Reviews of movies, anime, and the occasional TV show mixed with warnings on Blogger spam. Also to be found are musings on whatever I am thinking about - all from the point of view of being left to watch everything from the sidelines of life.
Well, Tuesday was some night for many of us and unfortunately for me, I overdid things making the upper respiratory infection that was nearly gone return. While I’m physically having some breathing problems, I can say that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually the atmosphere has lifted allowing me to metaphorically breathe easier. Time to ramble a bit for posterity.
President Trump. A year ago I was telling people to get used to saying this only to be greeted by laughter.
Today is a day about defending freedom of speech and exposing a man who will go to any lengths to suppress information about what he has done, including threatening people. That man’s name is Brett Kimberlin and I do not expect you to take my word on it. Instead, I will give you links to search engines for you to explore for yourself:
Check them out and come to your own conclusions about who Brett Kimberlin is and why this is important.
As previous posts on ACTA have shown, I’m not a huge fan of Intellectual Property rights as they are currently handled. While there needs to be a way to make money for ideas, those ideas shouldn’t be perpetual money machines – that inevitably leads to a decrease in new inventions and works. A little while back I read about a problem with Righthaven, a group suing bloggers for daring to quote from their clients’ publications. Quoting small amounts from articles is covered by Fair Use, or should be.
Now it has turned into a big business for the lawyers of Righthaven and they are going after bloogers big and small including ones who don’t even make money from their blogs.
For a glimpse of what is going on that involves some heavy irony, please read this thread at Broadband/DSL Reports. The discussion is interesting and takes quite a turn on page two. Yes, Righthaven is suing over content posted by a user on the forums, not content put up on the website.
So now we have media companies shaking down everyone and anyone in an effort to get money. Free speech isn’t even considered as these intellectually bankrupt corporations look to hoover every last cent out of somebody else’s pocket. What’s worse is that it is working. They are making serious money with these take down and lawsuit threats.
The explosion in blogs and forums has allowed more information to be shared than ever before in history. While it often seems the Internet is a cesspool of the pornographic and the trivial, information that actually matters has proliferated changing much. From politics to economics to wrong doings of totalitarian regimes, people have been able to get their messages out.
It is appalling to think that the United States of America, a country founded on freedom and inalienable rights, would become the home to persecutors of opinions using quotes to back their arguments. This along with the ACTA treaty show that things have gotten very out of hand.
… Is a society that will collapse. That appears to be the case in the United Kingdom as the disarmed populace and police officers were in no position to stop their latest spree killer.
At some point this unwillingness to defend their people has to be considered madness, one would think. Bird was armed with a .22 rifle and a shotgun, but was able to kill as many people as the Fort Hood shooter who had a semi-automatic pistol. With a mostly unarmed police force, the Brits failed to stop a murderer when they couldn’t shoot back. Governments exist to protect their people from harm and instill order of some kind; that is the most basic tenet of governance.
This makes me grateful to life in a country that has the right to bear arms and hasn’t forgotten that deadly force is needed to stop such murderers. Well, at least for the moment.
A bill has been proposed in New York state to limit police officer to shooting to wound arms and legs. Anyone who has fired a pistol knows it isn’t like the movies and that they aren’t that precise. Police officers aren’t going to be in range conditions being able to take their shots slowly and methodically without any incoming lead. Simply put, there is no way “shoot to wound” can be done!
We are living in an era of dangerous stupidity.
Bye, Bye McCain-Feingold!
Today the Supreme Court has ruled that prohibitions against corporations and non-profits from running political ads violated the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. About time, a lot of little people got stepped on by McCain-Feingold as quite a few organizations and lobbyists represent people banded together from across the nation, not just the wealthy. The 5-4 ruling will set a precedent and very well may end up being a landmark case (the media loves to throw that label around for everything) affecting judicial rulings for years to come.
Powerline is all over this and has further links.
This is very good news to those who believe in the Bill of Rights and our Constitution. No form of censorship should be allowed in politics.
UPDATED:
Over at Big Government, Robert Frommer has a great post that explains why this was important for the people of our country and why this is only the beginning of the fight.
653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.It is rapidly getting to the point where the only private communications in the UK will be face to face, for Big Brother is watching. The British are lost and only people fighting for their freedom will keep it here in the United States.
For some time there has been a United Nations resolution pushing very early sex education to children, all under the guise of protecting “child rights.” I never thought it would gain any real traction as it was too out there, now I’m not so sure.
Over in England, compulsory sex and drug education will now start with five year olds. This is crazy, especially given the paranoia about pedophilia that is currently gripping the English. Exposing kids to too much information early is not going to reduce teen (and earlier) pregnancies. Instead, it will encourage them to be more sexual and we have enough problems with the pop culture doing that!
Sometimes I wonder if any sanity is left in our Western governments. The fact that parents won’t be able to pull their kids from these classes is way too Big Brother for my tastes. Scratch that, way too Brave New World.
