The Only Good Government is No Government

Court upholds ban on medical marijuana | Health | Reuters

2007-03-15T11:26:00.000-04:00

Court upholds ban on medical marijuana | Health | Reuters

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California woman with an inoperable brain tumor may not smoke marijuana to ease her pain even though California voters have approved its medicinal use, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

In a much-watched test case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found there is no fundamental right to marijuana for medical purposes. The ruling agreed with a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The split three-judge opinion from Judge Harry Pregerson expressed sympathy for some arguments by plaintiff Angel Raich, 41, an Oakland resident whose doctor testified she could die if she stopped smoking pot. But the ruling backed the 1970 federal Controlled Substances Act barring marijuana.

So even though the citizenry of this country are more tolerant of marijuana and want it legalized, the government refuses to listen. Some "consent of the governed".

Websites Shut Down by the Government

2007-03-10T21:13:00.001-05:00

This page attempts to convey the chilling effect that responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have had on information availability on the Internet as well as some sense of the effect on people trying to provide this information.

read more | digg story

Dumbing-Down of America

2007-03-10T21:08:00.001-05:00

Test scores for high school students have been falling now for 40 years. In 1984, the Reagan administration issued "A Nation at Risk," documenting the deterioration of American public education. More trillions of dollars were thrown at the problem. And if one judged by the asserted toughening up of courses and rising grades of seniors....

read more | digg story

New York may ban iPods while crossing street - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

2007-02-08T18:01:00.000-05:00

New York may ban iPods while crossing street - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.

New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed “watch out” to no avail.

Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street...

Honestly, don't these bureaucrats have anything better to do with their time?

wcbstv.com - High Schoolers Buzzing Over In-School Alcohol Test

2007-01-31T11:07:00.000-05:00

wcbstv.com - High Schoolers Buzzing Over In-School Alcohol Test

PEQUANNOCK TOWNSHIP, N.J. Most high schoolers are used to taking all sorts of examinations in school, but a new test has parents and students alike buzzing about in controversy. School-administered alcohol tests have hit the hallways, but not everyone is trusting the results.

It's called the best test ever for finding "booze clues," and one of the first districts in the nation to get it is Pequannock Township in Morris County, New Jersey. High School Senior Chris Voulcz told CBS 2 he could be asked for a urine sample at any time.

"I have nothing to hide so I'd volunteer it for myself," Voulcz said.

Like the vast majority of his peers, Voulcz is automatically enrolled because he parks on campus and he's participates in a school activity, soccer. The test is the EtG urine test and scientists say it's more sensitive and telling than a Breathalyzer and other tests because it checks for ethyl glucuronide, which stays in your system for 80 hours.

"Anytime you have any sort of alcohol it's going to pick it up," Pequannock Schools Superintendent Dr. Larrie Reynolds said.

But not all students are as open to the test as Voulcz and believe it takes away from students' privacy.

"I don't think the school should be poking around into what you are doing on weekends and out of school," one student, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

The one who dares speak out against this invasion is so afraid of retribution by the school authorities, he dares not give his name.

What a sorry country we live in where those who truly believe in freedom and rights are scared silent.

As for the issue itself, this goes way over the line. What students do off campus is their own business, not the school's.

This is also a huge violation because a student's body and bodily fluids are their own property. No one has the right to walk up to someone else and demand that they submit urine samples and allow their car to be searched. I don't care if the students are parking on school property; their cars and bodies are still their own.

I really hope the ACLU sues over this.

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom

2006-12-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom

McCain Bill Is Lethal Injection For Internet Freedom
Exploits fear of sexual predators and basic misunderstanding of Internet to attack blogs critical of the warmongering agenda he fronts for

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, December 15, 2006

Republican Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards, effectively nixing the open exchange of ideas on the Internet, providing a lethal injection for unrestrained opinion, and acting as the latest attack tool to chill freedom of speech on the world wide web.

McCain's proposal, called the "Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act," encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.

Comment boards for specific articles are extremely popular and also notoriously hard to moderate. Popular articles often receive comments that run into the thousands over the course of time. In many cases, individuals hostile to the writer's argument deliberately leave obscene comments and images simply to sully the reputation of the website owners. Therefore under the terms of this bill, right-wing extremists from a website like Free Republic could effectively terminate a liberal leaning website like Raw Story by the act of posting a single photograph of a naked child. This precedent could be the kiss of death for blogs as we know them and its reverberations would negatively impact the entire Internet.

Under the banner of saving the children from sexual predators, McCain is obviously on a mission to stamp out the influence of the burgeoning blogosphere and its increasing hostility to the warmongering agenda that he fronts for.

"This constitutionally dubious proposal is being made apparently mostly based on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts," warns Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

McCain has publicly expressed his distaste for blogs in the past and this is why any protestation that he is simply aiming to "protect the children" with this legislation falls on deaf ears.

In a May 2006 speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, McCain attacked the blogosphere as a refuge of those only infatuated with self-expression. He was trying to minimize the importance of the last true outpost of freedom of speech, the Internet, and portray it as nothing more than a swap shop for egos and hyperbole.

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So if the blogosphere is nothing more than a bulletin board for self-important know it alls, what possible threat could that be to young children? Where is the evidence that kids are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs?

There is no evidence but that doesn't really matter when you consider that a sizable portion of Congress critters who will be voting on this legislation if it comes to pass, don't even know what the Internet itself is (it's not a big truck), never mind how it's used. And then a sizable majority of the remaining House members probably hate the blogosphere as much as McCain, because it has replaced the lapdog mainstream media in acting as the 4th estate in muckraker reporting, anti-war protest, and holding public officials to task.

In reality, sexual predators have always confined their grooming to live chat rooms, or in the case of Republican pervert Mark Foley, instant messaging and PDA's. Pedophiles are never going to leave a record of their sordid advances on message boards because in most cases, their IP address and location can be obtained immediately from the server log. And as reported by C Net, "Studies by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show the online sexual solicitation of minors has dropped in the past five years, despite the growth of social-networking services."

