Similar situation. I had a guy who thought I was his nephew (despite a couple of emails trying to explain that I really wasn't and it was a case of identity doppleganger) who'd occasionally send me 'motivational' Bible quotes. Then one day I got a friend request from him to some sort of service that alerts you if any of your friends are looking at porn sites or other soul-corrupting material. I was tempted to accept and then take him for a walk on the wild side, but I was a good boy and just deleted it.

Of course, the whole point of a Military Unicorn is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world!?

... two days ago that had been missing for over six months, not sure how enthusiastic I'd be about this.

> a bunch of thugs (you know who I mean)

No, who do you mean?

You must be pretty young, or have a very selective memory, because when I voiced my objections to the US invading Iraq in 2002 and '03, I encountered quite a bit of intolerance for differing opinions. If you had to choose between being called an asshole and having your company boycotted, or being called a traitor and threatened with physical violence and potentially imprisonment, which would you choose?

I'm writing this post via Firefox, and would agree that this boycott is a bit silly (if I'm going to boycott the products of every company whose CEO has stupid, fucked up political opinions, I might as well pack up and go live in a log cabin in the woods and make my own soap). But laying this at the feet of "The Left" much less Obama is utter horseshit. Hell, I remember when I was a kid in the late 1970's, and my dad wouldn't take us to Burger King because they were supposedly supporting communists somehow.

In that case, I'd say it's clear that he found his 'special purpose!'

See, this is why I'm hesitant to carry a gun; if that were you and me, you'd either be dead, or have a hole in your gas tank.

People like you make me SICK! It's my RIGHT to use MY phone when and where I want in the MAGNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

> respectable career in theoretical physics.

As someone who was a physics major during the late 1980's, who idolized Feynman, watched Buckaroo Bonzai way too many times, and had to repeatedly apologize for Pons and Fleischmann to friends and acquaintances... I find this statement hilarious.
 

I predict that they're trying to line up an appearance from Giorgio A. Tsoukalos at their press conference, but the fee negotiations are getting out of hand.

> Former fans mockingly dismissed it as 'swiss cheese.'

One has to wonder how cheesy the first few iterations of Facebook would have looked if their source had been open to all.

Because any 'religion' with an eschatology that reads like (bad) science fiction is illegitimate and false. A true religion has an eschatology that reads like a dragons and wizards epic fantasy.

I read that part, and it led me to take the rest of the article less seriously.

In 1996, a ProTools rig itself (not the microphones, etc.) would set you back ~$20,000, between the A/D/D/A converters, the 10K SCSI disks, and a PC fast enough to keep up. Nowadays, you buy a setup with far better sound quality for about $500, and run it on commodity PC hardware. For established artists (who are perhaps still using the same studio gear they bought in 1996 with the royalties from that one hit that got used on the soundtrack of a Michael Moore film), this might be a small factor, but for fledgling musicians recording in their bedroom, it's a big deal. Many people track and mix on such setups (perhaps not Lowery, who may think it's crucial to have that $20K tube preamp to get that 'warmth' when he screams and caterwauls into the mic, but many other people).

It's also worth noting that in 1996, paying DiscMakers for a run of 1,000 CDs of your first effort was a daunting cost. Now you can upload to bandcamp for free, provided you're willing to lose some of the revenue in fees.

I'd say naming his band Camper Van Beethoven was the harbinger of things to come. He's smart and witty, but Lowery's a not-great-looking guy who doesn't sing that well, and if we're being honest, never wrote a song after "Take the Skinheads Bowling" that had anywhere near as much commercial potential... probably on purpose.

I'd say he had a pretty good run. The music industry was littered with guys 10+ years into their careers, who played to an increasingly "more selective demographic," long before mp3 was a file format.

The issue is indeed simple, and you've completely missed it.

We see 10 cops investigating the Chief's kid's missing phone, while the police can't even be bothered to file a report of an ordinary citizen having their phone snatched right out of their hand. We see thousands of people needlessly losing their homes to banks that have perjured themselves by 'robosigning' documents, and the DAs settle with the banks for fractions of a penny on the dollar; meanwhile, Bernie Madoff rots in a real, not-Clud-Fed prison for having the temerity to rip off rich people.

We are supposed to be equal before the law. In theoretical legal sense, we are, but in a practical sense, when it comes to enforcement, we are not. As the public becomes more aware of this, they are angered, and rightly so.