More tales of music industry corruption and sleazy insider wheeler-dealing, with an outcome that is a major poke in the eye to the some very greedy bastards. And it’s more than likely that you, Dangerous Minds reader, could directly benefit.

If being a fan of Pearl Jam taught me anything (it was a looong time ago I swear), it was that TIcketmaster suck. They have monopolised the sales of event tickets in the States and made it very hard for bands and promoters to regulate their own pricing and promote independent gigs. Well, now Ticketmaster has been forced to “refund” all its “handling fees” to all of its customers from 1999 up to this year.

Huffington Post reports: 

As the result of a class-action lawsuit, the ticket-pushing behemoth is going to be handing out $1.50 per ticket (up to 17) to everyone who used the site between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011. Those who chose the UPS shipping option will be getting a little bit more back: an additional $5.00 credit per order.

It seems Ticketmaster’s processing fees were deemed deceptive because they did not clearly state that Ticketmaster was profiting from them.

According to Business Insider, Ticketmaster will continue to have these fees, but must clearly label them as profit on their site.

Good news! However, I put the word “refund” in quotation marks here because, as some of the commentators on the HuffPo story have pointed out, Ticketmaster are not giving their customers money back, but money off their future purchases. And to a limit of just 17 transactions, maximum.

So while it looks good on paper, in effect every customer who used Ticketmaster is only due a $26 credit note. Unless you used UPS shipping to receive your tickets, in which case you could be due up to $85 in credit, which is quite tidy. But you still need to return to using Ticketmaster to get any value.

But still. Fuck them. It’s great that their very dodgy dealings have been called out in public for everyone to see. And as I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m pretty confident that a high percentage of our readership here at DM will have booked tickets through Ticketmaster at least once over the last twelve years (and very likely more than once at that). So Ticketmaster owe you - get on ‘em!

Thanks to Teamy.

 
The anti-piracy group BREIN has been accused by a soundtrack composer of not having permission to use his work in their well known “you wouldn’t steal a car” anti-downloading campaign. The image above is a still from the infamous advert, which has been satirised heavily (most famously by The IT Crowd). 

You couldn’t make this shit up. Well no you could - but no-one would believe you. Which is why Melchior Rietveldt, the Dutch musician whose work was used on the huge international ad campaign after it was commissioned for a only one-off screening, wore a wire to record the conversations he had with his national royalty collection agency Buma/Stemra. As if it wasn’t bad enough that his music was used without permission (in a bloody anti-piracy campaign, of all things) Mr Reitveldt was then told by a representative of Buma/Stemra, Jochem Gerrits, that the issue could be resolved if Gerrits was given a 33% share of the possible million-Euro-plus pay out that Rietveldt was due. In effect, a bribe.

Via Torrentfreak:

It all started back in 2006, when the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN reportedly asked musician Melchior Rietveldt to compose music for an anti-piracy video. The video in question was to be shown at a local film festival, and under these strict conditions the composer accepted the job.

However, according to a report from Pownews the anti-piracy ad was recycled for various other purposes without the composer’s permission. When Rietveldt bought a Harry Potter DVD early 2007, he noticed that the campaign video with his music was on it. And this was no isolated incident.

The composer now claims that his work has been used on tens of millions of Dutch DVDs, without him receiving any compensation for it. According to Rietveldt’s financial advisor, the total sum in missed revenue amounts to at least a million euros ($1,300,000).

The existence of excellent copyright laws and royalty collecting agencies in the Netherlands should mean that the composer received help and support with this problems, but this couldn’t be further from what actually happened.

Soon after he discovered the unauthorized distribution of his music Rietveldt alerted the local music royalty collecting agency Buma/Stemra. The composer demanded compensation, but to his frustration he heard very little from Buma/Stemra and he certainly didn’t receive any royalties.
Earlier this year, however, a breakthrough seemed to loom on the horizon when Buma/Stemra board member Jochem Gerrits contacted the composer with an interesting proposal. Gerrits offered to help out the composer in his efforts to get paid for his hard work, but the music boss had a few demands of his own.

In order for the deal to work out the composer had to assign the track in question to the music publishing catalogue of the Gerrits, who owns High Fashion Music. In addition to this, the music boss demanded 33% of all the money set to be recouped as a result of his efforts.

Unbelievable! I hope Mr Rietveldt rinses these bastards for everything they’ve got. Here’s the original BREIN anti-piracy advert:
 

 
Thanks to Paul Shetler.

“Don’t you just look good enough to eat? Nom nom nom.”