McCain's proposed bill is just another step in greasing the skids for Internet 2, a tightly controlled, regulated and privileged world wide web where government approval will be required just to run a blog.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and lead it down this path has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs.

- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.

- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

- In an interview with Fox News last month, Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."

- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

Guess who won't be getting my vote in 08. Honestly, don't these asshats have anything better to do than try and control every little thing people say and do. And of course it's "for the chyyyyyyyylllldrrrruuuuuuunnnnnnn!!!!!11111!!!".

Sorry, but when it comes down to it, if I have to choose between protecting my rights and protecting children, I'll choose my own rights every time.

GovTrack: H.R. 5295: Text of Legislation

2006-12-04T13:47:00.000-05:00

GovTrack: H.R. 5295: Text of Legislation

AN ACT
To protect students and teachers.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 2
2 This Act may be cited as the ``Student and Teacher
3 Safety Act of 2006''.
4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
5 Congress finds the following:
6 (1) The United States Department of Edu-
7 cation's National Center for Education Statistics re-
8 ported in the 2005 Indicators of School Crime and
9 Safety that in 2003 seventeen percent of students in
10 grades 9-12 reported they carried a weapon. Six per-
11 cent reported having carried a weapon on school
12 grounds.
13 (2) The same survey reported that 29 percent
14 of all students in grades 9-12 reported that someone
15 offered, sold, or gave them an illegal drug on school
16 property within the last 12 months.
17 (3) The United States Constitution's Fourth
18 Amendment guarantees ``the right of the people to
19 be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and ef-
20 fects, against unreasonable searches and seizures''.
21 (4) That while the Supreme Court affirmed the
22 Fourth Amendment's application to students in pub-
23 lic schools in New Jersey vs. TLO (1985), the Court
24 held that searches of students by school officials do
25 not require warrants issued by judges showing prob-

HR 5295 EH 3
1 able cause. The Court will ordinarily hold that such
2 a search is permissible if--
3 (A) there are reasonable grounds for sus-
4 pecting the search will reveal evidence that the
5 student violated the law or school rules; and
6 (B) the measures used to conduct the
7 search are reasonably related to the search's ob-
8 jectives, without being excessively intrusive in
9 light of the student's age, sex, and nature of
10 the offense.
11 (5) The Supreme Court held in Board of Edu-
12 cation of Independent Sch. Dist. 92 of Pottawatomie
13 County vs. Earls (2002) that random drug testing
14 of students who were participating in extracurricular
15 activities was reasonable and did not violate the
16 Fourth Amendment. The Court stated that such
17 search policies effectively serve the School Districts
18 interest in protecting its students' health and safety.
19 SEC. 3. SEARCHES BASED ON REASONABLE SUSPICION.

20 (a) IN GENERAL.--Each local educational agency
21 shall have in effect throughout the jurisdiction of the
22 agency policies that ensure that a search described in sub-
23 section (b) is deemed reasonable and permissible.
24 (b) SEARCHES COVERED.--A search referred to in
25 subsection (a) is a search by a full-time teacher or school

HR 5295 EH 4
1 official, acting on any reasonable suspicion based on pro-
2 fessional experience and judgment, of any minor student
3 on the grounds of any public school, if the search is con-
4 ducted to ensure that classrooms, school buildings, school
5 property and students remain free from the threat of all
6 weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics. The
7 measures used to conduct any search must be reasonably
8 related to the search's objectives, without being excessively
9 intrusive in light of the student's age, sex, and the nature
10 of the offense.
11 SEC. 4. ENCOURAGEMENT TO PROTECT STUDENTS AND
12 TEACHERS.
13 (a) IN GENERAL.--A local educational agency that
14 fails to comply with section 3 shall not, during the period
15 of noncompliance, receive any Safe and Drug Free School
16 funds after fiscal year 2008.
17 (b) DEFINITION.--In this section, the term ``Safe and
18 Drug Free School funds'' includes any funds under Part
19 A of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education
20 Act of 1965.
Passed the House of Representatives September 19,
2006.
Attest:

Clerk.
HR 5295 EH
109TH CONGRESS H. R. 5295
2D SESSION AN ACT
To protect students and teachers.

Beware of legislation designed to protect! That word is used to justify so many tyrannical rules. It "protects" children, it "protects" safety, etc. This has nothing to do with protecting students and teachers and everything to do with stripping high school students of their few remaining rights and liberties.

Parents, if you love or respect your children at all, get in contact with your representatives and express your outrage at this bill. If that fails, take your kids out of school.

Senate approves electronic ID card bill | Tech News on ZDNet

2006-10-28T15:26:00.000-04:00

Senate approves electronic ID card bill | Tech News on ZDNet

Last-minute attempts by online activists to halt an electronic ID card failed Tuesday when the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to impose a sweeping set of identification requirements on Americans.

The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses.

If the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, as expected, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.

Sounds like the Mark of the Beast to me.

BBC NEWS | Business | New system will 'block' gambling

2006-10-03T00:38:00.000-04:00

BBC NEWS | Business | New system will 'block' gambling

The US government is tipped to propose a system to identify and stop payment to gambling sites, say specialists.

The news comes after the US Congress passed a bill cracking down on internet gambling, sending shares in UK gambling sites plummeting on Monday.

By Monday close, Partygaming shares fell 58%, 888 Holdings tumbled by 26%, and Sportingbet shares fell 64%.

Some UK firms are looking at stopping bet-taking from US customers if the bill is signed into law.

It is expected that US President George W Bush could sign the bill into law within the next two weeks...

Because I'm too stupid to make my own choices about my own money. I need to be "protected".

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise

2006-07-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Taking your medicine at the point of a gun

By Jack Phillips

The state of Virginia is threatening Abraham Cherrix, a 16-year-old, with torture — chemotherapy — that he doesn’t want and that his parents do not want for him. His oncologist insists that this is what he needs, despite the fact that a previous series of chemotherapy treatments which supposedly “got it all” actually didn’t. What they did do was leave him so debilitated that his father had to carry him out of the hospital after treatment. He says, “I studied. I did research. I came to the conclusion that chemotherapy was not the route I wanted to take.” Another round at higher doses “would kill me.”

