Protect IP Act

It appears that my one letter failed to change any minds and "OUR" representatives are still planning to vote to support corporate interests at the expense of free communication of the people.   Perhaps if a few thousand more people write in?


Please go to www.congress.org and set up your profile there. Once you do, it makes it easy to write your reps. on any issues that you care about .... and you can hit them all with one fell swoop.

If you care about preventing censorship on the internet, here's a quick letter you can cut-n-paste and send to your reps. (lol, i promise not to sue if you copy my letter exactly): 

[www.congress.org puts the appropriate header for you]

As a citizen who you represent, I respectfully ask you to oppose the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" in all forms.

Free communication on the internet is an incredibly valuable addition to the human experience for nearly everyone. We should be very careful to protect that freedom from any form of censorship.

It is understandable that content providers have a right to protect their content, but that protection should not come at the expense of free communication for all people. When companies experience pirating losses, they should have every right to sue and attempt to recover losses. They should not, however, have the right to create censorship on the internet without due process.


**************************************************************
Here's the eloquent response I got to explain why the interests of the people should be ignored:
**************************************************************





Dear Friend:


     Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act.  I welcome your thoughts and comments.


     Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the PROTECT IP Act on May 12, 2011.  The legislation is in response to concerns about online copyright infringement and sale of counterfeit goods.  The bill would allow the Justice Department to seek federal court injunctions to halt online promotion of illegal activities.


     I believe copyright protection is a foundation for innovation.  Intellectual property is the creative core of the information age.  Patent and intellectual property ownership laws offer needed protection for the economic and other interests of inventors, entrepreneurs, performers, and other creative thinkers.  These protections are also important to future growth and employment in important U.S. industries.


     Protecting intellectual property is more challenging than ever before.  Among other things, high speed broadband enables access to the entire catalog of movies, music, books, television, and technology.


     Online promotion of counterfeit goods by foreign entities is also a growing concern.  How to protect copyright, patent, and intellectual property rights — and do so without infringing on consumers’ legitimate interests — requires dealing with a complex series of problems.


     The PROTECT IP Act has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Although I am not a member of that committee, please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should this bill or related legislation be reported for action by the full Senate.


     I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue that is important to you.




Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

Occupy Wall Street -- OWS

     Sometimes you just know you're getting screwed.   You don't necessarily understand who did it or why, but one thing you are sure of, you got the short straw.  Is that why this OWS thing has gotten so popular?  A lot of people have been getting screwed for a long time.   Are they talking back and forth, "Oh really?  You got screwed too?  D@mn, I thought it was just me.  Well, we got to do something about this BS."  


     Normally, I would not agree with the OWS way of thinking.  Normally, I would say that rich people got that way because they worked hard and they deserve the fruit of their labor.  Their wealth is "honest" wealth.  The only reason that I'm siding with the OWS folks is because too many people get rich today by taking advantage of others.  Worse, they use monetary influence in the political process as one of their tools for always making sure that they get the long straw.  I hope the OWS crowd will make the distinction between "corrupt" wealth and "honest" wealth.


     Honest wealth is what we should all be striving for.  It is a natural result of the efficient production of goods and services that others want and need.  This type of productive behavior should always be freely encouraged and supported.  Unfortunately, many of the most successful people have an unfettered lust for even more wealth and power.   They see competition as a threat to their status, and so they create laws (via lobbyists and a compliant congress) to stifle competition.  They always have a more "noble" reason for the laws, but the true purpose is to secure wealth and power for the 1%.   Of course, there is a lot of outright fraud these days as well.  If it's sophisticated enough, no one can figure out "how" it was fraud, and so you just get away with it.  There certainly is plenty of "corrupt" wealth going around these days.


     I hope the the OWS folks figure out that freedom does the best job at equalizing opportunity. It's counter-intuitive, but it works.  I fear that they want to have more rules to "make" the rich people play fair.   Unfortunately, this will never work because the 1% will always buy off a congressman to slip in some clever loophole.  We have been trying to use the law to make people play fair for ages.   Complex laws don't work.  Complex laws only serve to restrict competition, and consequently the opportunity of the 99%.


     There are some even more obvious solutions to making the world more fair:  for one, stop giving money away to people who are already in the 1% club.  Corporate welfare should be the first target of the OWS crowd.  Corporate welfare permeates American society now from local cities trying to get a Walmart or Home Depot to the FED bailing out Bank of America, to the CIA and US military subsidizing British Petroleum by controlling the rulers of oil producing countries. All of this must stop! 


