Opinion

I decided that I’ll comment on the cover of the November 2, 2008 edition of the Edmonton Sun. The editorial section has always been notoriously right-wing. That’s ok, it’s expected for an editorial section to have a bias one way or another. In fact, that’s why I focus on getting letters published there, rather than elsewhere. I want to give the readers of the Edmonton Sun comments page a liberal persepctive. That being said, on November 2, the Edmonton Sun went too far and showed that it did not value what little journalistic integrity it had. The front page had a picture of the news confrence with Dion, Layton and Duceppe, with the words “NO, NO, NO” superimposed on it. How can you claim to be a news organization when you blatently interject your personal opinions and biases into a news story? This is absolutely shameful and I urge anyone who currently has a subscription to the Edmonton Sun to cancel their subscription. News organizations have a duty, especially during a time of political tumoil to present the facts in an unbiased manner, presenting all points of view, while passing judgement on none of them. If the editor has an opinion they want to share, they can do so in an editorial or start a blog. This shameless, partisan, reminicint of Fox News bias is unacceptable and we must send a clear message to the Edmonton Sun: we will not accept anything other than balanced stories and real headlines, rather than the sensationalist drivel we’re being fed. Cancel your subscriptions and boycott the paper and send them your letters to the editor letting them know that you’re sick of this garbage and that they will no longer get your money.

This is a letter to the editor I sent in to a couple of news papers. You can see an abridged version in the print and online November 4 editions of the Edmonton Sun and the full version on the Edmonton Journal website.

I fully support this Liberal-NDP coalition. It is important to remember a few things that Albertans seem to be forgetting. Stephen Harper was appointed Prime Minster, not elected. He only became Prime Minister based on the number of seats his party got and the majority of Canadians still voted for someone other than Harper. On top of that, we need to quit throwing around the Bloc as a reason to fear the coalition. The Bloc is not a member and has no cabinet seats. It will be no different than any other minority government where the Bloc holds the balance of power. On top of that, by referring to them only as separatists, we risk reigniting mostly extinguished calls for Quebec separatism and alienating an entire province. Stephen Harper brought this upon himself by acting as though he had a majority. This pompous, sad excuse for a leader needs to be removed before he can destroy our country.

I do find it interesting that the portions that got trimmed from the Edmonton Sun version were the section that deals with the Bloc and the second adjective describing Harper.

The Liberals and NDP have announced that they are planning on forming a coalition government with the support of the Bloc Quebecois. If their motion passes on December 8, Dion will become the next Prime Minister of Canada. Reading some of the comments in the Edmonton Sun today, as well as the editorial, it astounds me how little Canadians know about our political system.

In Canada, we do not elect the Prime Minister, we instead elect representatives who hold seats in Parliament. Most of these representatives are members of political parties. Whichever political party holds the most seats has their leader become the Prime Minister. Even though all the major parties have somewhat democratic elections to pick their leaders (I don’t consider requiring delegates, etc. to be really democratic), they don’t have to. If a party wanted to, they could randomly pick whoever they want to be the leader. It is important to keep this in mind, so that we realize that we did not, in fact, elect Stephen Harper to be out Prime Minister. Calgary elected him to be their representative, but he was appointed Prime Minister because he was leader of the party with the most seats (it’s also important to remember that they still do not have a majority).

With the new budget that was announced, Stephen Harper showed that he was not willing to act as the leader of a minority government, and will do whatever it takes to get a majority, even if it means forcing a new election only months after out last one. Thanks to this tyrant, we have had two elections in the span of two years. How anyone can think he has the interests of anyone other than himself is beyond me.

The opposition is right to attempt to remove Stephen Harper from power. He will ultimately destroy this nation if he is allowed to stay in power. To all those who say that we’re removing an elected leader, it is important to remember that the majority of Canadians did not vote for Harper. In fact, considering the political ideologies of the parties, it is likely that if Canada were a two party system, the Liberal Party would have formed the government. The majority of Canadians do not want Stephen Harper in power, he was only given his position with the mandate of working with the other parties. Like a school yard bully, he has shown that he is not willing to work with others and that he wants everything to be done his way. It’s time to kick him out and put in someone who can work with the other parties.