Nevertheless the Virginia Social Services Department, on the complaint of his attending physician, dragged his parents into court, where Judge Jesse E. Demps issued a temporary order finding his parents neglectful for not forcing their child to take more chemotherapy. They now share custody with the Accomack County Department of Social Services. Medical expenses involved with cancer treatments are substantial. Adding legal expenses on top of them is obscene. This family is now in debt to the tune of $100,000!

The Department of Social Services is willing and able to bankrupt this family to satisfy their physician. Furthermore, that department intends to appeal the case to a higher court if they lose, to insure that this family goes deeper into debt. Do we really need this kind of social service? And do we really want physicians to be able to call in the troops to enforce their orders against our judgment of what is best for our children? This case indicates that the mantra, “Doctors know best,” which might have been true in the past, may no longer be valid. Whatever happened to “FIRST, DO NO HARM!”

Unfortunately, there are abused children who need protection, and it is necessary to have something like Social Services to provide this. However, reports that about 100,000 of our children are disappearing without a trace yearly indicates that Social Services is not doing its job. Nevertheless, they find time to harass good people who are trying to do what they think best for their children — for example, the family of Katie Wernecke in Texas, who was forced to live with foster parents and have her immune system disabled with chemotherapy before the court would allow her parents to provide her with immune-system-enhancing vitamin C infusions. A recent Canadian Journal of Medicine reported several cases of cancer cured with vitamin C infusions, which works by reinforcing the immune system so that the body can heal itself as it was designed to do. Disabling Katie’s immune system with chemotherapy before vitamin C infusions was irrational.

These bureaucrats are very aggressive; one of my acquaintances almost lost custody of his six children in Connecticut while driving home through that state because five of them refused to talk to strangers (Social Services personnel) while he was in a hospital making sure that one of them was not seriously ill.

Our servants in Washington, D.C. and in statehouses across the country have woven a cocoon of laws around us to empower their minions, and government employment keeps increasing. There is no constituency for saving money in our government, but there are incentives for spending more. Borrowing money from foreigners to have it misspent by Social Services departments makes no sense. It seems to me that our “servants” need to be informed that this has to stop. At the very least, we need to have freedom of choice in medical care. Getting medical care at the point of a gun is not acceptable. This freedom of choice would have been part of our Constitution if George Washington’s surgeon general had had his way.

There are informed people in this country who believe that chemotherapy is barbaric and that oncologists are jackals among men. While chemotherapy does kill cancer cells, collateral damage to healthy cells and the immune system is substantial. Many successful treatments for cancer have been developed over the years which are far kinder and gentler, but they have been suppressed by the medical establishment. For example, low-dose, whole-body radiation treatments, successfully tested at Harvard Medical School in 1975 and again in 1977, cured non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In more recent times, Dr. Sakamoto ran a similar test in Japan, and about 84 percent of his patients were living 13 years after the treatment. When he himself was diagnosed with colon cancer, after surgery, he gave himself two courses of these treatments and recovered fully with no metasteses. I wonder how many physicians willingly undergo chemotherapy.

After Christopher Bird published his book about Gaston Naessen’s cancer research, and persecution and trial in Canada, many American physicians called him for his suggestions on cancer treatments. According to his notes, he asked why they didn’t want to use the approved therapies that they gave patients on themselves or their loved ones, and they answered that they didn’t work.

We have wasted billions of dollars and years of effort on cancer research with little to show for it. It seems to me that people need to start insisting that they get something more from their government than increasing debt and harassment. Let your representatives know what you think. Your vote is a powerful weapon if used properly. But remember Joseph Stalin’s dictum: “It is not who votes, but who counts the votes that counts.”

The Abraham Cherrix Defense Fund is administered by the R.B.C. Centura Bank at 2422 Princess Anne Road in Virginia Beach, VA 23456, for those who might wish to contribute.

Well said, Mr. Phillips. It's time for We the People to put our collective foot down and tell these jackals in the government to back off and leave families alone.

Judge Orders Teen to Cancer Treatment - Forbes.com

2006-07-22T18:08:00.000-04:00

Judge Orders Teen to Cancer Treatment - Forbes.com

A judge ruled Friday that a 16-year-old boy fighting to use alternative treatment for his cancer must report to a hospital by Tuesday and accept treatment that doctors deem necessary, the family's attorney said.

The judge also found Starchild Abraham Cherrix's parents were neglectful for allowing him to pursue alternative treatment of a sugar-free, organic diet and herbal supplements supervised by a clinic in Mexico, lawyer John Stepanovich said.

Jay and Rose Cherrix of Chincoteague on Virginia's Eastern Shore must continue to share custody of their son with the Accomack County Department of Social Services, as the judge had previously ordered, Stepanovich said.

The parents were devastated by the new order and planned to appeal, the lawyer said.

So this young man, who in two years will be considered adult enough vote isn't adult enough to know what's best for his own body? What the hell is wrong with these government people? Who gave them the authority to tell families what to do, and people what to do with their own lives? Where do they get off playing God with this young man's health and family life? So what if he's a "minor"? He's old enough to drive a car, for fuck's sake! A century ago, he would've been a man and had a family of his own. This is just too much.

Gary Leupp: "Just a Goddamned Piee of Paper"

2006-07-14T20:13:00.000-04:00

Gary Leupp: "Just a Goddamned Piee of Paper"

Doug Thompson, publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, says he's talked to three people present last month when Republican Congressional leaders met with President Bush in the Oval Office to talk about renewing the Patriot Act. That act, passed by legislators who hadn't read it, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 (when most people were shell-shocked and lawmakers in particular disinclined to use their brains), has of course been criticized as containing unconstitutional elements. All three GOP politicians quote their president as saying: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"...

So our Commander in Chief shows his true colors! Those words are treason!

