Creation on FaceBook

I recently volunteered to serve the data mining company, FaceBook. That is, I have joined this social networking site, fed them my stats, and regularly post information that FaceBook incorporates into its marketing database. Anything you write or post, they claim as their personal property so they can resell it.And there is the reputed link between FaceBook and the CIA. But I figure that since the FBI launched Carnivore in the 1990's, we're all scrod, anyway. But the real point of this post is to show you this funny version of Biblical Creation, as it might have manifested in FaceBook. They even have Sarah Palin, you betcha! And it isn't actually on FaceBook. No worries. Excerpt:

  • God: Don't worry, Cobra, you get to stay here. Just hang out in the garden.
  • Cobra: Ok. You mean on the beer trees?
  • God: Er, sorry, for budgetary reasons, we had to replace the beer trees with apple trees. But it's ok, apples are good for you. Just go play on those, ok?

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Amazon.com Now Censors As Policy

Amazon.com has just initiated a new marketing policy. They are stripping away the sales ranking of any book with so-called Adult Content. Here's their little explanation: "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature. Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us. Best regards, Ashlyn D Member Services Amazon.com Advantage What this mean in effect, however, is that books primarily with gay and lesbian content are being singled out for exclusion from database searches. It is being applied in a bigoted and surprisingly hamfisted manner to conform to someone's standard of what constitutes Offensive Material. Adult Content generally means anything with more than coyly suggested sex in it. However, as a sample of the books not having their sales ranking stripped away, consider these: --Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women) --Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance); --Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance); --Bertrice Smal's Skye o'Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances --and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel) These book sell very well, generally, so it's obvious that there's a dollar connection to this new policy. Midlist---the vast majority of books---will be targeted.

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Musicians versus labels

Who would have thought that intellectual property issues would maintain such a high-profile position in the daily news. Here's another item. Just imagine how much things have changed in the music recording industry. Consider this excerpt by Trent Reznor (of the band Nine Inch Nails), appearing in contactmusic.com:

"One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they'll sign anything' - like I did.

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