Must-read essay over at Daily Kos today from Jack Cluth, who asks a question that’s been on a lot of our minds over the past few years: “What happens when an entire political party embraces the Dark Side?”

By the definition of today’s GOP, compassion is synonymous with weakness as charity is with enabling sloth and indolence. If you’re unable to do for yourself, whatever your situation might be, you have no right to expect government to do for you. Ill? Disabled? Uninsured? Unemployed? That’s too bad, but it’s not the responsibility of government to do for those unable to do for themselves.

It’s as if Republicans have decamped from anything resembling compassion and migrated en masse to the Dark Side. They’ve rejected anything that smacks of humanity and embraced a Darwinian view of America as a place where the strong rightfully survive and the weak get what they deserve. I don’t know about you, but this philosophy has nothing to do with the traditional Conservatism that Republicans profess to revere. Traditional Conservatism doesn’t reject the social contract. It doesn’t genuflect to the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex. It doesn’t traffic in fear, hatred, and loathing. It doesn’t reject science. It doesn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity as the ultimate and only authority on what America should be.

Then again, this isn’t about Conservatism. It’s about doing whatever it takes to acquire, maintain, and increase power and control. It’s about enforcing Social Darwinism and Fundamentalist Christianity as the basis of the American experience and the law of the land. It’s about using fear, hatred, and propaganda in order to manipulate the American Sheeple into doing your bidding.

The guy nails it. Read more of The GOP: The party of pain, punishment, misery, and death (Daily Kos) and check out this amazing, snarling anti-GOP rant courtesy of Chris Matthews: “Does the GOP enjoy the misery of others?” Matthews makes a pretty clear argument that indeed they do…

My compliments to both chefs!
 

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
In an effort to, uh, I dunno, maybe make a bid to become the Al Capp of his generation, (or follow in the footsteps of Ayn Rand-worshiping Steve Ditko?) comics writer, illustrator and film director Frank Miller vented his cranky, bitter, reactionary “opinions” (if you can call them that) regarding Occupy Wall Street on his blog:

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached - is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

Yeah, and that enemy is called the capitalist system, Frankie boy… and people LIKE YOU

This creep is supposed to be a celebrated writer? His dumbass screed reads like it was written by Michele Bachmann or Michael Savage! (“Frank Miller, the Michele Bachmann of comic books” is a shitty way to brand yourself, Frank-a-dank. Really.)

I’d like to spit right in Frank Miller’s fucking face. You can let Miller know how you feel about the idiotic bile he puked up in the comments section of his blog. Many people already have!

Below, the Frank Miller of the 1960s, Al Capp confronts John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Montreal Bed-In and makes a complete and utter ass of himself.
 

 
Conservative Republican activist Ralph Reed was the executive director of the Christian Coalition during the 1990s. He’s now running the Faith and Freedom Coalition which he says is “a 21st century version” of his former organization, and one that aims to build a bridge between the Tea party and evangelicals.

In the video clip below, listen to how this twat defines “freedom.”

The sad thing is that we as a nation have lost our way and we began to lose sight of the wisdom of the Constitution and the Declaration, we began to ask government to do more than it should do to meet every need; to take care of every hurting person; to set up a huge welfare state that meets every need we have; to have entitlement programs to take care of the poor, the underclass, senior citizens, and others.

Those are all good objectives. The problem is when we ask the government to do more then what it is specifically charged to do at the federal level in the Constitution, then we have the danger of our liberties being taken away. And that is exactly what has happened.

HUH? From what I can tell, Reed defines “freedom” as being allowed to live in penury when you’re old and not to have health insurance… or something. I don’t know Ralph, I’d imagine these are the sorts of freedoms most people can do without, you fucking fuckwit!

Can any Christian readers explain to the rest of us how Reed’s political positions are in any way consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ?  I always thought Ralph Reed looked like a… tattle-tale. Watching this video made me want to spit right in his smug, rat-like face.
 

Via Right Wing Watch

 
Via reddit politics

 
Increasingly irrelevant Republican presidential candidate/human punchline Michele Bachmann just can’t get a break. Nor does she deserve one. A trip to California over the weekend saw the bigoted Christianist Congresswoman from Minnesota’s 6th congressional district the target of a flash mob who danced to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” to protest her (more or less) “pro-bullying” stance (it’s what Jesus would want) and anti-LGBT words, deeds and activities as a private citizen, as a state legislator, and as a member of the US Congress since 2007.

Even Jay Leno piled on when she appeared on the Tonight Show and good for him. This woman and her kind need to be rebuked in no uncertain terms by right-thinking people in this country.

