Oh... Oooooh PIPA.

Pirated from http://derelictquestion.blogspot.com/

Summer 2011 kicked off with a royal bang. And by "royal bang", I naturally mean the Royal Bang of the Royal Wedding, which for was like the Kardashian wedding for the US but with horse drawn carriages and even wilder hats. I hadn't heard about it until I began listening to John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's hilarious and informative podcast, The Bugle. And really, the only reason they even mentioned it was not because of  the royal family, the grandiosity, the event of a lifetime, yadda yadda, but because of John Oliver's obsession with the bride's sister, Pippa Middleton. "Oh... oooohhh Pippa" he would moan into the microphone at the mere mention of Ms. Middleton's name.

So, when over the past few weeks the Internet donned its Guy Fawkes masks (available for sale on Amazon.com) and began grabbing its pitchforks, torches, shotguns, chainsaws, whips, and longswords and clamored in to its fleet of badonkadonks, over 'PIPA', I naturally presumed that the flirtation between Mr. Oliver and Ms. Middleton had achieved a fever pitch. Alas, it turns out that what the internet was trying to do is to "Stop PIPA", the Protect Intellectual Property Act that is heading to the Senate in the next few weeks. The act 

would allow the US government to block public access to any website accused of copyright infringement - without a proper trial. PIPA threatens free speech and the Internet itself.

Now, you're asking, "but Helder, as an artist and video producer, don't you want your property and that of others' protected?" Yes, we all want our intellectual property protected. But this act if it becomes law will do much much more than that, including censoring the internet and sites you like to use, such as Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, tumblrs. It would in effect, make the Internet in the US as censored as it is in countries such as China, Iran, and North Korea -- you know, the governments our leaders are always calling fascist dictatorships that oppress their people. 

So, take a few moments today to enlighten yourselves about PIPA (and even SOPA). Our own douchebag... I mean, Senator Lieberman, is in favor of this bill and won't listen to his constituents about it. And why shouldn't he be? Many of his supporters (like the Chamber of Commerce) and sponsoring lobbyists worked to make this act. But here's the rub: when 6 GOP members who co-sponsored the bill, listen to their constituents and ask Harry Reid to STOP the vote on it, why won't our Democratic and Independent leaders in CT? Even Congressman Larson was a co-sponsor of the equally demented SOPA act (not to be confused with delicious Portuguese 'soup'). 

Before tomorrow's internet blackout on Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing and others, join us tonight at Red Rock Outpost on the Internet's free frontier as we discuss PIPA (and Pippa and John Oliver; I hear they're very happy together, traveling around the outback in their badonkadonk). There will be the drinks of the Internet -- Naughty Nurses and Hooker Reds -- along with the nutrient rich curly fries to fuel our discussions on these draconian measures. If you like your LOLcats, your twitters, your youtube videos, your memes, and sharing them on your facebooks and tumblrs and emails, you must speak out against PIPA and SOPA (again, not the lovely Pippa Middleton nor the delicious Portuguese soup that starts our meals). Just think: if this law had been in place, then Justin Beiber would not have been able to cover his favorite songs and post them on Youtube, making him such a star! Hmm... wait a minute... 

Join us at 9 pm at Red Rock on Capitol Avenue.

In Pippa we trust,

George Orwell

By "Chaos Life"