     Large corporations already have huge advantages, yet small businesses still thrive.  If we cut the unfair flow of money, we will create more space for small businesses, green energy, and individual opportunity to grow like flowers after a spring rain. Mega corporations' profits will fall, and their CEO pay will follow.  There will still be ultra rich folks, but that's OK, if they've earned it.


     Lastly, sound money is key to individual prosperity. Average citizens need to be able to save a little money and have it hold its value. That's how people can save and start their own businesses.  That's how people can save to buy a house in cash, rather than pay a bank interest for all their life.  Sound money won't happen with the FED freely printing money and giving it away to the "already" rich and powerful 1%. 


     Please OWS, if you want a real change to empower the 99% to succeed, become a Blue Republican.  Hold your nose and register to vote in the GOP primary.  Ron Paul is the only candidate truly dedicated to help the 99% rise up.

"...and I had the best answer..."

That was the last audible phrase from the Vegas GOP debate.  I'll have to give credit to Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich; they both tried to stand up for Dr. Paul when he wasn't given time to answer the last question of the debate.  Of course, both of them had to fight for a chance to answer as well.   The debate was definitely dominated by Cain, Romney, and Perry.


Unfortunately, the way the debate was structured, candidates who have lied or flip-flopped in the past got the most time to talk.  When one candidate tried to call another candidate out on a lie or hypocrisy, the candidate of questionable honesty got 30 seconds to refute and explain how they didn't actually mean that fallacy.  Consequently, Cain, Perry, and Romney got to talk the most.


It was disheartening to watch how refined Romney was ... given that I think he is a 'Yes-Man-Corporatist' and the last thing this country needs for a President.  The crowd was eating him up though.  He was perfect at saying what people want to hear, laughing off criticism of his past decisions, and in general coming off like the good guy who wants to follow the rules.  It was too much to bear for the other candidates; they couldn't help interrupting him as he convincingly recreated the truth.  It's so annoying that the mark of a good politician is that they actually believe their lies as the lies leave their mouth.  More annoying still, that such masterful lying passes the built in lie-detectors that most humans have.  One would have to have done research to know the difference between fact and fiction in such instances.


Now, here is another odd fact about human behavior; we hate it when someone is "right" all the time.  Maybe it's the way people who are right rub it in; but for some reason, we will often go with the best sounding person who says what we want to hear.  Unfortunately, this sets us up to be taken advantage of.  My only hope is that people have been lied to so much lately that they are willing to do a little extra effort to figure out what is in their best interest.


OK, I have to break here ... too funny ... Mark McGuire, hitting coach for St. Louis Cardinals, World Series ... he looks like a parrot the way he eats sun flower seeds.


Now, back to politics ... try to keep up!  What does the federal government do for you?  Seriously, what is the value of "federal" government activity to you personally?  Was it worth $11,500 to you last year?  That's what they have cost every man, woman, and child in 2010.  What do they really do for you?  I guess they spend a little on the roads, but most of that goes towards pulling us over to let us know that our front license plate is not correctly attached.  Besides that, the feds have cost anyone who has a job more than that in taxes.


Who is getting all the money that they are spending? Not me, that's for sure.  Is it you?  Well, if so, you should probably vote for either Obama or Romney.  Either of them will do for you.  But, if you are taking the time to account for the depreciation of your savings account due to inflation, perhaps you would want to give Ron Paul a second thought.   He's the only one offering to shake things up.  He's the only only one calling the shots like he sees them, and needless to say, he didn't have to spend much time explaining why he changed his mind.  Ron Paul is a grumpy old man, but like grandpa when there's big trouble, he's on your side.  Please, take the time to figure it out.

Happy Halloween

I wrote a little Halloween song, and the lyrics came out a little dark.   So, I set the story to cute pictures of kittens and that made it a little less creepy I think.

Really?

My friend tells me that she got arrested last week.   My first thought was that she must have gotten a DUI coming home from some wild night of partying in Austin; she is here in the USA in part to party after all.   But no, she wasn't having any fun at all before she got arrested.  She was "set up" as they say.

