I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

This video is hilarious and quite poignant.  It defiantly makes you think.  Leave it to MADTV to make fun of Steve Jobs and George W. Bush at the same time:

As the Presidential campaign heats up and we move closer to the 2008 elections, the potential problems with electronic voting become more and more pressing. Between the lack of a paper trail, closed-source software, and the hackability of voting kiosks, there are some serious potential concerns.

Personally, I think if done the right way, electronic voting could be safe and possible, but it would require open-source software, stronger checks and balances, a paper trail, and most importantly, our shadowy overlords preventing Diebold from leaking the election results early:

Definitely makes you think!

A Connecticut federal judge has ruled that the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) “making available” theory, in which they claim than individuals are breaking copyright law simply by making files available to download on file sharing websites, is insufficient because

““without actual distribution of copies…. there is no violation [of] the distribution right.” 4 William F. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 13:9 (2007); see also id. N. 10 (collecting cases); Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146, 1162 (9th Cir. 2007).”

Now the RIAA must prove that “actual dissemination” of a copy took place in order to accuse someone of distributing copyrighted music; a much more difficult task. This is a small but important victory for all the people the RIAA has been suing without cause and with reckless abandon. And after the RIAA’s recent attempts to force colleges to provide deterrents and “alternatives” to peer-to-peer piracy or run the risk of losing all federal financial aid for their students, it is nice to see someone reining them in.

After falling out of the public eye, Net Neutrality is once again back in center stage with a new bill surfacing in Congress.  The new bill, dubbed the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008,” adds a “Broadband Policy” section to the Communications Act.  It will require the FCC to look into current policies and ensure that the ISPs aren’t blocking or delaying traffic to any websites unreasonably.  The bill will also require the FCC to hold at least eight public “broadband summits” to “assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues related to broadband Internet access services.”

All in all the bill does not actually do anything to write Net Neutrality into law; it simply requires the FCC to do more to keep the net neutral.  To me this seems like a small step in the right direction, but it still leaves opportunity for ISPs and telecoms to continue using their money to influence the powers that be and reverse the neutral status of the internet.

To find out more about Net Neutrality and why it is so important, checkout my most recent posting on the Summersault Weblog.

I just read an article in our local paper about an Indiana senator who is using the recent Virginia Tech shooting to further a bill in the senate that would reverse the bill that keeps gun owners with concealed carry permits from carrying their guns on college campuses. This article is quite disturbing in many ways.

First, the senator is quoted as saying that he used Virginia Tech as a rallying cry to convince other senators to back his bill. Being a Virginia Tech graduate and having quite a few friends on campus that day, I am appalled. This event was tragic and devastating for so many people, and should by no means be used as a springboard for politicians to push their personal agendas no matter which side of the gun debate they are on.

Second, when I read articles like this I can’t help but feel like those involved have missed the point entirely. This shooting was not caused by guns or the availability or lack there of guns on a college campus. This was caused because people feel the need to treat others badly. Whether it was the students who tormented Cho ruthlessly or Cho himself who felt he had the right to take the lives of other students for mistreating him, our society is full of people with an “I am the most important person in the room” mentality.

Instead of compassion and a desire to help those around us, we have an inflated sense of entitlement and need to put others down in order to make ourselves feel good. The issue here is not who had a gun or could have had a gun. The issue here is why do we as a society treat each other so poorly and what can be done to correct our behavior.

Lastly, as someone who enjoys guns and is a firm believer that individuals have the right to own them, I do not think that college students being armed would have or will keep this situation from happening. There are far too many “what if’s”…

• what if none of the students in those classrooms had guns?
• what if the students weren’t able to shoot their attacker before being shot themselves?
• what if students trying to disarm the shooter harmed other students?

Also, while I have heard many comparisons to this and the Appalachian State shooting where students were able to run to their cars and retrieve guns they used to stop a shooter, that does not necessarily carry to what happened at Virginia Tech. The most obvious difference is the layout of the Virginia Tech campus and the fact that because parking lots are so far away from the educational buildings, students who might have attempted to retrieve firearms from their cars would not have been able to do so quickly enough to make a difference. Second, unless the students happened to have a gun on their person in the classroom, civilians would not have been able to help from outside the building because the doors were chained.

There is simply no way to look back on that day and say with utter certainty that students being allowed to carry guns would right this situation. Instead of focusing all of our time and money on “what might be or could have been,” I suggest our government start looking deeper in to the social issues that cause tragedies like this and so many others within our country.

Wow!

I recently heard about a new website on Net@Nite called Connect2Elect that helps users determine which political candidate they are likely to align with.

It is a very Web 2.0 site that allows you to select the issues that matter to you and rank them in order of importance.  Once you have done that, you are given a graphical representation of which candidates’ views you are most likely to agree with.

It is fun and quick and very informative.  I won’t say who my top candidates were, but I will say I was surprised.

I have not been blogging as much as I would like recently, mostly due to revamping my computer to run Linux, making lots of beaded jewelry for the Alternative Holiday Bazaar at Clear Creek Co-Op, learning to knit, and everything else in my life; however, I recently heard about a bill in congress that I CAN NOT keep from blogging or ranting about.

While listening to my daily dose of Buzz Out Loud I heard about proposed “New federal legislation that says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also “alternatives” to peer-to-peer piracy, such as paying monthly subscription fees to the music industry for their students, on penalty of losing all financial aid for their students.” In other words, if universities don’t guarantee to provide a revenue stream for the entertainment industry all students at their college will loose federal funding whether or not they own a computer.

To say I am angry about this is a drastic understatement. This is not only an amazing misappropriation of government time and energy, but it also speaks volumes about our country’s misaligned values. The entertainment industry is now trying to convince those who govern us, with apparent success, that preventing piracy is more important than providing quality education for everyone.

The most disturbing part of this is that it will only serve to further increase the gap between the “have’s” and “have not’s” by making higher education virtually unattainable for low income students.  Students who’s families cannot afford to pay for college without federal financial aid will be the ones who suffer whether or not they have ever committed piracy.
On top of that, this flies in the face of net neutrality by forcing the universities to filter their networks and put money into select “alternative” sources.  This feels like the first precarious step off of a very slippery slope.

Just wanted to share this catchy little tune from Wierd Al. I think it pretty much says it all.

I am not normally one to bring up politics, especially when I know I am speaking to a mixed audience, but I came across this information and I think others need to see it.

President Bush is apparently trying to sneak a bill through congress that will pardon him and others involved of all war crimes dating back 09/11/2001. I don’t normally have a lot to say about what the President is doing, but this is just ridiculous. It is one thing to deny that he committed any war crimes, it is another to try and preemptively excuse himself and his buddies from any punishment he may or may not deserve.

Be sure to share this with others.