Don't Pirate My Internet

If, like myself, you are a hepcat who keeps his finger always on the pulse of popular culture, then you are no doubt aware that there is a war going on right now in America. And no, I'm not talking about the war on tooth decay, this time. I'm talking about the battle that rages everyday in cyberspace (a.k.a. the internet) over illegal downloading or Internet Piracy.

Today I'd like to put aside my piss poor attempts at mocking strangers on the internet to alleviate my sexual frustration and instead try to do some public good for once. I'd like to tell you about Radon. Radon was first discovered in 1869 by an Irishman attempting to make his whiskey glow

in the dark to better facilitate night drinking. However, the genius of Seamus McDrinkey, the greatest Irish scientist to date, was short lived as mere hours after his discovery of Radon he was tragically killed in a kickboxing match with a mule. Illustrating the one thing that we today know about Radon: Radon kills. Now, if I were you, sitting in my home, reading this editorial because I lost a bet or was being put through some sort of bizarre psychological torture, I would be thinking "Hey, what can I do to protect myself from Radon?" Well, I'm glad that I asked. The answer: absolutely nothing. Sooner or later Radon will eat away at your family and everyone that you care about until you almost welcome the painless release that it promises.

Since I spend all my free time hanging out in coffee shops across the street from DeVry University, I've learned a thing or two about "filesharing". Namely, I've learned that it exists and that the Man is trying to stop it. As always, if the Man is against it then I fully support it, he and I have never agreed on anything since our infamous falling out on Veteran's Day of 1983. But enough about whether Spiderman or the original cast of 'The Little Rascals' would win in a fight, the focus group comprised of a hobo that I promised a sandwich to said that I should be more topical and topical I shall be. While initially Internet Piracy seemed appealing like a Vietnamese

hooker, after I watched an after school special put out by the RIAA I realized that Internet Piracy is actually rotten and full of disease on the inside, also like a Vietnamese hooker. Now I see that it is a serious problem that must be addressed before it brings about the end of civilization as we know it. Some of you may doubt just how dangerous illegal downloading is, so I've created this chart to make the point MSPaint clear:

As you can see, filesharing has already had a disastrous effect upon all of us, so what can we do to stop it? Well, I think the first step is to stop calling it "internet piracy" because that sounds so badass. At some point in their lives, every single person on the face of the Earth has wished that he or she was a pirate. It was the general acceptance of this fact that caused the U.S. Census Bureau to take the question "Do you wish that you were a pirate?" off the census in 1940 because everyone always just put 'yes'. By allowing people to live out their fantasies of being a pirate and getting free stuff at the same time the allure of Internet Piracy becomes irresistible. So instead, we should refer to filesharing as Playing "Magic: The Gathering", ensuring that it is the kind of thing no one wants to be caught doing. If something is not done soon, every single musician will spontaneously combust into flame, and then all the actors will be forced to resort to cannibalism and romantic comedies just to have something to eat.

I don't know if you've ever seen Mad Max (if not I suggest downloading it for free off the internet), but that's exactly what our world will end up like if illegal downloading continues. Except instead of motorcycle gangs racing through the desert in search of gas, they'll be searching for elusive bit torrent files or something like that. I'm not really sure, I was just trying to come up with some way to work Mad Max into this editorial. E-mail me at FunkyP@gmail.com to tell me how it went. Anyway, filesharing is the greatest problem to face the world since Y2K or that time Yogi Bear got hit by a car.