My friend is this adorable 24 year old girl from Mexico.  She's here in the USA, working at a restaurant here in my town.  Before you go there, no, she's not an illegal.  She actually comes from a wealthy family in Mexico, and she's here in part to help this new restaurant get started, and in part for the adventure of working abroad.  She is the sweetest person I've met in a long time, the kind of person that puts others first.  At 24, I'd have to say she is still a little naive and innocent, certainly about how malicious other people can be.  I couldn't believe the jackassery that led to her night in jail.

The day started simply enough with her and her roommate moving from a duplex to an apartment.  The duplex had been sold, so her neighbor was also moving.  Their duplex opens to a common front porch, and they were both using it to stage boxes as they were loading up.   Have you figured out what happened yet?   Yep, she ended up with not one, but two of her neighbor's boxes.  Ya know, those damn illegals, ya can't trust 'em, right.  So, the neighbor figures out she has his boxes and he takes his stoned ass up to her work and demands them back.  Of course, he takes the opportunity to accuse her of being a dirty illegal in the process.   I can totally understand how violated this stoner dude must have felt when she refused to leave her job that very moment to go home and find his boxes and get them back to him.  Heaven forbid he should have to wait 'til she got off work or the next day even.

So, you might have figured out by now that stoner dude calls the police on her.  Two of Jarrell's finest show up to sort out this mess.   I don't even feel like taking the time to explain the back story of Jarrell city politics, but if you've ever seen the Dukes of Hazard, you don't need me to.   Anyway, the police side with the white stoner dude and haul my friend off to jail.  She said she cried for 5 hours straight there.  "People are mean to me...(there)", as she said.  Her friend didn't get arrested but got so scared that she left.  Her boss did bail her out, but now she is pretty much alone, scared, and stuck in the USA until she can get a court date.

We sometimes like to get on our high horse and rant about this or that, like illegals for example.   Certainly we hear on the news all the time about how bad illegals are and how we need to build a fence ... excuse me, I believe "secure our borders" is the proper phrase now.  Well, when you're listening to a scared shitless kid tell you about her 1st night in jail, you start to see how those attitudes affect real people.  That's just wrong.  I hate to think what would have happened to her if she were poor and/or illegal.  People are people, and were all in this life together.  Come on now, let's stop hatin' on each other.   Can't we all just get along?

Another Texas Millionaire Supports Rick Perry for President

I picked up the local newspaper for my town the other day, and the front page story was about a local businessman.  The article was about his efforts to promote Rick Perry for president.  The paper had a nice picture of him next to the "Support Rick Perry for President" bumper stickers he was putting on all of his company trucks.


Because of that evil FaceBook phenomenon, any time I see the name "Rick Perry" these days, the first thing I have to do is shake this image out of my head:

But in all seriousness, I agree with the guy for trying to help get Governor Perry on up to the White House.  Governor Perry would be a heap better than the other guy with the pretty hair ... that New England-er Romney.


There is another GOP presidential hopeful from Texas though.  His initials happen to be R.P. also, but his ideas are quite different.   Anyway, just in case their are a few folks out there who aren't multi-bazillionaires, perhaps you want to check out what the other R.P. stands for.


If you've ever been annoyed that you can't buy a candy bar for a nickel anymore, the other R.P. from Texas is the guy that can explain why.  He's also the only one to stand up and say that you have a right to keep what you earn.   That's a handy concept for those of us who are a little lower on the totem pole.


Liberty is good and freedom works!

Why it is always good to try something new

I had more fun shopping at the grocery store today than at any other time in recent memory.   Happiness really is contagious!  It started in the produce section with a pair of young adult women.  They were working together to fill up their cart with healthy vegetables.   Their enthusiasm was subtle, but there was a definite glow of joy and excitement on their faces.   I noticed because grocery shopping is just one of those normally mundane sort of chores that I just have to do.   So, their slightly giddy behavior did seem a little out of place.

Imagine my surprise before I got to the cheese section:  there went another happy pair of young ladies doing their grocery shopping.   You'd think they were on an episode of "The Amazing Race" or something.  Well, more subtle than that, but they were chipper enough to make me ask myself, "OK, what gives with the happy chics in the store today?"

I got to the checkout, and two dudes put their cart in line behind me.  I'm not surprised to see a look of shear joy plastered on their faces at this point.  Heck, I was feeling pretty good myself by this time.   Finally, I figured out what was going on.   So, if anyone has it figured out, leave a comment.   I'll tell you if you get it right.