Even in normally ultra-conservative Orange County, Bachmann got the business. I guess the new OC is quite a bit different that the old OC. From The Minnesota Independent:

At a campaign rally in Costa Mesa, Bachmann was asked by a rally-attendee what she plans to do about bullying in her district. The Anoka-Hennepin School District is largely within the district represented by Bachmann and has seen many high-profile events surrounding the bullying of LGBT students. Six of those students are suing the district.

“That’s not a federal issue,” she said, dodging the question.

Nice try! It’s an AMERICAN and HUMAN ISSUE, Bachmann, and your public words and deeds are coming back to haunt you and will continue to haunt you every time you step out of your comfort zone. Few people in this nation, in your state or in your own DISTRICT have PERSONALLY done more to make the lives of LGBT teens worse than YOU have.

It’s your “accomplishment,” lady… Own it.

Two days earlier, Tammy Aaberg, a mother in the district who lost her son to suicide in 2010, presented Bachmann’s district office with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking her to take a stand on bullying in schools. Her office said Bachmann might eventually respond to the petition.

Might respond? Might? (And there were 145,000 signatures, btw, I think that many people deserve a response, don’t you?)

Michele Bachmann deserves no respect, she doesn’t even deserve politeness. She deserves ridicule. And worse.

Bachmann calls herself a Christian. If there is a God—I’ll up the ante here, make this a CHRISTIAN version of God—which of these two mothers would that God smile upon? Tammy Aaberg. the woman whose son killed himself—because of a climate of “Christian” intolerance in the local school district that was brewed up by the likes of Bachmann and her cronies like the Minnesota Family Council and dogshit dumb “preacher” of idiocy Bradlee Dean—who decided to STICK UP for other vulnerable children or one of the prime reasons for this climate of hate existing in the district, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?

Why does Michele Bachmann believe that she and Jesus are playing on the same team? It boggles the mind…

Primer: Deep roots of Anoka-Hennepin’s discrimination controversy (Minnesota Independent)
 

 
Buzzfeed cut the debate down to its essentials.
 

 
Last night on the GOP Tea party debate on CNN, the assembled crowd of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals fucking assholes dumb old white people cheered like braying assholes asses at the notion that someone uninsured should be left to die.

Alan Grayson was right about Republican’s ideas for healthcare reform…

Here’s just one idiotic comment left on YouTube by a moron using the handle “nicpag9”:

Whoever posted this video needs to off themselves. People like you are what is wrong with this country and the reason it’s in the shape it is in now. No doubt you’ll be voting for Obama again. Too bad we can’t divide the country up into the idiot section run by Communists such as your self and the rest that just want to be left the hell alone for everyone with a damn brain. I’m sure the founding fathers would have no problem with that whatsoever.

No, my fren’ this country is in the state it is because of people like you… too damned dumb to understand the world around them.
 

 
Another camera angle on the “action” at GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s $15-a-head Rotary Club luncheon on Tuesday. Cringe in horror as Tom Nielsen, a 71-year-old retired plumber from Kenosha, Wisconsin gets thrown to the ground and handcuffed for “trespassing” (like everyone else there, Nielsen paid a $15 fee for the luncheon) because he objected to Ryan’s plans to destroy Social Security and Medicare. He was also detained for resisting arrest.

This video has something the other ones I’ve seen do not, when smug, rat-faced Republican class warrior Ryan has the poor taste to make a joke at Mr. Neilsen’s expense…
 

 
Via Joe.My.God

They spelled “cuntry” wrong!

Did you read about Sarah Palin’s utterly shameless tweet today?
 

 
TPM quipped:

It’s unclear why she thinks photos of bin Laden’s corpse will scare suicidal terrorists.

Who says she’s capable of thinking at all? Certainly I’ve seen no public evidence that Mrs. Palin is able to engage in critical thinking. But who cares about Sarah Palin anyway? I don’t and I’m bored with writing about her, but her tweet is one of the lamer, dumber examples of a Republican lemon-face trying oh so obviously and desperately to spin the killing of the most wanted terrorist in history against President Obama.

Sarah Palin: The incredible shrinking woman. I will admit that watching her flounder for attention now that the bloom is off and the public is starting to tune her out has been kinda fun to watch…

Irish comedy genius Graham Linehan, speaking certainly with MY full approval, tweeted the following to his 94,000+ Twitter followers:
 

 

#Nailed it.

Someone who follows him rejoined “Show us your tits first” and I think this is about where the level of discourse around the Republicans should be, which is to say, pointing at them and laughing.

But where was I? Oh yeah:

Jealous much, Republican’ts?

