Record Shops: Used CDs? Ihre papieren, bitte!

From the paranoia file, we get this gem:

New "pawn shop" laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the "right" to treat their customers like criminals.

The legislation is supposed to stop the sale of counterfeit and/or stolen music CDs, despite the fact that there has been no proof that this is a particularly pressing problem for record shops in general.

'We don't need no stinkin' proof!'

Would somebody finally tell me why Cuba is my enemy?

While I was watching some Halliburton related Senate hearing I heard a Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, mention that Cuba was included in the Trading with the Enemies Act. This caused me to once again ask the obvious question that has never once in my lifetime been answered, not by a US politician and surely not by the US establishment media: why is Cuba my enemy? Sure, I have heard the dreaded “C” word, “communist”, but like the word itself nobody in the media has ever told me why communism is bad, why a country that chooses communism as an economic system is a threat to me or any American for that matter, or why the people of that nation should be made to suffer because they are not capitalists.

I hear the word “communist” used as an insult constantly, but I never heard anyone who uses that word explain why a communist should be considered an enemy of the United States forget an enemy of mine! I have never been threatened by a communist. The capitalist system on the other hand has scared the hell out of me. The IRS has harassed me about returns that they claim I did not send. I feared for my life for the three or so years that I went without health insurance. My credit card company started charging me $10 for paying my bill over the phone. I see veterans who risked their lives for our nation living on the streets in this country. I see people all over who can’t read, can’t do math, are absolutely clueless about what goes on in the world, and I am watching the cost of an education skyrocket to a point where only a very small percentage of the population in this nation will be able to afford an education; a rather pathetic development for a proud nation with any hope of a future. Yet for some reason I am told all the time that Cuba is my enemy! Why Cuba?

Read the rest.