I guess I’ll have to learn to read or something…

This morning, while I was walking to work, I was having one of my many internal monologue conversations. Today’s conversation was with a police officer with a sniffer dog, looking for “illicit substances”. (I’m not going to tell you how my mind came to that place, I’ll let you create a story for yourself.)

Anyway, I was discussing with him, after remarking on how adorable his dog was ( a basset hound, obviously), that my ex-roomie had a book of conspiracy theories, and I had read the entry on the illegalization of marijuana. According to this book, the reason that marijuana was criminalized was due to the paper industry. I can’t exactly remember all the details, but I’m sure the internet can. But from what I can recall the basic gist of the chapter was the paper industry became threatened by the versatility of hemp, and the fact that it could indeed become quite competitive with the paper industry. And an added bonus; it didn’t need all the extra chemical shit that paper needed. It was basically all the hippy woo woo stuff we associate with hemp products now: Natural and earthy and easy. The prospect of this was of course horrifying to the paper big wigs. For the first time they would actually need to compete to stay profitable. LAME. So instead of becoming a better business, or embracing and investing in this new material, and changing their technology they decided to use the political climate of drug fear, and excessive amounts of cash to get the governments at the time to make cannabis illegal!

HOORAY!

This, I’m sure is vaguely based on the truth of things, and therefore incredibly lame for so many reasons. But the particular reason I am most unimpressed with is that big businesses continue to fuck over good, nay better, ideas with the backing of governments in order to keep their dinosaurs alive. Hell I love dinosaurs as much, if not more, than the next gal, but they went extinct for a reason.

And once again the government is fucking us over for a huge payout (conjecture I know, but I’m pretty sure that is why the CRTC is stacked with Bell and Rogers suits). The old dinosaurs, Bellceratops and Rogersaurus Rex, have decided that instead of embracing and investing in the future, and new technology they are going to stifle the shit out of us with usage based internet fees. HOORAY! Listen guys, I’m sorry you are “losing” money because your cable packages suck compared to the internet, and TV ads are lame and boring and no one wants to pay to watch them, but come the fuck on. This is the future, you can’t hide from it. The nerds will inherit the earth, and they’re cheap motherfuckers, they’re gonna find a way around your bullshit. So instead of being ten-billion steps behind, why don’t you try to get ahead. Invest in the future, fucking shape it to your needs, instead of clinging to old forms of media which no one gives a shit about. And people I’m a  complete luddite, AND I work in the music industry, so if I’m thinking this, man, you know we are in a sorry state of affairs. People, I STILL BUY CDS. Yeah. That’s right. But even I can see this is completely counterproductive.

So this is what I beg of you, Canadian government, please for ONCE do what is best for the people, for digital technology, don’t stifle our future, don’t force Canada to be twenty years behind because two billion-dollar companies see no profit in digital innovation. Make the right choice and repeal one of the worst decisions you have ever made. Also, please fire everyone on the CRTC. And I’d like a pony.

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