Every Friday, Ben brings you SD&IF’s weekend space filler With Us / Against Us. Prepare to be torn down, then gloriously uplifted!

Against Us

Universal thought a few tracks from the new Be Your Own Pet album were too violent for the delicate American psyche. Quick solution? Override the album’s original label and take them off the album. Also, remove the band’s explanation from their MySpace page. Seems logical. Oh, wait, no it doesn’t. (I know, I know: speculation. Seriously though, it’s a major label. Is there any idiocy you wouldn’t put past them?)

Blah, blah, blah. Pepsi uses Smashing Pumpkins songs without permission. Again, barely shocking, and really, you haven’t listened to them since Billy went cue ball anyway. Blah.

Mexican emo kids break wimpy, sensitive emo stereotypes and fight back against violent discrimination. Musical gangs with names like “rockers” and “emos” are actually still battling? Did I miss something? Is this West Side Story or London, circa 1965? But seriously, this is a sad, alarming situation that was partially instigated by a major media conglomerate.

I always found Lewis Black’s “I hate everything” act funny because he picked on cutting-edge things that seemed to deserve some hate (his “Bottled Water” bit was classic). Now he just jumps in the mushy pool of cranky, blog-hating jerks like me. Is picking on bloggers really worth the effort?

Just Plain Strange

Web Sheriff, a kooky tattletale-for-hire that monitors unauthorized MP3 sharage apparently had a few too many Cadbury eggs and decided to go all ‘Easter Bunny’—warm and fuzzy. Last weekend, they celebrated The Raconteurs’ surprise return from death by thanking music blogs that mentioned, but didn’t post, unauthorized tracks from “Consolers of the Lonely.”

CNN is entering the world of news+comedy with a venture called “Not Just Another Cable News Show.” Rule of thumb: you can generally just excise the “not” from these statements and arrive at the truth. Remember how Oldsmobile ran a campaign called “Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” despite the fact that their name literally implies cars made for the elderly?

With Us

Several German groups are collaborating to piece together the not-quite-destroyed, minutia-filled files of East Germany’s secret police. I’m not ashamed to say it: perusing the endless reassembled documents generated by a defunct domestic spy organization sounds exciting, fascinating and quite possibly arousing. [via]

Jonathan Rhys Meyers speaks out against the FCC. Finally!

Random links, quick and dirty, fast and furious: Eggs 2.0! You have no idea how hard it was to refrain from making a “yolk/joke” pun here. Explore a compilation of awesome images at FFFFOUND. You’ve already heard about Muxtape, but make sure to visit before its inevitable demise.