Category: ‘Current Events’

Viewer Aggression Is Advised

July 2, 2011 Posted by zachary

Earlier today, I was glancing through some old comics in a box at a junk store when I happened to see a very interesting ad in the back of a Batman comic. I didn’t read much of the comic but it was about batman fighting the trash man or something like that.

But that was not the interesting part. What I found interesting was the ad inside the back cover. Take a look:

Viewer Agression is AdvisedThis ad for the Atari 7800 features the tag line “Viewer Aggression Is Advised.”The rest of the ad reads as follows:

Are you a man or are you a wuss? You will never find out until you go up against the Mighty Atari 7800 and hard hitting games like Commando, Xenophobe or Double Dragon.

It comes complete with arcade quality graphics, 2 deluxe joystick controllers, And the radical Pole Position II cartridge. So pick one up. And plug in one of the awesome 7800 games today (or any one of the exciting 2600 cartridges).

And remember, no one over 17 is allowed to watch unless you give them permission.

(more…)

First Amendment Wins in Brown v. EMA

June 28, 2011 Posted by zachary

Seal of the Supreme court of the United StatesYesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States finally passed their ruling on the video game case, Brown vs. EMA. This ruling was a long time coming, clocking at 7 months. What came as no surprise was that the ruling was in favor of the video game industry on the grounds that the California restrictions on the sale of violent video games to minors was a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

I am glad that this ruling came out this way. I am also glad that they ruled the California law was a violation of free speech rather than ruling against it on grounds of “vagueness.” The ruling ended up being 7 against the law and 2 for it. The ruling itself comes in 4 parts. The first part is the majority opinion. This is the actual ruling and what has become the law of the land. This was written by Justice Scalia and was joined by 4 other justices. The second part is a concurring opinion written by Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts in which they agree that the law should be struck down, but on a different reason than the majority. While the majority ruled the law unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds, Alito and Roberts feel the law is justifiable but needed to be struck down on vagueness grounds.

The third and fourth parts are dissenting opinions from Justices Thomas and Breyer, respectively. I will be focusing on the concurring and dissenting opinions in another post.

I want to focus on some of the key points I liked in the majority opinion. (more…)

Senator Inhofe, You are an Idiot

June 2, 2011 Posted by zachary

Back at the end of May, I sent a letter to my Senators and Congressman about the PATRIOT Act. I had asked them to vote against it as it violates the citizens Constitutional rights to privacy and due process. In response to this letter, Senator Inhofe sent me a pre-written form letter meant to “address” my concerns about the bill. Shortly after sending that letter, the US House and Senate passed the PATRIOT Act renewal by large margins and the President signed the extension into law. In response to that event, I wrote again to my Senators and Congressman explaining because they voted for the renewal, I was going to vote against them and actively oppose them in coming elections.

Unfortunately, it looks like Senator Inhofe is incapable of reading. He completely blew off the meat of my letter and instead decided to focus on a key word search of the PATRIOT Act and resent the exact same form letter with the following paragraphs tacked on the end to address recent events involving Senator Rand Paul and his proposed amendments: (more…)

Tornado Experience

May 25, 2011 Posted by zachary

Last night was interesting. Power went out around 5-ish. We had our emergency radio out and listening to the weather news.

I went around the house and turned off all the electronics. We cleared out the cleared out our “storm shelter” (the closet at the end of the hall) and prepped it for our occupation. We let the dogs inside. Kelsie came running in but Diamond took a little more coaxing. She wanted in, but her radio collar has trained her to stay away from the back door so I had to drag her.

We climbed into our “storm shelter” (the closet at the end of the hall) Two adults, four kids and a puppy makes for a very crowded closet. We were in there for about 20 minutes while we listened to the news about the tornado. Once it passed, we climbed out to still no power.

Our home was pretty much fine. So were all of our neighbors. The storm had passed a few miles north of us. There was some small debris in our yard, but we were otherwise fine. (more…)