Build Date: Thu Feb 5 00:10:11 2026 UTC
Universal Studios is about as much fun as getting a summons.
-- Tjames Madison
Internet News Sources Are Poisonous Candy
2002-02-26 17:59:25
In 1969, the Department of Defense, combined with various educational institutions and Al Gore, who was going by his full name "ARPA" at the time, invented the World Wide Web as a way for Bad People of the Future to scream about beer without risk of Communists stealing their thoughts. Then corporate fu><0rs started invoking weird laws like the DMCA, some kind of copyright thing, and anti-defamation laws to shut it all down, First Amendment Bedamned. And it's been working, until Chilling Effects rolled into town.
All kinds of crazy websites have been shut down because of the dreaded cease and desist letter, and anyone who publishes about corporate or commercial culture dreads the day when the black-clad wolverine-gene-infusion enhanced razor-wielding shocktroops will burrow through their front door and use the DMCA to justify killing everyone who knew about the website.
Those who do not publish anything about corporate or commercial culture will not learn anything from this article, except that they should start right now.
Fan sites get shut down. Real and valid protests against misdeeds get SLAPP'ed. Humorless lawyers beat up wisecracking kids. Giant space-beetles burrow through your brain and eat the wet, writhing meat within.
Um, sorry about the excessive science fiction metaphors here. I'm trying to keep the non-publishing people interested. I'll get to the handy information soon, which is that the reason why all of this can happen is because artists, fans, independent journalists, activists and humorists are suckers.
They lack the legal knowledge to fight back, and they lack the cojones to fight, and they lack the scriznilla to get answers.
Until now! The EFF and a variety of sexy law titans put together supah-fly-funky cool-ass website Chilling Effects. The basic formula is this: if you've been given a cease and desist lawyer, you send it to them. They go through it and tell you what your legal rights are. But it gets cooler! They put it up on their site, which means everyone else can find out about their legal rights too, and, on top of it, find out what FUXORS the FUXORS are being. I only wonder what could be done if the FUXOR declared their "Cease and Desist" letter copyrighted, too, to prevent open discourse on their FUXOR-hood.
I love that word. FUXOR is much funnier than "fucker" or even "motherfucker".
FUXOR FUXOR FUXOR! La la la!
Um, wait. I was talking about something. I asked Robert Anton Wilson about all this the other weekend, and he said that the EFF was cool as shit. Well, he said it in a different way, and talked about the Goddess and deserts a lot, but, uh... um... FUXOR. I forget the rest, so go check this hype shit out. Word.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper. (More...)
The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
It's a fact: Star Wars is a blatant plagiarism of an ancient Asian legend, and the long lines of devout Star Wars freaks are really unscrupulous Asian copyright busters. From Indonesia to Thailand to Nepal, videos are available for sale or rent before they're even released in the US and UK due to this nerdy camcorder-clutching bunch. (More...)
On the Implementation of a Grocery Bag And Overforestation Initiative
Patient Joab and his evil cohort, Patient Steve, develop a proposal for the plastic-v.-paper problem that EVERYONE can be happy with. An EXCLUSIVE from Spock Mountain Research Labs! (More...)
We here in SMRL's Beverage Research Lab realize that there is more to life than just drinking spocktails. It's important to have other activities. One such activity that we wholeheartedly support is dancing six or more hours to Trance music. So we have designed a drink to accommodate this. (More...)