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times

2006-07-12T17:14:00.000-04:00

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times

Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.
By Charlotte Allen, CHARLOTTE ALLEN is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."
July 9, 2006

The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.

Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.

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Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating.

It is not entirely coincidental that at about the same time that Episcopalians, at their general convention in Columbus, Ohio, were thumbing their noses at a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion that they "repent" of confirming the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire three years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA, at its general assembly in Birmingham, Ala., was turning itself into the laughingstock of the blogosphere by tacitly approving alternative designations for the supposedly sexist Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Among the suggested names were "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer and Friend." Moved by the spirit of the Presbyterian revisionists, Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a "Name That Trinity" contest. Entries included "Rock, Scissors and Paper" and "Larry, Curly and Moe."

Following the Episcopalian lead, the Presbyterians also voted to give local congregations the freedom to ordain openly cohabiting gay and lesbian ministers and endorsed the legalization of medical marijuana. (The latter may be a good idea, but it is hard to see how it falls under the theological purview of a Christian denomination.)

The Presbyterian Church USA is famous for its 1993 conference, cosponsored with the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other mainline churches, in which participants "reimagined" God as "Our Maker Sophia" and held a feminist-inspired "milk and honey" ritual designed to replace traditional bread-and-wine Communion.

As if to one-up the Presbyterians in jettisoning age-old elements of Christian belief, the Episcopalians at Columbus overwhelmingly refused even to consider a resolution affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord. When a Christian church cannot bring itself to endorse a bedrock Christian theological statement repeatedly found in the New Testament, it is not a serious Christian church. It's a Church of What's Happening Now, conferring a feel-good imprimatur on whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct.

You want to have gay sex? Be a female bishop? Change God's name to Sophia? Go ahead. The just-elected Episcopal presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a one-woman combination of all these things, having voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the Columbus convention and invited former Newark, N.J., bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ's divinity, to address her priests.

When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

It doesn't help matters that the mainline churches were pioneers in ordaining women to the clergy, to the point that 25% of all Episcopal priests these days are female, as are 29% of all Presbyterian pastors, according to the two churches. A causal connection between a critical mass of female clergy and a mass exodus from the churches, especially among men, would be difficult to establish, but is it entirely a coincidence? Sociologist Rodney Stark ("The Rise of Christianity") and historian Philip Jenkins ("The Next Christendom") contend that the more demands, ethical and doctrinal, that a faith places upon its adherents, the deeper the adherents' commitment to that faith. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which preach biblical morality, have no trouble saying that Jesus is Lord, and they generally eschew women's ordination. The churches are growing robustly, both in the United States and around the world.

Despite the fact that median Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches is 80 worshipers, the Episcopal Church, as a whole, is financially equipped to carry on for some time, thanks to its inventory of vintage real estate and huge endowments left over from the days (no more!) when it was the Republican Party at prayer. Furthermore, it has offset some of its demographic losses by attracting disaffected liberal Catholics and gays and lesbians. The less endowed Presbyterian Church USA is in deeper trouble. Just before its general assembly in Birmingham, it announced that it would eliminate 75 jobs to meet a $9.15-million budget cut at its headquarters, the third such round of job cuts in four years.

The Episcopalians have smells, bells, needlework cushions and colorfully garbed, Catholic-looking bishops as draws, but who, under the present circumstances, wants to become a Presbyterian?

Still, it must be galling to Episcopal liberals that many of the parishes and dioceses (including that of San Joaquin, Calif.) that want to pull out of the Episcopal Church USA are growing instead of shrinking, have live people in the pews who pay for the upkeep of their churches and don't have to rely on dead rich people. The 21-year-old Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, for example, is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country. Its 2,200 worshipers on any given Sunday are about equal to the number of active Episcopalians in Jefferts Schori's entire Nevada diocese.

It's no surprise that Christ Church, like the other dissident parishes, preaches a very conservative theology. Its break from the national church came after Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion, proposed a two-tier membership in which the Episcopal Church USA and other churches that decline to adhere to traditional biblical standards would have "associate" status in the communion. The dissidents hope to retain full communication with Canterbury by establishing oversight by non-U.S. Anglican bishops.

As for the rest of the Episcopalians, the phrase "deck chairs on the Titanic" comes to mind. A number of liberal Episcopal websites are devoted these days to dissing Peter Akinola, outspoken primate of the Anglican diocese of Nigeria, who, like the vast majority of the world's 77 million Anglicans reported by the Anglican Communion, believes that "homosexual practice" is "incompatible with Scripture" (those words are from the communion's 1998 resolution at the Lambeth conference of bishops). Akinola might have the numbers on his side, but he is now the Voldemort — no, make that the Karl Rove — of the U.S. Episcopal world. Other liberals fume over a feeble last-minute resolution in Columbus calling for "restraint" in consecrating bishops whose lifestyle might offend "the wider church" — a resolution immediately ignored when a second openly cohabitating gay man was nominated for bishop of Newark.

So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.

Any church that denies the divinity of Christ and calls God Sophia is no church I'll associate with.

Google Watch : When Google Becomes Pay to Play

2006-06-12T20:08:00.000-04:00

Google Watch : When Google Becomes Pay to Play

Imagine paying to use Google search.

The notion is deservedly absurd right now. But that landmark day may come, and it may be traced to present-day legislative and legal wrangling over how neutral the Internet is to be.

The ongoing net neutrality fight, in U.S. courts, the Senate and Congress, is over whether companies that own the networks delivering Internet access have any say as to what goes over the pipes. To a large degree, they really don't.

Should the likes of AT&T and Verizon Communications have their way, any network owner would be able to, say, create a kind of commuter lane to guarantee a speedy delivery to customers.

That would mean a new expense for the likes of Google, Yahoo, AOL and other Internet firms, which will surely pay up in order to remain competitive.

Eventually, the expense could become so burdensome, the folks in Mountain View, Calif., and elsewhere would be forced to pass on some, or all, of it to customers.

There are a lot of factors at work that could steer the future in any number of different directions, so there's no guarantee anyone will ever have to pay to use Google.

