forlorn3's Blog

The Stop On-Line Piracy Act (SOPA) has for the moment been shelved. Buried is what it needs.

The Act alleges to protect copyright holders from abuse and infringement by "pirates." I will not use piracy in this sense. Piracy is defined as the seizing of a vessel or vehicle. Copyright infringement is the unlicensed use of intellectual property or non-payment of royalties for said property.

The Act seeks to punish not those who infringe, which is already unlawful, but those who provide links to infringing sites or posts of unlawfully-used content, even if the content is posted by a third party not in control of the Webmaster.

This chilling little example, an equivalency, should suffice. A store has a candy bar stolen from it. Instead of punishing the thief, the store, its distributors, and its financiers are barred from doing business. Its lawful customers are barred from doing business with the store.

In the same vein, a person posts a comment to a Website, say Experience Project. EP has over nearly thirteen million experiences posted as of this moment, not counting images, comments, &c. A person posts a link to an infringing Website, say 4chan. A complaint goes up there is a link to an infringing site. All of EP goes down, its payment processors and ISP are sanctioned as well, and all its lawful users are prohibited from using it, unless and until EP can prove it did not infringe.

Copyright infringement is -already- unlawful. But put in place the tools necessary to pull down a Website anywhere, anytime, and those tools can be used for any nefarious purpose.

Anti-abortion supporter? Start posting to Planned Parenthood's site infringing content, then complain. Government agency that does not like a critical Website? Post infringing content and use the very same Governmental power to shut it down.

Think it cannot happen? Maybe not. But why put in place the tools to make it possible? Why give someone that power, when it is not warranted?

Don't like me, my blog posts, my comments on EP? Post infringing content to my posts, or anywhere on EP, and the law allows for the shutdown of the whole site.

The CEO of Twitter has come out in a public Tweeting fight with Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia. Twitter does not oppose the SOPA Act and feels Wednesday's worldwide WEbsite blackout protest is meaningless.

Ever posted a character from a Warner Bros. cartoon as an avatar? A long cut-and-paste from a news article? That is copyright infringement, and unless EP were to review and censor each and every post itself, it could be pulled down.

And anything that Rupert Murdoch says he is for, when it applies to media, cannot be good. His own company is under investigation for computer and phone hacking in the USA and the UK. That brought down the oldest English-language newspaper in the world. It caused the resignation of the Senior Editor of the Wall Street Journal (a Murdoch publication). It brought down the head of the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard).

Infringing material is posted to Twitter every day. Twitter would likely be one of the first to go. Facebook, MySpace, EP, any site critical of anything at all can be brought down with -one- post under this ill-conceived Act.

Think it cannot happen? Then keep your silence, others will fight the fight for you. But those who know something of history know that democracies and free speech are rare throughout history, and easily broken when some other cause greater than liberty takes the minds of the people.

A final example. Do you think the Voice of America, the USA's official shortwave organ of news and information, which gets infringing content posted to its commentary and blogs, will ever be pulled down under this Act? Would the Government pull down its own Website for copyright infringement?

And in a democracy, you have the right to vote in people who will take your rights. You have the right to vote away democracy.

Whilst I have no problem with the "press" making questions about the president's policies or programs, or holding him to account on various issues, I do wonder why the "press" seems to make issues out of non-issues.

The latest seems to be that his Social Security number, apparently being from the series of numbers used for New England, somehow "proves" he has a fake number, and therefore fake citizenship.

My sister and I were born two years apart (I am older). I was born in Michigan at home, she was born at the base hospital at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. Yet both our Social Security numbers are out of the series for Massachusetts, and sequential, to boot.

Does this mean we are "fake citizens" with faked up Social Security numbers? Neither of us has ever lived in Massachusetts. Those sequential numbers from a state we never lived in sure are suspicious . . .
As it happens, after my sister was born, my paternal grandmother (who lived in Massachusetts) opened saving accounts for both of us. The bank required Social Security numbers. I am not sure how it was she applied for numbers for us (perhaps with our parents' help), but the numbers were issued from the series of numbers for Mass.

Can I prove that now? (Obama is about the same age as me.) No . . . those bank accounts no longer exist, my whole family (other than my mother and sister) are gone.

I certainly wouldn't want to involve myself in politics, if the price is to "prove my citizenship" over such silly nonsense as "your Social Security number doesn't match your birth certificate."