As you may have heard, Revision3 recently suffered a DDoS attack brought on by Media Defender. What happened is that Revision3 uses BitTorrent to host their files, giving viewers another way to obtain the show, and lessening the load on their servers. For one reason or another, they left their tracker open, allowing anyone to add torrent information to it. Many people ended up using this to their advantage, adding torrents which linked to copyrighted content. Media Defender, rather than contacting Revision3 about this, decided to host spoof files (files which appear to be copyrighted content such as the Iron Man movie) on the tracker. A member of the Revision3 forums discovered the illegal content one could obtain from Revision3′s tracker and let them know. Revision3 responded by locking up the tracker so only authorized Revision3 shows could be obtained via this tracker. Media Defender responded by sending out numerous SYN packets to Revision3 servers (approximately 8000 per second according to Revision3 CEO, Jim Louderback). This crippled the Revision3 servers, preventing access to the website and apparently even internal corporate email.

According to the latest episode of TWiT (this WEEK in TECH), the FBI is investigating this matter. While no one is arguing that Revision3 should not have made their tracker public, Media Defender should not have reacted this way. When Media Defender noticed that this tracker was open, and that one could obtain copyrighted content using it, they should have contacted Revision3, as the forum member did, and let them know about this. By DDoSing Revision3, Media Defender broke the law and caused Revision3 considerable financial harm.

Perhaps the most interesting thing, however, is not the attack that Media Defender committed, but rather when it committed the attack. Media Defender was silent for the five weeks when Revision3 was unknowingly providing access to copyrighted content, but the second that Revision3 cut off access to the illegal content, they attacked. It seems that they did not care so much about copyrighted content as they did to having access for their files. Once the tracker was locked down, they responded the same way a two year old would at the grocery store when you take away the candy he wants to buy, throwing a massive tantrum.

On TWiT, Jim and Leo Laporte speculated that perhaps this whole incident occurred because Media Defender and so-called old media companies that back it do not understand the concept of new media organizations such as Revision3, and cannot grasp the idea that BitTorrent would be used for anything other that piracy. This brings out a major problem with old media. Old media is a dinosaur losing out to new media. People are getting sick of paying $20-30 for a DVD or Blu-ray disk, then being told what they can and cannot do with it. Companies such as Revision3 give you their content and basically say “you can whatever you want with it as long as you aren’t making money with our work”, and people love this. A person can take the latest episode of Diggnation or The Totally Rad Show and put a copy on their iPod, a copy on a DVD and another copy on their laptop, and watch them wherever they want. Aside from their monthly internet bill and the time required to download the shows, there is no fee and you get high-definition and high-quality content. Even shows with advertising such as Diggnation, The Totally Rad Show, Hak5 and TWiT, the advertising is minimal compared to that of many television shows, which like layer it on in excessive amounts.

The only way for companies such as CBS, NBC, Fox and Disney to survive in the long run is for them to finally embrace new media, and remove many of the restrictions. Let the user download the latest episode of their favorite television show, even if they don’t live in the United States (hint, hint Comedy Central, NBC and MTV), DRM-Free, and let them do what they want with it. Restricting the rights of their customers is nothing short of suicide and will lead to the inevitable downfall of television, music and possible movies.

In a recent interview, United Stated President George Bush said that he gave up playing golf as a sign of solidarity to the families that have lost loved ones in the War in Iraq, saying, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

Bush, you celebrated your daughters wedding last Saturday, May 10, 2008. As of yesterday, May 14, 2008, there have been 4,077 US military deaths. While you were watching your daughter on the happiest day of her life, perhaps wishing you could play a couple rounds of golf, families were sitting at home mourning the losses of their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers who died in your pointless war.

What is inappropriate, Bush, is pretending that you know how these families feel. Unless someone kills one of your children, you will never understand the pain these families are going through, so quit trying to pretend you do. Everytime you open your mouth you do nothing but embarass your country further, burning deeper into the minds of the public, that one question: “how did this moron get elected?”

If you truely want to sacrifice: resign. Resign before you can further destroy the country by starting a war with Iran. Resign before you veto another life-saving bill such as funding for stem cell research. Resign before you do damage which cannot be undone. You are not fitting to be President of the Tiger Woods Fan Club, never mind the United States of America, so if you have an ounce of patriotism for your nation left, resign before you subject your citizens to even more harm than you already have.

Travis