Yet there's an argument to be made that a day could come when the Google bill goes in the mail, or you'll be Googling per hour at wireless Internet hot spots, and cable operators add $5-a-month unlimited Googling to their steeply discounted quintuple play of services.

Just what would it be like to subscribe to Google? Given Google's ethos, it's a safe bet the experience will be painless, and have a certain Quakerish-look to it.

The biggest unknown in all this involves how much network owners would charge the likes of Google, so the degree of possible financial burden is a mystery.

For argument's sake, say Google has to pay Comcast a penny a search. That translates to a fee, just to Comcast, of about $5 million a month. There are a dozen or so major Internet providers in the United States alone, and scores, if not hundreds, worldwide.

So the price of a speedy Internet delivery in the United States for Google and Yahoo, the two major search engines, would amount to an annual fee in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That's a burden, even for these two revenue machines.

History provides examples of the same present-day forces at Google's heels shifting other technology industries from being largely free to coming with strings attached.

One such industry is Internet telephony. In the wake of each courtroom and legislative loss, many providers were forced to have customers foot the bill to meet the expenses of abiding by new rules and regulations.

posted on Monday, June 12, 2006 8:25 PM by Ben Charny

If Google becomes pay-to-play, I walk.

U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records - New York Times

2006-06-02T17:20:00.000-04:00

U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records - New York Times

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By SAUL HANSELL and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 2, 2006

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.
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The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.

The attorney general has appointed a task force of department officials to explore the issue, and that group is holding another meeting with a broader group of Internet executives today, Mr. Roehrkasse said. The department also met yesterday with a group of privacy experts.

The Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures, Mr. Roehrkasse said.

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.

The proposal and the initial meeting were first reported by USA Today and CNet News.com.

The department proposed that the records be retained for as long as two years. Most Internet companies discard such records after a few weeks or months.In its current proposal, the department appears to be trying to determine whether Internet companies will voluntarily agree to keep certain information or if it will need to seek legislation to require them to do so.

The request comes as the government has been trying to extend its power to review electronic communications in several ways. The New York Times reported in December that the National Security Agency had gained access to phone and e-mail traffic with the cooperation of telecommunications companies, and USA Today reported last month that the agency had collected telephone calling records. The Justice Department has subpoenaed information on Internet search patterns — but not the searches of individuals — as it tries to defend a law meant to protect children from pornography.

In a speech in April, Mr. Gonzales said that investigations into child pornography had been hampered because Internet companies had not always kept records that would help prosecutors identify people who traded in illegal images.

"The investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of Internet service providers," Mr. Gonzales said in remarks at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. "This evidence will be available for us to use only if the providers retain the records for a reasonable amount of time," he said.

An executive of one Internet provider that was represented at the first meeting said Mr. Gonzales began the discussion by showing slides of child pornography from the Internet. But later, one participant asked Mr. Mueller why he was interested in the Internet records. The executive said Mr. Mueller's reply was, "We want this for terrorism."

At the meeting with privacy experts yesterday, Justice Department officials focused on wanting to retain the records for use in child pornography and terrorism investigations. But they also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session.

"It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement," Mr. Rotenberg said.

Kate Dean, the executive director of the United States Internet Service Provider Association, a trade group, said: "When they said they were talking about child pornography, we spent a lot of time developing proposals for what could be done. Now they are talking about a whole different ball of wax."

At the meeting with privacy groups, officials sought to assuage concerns that the retention of the records could compromise the privacy of Americans. But Mr. Rotenberg said he left with lingering concerns.

"This is a sharp departure from current practice," he said. "Data retention is an open-ended obligation to retain all information on all customers for all purposes, and from a traditional Fourth Amendment perspective, that really turns things upside down."

Executives of several Internet companies that participated in the first meeting said the department's initial proposals seemed expensive and unwieldy.

At the meeting scheduled for today with executives of Internet access companies, Justice Department officials plan to go into more detail about what types of records they would like to see retained and for how long, said a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It will be much more nuts-and-bolts discussions," he said, adding that the department would stop short of offering formal proposals.

So this is what it comes down to. They want to de-gut the Fourth Amendment to "protect the chiiiiillldddryyuunnnnn". Fuck the children! My right to privacy is more important!

Congress targets social network sites | CNET News.com

2006-05-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

Congress targets social network sites | CNET News.com

MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are the potential targets for a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users.

High Impact
What's new:

A proposed federal law would effectively require schools and libraries to render social networking sites inaccessible to minors.
Bottom line:

Law would likely affect more than just social networking sites. Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant messaging features might be included in proposal's definition.
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"When children leave the home and go to school or the public library and have access to social-networking sites, we have reason to be concerned," Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNET News.com in an interview.

Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation (click here for PDF) that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.

That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.

Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters. Republican pollster John McLaughlin polled 22 suburban districts and presented his research at a retreat earlier this year. Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, is co-sponsoring the measure.

The group, which is calling itself the "Suburban Caucus," convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce new legislation it hopes will rally conservative supporters--and prevent the Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives during the November mid-term election.
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick

For its part, MySpace has taken steps in recent weeks to assuage concerns among parents and politicians (Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly also took aim at MySpace this week). It has assigned about 100 employees, about one-third of its workforce, to deal with security and customer care, and hired Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, a former Justice Department prosecutor as chief security officer last month.

"We have been working collaboratively on security and safety issues with an array of government agencies, law enforcement and educational groups, nonprofits and leading child safety organizations," said Rick Lane, vice president for government affairs at MySpace owner News Corp. "We've also met with several state and federal legislators and are working with them to address their concerns. We hope this healthy dialogue will continue."

Fitzpatrick, who represents a suburban district outside Philadelphia, acknowledged that MySpace "is working" on this. Still, he said, children are "unattended on the Internet through the course of the day" when they're at libraries and schools.

"My bill is both timely and needed and will be very well-accepted, certainly by the constituents I represent," Fitzpatrick said.

