Here’s the way it works: Everybody (and they mean everybody) steals movies via downloads; nobody goes to the movies any more; nobody buys popcorn; corn farmers have nobody to sell popcorn to, lose money; corn farmers stop buying farm equipment; everybody on God’s green Earth suffers.

I added the last part, but it’s not much of a stretch compared to the caterwauling coming out of that filing. Okay, okay, fine. I’ll put in what it actually says:

“Because of our nation’s interlocking economy, two-thirds of the lost earnings and lost jobs are in industries other than motion picture production. For example, in the absence of movie piracy, video retailers would sell and rent more titles. Movie theatres would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment.”

And, if a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his butt when he jumped.

NBC’s argument followed a plea for the broadband service providers to be able to "use readily available means to prevent the use of their broadband capacity to transfer pirated content."

By "readily available means," they mean technology used to spy on what’s being transferred, according PublicKnowledge.org’s Art Brodsky, a blatant violation of civil rights, especially in the Big Brother era we are entering.

But the FCC doesn’t like to regulate right? Especially when it comes to the Internet, right? Well, that depends on who’s asking. If you, the citizen, ask, regulation’s no good. If the telecommunications, cable, or entertainment industry (except where otherwise stipulated by the Parents Television Council) asks, it’s a very good possibility.

Besides, just look at the numbers NBC produced: 60-70% of Internet traffic are P2P transfers generated from less than 5% of users; 90% of the transfers are "in knowing and flagrant violation of our nation’s copyright laws."

That’s weird. Could have sworn P2P made up just a third of Internet traffic. It must have really spiked in the past week. Or maybe they got those numbers from the same source that told them the nation’s poor ol’ corn farmers suffer the most from piracy.

Wait. Brodsky says that’s not true either. Visit his post at Public Knowledge to learn the real numbers on popcorn production and consumption. And if you ever wondered why some kernels refuse to pop, there’s an answer for that as well. 

If you have choppers strong enough to smash through one of these “old maids,” as unpopped kernels are referred to, then the result was a minor, tasteless annoyance.

But if one of these stealthy tooth-chippers sent you howling to the dentist, writhing in I-knew-I-paid-too-much-that-popcorn pain, then you’ll be glad to know that the problem is soon to be eradicated.

Researchers at Purdue University’s Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research discovered that the answer lay beneath the surface, er, the pericap.

Some kernels don’t have a thick enough shell to hold in moisture long enough for it to pop. The result is a hull that leaks like a Japanese businessman on a Friday night, causing it to pass-out at the bottom of the bag.

The five-member team, led by Bruce Hamaker, said that they are probably through with popcorn research, but hopes the finding will cause fully-popped microwave popcorn to be a reality within the next 3-5 years.

Tuition dollars well spent.

The findings were published online at the American Chemical Society’s BioMacromolecules Journal.