The Facebook Tea Party War and Other Strange Events

I've been remiss in my posting of non-frustrating things. Yesterday I went over my writing from the last few days and noticed that I've been spending a lot of time venting my frustration about Annoying Coworker or patients, or my depression, or whatever it is that I seem to feel like whining about. Either that or the pirate situation in Somalia. That's captured my attention, too.

But today is a (somewhat) better day. The weather is beautiful, there's nothing going on, and I have my second cup of coffee in hand before 9 am (and that's a bloody miracle!). So I figured I'd keep things a little lighter, unless all chaos raises its ugly head and ruins what looks to be a wonderful day. Always the optimist, I am!

Two nights ago I posted a comment on my Facebook page regarding the conservative protests to Obama's tax plan. I simply said, "What a waste of perfectly good tea." That's it. Apparently that was enough, though, to spark a barrage of posts from my friends and acquaintences that is still going strong and driven at least on person from Facebook all together - at least for the moment.

I find it amazing that people are having such a visceral reaction now to the financial plans of the country. Where were they for the six years that the conservatives controlled the entire government and let us from a budget surplus to a massive deficit? Where were they when the recession started, and the government did nothing? Where were the flying tea bags then?

But now that the liberals and moderates have taken charge, suddenly the country is heading to hell in the proverbial handbasket. And the people who were accusing protestors of siding with terrorists are now calling protests a patriotic act.

What a strange country we live in!

And I still consider Wednesday's protests to be a considerable waste of tea.

In other news, I am temporarily suspending (for the weekend, probably) reporting on the pirate situation in the seas off Somalia to take a look at another type of piracy - file sharing.

Late yesterday (Friday in Europe), Swedish courts handed down a stiff guilty verdict and sentence for the founders of Pirate Bay, a file sharing site popular around the world. Each will serve a year in prison and have to pay fines totally $3.6 million. There's a lot of speculation on the internet as to how this will affect file sharing and illegal downloading of music and movies. Already a significant drop in internet traffic out of Sweden, occuring with the start of the trial, has been noted by the folks who monitor such things. My personal opinion is that another website will open up - if it hasn't already - in a country that doesn't care much for such things. Piracy of intellectual property is commonplace in Asia and elsewhere. I remember seeing kiosks selling bootleg tapes in Russia. So probably we'll see the next generation of the Pirate Bay opening up in China or Somalia - wouldn't that be ironic; pirate websites operating out of a pirate nation! - or somewhere else soon. Assuming they aren't up already.

One Ring has gone to visit her parents and attend a bridal shower for a friend. So I'm doing the bachelor thing all weekend. I'll post more on this and other things later on.