Backers of the proposal argue that it's necessary to protect children. Hastert said on Wednesday that it "would put filters in schools and libraries so that kids can be protected... We've all heard stories of children on some of these social Web sites meeting up with dangerous predators. This legislation adds another layer of protection.

To curb teenage access to interactive Web sites, Republicans chose to target libraries and schools by expanding a federal law called the Children's Internet Protection Act.

That law, signed by President Clinton in December 2000, requires schools and libraries that receive federal funding to block access to off-color materials. Librarians challenged it in federal court on First Amendment grounds, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law by a 6-3 vote in June 2003.

DOPA would add an additional requirement. It says that libraries, elementary and secondary schools must prohibit "access to a commercial social-networking Web site or chat room through which minors" may access sexual material or be "subject to" sexual advances. Those may be made available to an adult or a minor with adult supervision "for educational purposes."

Lynne Bradley, director of the American Library Association's office of government relations, said she was still reviewing the legislation. She added that: "We're as protective of kids as any other protection in this whole field, but we do know there are legitimate uses (of social-networking sites)."

"ALA is always in favor of having quality and detailed education on how best to use the Internet and these other digital tools and the best user is an informed user that knows the risks, how to avoid them, and knows how to keep him or herself safe," Bradley said.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, there have been 25,707 agreements to provide federal funding to school districts or individual schools, and 3,902 agreements to libraries or library systems. The ALA estimates that as many as two-thirds of libraries receive federal funding and would be affected by DOPA.

DOPA would also require the Federal Trade Commission to set up a Web site about the "potential dangers posed by the use of the Internet by children" and order the Federal Communications Commission to create a committee and publish a list of Web sites "that have been known to allow sexual predators" access to minors' personal information.

Rosa Aronson, director of advocacy for the National Association of Secondary School Principals also said her organization did not currently have a position on DOPA.

"We are grappling with the tension between promoting our normal policy, which is to promote local control for schools, and on the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of protection of students," Aronson said.

Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the free-market Progress & Freedom Foundation, was not as reticent. "This is the next major battlefield in the ongoing Internet censorship wars: social- networking Web sites," he said.

"Many in government will want to play the role of cyber traffic cop here, just as they have for other types of speech on the Internet," Thierer said, adding that it will "chill legitimate forms of speech or expression online."
In other news:

* Keeping computers under control
* Vonage future looks troubled
* Microsoft rethinks PC rating tool
* News.com Extra: Women gain prominence in game world
* Video: Whacking to a new Mac app

Laws restricting Web sites tend to be challenged in the courts. The ALA, for instance, sued to overturn the Communications Decency Act in 1996 and the library-filtering requirement a few years later.

But DOPA seems to have been written to benefit from the high court's 2003 ruling that library filtering was permissible. Bob Corn-Revere, a partner at the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine who has argued before the Supreme Court, said the eventual fate of DOPA may depend on whether it's implemented narrowly or broadly.

Even so, Corn-Revere said, "treating MySpace sites like poison seems like an extreme overreaction."

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report.

These guys are seriously fucked in the head. Why is everything always about "protecting the children"? And since when the hell were high schoolers children? Most users are over 14 and sure as hell aren't little kids who need to be babied and led around by the hand.

Seems like these thugs are never satisified. I'm surprised they haven't made a move to ban teens from having any online presence at all (including email addresses and IM handles) and only allow them to access it for homework research.

ARTICLE: Teen refuses court-ordered test to check cancer status (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

2006-05-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

ARTICLE: Teen refuses court-ordered test to check cancer status (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

NORFOLK - Fifteen-year-old Abraham Starchild Cherrix never intended to challenge the medical establishment when he refused chemotherapy earlier this year.

He simply believed the treatment was poisoning him, rather than saving him from Hodgkin's disease. What he wanted was a more natural approach, which he sought through an alternative treatment clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.

That decision has led to a courtroom battle, accusations of parental neglect and the possibility of being removed from his Chincoteague home...

Good for this young man! He's not just listening to the Man's bullshit. He's standing up for his beliefs and his rights. We need more like him.

ABC News: House OKs Oil Drilling in Alaska Refuge

2006-05-25T16:27:00.000-04:00

ABC News: House OKs Oil Drilling in Alaska Refuge

WASHINGTON May 25, 2006 (AP)— Citing the public outcry over $3-a-gallon gasoline and America's heavy reliance on foreign oil, the House on Thursday voted to open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, knowing the prospects for Senate approval were slim.

Drilling proponents argued that the refuge on Alaska's North Slope would provide 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic oil at peak production and reduce the need for imports...

Way to go morons! The answer is to get off oil altogether, not fucking drill for it in our national parks! Cars that run on diesel can easily be converted to run on cooking oil. But oh no, the oil companies have their vested interest and will squash any attempt to get off oil. Why? Because vegetable/cooking oil is free. If everyone fueled their cars with that, it'd put the oil companies out of business and the politicians like Bush would lose their biggest financial supporters.

CNN.com - Court frees runaway teen witness - May 23, 2006

2006-05-24T15:11:00.000-04:00

CNN.com - Court frees runaway teen witness - May 23, 2006

AKRON, Ohio (AP) -- An appeals court ordered the release of a 14-year-old girl who had been jailed for 12 days after she ran away to avoid testifying against the man accused of molesting her.

The state's 9th District Court of Appeals ruled Monday that she should not have been held without a hearing or placed in an adult jail. She was released after the ruling...

I'm proud of her. She's standing up for youth rights.

Mexico's Fox backs down on drug law - Yahoo! News

2006-05-03T22:59:00.000-04:00

Mexico's Fox backs down on drug law - Yahoo! News

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In a surprise reversal, Mexican President
Vicente Fox will not sign widely criticized narcotics legislation to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, his office said on Wednesday.
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The president's office said the law, which also toughened sentences for dealing and holding larger amounts of the intoxicants, would be sent back to Congress for revision.

"In our country the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, crimes," the office said in a statement.

Fox's decision was unexpected, given that the legislation was initially designed by his office and introduced by his party. This week, his spokesman praised the law and insisted the president would quickly sign it, despite rumblings of discontent from Washington.

