You can sign up at www.congress.org to easily contact your members of congress and join the fight. Without our input these special interests will have their failing business model protected at the expense of the tax payers.
Senator.
I am writing to express my opposition to SOPA and its sister bill PIPA. As
a conservative voter, I am opposed to government regulation of this sort.
The kind of regulation that is over-reaching, will be ineffective, will
place an undue burden and added cost onto the American citizen. As you
well know, regulatory compliance costs will always be passed onto the
American consumer for this kind of effort and will afford NO benefit to
any of us as it fails to address the true problems facing Big Media.
I understand that you receive a lot of money from Big Media but this is no
excuse to compromise your principals and suddenly support regulation. I
will most certainly be looking for another candidate to challenge you
during your next election cycle, one that cannot be bought by Hollywood,
one that believes in smaller government and less regulation and one that
understands that the fight against piracy is that of the Big Media
companies and not that of the American taxpayer. Whether that candidate is
you depends on the decisions you make in the coming weeks. You either take
your Hollywood money and support massive global regulation or you use
common sense and find another solution.
You fight casual piracy with VALUE and availability. Make products
available and at a reasonable cost and you will sell the product. Apple
proved this with iTunes in the USA. Unfortunately, Big Media still hasn’t
got the message! Television shows are unavailable through iTunes in some
countries. In Canada, for example, a consumer doesn’t have access to
purchase the American television shows that they want to watch because Big
Media refuse to license their “valuable” content there. They have
themselves to blame for casual piracy and should take a long look within
to truly understand why this closed model is failing. People will always
find the content they choose to consume, it’s up to Big Media to get into
the game and make it easily accessible at a good value so that consumers
have an option other than BitTorrent. This is the only thing that will
combat casual piracy.
Mass piracy is a different matter. We have existing laws to deal with
this. They should be enforced but the financial burden should fall onto
the Big Media companies and not the American tax payer, we shouldn’t have
to finance their failing business model.
I expect you to withdraw your support of SOPA and work to find a common
sense solution to the problem rather than a draconian effort to lock down
the internet and punish innocent American. A solution that puts the onus
and financial responsibility onto the Big Media companies that you are
trying to protect. A solution that protects the American Citizen from the
burden of regulation and the judicial brutality of these irresponsible,
out of touch companies.
Sincerely,
The entertainment industry has fought against that kind of user convenience every step of the way.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was all about trying to ban cassette tapes and VHS so that consumers couldn’t record songs off the radio or movies off of broadcast TV. In the late 1990s, when DVDs and MP3 players first hit the market, the industry made sure to wrap DVDs in layers of copy protection and tried to ban digital music players (ask Apple how that one worked out).
Remember the nearly decade-long, drawn-out battle between the RIAA and the rest of Earth? It sued Napster out of existence, pursued further suits against teenagers and old ladies, and tried its damnedest to thwart Apple’s efforts at digital music distribution. As recently as a few years ago, songs sold on the iTunes Store were still encumbered with DRM restrictions — at the insistence of the major labels and against Apple’s wishes — but those restrictions have since disappeared, and the iTunes Store is now the number one seller of music in several parts of the world.
The film, television, and music industries have fought tooth and nail against technologies and distribution methods that emphasize user convenience over distributor control for the past 50 years, and they’ve funneled millions of dollars into Congress in order to get laws like the DMCA, SOPA, and PROTECT-IP passed. The end result of the DMCA itself has been a confusing, Balkanized landscape as far as online media distribution goes, and it hasn’t affected piracy in the slightest.
For all their intentions, neither SOPA or PROTECT-IP are likely to measurably impact piracy either; instead, they will make it easier for the entertainment industry to abuse its already outlandish influence over the US government, and it will make it easier for the US government to undermine the very foundation of the Internet.
http://i.tuaw.com/2012/01/18/tuaw-on-sopa-and-pipa-what-they-are-and-why-were-against-them/
Show me something I’ve never seen and I promise I’ll be right there waiting #nowplaying
I switched to AT&T recently, their only option for SMS was a $240 per year unlimited plan. Think about that. People are paying $240 per year, $480 over a two year contract just to send SMS messages! Fuck that!
I can send and receive SMS using my google voice number for free. I have every IM client known to man, I have KIK, Facebook Messenger and on and on. There are a ton of ways to reach me, including a phone call itself. Why am I going to pay AT&T $480 when I can do it for free? People are stupid I guess.
It appears that the United Kingdom as adopted a rather draconian system of government that will not tolerate free speech. A Scottish man was just jailed for 8 months for “words”, no more, no less, just words. I have to say, this terrifies me.
The fact is the writers of the Bible, the Holy Koran, any religious tome would today be jailed in the UK for their personal views. So what is next? Today its religious speech, Tomorrow it could be political speech. Imagine a conversation in the Pub, politics, religion, terrorism, anything really, someone takes offence and suddenly the Police come in and haul you off for “hate speech”. Did anyone get hurt? Or was it merely a few feelings that got scratched? Where does it end?
Too many countries are currently persecuting their citizens for not conforming, to the point of murder in some African nations. I guess we can add the UK to that list of nations that won’t tolerate freedom.
Next time you have an opinion and say “It’s a Free Country” you might want to think twice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15333744
I just deactivated my FaceBook account because of the privacy/visibility changes that appeared with the latest layout change. Gone is my ability to choose who sees my status updates, photos or anything else for that matter. I’m even seeing photos for people that I’m not friends with, for that matter have never heard of! I know privacy on FaceBook was questionable to begin with but now its non-existent.
First of all, let’s set out that the case has been going on for twenty years.
