Patrick’s Rants

In a surprising move against the music industry a judge has ruled against the RIAA.

The entire ruling is available in PDF format.
Just having files on your computer is not considered infringement if we follow this ruling. Making copies of your CDs to play on your computer and your MP3 player will not be considered infringement. And it shouldn’t be. There is a concept of fair use that consumers have been able to fall back on. If I buy a CD I can listen to it in my car, on my MP3 player and I can make copies for backup purposes. Note that I wrote, “if I buy a CD”. I don’t personally (nor by extension do any of my family members) download music that I haven’t paid for unless the creators have made it available. Nor do we trade CDs or any of the other stuff that is explicitly illegal. The fair use stuff I’m going to keep doing.

This is why some people call it Digital Restrictions Management:
Don’t bother to try listening to your music on another computer. You don’t own it, you don’t have the right to play it, Bill Gates gets to decide when, where and how you listen to music you bought rented from him.
And in case you didn’t follow the links in the story, Major League Baseball isn’t without its own faults.
I want my music, my movies, my entertainment unlocked and available for me to play when where and how I want. I will not buy restricted or encumbered music.

• The housing market is crumbling, but we’re not in a recession.¹
• The financial markets are crumbling, but we’re not in a recession.
• Interest rates are at an all time low (except that doesn’t translate to lower credit card or home mortgage rates), but we’re not in a recession.
• More American citizens have fallen out of the middle class and are now below it and the increase in living standard has stagnated during Dubya’s reign.
  

  Essentially, for as long as we have records, when there have been economic expansions people have gotten raises, which is to say their pay has increased more quickly than inflation; their buying power has grown. That’s happened in every economic expansion since World War II, until the current one, or the now past one. Between 2000 and 2007, the typical family did not actually get a raise.

  ²

• The government is spending billions of your dollars to entice you to spend, but we’re not in a recession.
• Several airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection with most just stopping all services, but we’re not in a recession.

Remember, everything that the government tells us (epitomized by the movement of Dubya’s mouth) is true; Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Saddam personally funded Al Qaeda, we’re winning the war against terror, I showed up for all of my National Guard service, the country’s not in a recession.

1. Housing, in general
2. Middle Class survey story

You might find that the machines are less than perfect.
The Columbus Dispatch : County’s voting machines examined

Bush is making a speech on TV…. I had to turn it off. It’s a wonder that anyone can listen to him at all, he sounds like a five year old learning to read, sounding out his words and repeating or changing the words that he’s trying to form. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, only not as pleasant.

The State of New Jersey was going to send some voting machines to Ed Felten to check out. The voting machine company, Sequoia Voting System sent him an email threatening to “protect their intellectual property rights” which you can read on Felten’s blog Freedom To Tinker.

The Brad Blog goes into more detail, even encouraging the readers to contact the New Jersey Attorney General to impress upon her the importance of elections that are open, error free and not subject to being subverted. Here’s my email:

I understand that your office has declined to order testing of electronic voting machines manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems. Based upon reports available across the internet, Sequoia machines have errors that may affect election outcomes. These machines need to be verified to ensure that democracy is not subverted. Your state, as most states, has open records laws. We should expect no less from our voting machines; that our vote is counted by observing the proper operation of the voting machines.

JP Morgan (Chase) has offered to purchase the “ailing” Bear Sterns for $2.00 per share. Bear Sterns is essentially imploding due to their exposure to risky mortgage lending practices, selling interest only loans to people who barely understood what they were getting. Bear Sterns will not be the last institution to fall. The stock price has gone from a one year high of nearly $160 per share to next to worthless. JP Morgan might be able to survive this, we will probably only know for sure in five to ten years.

A housing market slowdown and what arguably looks like a recession have contributed to record foreclosures as people who have nothing left walk away from their homes as the value slides down and their payments ratchet up. Numerous rate cuts by the Fed have done little to slow down the rate increases that have spilled into the revolving credit card market. The so-called stimulus package approved by the government will push part of next year’s tax refund into people’s hands today. That’s all well and good today but it’s an advance and it will have to be paid back. Unfortunately, people will not see it that way next year when their refunds are cut or their tax bill increased - it will look like the shell game that it is.

If you are blessed to not have to hear this blowhard from time to time, here’s a recap: Rush Limbaugh wants the Democratic race to drag on so he’s urging his listeners to do what he was vile in his oral spewing claiming Dems were doing to McCain, vote for the under dog.
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Limbaugh urges listeners to vote for Clinton « - Blogs from CNN.com

Today, Rick Renzi will step into a Tucson court room and presumably proclaim his innocence to multiple counts of fraud, extortion and money laundering. Ever since he carpet bagged his way into this state he’s been looking out for what matters to him: him.

Renzi Courtroom appearance

Will Renzi get his due now?
Arizona GOP lawmaker indicted - CNN.com