The legislation, passed by Congress last week, shocked Mexico's northern neighbor, which counts on its support in a war against gangs that move massive quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines through Mexico to U.S. consumers.

It was also criticized by authorities in Mexican tourist towns who worried about a flood of hard-partying U.S. thrill seekers attracted by the new, lenient rules.

I smell a dirty play by the US government in this. It's not in their interests to have a neighboring country allowing drugs. They've also been on Canada's ass for leaning toward the decriminalization of marijuana.

Shame on you Senor Fox, for caving in to the authoritarian American government!

FDA speaks out against marijuana legalization�|�Reuters.com

2006-04-21T15:16:00.000-04:00

FDA speaks out against marijuana legalization�|�Reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will publish a statement on Friday criticizing state measures to legalize the medical use of marijuana, calling them attempts to bypass scientific review.

The agency said it was posting the statement in response to requests from lawmakers and others, but advocates for legalizing marijuana said the FDA was making an unusual and inappropriate foray into politics.

"In response to inquiries, including from Congress, we are clarifying our position on the science," said FDA spokeswoman Susan Bro in an interview.

"The FDA continues to support medical researchers whose intention is to undertake rigorous, peer-reviewed investigations and well-controlled clinical trials, in line with the FDA's drug approval process," she added in an e-mail.

But Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project said he was puzzled by the FDA's decision. "It's fascinating that they are making what strikes me as essentially a political move here," said Mirken in an interview.

"There are plenty of herbal products that people use ... that are not FDA-approved. It really sounds to me like the FDA is inappropriately intruding itself into a political process and I have to say I find it very sad."

The issue of the medical use of marijuana has been long contested on the state and federal level. Some patients with diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma say only the herb provides relief, and sometimes their doctors agree.

But the federal government maintains that FDA-approved drugs, including a synthetic form of the active ingredient in marijuana, are adequate for these patients. The Drug Enforcement Administration and prosecutors say the medical marijuana movement is a thinly disguised effort to allow for recreational use of the illegal drug...

Of course the FDA doesn't want it legalized. They'd miss that rush of adrenaline that comes from kicking down cancer patients' doors and arresting them at gunpoint.

Massachusetts to require health insurance

2006-04-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

Massachusetts to require health insurance

BOSTON -- Gov. Mitt Romney signed a groundbreaking measure Wednesday that makes Massachusetts the first state to mandate universal health care.

Supported by Democrats and Republicans in the state Legislature, the law requires residents to buy health insurance by July 1, 2007, just as drivers must have automobile coverage.

It aims to help low-income families buy private health insurance with subsidies and penalizes those who don't get coverage. It will help extend coverage to about 500,000 people in the state who lack health insurance, or about one in 13 residents.

The law has thrust the state to the forefront of a national debate over how to extend coverage to the millions of Americans without it. It's also a potential political coup for Romney as he weighs a possible run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

"Massachusetts is leading the way with health insurance for everyone, without a government takeover and without raising taxes," Romney said.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who attended the signing ceremony, praised Romney for giving the state "just what the doctor ordered."

HOW IT WORKS: The program is to be financed largely with millions that the state now spends on uncompensated medical care for poor people.

It will cost about $1.3 billion in public and private funding a year, but only $125 million will be new state money. The rest will come from some new funds and a relocation of existing money, including $650 million in federal funds, $320 million from insurance companies and hospitals and $50 million from penalties on businesses that don't provide insurance.

# People who don't have health insurance will have to buy it by mid-2007 or forfeit their individual state tax exemptions. Those who don't buy it after the second year would have to pay fines equal to half the cost of an affordable plan.

# Private insurance companies, working with state officials, will develop low-cost plans that people can buy on a pretax basis through a new state-run insurance exchange. The price isn't set, but state officials hope it will be about $200 a month.

# The legislation increases payments to hospitals and doctors and expands coverage for poor children through Medicaid.

# People who earn more than 300% of federal poverty levels -- $28,700 for a single person and about $60,000 for a family of four -- get no financial help.

# Companies with more than 10 workers that don't offer health insurance must pay the state $295 for each employee.

Romney used his line-item veto power to strike eight portions of the bill, including the $295 fee. Officials said some employers might consider it cheaper to pay the fee than to insure workers.

But legislative leaders said they would override any changes. Business and hospital leaders also criticized the veto.

SKEPTICISM: Critics say the new law lacks adequate funding and cost controls.

"We will look back at this new legislation as a well-motivated but naive, underfunded political approach," said Dr. Alan Sager, a codirector of the Health Reform Program at Boston University's school of public health.

It remains unclear how much help some people will get from the program, and people who get no public assistance could have difficulty buying policies.

"If consumers are forced to pay for a policy that's not affordable, there's going to be another Boston Tea Party," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group in Santa Monica, Calif.

IN CALIFORNIA: A measure introduced Wednesday in California's state Assembly would require businesses to cover 75% of health-care costs for employees or pay as much as 7% of their annual payroll to subsidize universal health care.

People who don't have insurance would face a civil fine under the bill, proposed by Joe Nation, a Democrat from Marin County.

His plan would cap deductibles, require premium rates to vary only based on geography and age and forbid insurers from restricting coverage for preexisting conditions.

I thought universal health care was supposed to be free. If they force people to buy it, that defeats the whole purpose. Other countries like Canada and in many EU countries give it to people at no cost to them.

Forcing people to pay for their own health insurance is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use

2006-03-06T02:00:00.000-05:00

EFF: DeepLinks

RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use
February 15, 2006

It is no secret that the entertainment oligopolists are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting. But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster, right? In fact, didn't they admit as much in front of the Supreme Court during the MGM v. Grokster argument last year?

Apparently not.

As part of the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings, the RIAA and other copyright industry associations submitted a filing that included this gem as part of their argument that space-shifting and format-shifting do not count as noninfringing uses, even when you are talking about making copies of your own CDs:

"Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use."