Of course they are—they can barely stand it—and it’s such a delightful farce to watch these craven shits lashing out like the angry losers they truly are. Even some die-hard Fox News viewers are (probably) starting to suspect what everyone else has known all along: THESE PEOPLE ARE SCURRILOUS FUCKS.

How many times does it take being exposed to the obviously insincere Eric Cantor, for instance, before even a complete idiot would intuit “This fuckin’ guy doesn’t believe a damned word he’s saying. He’s lying through his capped teeth.”

But anyway, back to the whole killing Osama bin Laden thing. The single stupidest, lowest IQ conservative conspiracy theory came from—ya don’t say—batshit crazy racist cat lady Pamela Geller, she of the brain-damaged Atlas Shrugs blog. (Read it if you dare, but as you do, consider the fact that this complete LUNATIC is a frequent commentator on Fox News! As if drivel like THIS IDIOCY has any merit or is in any way worthy of respect or discussion? Seriously Roger Ailes? Seriously??? Pamela Geller believes any damned thing she wants to believe, as long as it fits into her twisted prejudices and irrational foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of Obama, Democrats and Muslims. It would be pointless for me to give her insipid, dimwit conspiracy theories any space here since she’s so mean-spirited, repulsive and beneath contempt. I mean… yuck!).

Steve M., writing at my new favorite political bookmark, No More Mister Nice Blog had this to say about the myriad shameful, embarrassing ways the Republicans are comporting themselves. I think he makes a powerful case here for who America’s real enemies are:

Republicans are responding to this the way they respond to everything: by seeking to divide America and undermine Democrats and liberals. They do this for the same reason the scorpion stings the frog in the fable: it’s their nature. They will continue trying to divide America until we wake up and realize that they hate America—or at least they hate any America in which we don’t turn over all the power to them. They’ll undermine and weaken that pluralistic America until we finally recognize their disloyalty and marginalize the dividers.

We should have expected them to try to deny Barack Obama credit for the fact that bin Laden was located and killed on his watch, and to try to shift the credit to George W. Bush. We should have expected them to use the incident to reopen the debate about torture.

But there’s more. Fox Nation, right-wing bloggers, and others are currently braying about this story from Britain’s Daily Mail:

Obama took SIXTEEN HOURS to make up his mind about Bin Laden mission

Barack Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would ‘sleep on it’ before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden’s compound….

Really? The mission was successful, and this is the straw they grasp at? A delay of less than a day?

Let me put that in context. It took 1,306 DAYS for George W. Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld for his sheer inability (or willful refusal) to cope with the chaos of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad, and for his stubborn insistence on a level of troop strength inadequate to quell the chaos and restore order—that’s 1,306 DAYS from the first reports of looting in Iraq (April 12, 2003) through the worst of the insurgency and to the day (November 8, 2006) Rumsfeld stepped down.

(Or perhaps, like Maureen Dowd, you’d like to count it down from Tora Bora: “A pigheaded Donald Rumsfeld, overly obsessed with a light footprint, didn’t have the forces needed at Tora Bora to capture Osama after the invasion of Afghanistan.” In that case, it’s 1,787 DAYS from the conclusion of the Battle of Tora Bora, on December 17, 2001, to Rumsfeld’s resignation.)

So who’s the real hesitator?

But that’s not enough divisiveness for Republicans and rightists. Bloggers, led (as Little Green Footballs notes) by the grotesque Pam Geller, are advancing anonymously sourced reports from shady rumor-purveyors that the bin Laden mission happened over Obama’s objections, in a “military coup” of sorts, and took place only because CIA director Leon Panetta gave the OK without waiting for Obama’s approval.

Maybe this scurrilous nonsense is coming from people at the far margins of the right. Or maybe it’s not—maybe it’s being injected into the debate by people close to the centers of mainstream Republican power, because they can’t bear to have a country that’s not divided, with powerful Democrats widely despised and mistrusted. In any event, the nonsense is being regurgitated at such sites as CNN contributor Erick Erickson’s RedState and the well-connected Pajamas Media. It’s part of the mainstream of Republican commentary. It’s a disgrace from a disgraceful party.

Well put, brother. Amen to that.

Via The Onion

 
No shit. Just in time for the release this weekend of the nearly universally panned film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (even the conservative reviewers are slating it) comes this hilarious information from TIME magazine. Yes Virginia, there is an Ayn Rand fan dating site!

