More proof that the internet rules

Push-button / DIY publishing (like this fine blog), instant news and rapid-fire communication, tax-free goods, finding people to have sex with via myspace...yes, dear friends, the internet makes all of these wonderful things possible. It also allows someone to instantly capitalize on something with the speed of a striking cobra. Or a mongoose dodging a cobra strike. Take your pick. To whit: barely a week ago, formerly-handsome-now-rubber-faced movie star Mel Gibson gets super drunk, races his car around Malibu, gets arrested and slurs some anti-semitic slurs, then says "What are you looking at, sugar tits?" to a female officer. Then, a mere 5 days later, this is for sale on the internet.



Does that not rule? Poor grammar aside (it should read "what are you looking at" not "what you looking at." If the shirt pictured Gary Coleman, the phrasing would make sense), the speed
to which this thing got to market is impressive, to say the least. Five days to get from concept to execution to sale. Maybe even sooner, as I saw it on Wednesday, but it may have conceivably been unleashed upon an unsuspecting public as soon as Monday. The shirt in and of itself is only mildly amusing, but you've got to tip your hat to its makers for leaping forth to fill a niche that didn't even exist 120 hours prior.

But all is not sweetness and light on the internet front, oh my brothers. There are those who would seek to fuck with us and limit our access to high-speed internet service, keeping it for themselves and dooming the rest of us to troll about on a "slow lane"-thereby altering the way many small businesses operate, making our porn blurry, and conceivably causing our Mel Gibson sugar tits t-shirts to reach the market in a ludicrous 10 or more days.

And who is behind this fiendish scheme? Why, who else but the people who cause the cost of everything to soar? Who else but the people who ruin everything? That's right: rich pricks.

A rich prick, as pictured in
Encyclopedia Brittanica

What's going down is this (the following is taken from a letter by Meg Whitman President and CEO of eBay Inc, who I admit has a vested interest in this, but summed up the problem succintly and nicely): "The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would allow them to divide the Internet into a two-tiered system. The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net. The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today's Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can't give that up. A two-lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies -- the companies that can't afford the high fees -- will be unable to succeed, and we'll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them."

Rich pricks are interesting in that they are obviously sociopaths. I can only assume that wealth is as addictive (if not more) than booze, gambling or heroin, and that once wealthy, the thought of your lifestyle dipping one iota and not being able to hunt quail or use champagne for mouthwash until the day you die must be the most terrifying thing on earth, because people engage in a lot of not-so-subtle manuevering in order to preserve their status quos.

But you can make your opinion known, you lazy sods. Those reigistered to ebay can simply click here for more info. Those who are not registered ebay users are what's known as "politically disinfranchised." In other words, find the info on your own.

By the way, you can purchase the Mel sugar tits tee here.