I came across this gem (ahem) through OS News earlier and was struck by how alarmist some of the content is, specifically the bit that reads

I don’t know what the penalties for ignoring fines are in her state, but if it involves jail time, it would be a bad decision to make her serve it. Every revolution in the history of civilization begins with a few martyrs who are made to suffer the consequences of injustice at the hands of the government. Look up the history of every single revolution and civil war, and you will find such instances; preventing them is paramount to the continuation of the government as we know it. If this woman is sent to jail because she downloaded music, it could turn into the beginning of something awful for either the RIAA or the entire US government in general.

Seriously. There are things happening in the United States at present that are much more worrying than the possible jailing of a woman who can’t pay a fine - as ludicrous as that fine may be.

Don’t get me wrong: I am as convinced as most sane people that the RIAA - and indeed IRMA - are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to the online world and that their fight against (and reluctance to embrace and adapt to) the new, ‘virtual’ marketplace is futile at best and self-defeating at worst but I can’t see the collapse of society being brought about by something as trivial as this.

But then, I could be wrong…

My new favourite Christmas song is Gaudete by Steeleye Span. But don’t tell my Da that. He’s been a fan of the Span (and their progenitors Fairport Convention) for donkey’s. I still cringe when I think of all the times we were subjected to The Bonny Bunch of Roses - all six million verses - after Christmas dinner.

That said, I’ve always loved Christmas - even in my cynical teenage years I found it hard to find anything to grumble about, even though I did go through a phase of bemoaning the lack of awe that I was experiencing compared to when I was younger and Santa was still something I believed in. Even when I do grumble about Christmas - and this year I have two weddings to attend the week after Christmas in addition to the normal expense - it’s in that mock moaning-for-the-sake-of-it way that we Irish love. This year is a bit odd though - I’m not long after my own wedding and this is our first Christmas as a married couple. There’s something subtly different about it that I can’t put my finger on - and it’s not just the escalation in pressie prices either!

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Anyone who hasn’t done so should check out Samorost 2, a browser based game that just about justifies the existence of Flash.

No Song of the Day this morning for two reasons: firstly, I listened to Dunphy on Newstalk on the way into work this morning. Secondly, I recently *ahem* got hold of a four-disc collection of 70s punk songs which I uploaded to my iPod. As a result, my Short and Sharp Smart Playlist is chock-full of really dodgy two-/three-minute tracks. Ah well…

One of my favourite features of iTunes and my iPod is Smart Playlists. Smart Playlists - which probably have an analogue in other MP3 players and their software - are dynamic: instead of choosing the songs that you want to listen to, you choose certain criteria and iTunes/iPod selects songs that match these criteria and generates a playlist. So, for example, I have a Smart Playlist called “Best of Not Recently Played”; the criteria for this playlist are “Rating is greater than 3″ and “Last played is not in the last month”, along with some less important criteria that are designed to reduce the pool of applicable tracks (to filter out, for example, really long mix sessions like the ones that solcfn releases and which everyone should download. Another Smart Playlist that I have selects only those tracks that are between 1:30 and 3:30 minutes long (and haven’t been played in x weeks - this is important: if you don’t put in some time-based criteria, the playlist will always contain the same songs!).

Anyway, what makes these playlists great - apart from the fact that they’re always different - is that they occasionally throw up some gems, sometimes of the long-forgotten variety. This morning’s long-forgotten gem was Doing the Unstuck by The Cure. I’ve been a fan of The Cure since I was in secondary school and for a time they were the only band that I listened to, which worried my parents no end. Then I discovered a second band to idolise and they were relieved until they realised it was The Smiths. Nowadays I’m a much more balanced individual and I hardly ever listen to either of those two bands although I’m still a fan of both.

So, Doing the Unstuck is one of those Cure songs that people always regard as not being like a Cure song at all, on account of being really poppy and upbeat and uplifting and positive. Cure songs, you see, are supposed to be seven minute droning dirges in which Robert Smith opines despairingly about burning eyes and hearts on fire. The irony, of course, is that Cure singles have almost always been fantastic pop tunes: Lovecats, Friday I’m In Love, Lullaby, The Caterpillar and Just Like Heaven to name just a few (and you could probably name any of their pre-1992 singles). Obviously Inbetween Days, as The Best Pop Song Of The Last Twenty Five Years is also a given.

Doing the Unstuck wasn’t a single, but it is great and that’s why it’s Song of the Day.

I don’t know what’s worse: Michael “The Right-wing Hypocrite” McDowell’s attempts to subvert justice by leaking a confidential Garda document to an Irish Independent reporter (despite passing a law this year that can impose five year sentences on Gardai who do the same) or the fact that certain sections of both the Irish media and the political establishment believe that the onus is now on Frank Connelly - the former investigative journalist and general thorn in the government’s side who is at the center of this furore and the subject of McDowell’s vendetta - to prove his innocence. What the fuck happended to due process?

More worrying is the precedent that is being set here. Regardless of whether or not Frank Connelly turns out to be a gun-toting, semtex-making, Brit-bashing republican nutjob - and even if he is one (I don’t actually think that he is), isn’t there a real chance that Malcolm has now prejudiced the case? - the long-term damage that has potentially been done to both the Irish justice system and Irish democracy in general could be a much bigger threat to this state. Not looking at anyone in particular…