There are about 12,700 dating profiles on the Atlasphere, which Joshua Zader, 37, founded in 2003 after attending a few Rand-related conferences. “I realized that all the single people were using the conferences to search for another Ayn Rand fan they could fall in love with,” says Zader, who modeled the site after Match.com’s pay-to-view profile system. But the Atlasphere also functions as a social network (with some 22,000 nondating profiles) in which members can contribute essays and articles.

I asked Zader how someone who espouses a me-first philosophy can also maintain a loving relationship. “Ayn Rand has a great quote in The Fountainhead,” he told me. “She writes that a person cannot say ‘I love you’ without first being able to say the I.”

It sort of makes sense for Objectivists to have their own dating site, doesn’t it? I mean the rest of us just find them so damned objectionable…. Find your very own Dagny Taggart, Hank Reardon, Francisco d’Anconia or John Galt (chances are it’s a pretty dude-heavy, Republican-heavy and no doubt idiot-heavy crowd) at the Atlasphere. The women there probably all look like Pamela Geller. It’s frightening to even contemplate this.

What if they breed?

Below, the worst trailer of all time?
 

 
Looks like Wisconsin’s increasingly unpopular governor Scott Walker is developing a bit of a “Google problem”!!

He’s no Rick Santorum (yet) in that department, but if just a few of you reading this click over to Google and search for something like, say, “Is Scott Walker a pedophile?” we might be able to help to at least keep Walker competitive!

Do it, you know you want to…

Via Wonkette

 
Former Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams, the low IQ buffoon who wrote the racist “letter to Abe Lincoln” from “the coloreds” has a, um, brand new bag…

Via our friend Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:

Well, Williams has a new idea. Now he’s going to infiltrate pro-union protests pretending to be a supporter, then try to get in front of cameras and make outrageous statements to discredit the demonstrators. And with that toxic mix of vitriol, low cunning, and pure stupidity for which he’s infamous, he posted his plans on his website and invited others to do the same thing: FIGHT THE SEIU WITH TACTIC THEY USE AGAINST US – THIS WEEK! | Mark Williams News & Commentary.

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/solidarityaction

That link will take you to an SEIU page where you can sign up as an “organizer” for one of their upcoming major rallies to support the union goons in Wisconsin.

Here is what I am doing in Sacramento, where they are holding a 5:30 PM event this coming Tuesday:  (1) I signed up as an organizer (2) with any luck they will contact me and I will have an “in”  (3) in or not I will be there and am asking as many other people as can get there to come with, all of us in SEIU shirts (those who don’t have them we can possibly buy some from vendors likely to be there)  (4) we are going to target the many TV cameras and reporters looking for comments from the members there (5) we will approach the cameras to make good pictures… signs under our shirts that say things like “screw the taxpayer!”  and “you OWE me!” to be pulled out for the camera (timing is important because the signs will be taken away from us) (6) we will echo those slogans in angry sounding tones to the cameras and the reporters.  (7) if I do get the ‘in’ I am going to do my darnedest to get podium access and take the mic to do that rant from there…with any luck and if I can manage the moments to build up to it, I can probably get a cheer out of the crowd for something extreme.

WARNING: When around these union events do NOT instigate ANY physical confrontation, walk away from anyone who tries to start one with you. These people WILL have a mob mentality and ARE dangerous …

Several Tea Party chapters around the country are planning to join with me, if you are a member of one in your area please contact them for details.  If they are not participating get them to!

*****UPDATE:  IOWA, COLORADO, MASSACHUSETTS AND SEVERAL OTHER STATES HAVE CHECKED IN…. Tea Party Patriot groups and individuals are flooding me with emails vowing to participate and come up with their own creative ruses!  Several have also reminded me that we have a distinct advantage in that the SEIU primarily represents non-English speaking illegal aliens so we will be the ones whose comments will make air!!!!*****

******Help me keep this going!  I need to travel beyond Sacramento to the other SEIU rally cities and then Madison, and in short order!  Please contribute!!!  Click here for secure link*****

Chances are that because I am publishing this they’ll catch wind, but it is worth the chance if you take it upon yourself to act…there’s only one of me but there are millions of you and I know that you CAN do this!

Our goal is to make the gathering look as greedy and goonish as we know that it is, ding their credibility with the media and exploit the lazy reporters who just want dramatic shots and outrageous quotes for headlines.  Even if it becomes known that we are plants the quotes and pictures will linger as defacto truth.

What a sleazy creep.

How idiotic to announce you’re going to do something like this! Who is this guy Jethro Bodine??? I would imagine that if anyone recognizes him—see pic above, btw—he’s gonna get a severe beat-down. Some people, well, that’s all they understand, isn’t it?