Before she freaks

Sung to the tune of Carrie Underwood's paen to vandalism and psycho ex girlfriends, "Before He Cheats": 

Right now, she's probably on Facebook 
postin' 'bout how she taught me a really good lesson

Right now, she's yakkin on her cellphone to her moron friend Britney
'bout how I shouldn't a' been messin' 

Right now, she's sittin' down to watch somethin' trashy 
on her parents' HBO

and she don't know --

that the local cops are on her trail
took photographs of all the details
including her name carved in my leather seats
she'll look so damn pretty in an orange jump suit
I hope she digs on that prison food
and maybe next time she'll think before she freaks

Right now, she's probably poppin open her fourth Budweiser
and she's got quite a buzz on

Right now, she's checkin' her baggie and about to make a call
to her dope dealin cousin

Right now, the deputy sheriff's pullin up
outside her crappy little mobile home

And she don't know

That the local cops are on her trail
they took photographs of all the details
including her name carved in my leather seats
she'll look so damn pretty in that orange jumpsuit
I hope she digs on that prison food
and maybe next time she'll think before freaks

I might have caused a little trouble for her cell mate
but the next time that she freaks... oh you know it won't be on me

When the whistle blows

In case anyone is wondering where I come down on things like Bradley Manning and this guy Snowden: our government is evil.  I vote in every election, I voted for President Obama twice, I do not think he is, as an individual, an evil man... but our government is evil.   Every day it implements policies that hurt people, for no reason except to expedite certain political purposes (getting votes, obtaining further patronage from wealthy patrons, etc).  And sometimes, the motivations behind these policies, especially the most secret ones, are more than simple self serving greed... they are more grandly , malevolently evil things, having to do with learning how to better control individual human beings and groups of human beings.  This is evil, pure and simple.

There is an endless list of evil our government enacts every day, from voting to let needy people starve to transferring money to top secret projects designed to kill, harm, or coerce.

Patriotism is at best gullible stupidity, at worst, a knowing, cunning mask for corruption and manipulation.

Governments should not be allowed to have secrets from those they govern.  They simply should not.  Arguments that certain functions of government require secrecy are foolish.  Any function of government that requires secrecy is pernicious and unnecessary.  If they can't tell us about it, they shouldn't be doing it.

Therefore, to my mind, anyone who reveals government secrets to the press and to the public is performing a valuable service -- a far more valuable service than that performed by those who classify anything and everything on the grounds that if the people being governed were to find out about it, they might not like it.  They might tell them to stop.

The power to arrest, to try, and to imprison has been so extensively abused in our country... in every country I am aware of, but especially in our country... that I'm starting to think our government simply should not be allowed to do it any more.  We should have a Constitutional amendment that states that our police may only arrest and our courts may only try matters that have been brought by individual citizens, never by groups and especially never by the government.   The government should never be a party to a criminal case, unless it is as a defendant.

Whistleblowers should be lauded, not prosecuted.

Ah, your tears, they taste so sweet to me

I'm late to the party on this. What else is new?

So, well, I hate George R.R. Martin for being a lazy self indulgent asshole who doesn't have enough talent to finish what he's started, and apparently isn't going to even try.

But I still love A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. (If you're literate, you know what A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is. If you're not, go fuck yourself.)

I'll admit, the last two books have shown exactly what I feared we'd see as Martin incrementally progressed further and further into this vast and uncontrollable plot... which is to say, the further he gets, the more he just makes up stupid shit because he simply cannot keep a handle on this thing. (Like suddenly, there's a prophecy that Cersei has known about since childhood that a younger, prettier queen will eclipse her glory, and also, Cersei will one day be killed by her 'volonquar', which means, brother. And, like, nobody who's reading this thing is smart enough to realize, he doesn't mean Tyrion, he means the OTHER brother. Cuz, you know, that's ironic and shit.)

Yet, still, the first book (the actual A GAME OF THRONES) is probably the best fantasy ever written. Probably. And the next two books were awesome, too. And there's a lot to love even in the most recent two, although the latest one is so full of absolute unabashed pointless meaningless plot padding drivel, as Martin works frantically to crank out copy while never advancing the story to the point where he actually has to start resolving all his plot lines, because he CAN'T, and he knows it... anyway. 

So I've read the books, and mostly love them, hate George R.R. Martin for taking my money and not making the slightest effort to give me what I've paid for in anything like a timely manner, and... aaaaaaaaaand....

...I absolutely LOATHE, I mean, LOATHE, the HBO 'adaptation' of these books.

Why? Because it SUCKS, that's why. Because despite Martin's (no doubt contractually obligated) assurances to the contrary, the fucking story ISN'T there. Because the producers are asshats who make creative 'decisions' on this show based on things like, wow, we really like the actress who plays Kyra, so let's make her part much much bigger. And don't Ari and Tywin Lannister have great chemistry? So let's write in more scenes with them and get rid of the entire Harrenhall story arc. And for absolutely no reason anyone will ever understand, let's marry Robb Stark off to some Valerian healer bitch who isn't even IN the books. And then murder her.

So I hate hate hate hate HATE this HBO show. And lately I've been watching it, because my wife likes to watch it and I'm always in the room late Sunday night when she does.

So all this season, I've been vaguely aware that the Red Wedding was coming up, and, well, I had MY Red Wedding trauma like 13 years ago, so I was just kind of vaguely curious as to how much of the original material they'd leave in. 

Turns out they left in pretty much all of it.

And now, apparently, the entire world... at least, the entire world of people who think they like this story but who have never bothered to READ this story... has freaked out about it.

And it's awesome. Seriously. Your tears, they taste so sweet to me. 

13 years ago, everybody who reads this series, which was immensely popular at that time, had a simultaneous sad. And nobody gave a shit. The world did not care. Because, people who read, hey, who gives a fuck about them?

Now, a couple of million sub literates have completely lost their shit over a TV show, and it's big, big news. 

And all I have to say to all of this is:

Ah ha ha hah ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa!

http://io9.com/the-100-best-tweets-about-last-nights-game-of-thrones-511003444