Real ID

I remember growing up how we used to make jokes about Russians needing papers. Now it seems we Americans will need papers to go places. People really need to look at this law and oppose it, I guess we lost the war on terror before it began. The American way of life is fading at a pace so fast it is frightening...

Al Qaeda struck a major blow to the American way of life. While not an instant knock down, it may in fact be a mortal blow. More like a bee sting to a person allergic to bee venom.

We Americans have enjoyed almost total security, in that our three neighbors consist of two good friends (Mexico and Canada), and a weak pseudo enemy (Cuba). This being our only injury since the Spanish American war (concluded 1846). December 7 1941 was actually smaller than September 11 2001. The response to the attack is the only thing we Americans could not withstand, a damage to our freedom.

Like a bee sting, the root cause, is an over-active immune response to a relatively minor injury. This is driving a catastrophic systemic failure. The political body is consuming the peoples liberty due to an over reaction by the infotainment industry. Which in-fact creates a dangerous situation for the leadership.

The infotainment industry (facing a loss in power to alternative Internet new sources) over-reacted to terrorist acts, causing the politicians to make drastic reductions in freedom in order to appear effective. This in turn provided a positive feedback to the infotainment industry. The infotainment industry in a downward spiral has lost it's past power and glory. With every minor terror threat the press over-reacts again seeking another spike in power. It's a run-away system.

All this over-reaction is causing a meltdown in the public confidence of congress (currently facing a 10% approval rating), the executive branch, and the press.

How is it this country has forgotten what made us Americans? We torture prisoners and reduce the freedoms of our citizens. We would never have allowed this to happen in WWII, we took the high road against an enemy much worse than any terrorist. How did we lose this integrity?

This of course is only made worse by the "defeatist" chanting of politicians. Is that what this country has grown into? Have we become quitters and cowards? Anytime in history that politicians were acting like this they would be tried as traitors...I hope America can find her the spirit that made her who she used to be.

Welcome to 1984

So apparently now congress wants to prosecute you for 'thinking' about commiting crimes. I guess they solved all the other problems in the US, so they have nothing better to do. I mean our streets couldn't be safer from violents crimes...They managed to get all the illegal drugs and guns off streets. We no longer have homeless people or families starving. Un-employment? That doesn't exist in this country anymore; congress took care of all that.

The law in question is Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 and it would make do the following.

Criminalize "attempting" to infringe copyright.

Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software.

Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations.

Allow assests to be seized more readily. - So now if you get caught up in a piracy suit, your going to be treated like a drug lord.

Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention regulations.

Add penalties for "intended" copyright crimes. - Everyone should welcome our new thought police.

Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America. - Why is Homeland security involved in software piracy? I thought the purpose of that agency was to protect this country from terrorist.

So not only are we going to punish thought crime and what big brother thinks you're going to do, but this bill would even require Homeland Security to inform the RIAA and associated companies if one of us imports discs with "unauthorized fixations of the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance." Why don't we just reorganize the RIAA as another extension of the federal government?

Do you keep receipts for all the software you buy? Can you prove you have a license? What if you had the CD, made mp3s to listen to you on your Ipod and the CD was destroyed? Well your now a piarate and you're going to jail.

If you aren't yet a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now would be a real good time to start. http://www.eff.org/

Not even 250 years ago, the founders of this country willingly committed treason and went to war over laws such as this. Life imprisonment sounds a lot worse than taxation without representation to me. The general population of the United States are not served by this law. Criminalizing the whole population for something everyone does is so typical of dictatorships, let's not copy their ruthless style of governance anymore.

So welcome everyone to 1984...enjoy your stay

Grrr

So I just got assigned an RFC (Request for Change) at work for this weekend by a co-worker. He didn't even have to courtesy to ask before if I could do the work for him, he just assumed I would and tossed it over on me.



Don't get me wrong, I don't mind helping a co-worker out, or working on weekends as it's part of my job. But this guy has consistently just pawned off his work on other people. To make it worse, he does this is a poor manner. We rarely get any information on what is supposed to be done. He never asks, sometimes he just runs out and leaves stuff for others to do...



Oh well, so much for my weekend plans.

scribefire

Just loaded up scribefire in firefox to do some blogging from. Pretty nice tool so far and makes it a little easier to get some blogging done. Maybe now I might actually utilize my blog a little for random crap and what not.