If you want to see how groups like RIAA use the courts to slowly erode Fair Use, check this out.
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Ok, my fancy new phone is great, but I do not use Outlook and will not use Outlook.
Ideally, I just want to synchronize my Calendar and Contact items with an SQL Server database on my own machine. I can then write a web interface (my machine runs IIS over my cable modem), export some calendar free/busy information for my public web site, export other calendars via iCalendar for Google Calendar users, etc.
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A mere 20 years ago, we Americans had a real hatred for the domestic spying techniques and lack of due process in the USSR. Now, a strong majority of Americans have no problem with our government doing the same. Sigh.
We have utterly and completely forgotten the lesson that the appropriate role of government is as our servant, not our master.
Update: Less than a day after my post, there is a report that Bush is using his new-found powers to tap reporters to ferret out confidential press sources.
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Once again, a city in New York is trying to ban the Constitutional right of free expression (in the form of public photography), this time for fear of pedophiles.
Remember those protests by photographers in NYC subways two years ago? Every citizen of Troy, New York who has a DSLR, point-and-shoot, or camera phone should make it a point to show up this weekend (assuming there is still ice) and exercise that freedom that Bush keeps telling us we are spreading around the world.
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It’s a question I’ve been asked plenty of times by coworkers, etc. who assume I’m a teetotaler because they know my faith.
Bryan gives an excellent treatment to the subject.
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Bruce Williams thinks it would be a good idea for states to collect all taxes in whatever way they see fit and fund the federal government directly.
That’s exactly how the federal government was funded under the Articles of Confederation. We gave the federal government the right to levy taxes with the Constitution, but direct income taxes didn’t occur at all until the Civil War, and didn’t become the main source of federal funding until the enactment and ratification of the 16th Amendment just over a century ago.
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My Motorola TM-510 gave up the ghost this morning. It was already hanging by one part of the hinge, and this morning it broke into two pieces for good.
After doing a little online comparisons of popular phones, I went by the local Verizon store and picked up an XV6700. This is my first PDA, and my first cell phone with anything beyond phone and address book capability. Expensive as crud even with the two-year contract renewal, but amortized over two years (the life of my last phone) it seems pretty decent.
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Sigh. Good recap of issues that, were you to replace the words “Bush” with “Clinton,” we’d be seeing Republican riots in the street.
It’s easy to accept being the subject of a monarchy when you agree with the king.
We don’t have a republican form of government because it is the most efficient, the safest, or the best representation of the majority. We have it because we used to believe that it was better to deal with the inefficiency of checks and balances with trustworthy leaders in power than to not have those controls when and if power fell into the hands of men who are evil, corrupt, stupid, or insane.
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My Vespa ownership may be the new in thing pretty soon. Given the good-natured needling I get from friends and family (ok, it IS baby blue), a little more respect for these fun little vehicles can come none too soon.
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If your congresscritter is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and just voted against Net Neutrality, you should call them out for being a spineless whore of Ma Bell. Without firm neutrality laws, your Internet experience will soon have the same feel of “freedom” and “choice” as your cable service.
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