Second, let’s point out that two witnesses at Davis’s trial testified under oath that Troy Davis admitted to the shooting.
Yes, those witnesses have now, twenty years and much badgering by anti-death penalty advocates later, recanted. A federal judge spent two days reviewing the evidence and the testimony last year and issued a 172 page order explaining why the witnesses recanting was “smoke and mirrors.”
one of the chief nuggets of the case is that there was no physical evidence. Except that is crap. There is the matter of Troy Davis’s bloody clothes that you’ve probably never heard of.
There was a .38 caliber gun. Both Troy Davis and the man Davis’s team claims in the real murderer, Sylvester Coles, had a .38 caliber gun.
Davis’s gun had been used in another shooting and the gun casing were linked between both shootings. Everyone likes to gloss over that. They point out that the man who claimed Davis fired on him has now recanted — yet again 20 years later.
But here are some additional facts — if we’re going to deal with things that weren’t in contention twenty years ago.
The federal courts and state courts in Georgia have all denied Davis’s appeal. Prior to 2008, Georgia’s Supreme Court was decidedly liberal and even they passed.
For the first time in 50 years the United States Supreme Court ordered a federal court to conduct an entire rehearing of all the evidence. The court did and found all the new stuff was, again, “smoke and mirrors,” including the retracted confessions. And while building the case to claim that Sylvester Coles was the real murderer, the defense would not call Coles in for examination.
But then there is Officer MacPhail himself and what the defense all too conveniently forgets to bring up. Officer MacPhail “testified” at Troy Davis’s murder trial. See, MacPhail, an Army Ranger and police officer was working a second job that night as a security guard. He chased Davis and Sylvester Coles, who were assaulting a homeless man over a beer.
MacPhail reported in that he had run passed Sylvester Coles. MacPhail was shot from the front in the chest and face — not from behind where Coles was, but from the front where MacPhail himself located Troy Davis.
And then, if we really want to get into the weeds and talk about facts, consider this fact. Troy Davis immediately became the suspect and fled. Police roped off his house, obtained entry, and searched the home. In the laundry they found Troy Davis’s shorts from that night with evidence on the clothing directly tying him to Officer MacPhail’s murder — Officer MacPhail’s blood.
According to Darrell Collins, who is now recanting everything or claiming not to remember anything, Davis admitted to Collins that Davis had shot MacPhail in the chest and then went back to shoot MacPhail in the head at close range because MacPhail had seen his face — hence MacPhail’s blood on Davis’s shorts. Oh, and at the time Collins gave his statement way back in 1989 it was not public knowledge that Officer MacPhail had been shot in the chest and then at close range in the face.
(remember as well that there were 34 witnesses, not the 9 as claimed. The defense claims seven witnesses changed their testimony. That’s actually not true. Only two materially changed their testimony and Davis’s attorneys refused to present those two in federal court in 2010 to be examined in the evidentiary hearing even though they sat outside the courtroom door. Among the eyewitnesses were three airmen in the Air Force in a bus who had prime viewing for the murder and all identified Troy Davis as the wearer of the white Batman t-shirt, which is what the murderer wore)
Of course, this justice system that is supposedly about to carry out a travesty of justice ordered Davis’s shorts excluded as evidence from the trial because the police did not get a search warrant. So anti-death penalty advocates can conveniently say there is no physical evidence by discounting the gun, the casings, and ignoring Officer MacPhail’s blood on Troy Davis’s clothes found in Troy Davis’s laundry all because the very same court system that found him guilty without that physical evidence followed the law and excluded it.
Troy Davis is a cop killer and I’m perfectly fine with his execution
Prior to the Bush cuts the top 1% or earners paid 25% of all taxes. After the cuts they paid 39% of all taxes.
Prior to the Bush tax cuts the top 5% paid 44% of all taxes, after the cuts they paid 60%.
2004 (after the tax cuts) was the highest economic growth in 20 years because of the cuts.
The economy added 5 million jobs in the first 2 years after the tax cuts.
@BarackObama All of these numbers come from your IRS & are published on their website. If you’re serious about jobs, cut taxes. The worlds highest corp taxes don’t work. Oppressive taxes on wealth don’t work. Learn your history.
US Budget Fiasco.
Global Warmists everywhere quiver in fear of losing their welfare payments after new CERN discovery.
The Sun, not Man, Causes Climate Change Shocker – Telegraph Blogs http://tgr.ph/n0odJX
The problem for the leftists is that you can’t have massive global wealth redistribution without the myth of global warming, so the global warmists & the director of CERN (a political appointee) will do their best to cover up the science.
- UN IPCC Official Admits ‘We Redistribute World’s Wealth By Climate Policy’ | NewsBusters.org http://bit.ly/r855BL
- NASA’s Hansen to Obama: Use Global Warming to Redistribute Wealth | NewsBusters.org http://bit.ly/oJMif9
Continue with tumblr or switch to my resurrected blogger?
It’s not right, not OK
To say the words that you say
Maybe we’re better off this way
I’m not fine, I’m in pain
It’s harder everyday
Maybe we’re better off this way
It’s better that we break…
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror
alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are
“Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire
that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the
country’s military capability.
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and
have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon,
though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A
Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940
when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from
“Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a
“Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish
Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s cuts out their hearts, lads.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to
“Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat
Operations” and “Change Sides.”
The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to
“Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher
levels: “Invade a Neighbor” and “Lose.”
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat
they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.
These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy
can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to
“She’ll be alright, Mate.” Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I
think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is
canceled.” So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final
escalation level.
— John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person
Sound Advice.