For those who may not remember, here's what Don Verrilli said to the Supreme Court last year:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

If I understand what the RIAA is saying, "perfectly lawful" means "lawful until we change our mind." So your ability to continue to make copies of your own CDs on your own iPod is entirely a matter of their sufferance. What about all the indie label CDs? Do you have to ask each of them for permission before ripping your CDs? And what about all the major label artists who control their own copyrights? Do we all need to ask them, as well?

P.S.: The same filing also had this to say: "Similarly, creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use...."

Posted by Fred von Lohmann at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Technorati

Well, there you have it folks. The RIAA are now showing their true colors. They said what they knew the public wanted to hear last year to shut everyone up. Now that things have quieted down, they're striking the war path again. They won't be happy till every bit of digital media on our computers is read-only so we can't do as we please with it.

Slave Labor: Made in the U.S.A. (Excerpt) : LA IMC

2006-02-07T17:29:00.000-05:00

Slave Labor: Made in the U.S.A. (Excerpt) : LA IMC

Slave Labor: Made in the U.S.A. (Excerpt)
by William Norman Grigg
February 6, 2006

Under the influence of disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay became an apologist for slave labor camps — on American soil.Deep in a humid tropical island jungle, in poorly ventilated buildings ringed with barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards, impoverished Asian women — most of them Chinese — toil for 80 hours a week making brand-name apparel for export to the United States.

The female garment workers were lured to the labor camps, which are run by members of the Chinese Communist Party, with promises of wages extravagant by their standards, up to 60 percent of what their counterparts in the U.S. earn. But before they were hired, the women had to sign “shadow contracts” that effectively made them slaves to the company. Their activities are strictly regimented, and since they depend on the company store for most of their necessities, what they earn is recycled back into company hands. Furthermore, most of the workers had to borrow huge sums of money, at extortionate rates of interest, to pay, up front, the human traffickers responsible for transporting them to the island.

As is the case wherever the Chinese Communist Party claims jurisdiction, the female garment workers are subject to the regime’s repulsive one-child policy. They are forbidden to marry or have boyfriends. Those who become pregnant are forced to have their children aborted.

Despite being produced from Chinese fabric by Chinese laborers who labor under Chinese law, the designer clothing that emerges from those island factories is labeled “Made in the USA.” This is actually a case of truth in labeling, since these Chinese labor camps were established on Saipan, a territorial possession of the United States. Thanks to the efforts of super-lobbyist and confessed felon Jack Abramoff, this squalid arrangement has enjoyed political protection from, and been effusively praised by, many “conservative” Republican politicians, including disgraced former House GOP leader Tom DeLay...

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Made in the USA", doesn't it?

Lansing State Journal: Video gets teens on probation in trouble

2006-01-30T18:14:00.000-05:00

Lansing State Journal: Video gets teens on probation in trouble

Video gets teens on probation in trouble
Drunken promgoers mock judge on Web despite his warning

Associated Press

TROY - A judge who sentenced three teens to probation for being drunk at their high school prom had them jailed after he saw them drinking and ridiculing him on a Web site one of them created.

"I told them, 'If you think this gives me any pleasure, you're wrong,' " Oakland County District Judge Michael Martone said after sentencing the last of the girls, Amanda Senopole, to 10 days in jail last week.

"You know, it's just a crying shame. I work my butt off trying to help kids like this, trying to figure out what works. And then they do things like this."
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Senopole and eight other Troy Athens High School students were caught drinking at their prom last May. They were arraigned before Martone on misdemeanor charges of being a minor in possession of alcohol.

Initial probation

Martone, who had appeared at Athens High days before the prom to warn graduating seniors against drinking, sentenced the students to probation, fines, court costs, community service and alcohol-education classes. As a condition of their probation, he ordered them not to drink and to avoid places where alcohol is served or consumed.

Several months later, Martone was looking on the Internet for a news release on one of the many alcohol prevention programs he has promoted during his 13 years on the bench. He entered his name into a search engine and came to a site belonging to Mary Meerschaert, one of the Athens students he had sentenced.

His computer screen showed Meerschaert, Senopole and some of the other students who had appeared before him in court - making obscene gestures, chugging shots of liqueur, posing with beer cans stacked nearly to the ceiling and vomiting into toilets.

The Web site's headline included an abbreviated obscenity directed toward the judge.

Meerschaert, now enrolled at Michigan State University, had used a digital camera to create an Internet photo gallery with students appearing passed out and couples playing a drinking game among its more than 400 images. Many of the picture captions were profane and directed at Martone.

Drinking at MSU

The gallery also showed Senopole, Meerschaert's roommate, and another co-defendant in the prom incident, Rachel Stesney - enrolled at the University of Detroit Mercy - drinking at parties at Michigan State.

"They made a mockery of the legal system," Martone told the Detroit Free Press. "I had to do something."

The judge showed the Web site to police and probation officers. It became legal evidence for charging the three women with contempt of court "for disobeying my direct order not to consume alcohol," Martone said.

Meerschaert and Stesney appeared before Martone on Dec. 23. Meerschaert admitted that her Web site uses profanity aimed at Martone, and that she had a drinking problem.

Holiday jail time

He sentenced her to 30 days in the Oakland County Jail, then sentenced Stesney to 15 days. They shared a cell during Christmas and New Year's Day.

Senopole appeared before Martone last week, telling him: "I have a new roommate now. She doesn't drink."

She also said she earned a 3.6 grade-point average in the fall at Michigan State, and pledged she would introduce her dormitory to an alcohol education program.

Martone doubled Senopole's hours of community service, to 100, but gave her less jail time than Meerschaert and Stesney - 10 days - and let her serve them one at a time, on weekends, "so it doesn't interrupt your studies."

Of the nine students who drank before the prom, two others also have served jail time for later alcohol infractions.

Parental reaction to the new sentences has been mixed, with Senopole's father, Tom, calling the judge "a fair man."

Their mistake was in putting a video of what they did online. His mistake is being an ageist asshat who enforces an unfair and unconstitutional age restriction.