Then there is the issue of his place of birth. The answer to scream in the face of any birther is: -it doesn't matter-, his mother is an American. How come no one brought up that John McCain was born in Panama? Because his parents were Americans (and he is not Obama).

Yup. The Post Office came out with an entirely new study docket for the Broadwater Post Office, gave us a new sixty-day comment period, and the Post Office is now giving out free copies of that docket. (We had to pay for the first one, which was one of our complaints at the meeting in Broadwater.) My wife and I are going over the docket to see what we can pick at in it. It does not appear that they will hold another meeting, though.

I do not know what the result of the protestations were in Lisco (which had similar problems with its docket and was protested by the landlord of the USPS office there. He flew in from Washington state to be at that meeting to protest the docket.) That is a simple matter to check on.

One thing about the docket: it is much clearer. While it quotes far fewer numbers, those numbers seem to be accurate. They ditched the bogus ROI of seven million percent, printed it in a legal type size (the notification letter and docket the first time around were unlawfully small; Beth cited the court cases in the Federal system over that at both meetings), corrected the rent amount to show they are liable for it regardless of whether the office remains open or closed, and corrected the utility expense.

Apparently my wife's expert derision of the professionalism of the docket and of the USPS speaker’s comment at the meetings about the figures “well you know computers” resonated with the Government representatives present: they seemed unimpressed by that answer. It probably didn’t help the USPS position that one of its representatives in Lisco admitted to writing the study dockets for both Lisco and Broadwater, and she was “rushed” to complete them. She also admitted she failed to check them for accuracy. Beth actually enjoyed pillorying her over that. The original study docket for Broadwater (the justification to close a post office) was rejected by the USPS in its entirety.

We still question the alleged future transportation expense, and the future employee expense. However, a person not well-versed in economics or business (such as myself) can actually make sense of the newly-reported numbers. Hopefully more of the village can read and understand the new report and give commentary to it. Copies are freely available at the Post Office.

The USPS has legitimate financial concerns, and the Senate bill in committee to prohibit closing offices further than ten miles from another office (like ours) will not really address those concerns. Perhaps if we keep fighting a holding action long enough, that bill or a better one will pass, or the USPS will give up on our closure proposal and try somewhere where there is less resistance.

We urged in letters to every Senator on Capitol Hill, as well as Vice-President Joe Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama to move along the bills in committee, address the real problem of this slipshod study, and come to a solution which will serve both the patrons of the USPS and the USPS itself. – James.

The Gospel of a Village

1. And the village was small and poor, and had little wealth. Its library was failing, and the evil Postal Service threatened to shutter its post office forever.

2. The villagers prayed to Yahweh in their church, for a deliverer to come and save their institutions. Precious few did practical work beyond prayer.

3. And it came to pass that an Atheist and her Wiccan husband moved to the village from another land (Oklahoma), seeking religious freedom.

4. The Atheist and her husband looked around, and saw that the people were good, but oppressed by institutions and superstitions.

5. They first set about forming a Library Friends organisation, to raise money for the faltering library, to save it from the ravenous wolves of budget cuts; they sought to save all, from its computers to its Bibles. And the library was saved.

6. They then sought to challenge the mighty Postal Service, though they had little money to commission studies or reports or mailings of letters exhorting the Faithful to meetings.

7. Then, by intervention that was not divine, the Wiccan won a large prize in the State Lottery. The Atheist and her Wiccan husband now had the means to fight on the Faithful villagers' behalf.

8. They slew the mighty Postal Service closure report, showing it for the trumped-up "cook the books" report it was. The Postal Service, seeing the opposition, retreated from its position, determining instead it required more study.

9. The village Faithful, their post office and library saved, praised Yahweh in their village Church for their deliverance, never asking why God sent an Atheist and a Wiccan to do his (or their own) work.

10. The Faithful also accepted the Atheist and the Wiccan into their tiny communtiy, as they actually worked for Its Betterment, rather than rail at Satan for arraying his forces against It.

11. But their work was unfinished. Ceasar had decreed that all public buildings must comply with the ADA. And the Faithful were filled with woe, for they knew not the Law.

12. But the Atheist in their midst volunteered to the Village Clerk, and did research on the Internet, and learned the esoteric and mystical ways of Grant Applications.

