Using VLC for MacOSX (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) will decrypt the DVD for you.

but it’s actually much worse than that, because now the Great Satan is not copyright or whatever, it’s ‘corruption’. so, he’ll spend the next ten years battling and trying to catch up with ‘corruption’, and maybe he’ll be able to make some progress. And then?

And then he’ll find something just a bit more worthwhile, a bit more relevant, a bit more meaningful. It’ll be another baby step – some incremental bourgeoisie ’safe’ step that people will consider ‘respectable’.

And then ten years later still he’ll start to realize, like all other would-be do-gooders before him, that ‘the system is broken’.

How about being different?

How about read some books that you’re not supposed to read? Leave the comfy confines of Stanford for 3 seconds so he can get a taste of what ‘democracy’ actually looks like. Look at independent analyses of U.S. domestic and foreign policy from home and abroad so he can reprogram his brain such that he can start thinking independently again. Put down ‘The World is Flat’ and pick up Stiglitz. Shoot – pick up anything but what he’s apparently been confined to reading for the past fifty years.

Those ‘3 steps’ are so ambiguous, so water-down, so tame and uninteresting that they are almost completely worthless.

It’s a shame. The dude’s got too many yes men surrounding him. He could do so much more. He could be so much more.

Then I read this (@ wired.com). Apparently, just days after the law was passed, the Justice Department is already trying use it to convince a judge to dismiss the previous lawsuit concerning the NSA spy program.

I really don’t understand why people are willing to tolerate their elected representatives falling for these bait-and-switch tactics of “imminent threats” and “necessary protections.” Or, for that matter, why our politicians insist on treating us like children who are unable to comprehend and discuss the threats against us, both real and contrived.

While there are thankfully groups like the EFF and the ACLU and various editorial staffs keeping politicians honest and being disgusted on our behalf, it can’t always be their job to look out for our freedoms. Eventually, we all have to step up to the plate and speak out for ourselves. We have to demand a serious conversation with our leaders before they whittle away at our liberties any further.

Best of luck to you guys on the AT&T case at the 9th Circuit Court — and thank you for doing our job for us once again.