think someone fired up the steam engine on this train. But maybe that’s nothing…

Bow down to your masters, for you are not my countrymen. Lick the hand that gives you scraps, for they are your masters and betters. Bring not your insults or provocations before me, for I will not bow to any man, for I am a Free and Sovereign Individual with no preconceived notion, that any are better than I, or my fellow man.

Wait, what? That’s not Tea Party talk. Did this train derail heading from Wasila to Zion in the fucking Matrix?

If you worship socialism so much I am sure the People’s Republic of Korea has a nice big bowl of oppression warmed up for you to gobble down.

Hey, that’s better! The guy who posted that, “av8r007″–does he write Glenn Beck’s monologues? I think this train was headed for Wasila all along. Maybe it’s right where I’m expecting things to be:

The colonists only fought back after the English marched to disarm the militias at Lexington and Concord. If blood must be shed, it should be clear that the Govt fired the 1st shot. If we start the shooting war we’ll be branded as terrorists and radicals. If the govt shoots 1st we can claim self defence.

Oh hell, apparently it is One Of Those Crazy Discussions, as now scenarios are being bandied about on how to make it look like the United States government is going to incite an armed revolution against Obama. And here I was worried for nothing. Reasonable commentary, right? Far out, Right? Get it? I kill myself.

But, before you think it’s all just “Let’s overthrow the Evil Black President’s Shadow America,” we get discussions about 9/11 Congressional reports being lies; Christian missionaries trapped in Haiti–but only the “posers, pretend Christian wannabees going on exotic vacations and calling it mission work“; and various areas to explore ATS Skunk Works, Secret Societies, New World Order, Space Exploration, Aliens and UFOs, Paranormal Studies, Cryptozoology & Mythical Beasts, and finally a section for simply the hoaxes rather than the real studies and scholarly research (like my above quoted discussion about the merits of freedom versus tyranny).

These guys aren’t just thinking that Obama is a dethawed socialist Manchurian Candidate bred in a 1941 German cloning facility outside of Dusseldorf, AKA Kenya. Hell no–this is like Fox Mulder’s personal online message board.

It’s like a supermarket of awesome.

Just in case you weren’t aware of it, she was indeed a complete raging idiot whose contributions to intellectual thought and theory are exactly on par with that of the great spiritual leader that warned us of the dangers of disembodied alien energy creatures and galactic space overlords that haunt us today after our ancestors failed to blow them up in a volcano laced with hydrogen bombs.

In other words, the tenets of Objectivism are complete hedonistic bullshit and a license for deeply selfish people to piss upon their neighbors. Her teachings if you strip out all the crap that is strategically designed to make it look ‘good’ boils literally down to survival of the fittest and the belief that sheer unadulterated selfishness is a virtue. If Scientology’s belief system is basically a shitty Doctor Who plot from 1971, then Objectivism is basing society’s moral code on Survivor’s All-Star Season. Also, fuck John Galt.

Above: Mayan calendar. Below: Egyptian technology. Consider:

A letter I just sent off to my state senator and representatives. If you’re in Washington state, I suggest you do likewise.

Hello,

Thank you all for your continued hard work and service.

I came across this news story, about the TVW and Dow Constantine situation. If you are unfamiliar with this, I implore you to read the below news article. This is troubling for all Washington state taxpayers.

Background: TVW is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, not a government agency. It is governed by an independent board of directors. The majority of TVW’s operating cash – approximately $2.5 million per year – comes from the Legislature via a contract-for-service through the Secretary of State. TVW receives more than $11 million per year in the form of in-kind contributions of channel space from Washington’s cable television industry.

The story about TVW and Down Constantine is here: http://publicola.net/?p=17512

Politics aside, I am troubled by the fact that materials produced by money levied from taxes paid for by Washington citizens are being held in some form of “copyright” claim by a private entity like TVW, or anyone else. Many US state governments (and many foreign governments) are moving toward any materials produced by the government being “free”, in the public domain or under what is known as a Creative Commons license, which is increasingly popular year over year.

For example, this is a list of state-level US agencies and some Federal that issue content under Creative Commons:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Government_use_of_CC_licenses#United_States

Virginia’s stance is particularly strong:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?091+ful+CHAP0791

Washington is a leading state in the fields of technology. We have many prominent tech corporations, innumerable technology start-ups, and are known nationally on this stage. The ideals of ‘open sourcing’ and free licensing are a core component of the ethos of many of these corporations. Our state government should at the least be in compliance with what is becoming nationally standard.

What I would like to request is consideration for a bill like the above Virginia one, but with stronger language, that any goods “produced” with tax funding in a fixed form: written text, visual recordings, maps, videos, audio, anything official to come out of Olympia or local government, state and local laws, a random video the City of Spokane may make, etc. be required to be produced and released under a license such as the Creative Commons licensing that simply requires “Attribution”.

This link details the specifics of the licensing I think would be best:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Washington state would still ultimately retain ownership of all the content in this scenario, but by law it should be mandatory that any government-funded (in any way) materials should be freely available, with no copyright restriction beyond attribution. I have zero problem with an entity like TVW turning an ultimate profit from what they’re doing, that originated with state dollars. Anyone is welcome to do that–good for TVW for coming up with a successful model. But they, nor anyone else, should have exclusive claim over content *I* paid for.

What I’m upset about is that any organization then leveraging copyright claims to squash what is protected “fair use” of their materials that were paid for by my tax dollars. In the wake of the Constantine fiasco posted about on Publicola, they are now going after a political blogger for reposting the now notorious video on another “video sharing” service, as detailed at this link: http://horsesass.org/?p=21640

Please help Washington state be a leader in the realm of intellectual property law, and allow us to do better than other states, such as Virginia. Please initiate legislation based on the Virginia example above, but with stronger language than the “preference” tone they set. Make it mandatory, to allow Washington state tax payers to always have free access to what we have already paid for with our taxes.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Joseph Szilagyi

November 6th, 2001 is the day I married my amazing wife, my best friend in the world. Six years, darling. I love you so much. Happy anniversary.

I just noticed this on my site…