13. She then gave the Village Clerk the information, that the Village could make Applications for monies to upgrade their facilities, though they had not considered this for the Atheist's epileptic husband. She was able to do this, for she is Educated in logic and reason, and had time to expend on the Faithful's behalf, not being occupied with Prayer and Worship.

14. Armed with the new Information, the Clerk was able to complete the Grant Applications, and comply with Ceasar's wishes for ADA compliance.

15. And the people rejoiced, and praised Yahweh's name in their church, never asking why an Atheist had to fill in their Grant Applications, nor wondering why they never complied with the ADA when they had an Epileptic in their midst, nor why Yahweh sent them an Atheist to do his (or their own) work.
A true story . . .

My wife and I have returned from the luncheon and presentation put on by Bridgeport (Nebr.) High School. Over one hundred veterans and their families were invited to attend from Morrill and Cheyenne Counties; only one veteran was unable to attend.

The school put on an audio/visual presentation of the five services’ histories (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard), and put on display a “time capsule” of sorts with various household items and military uniforms, along with various fact sheets about the USA at that time. Each decade from WWI to the present was represented.

The order of the luncheon presentation went:

The American Legion Honor Guard entered the gymnasium, parading the Colors.
The Bridgeport High School Band performed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with salute by the assembled Veterans.
Bridgeport’s High School Principal gave a short speech on the meaning of Liberty to the next generation, and thanks to the assembled veterans for preserving the Nation.
Bridgeport Elementary sang the Quaker hymn “Simple Gifts.”
Seniors from the High School read the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.
The High School Band performed the five military branches official marches in order: “The Marine Corps Hymn” (Marines), “The Caissons Go Rolling Along” (Army), “Semper Paratus” (Coast Guard), “Off We Go” (Air Force), and “Anchors Aweigh” (Navy).
The Superintendent of Bridgeport Schools asked each of the service veterans and their spouses to stand in succession as he called out the name of each service, to receive applause from the assembled students and visitors.
In a memorial for those who did not return, a trumpet soloist from the band performed “Taps.”
The presentation ended, the American Legion Honor Guard paraded the Colors out of the hall.

Aviation Electronics Technician Petty Officer First Class James. (USN, Retired/Disabled)

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My wife and I completed our letter-writing campaign to the Senate in support of S. 1668 (protecting rural post offices act of 2011). Every senator plus the Vice-President and the First Lady heard our opinions on the Post Office's cooked up study numbers. And because we still have a post office, today we got a letter.

It seems the sixth graders in the local high school (local is relative, it is fifteen miles away) are putting on a Veterans' Day programme. To that effect, they are putting on displays of their impressions of veterans, asking veterans to speak to them and answer questions, and tossing lunch for veterans and their spouses.

Do we RSVP? Sure! The new local disabled veteran, why not? It's a chance for my wife and me to become further integrated within the community. I suspect they will ask questions of my service, where did I go, what did I do, where'd we meet, what does she do, &c. The Navy is just a concept here; I suspect no one has ever seen an aircraft carrier or a port or a cruiser. (Although we do have a lighthouse with no light, a New Deal make-work project built on a lake.)

While public education is not a particular problem in Nebraska, it is an opportunity to point out the value of education. There is an article in Navy Times this week about the Navy Recruiting Command seeking to reassign most of its recruiters.

The Navy is at full authorized strength. The economic downturn sent droves of people to recruiting stations; unlike when I was a recruiter, the climate for recruiting is downright easy. During the Persian Gulf War, when I was doing it, it seemed the only people who were interested were people who were not qualified for the service.

But because it is at full strength now, that also means no recruits. Only in its special programmes is the Navy still taking applicants.

This is not just a Navy problem, of course. It is the same across the employment spectrum. Employers are seeking the sharpest and most-motivated. Regardless of whether one has a college education or not (I don't), what matters is excellence at what you do. While there are those who would think this might be too much pressure to place on a sixth grader, I would point out that in only six more years they will be considered adults in our society.

If they are going to college, they need to be aware that colleges can afford to be picky about their applicants. If they would consider the military, in today's climate they need to be exceptional, too. Even if their plans are to take over on the family farm and part of the half-million cows here, farming is a business and the prize goes to the best farmer, not the mediocre one.

This presents an opportunity for this under-educated Mensan sailor-come-Romance editor and his thrice-degreed Mensan wife to point out that veterans did what they did, so our next generation can do what it wants to do.

James, on the Left side of Nebraska.[/font]