by Nat Torkington

There’s an old joke. Heavy rains start and a neighbour pulls up in his truck. “Hey Bob, I’m leaving for high ground. Want a lift?” Bob says, “No, I’m putting my faith in God.” Well, waters rise and pretty soon the bottom floor of his house is under water. Bob looks out the second story window as a boat comes by and offers him a lift. “No, I’m putting my faith in God.” The rain intensifies and floodwaters rise and Bob’s forced onto the roof. A helicopter comes, lowers a line, and Bob yells “No, I’m putting my faith in God.”

Well, Bob drowns. He goes to Heaven and finally gets to meet God. “God, what was that about? I prayed and put my faith in you, and I drowned!”

God says, “I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter! What the hell more did you want from me?”

As SOPA looks shakier, the President handed a challenge to the technical community:

“Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue Web sites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders,” reads Saturday’s statement. “We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge.”

All I can think is: we gave you the Internet. We gave you the Web. We gave you MP3 and MP4. We gave you e-commerce, micropayments, PayPal, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, the iPad, the iPhone, the laptop, 3G, wifi—hell, you can even get online while you’re on an AIRPLANE. What the hell more do you want from us?

Take the truck, the boat, the helicopter, that we’ve sent you. Don’t wait for the time machine, because we’re never going to invent something that returns you to 1965 when copying was hard and you could treat the customer’s convenience with contempt.