Read this disclaimer first!!
Thursday, Jul. 24, 2003 - 2:17 p.m.
Link entry

Links links links.

The first one goes out to V. This is a story about the world's first Fair Trade Town. 90% of the businesses in Garstang, Lancashire, England sell or actively promote food that pays a fair price to poor farmers in third-world countries. The fact is, all of the food that we eat that is produced in Africa, for example, is bought with money that goes to companies like Monsanto, and almost none of it goes to the producers themselves. Think about it. How does a person who produces a huge amount of food get to the brink of starvation? Our greed, that's how. I hope fair trade takes off here. I swear, that could be the only thing to get me to leave Montreal.

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This next one is for Sam, or anyone else that might publish pictures of themselves on the Internet. There is a Photoshop anti-cropping trick that allows you to recover things that were cropped out of a photo, like excess background, or breasts. Cat Schwartz from TechTV has been "exposed" due to this trick. By the way, I think she's quite hot.

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This is for anyone in California: Some Democrats were caught considering extending the budget crisis there for political gain over the Republicans. A microphone was left on and an assemblywoman was heard saying that if the budget crisis were extended, it would make it easier for the democrats to raise taxes. Read for further details. Apparently the segment was taken out of context. I wouldn't be surprised if it were. I wouldn't be surprised if the context were exactly what it appears to be, either.

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Thursday, Jul. 24, 2003 - 1:31 p.m.
The Star Wars Kid

In the previous entry, I said that I would have some comments on this Star Wars Kid saga.

Short version: an apparently unpopular and obviously overweight 15-year-old geek videotapes himself doing a double light saber "kata" like in Star Wars: Episode I. Asshole classmates find the videotape and broadcast it on the Internet, and go out of their way to see him ridiculed as much as possible. Within two weeks, someone added light-saber sounds and other special effects. There are currently 38 versions of this video that people have edited, including Matrix versions, Episode III "previews" and many other kinds. Read the whole story (and catch all the videos) at JediMaster.net.

Basically what happened is that it was put up on two popular websites because besides the fact that it is funny as hell, the site owners recognized themselves in Ghyslain. But people made very mean-spirited comments about the video and Ghyslain. People who had pretty much the exact same profile as him. And the site owners were appalled at the hypocrisy.

I think that what these geeks feared more than anything was to be associated with unpopularity in such a glaring and embarrassing way. They would rather sacrifice Ghyslain to the gods of popularity than stick up for him as one of their own. The fact that they don't know Ghyslain shouldn't matter so much. He SHOULD have been able to make that video and have no one do the malicious things they did, even if he left it unattended. And this kid could have been just about anyone.

As for the perpetrators, to say that that's just what boys, or people do, as though it's human nature, is unacceptable. Yes, it was a dumb idea to leave the video unattended. He should not have done it knowing the consequences. But to just accept trhe malicious behaviour of the perps as just a prank is like saying that some guy is responsible for his own injuries for walking in the wrong part of town at night, or that she deserved to be sexually assaulted for wearing that outfit. Yes, we are all responsible for what happens to us to a point, but we are just as much responsible for what we do to others, aren't we? Otherwise, what's the point of having any kind of law?

That's why I support the lawsuit from the parents. Those kids should be expelled from the school that they attend, and should pay through the nose for what they did. Others do not quite agree with me on this, though. (This link is NSFW.) And I love the fact that Ghyslain may get some real compensation for the humiliation he has received, such as an iPod, an iBook and a cameo in the new Star Wars: Episode III movie. It's the least he deserves. I wish more underdogs got this kind of justice.

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