Yes, one month left until the Millenium Idiots are unleashed upon the land. If the Seattle riots are any indication, cheerfully foolish anarchists will seize just about any excuse to go a-pillaging across the land. I guess the Tallahassee Police Department will have to charge the battery up on their Army-surplus $500 jumble-sale Armored Personnel Carrier. Oh, yes, they have one just like most other cities (including Seattle, we note. I guess the Army must have been venting surplus aged equipment and a bunch of cities that hadn't already gotten them decided, hey, might as well shell out for our own tank). It's painted blue, shines slightly, and has a nice, reassuring police logo on the front, which will, if it's ever used, be the last thing anyone facing it will ever see. It won't start, mind you, since it's been left sitting around since the last time it was trotted out for show, but I'm sure they could jump it in an emergency (can you imagine? "Bill, can you come hook a jumper on our tank? We're gonna be late for the riots!")
In other idiot news, there's the Seattle riots, where a peaceful, fairly intelligently staged protest was disrupted by a few punks who decided this would be a nice time to do some damage. Bah. Even the rioters are slack up there. Mostly the protestors just milled around and gave the police plenty of target shooting practice with their rubber bullet guns and tear gas launchers. Not to mention plenty of 'tagging' with invisible paint. But hey, it's all in good fun, after all. Nothing wrong to see here, move along... After all, the WTO is good for America. Soon, there will be Soylent Green for all, cooked up from a delicious broth made of Russian peasants. Imported in twenty gallon drums, distributed to stores everywhere, and slipped to a populace that craves that delicious taste and doesn't know what it's really made of, because hey, trade barriers and naughty labels are violations of that whole free trade thing...
On the other hand, wouldn't DVD region coding be a form of trade barrier, too? Just think of the entertainment this realization could bring.
In still more idiot news, I discovered the Objectivist movement on the Internet. The Objectivism movement, for those of you who've managed to block it out, is based on the writings of Ayn Rand, immortalized in the Futurama episode when Bender the robot is amazed to discover that the library of the sewer-dwelling mutants is composed entirely of old pornographic magazines and Ayn Rand books, all of which were presumably flushed. She's dead, but the ideas she promulgated live on, despite all attempts to beat them with sticks. Ayn Rand wrote such books as "Atlas Shrugged" in which the world's intelligentsia decide that its corruption is too much, and all, as one, quit, throwing things into chaos. It chronicles the growth of a society from that, a work of speculative fiction that is spoiled only by the fact that the secret lair of the intelligentsia, where all is run in properly Objectivist fashion, requires a Magic Plot Device Power Source to keep it running at all. Essentially Objectivism is the distilled philosophy of Rand's books, distilled by her followers who are, one can only assume, completely missing the point. Objectivism's main points are such things as "Facts are objective truths, irregardless of the beliefs or desires of the observer" and "Laissez-faire capitalism is the ideal form of economy", as well as "People should engage in transactions which are mutually beneficial", etc.
After one stops laughing, one can begin the delightful process of poking fun, namely about such things as the "facts are objective" bit, which takes an interesting philosophical point, namely, that universal truths exist, and turns it into "my points are facts, facts are objective truths, so clearly your arguements are based on beliefs and your desire that I be wrong, therefore you're a wanker", which we all know is a load of tosh. It's the proverbial "topicality is irrelevant" arguement where you don't even attempt to play fair but start things off by whacking your opponent over the head with a chair and thus wasting everyone's time as it becomes impossible to debate your points because every time someone tries you just start hurling furniture at their skulls.
We won't even get into the whole capitalism bit. Okay, maybe a little. Laissez-faire capitalism essentially means "leave it alone, let market forces handle it", which is simply crack-inspired in this day and age. Companies take short-term, money-grubbing, damn-anyone-but-the-stockholders looks at the world, and the only thing preventing them from REALLY screwing us all over is the fact that the government can whack them about the head with a stick if they misbehave. Laissez-faire capitalism in its purest form is only argued by people who either 1) own stock in the companies which would gleefully utterly monopolize the world if this were implemented, 2) people who actually believe that most people are nice, forward-thinking, rationalists, or 3) people who are smoking massive amounts of crack. There is not a single example in modern times of a company being totally deregulated and NOT proceeding to bend the customer over the nearest convenient table. Heck, just look at radio. Upon deregulation, the industry promptly engaged in a massive orgy of cannibalistic ferver, quickly reaching the new limits of ownership. If they'd been completely deregulated, there would be only one or two massive radio monopolies covering the entire country. "Microsoft Radio Corp: This Is What You Will Listen To Today." If you've ever wondered why no matter where you go, you hear the same "Top Ten Overplayed Songs In America", it's because most of your radio broadcasts are composed by a middle-aged, balding fat man in a tiny room somewhere in Texas who picks songs based on how much the marketing firm of the company selling the album paid him, or, alternately, how much of a hottie the lead singer is.
Pant, pant, pant. Whew. Okay, continuing.
Government regulation. Because Having "I Want It That Way" On Fifty Percent Of Your Local Stations At The Same Stupid Time Is More Than Enough, Dammit. We've all had experience with flipping through, say, the 'pop' stations, and hearing the EXACT SAME SONG playing on EVERY ONE OF THEM. Well, at least I have. I mean, one will be starting. One will be ending. Two or three more will be somewhere in the middle. It's maddening. Maddening, I say! Aaiieee!!!
Aherm. Moving along, Objectivism is still a load of crap even without that. Objectivism's core ideal is that Ayn Rand is somehow the ultimate pinnacle of western philosophy, and pretty much the only remotely relevant philosopher of the twentieth century. In much the same way that Muslims believe Mohammed (sp?) to be the last Prophet, in the tradition of Abraham and Jesus, et cetera, so do the Randites believe that Rand somehow caps off centuries of development on the Aristotlian traditions, answering all the major questions, and leaving in place a nice, compact, philosophical pearl of compressed truth. They fail to comprehend, of course, that of all the volumes of discourse devoted to philosophy, the entirety of Ayn Rand's work is barely an appendix. They wouldn't be quite as arrogant if they weren't the kind of twonks who dismiss the great minds of the Twentieth Century as so much kipple in a single sentence. But if they weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be the twits you love to hate.
In the end, Objectivism is an inherently flawed philosophy, although it is occasionally entertaining to contemplate. The main flaw, of course, flows from the writer herself, who, while cheerfully expounding on independant and strong women, really just craved a good spanking. Anything created out of THAT kind of dichotomy is no doubt going to be interesting, but still deeply flawed. Far be it from me to criticize anyone's deeply held philosophical beliefs, but, well, after all, facts ARE objective truths, regardless of the Objectivists protesting desires and beliefs.
In our next episode, the fearsome terror of the Muffin Man... unleashed!
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