Here's my problem with copyrights

So, the CRB has denied all petitions for a new hearing on their unconscionable ruling vis-a-vis royalties to be paid by Internet webcasters. Nobody is denying that royalties should be paid by said broadcasters, especially those who are using music created by others to make money. However, since most of the royalty money paid does not go to the artists who actually created the works in question, there is my first sticking point. My second sticking point has to do with people getting paid over and over for what is essentially one piece of work. Most of us regular people (as opposed to "creative" types)don't get paid multiple times for one piece of work. I understand the need for creative people to get paid, and paid well since it is they (and not the suits) who make our world a little better, and, if it were not for the suits taking such a big hunk of the pie, music would be available for mere pennies per track.

Sometimes this world really confounds...

I don't know where to begin. The shootings at the Virginia Tech campus just plain boggles my mind. That a person could kill 32 other people, with apparently little or no emotion or remorse, and then put the gun to his own head makes me believe in the existence of evil as something tangible in this world. To think that a mere human could do such a thing without being possessed by something black and horrible from outside of himself is hard for me. I think of the innocent kid that this person once was, and I wonder what could have brought him to this end. It is both easier and, in some ways, less scary to be able to assign ultimate blame for this horrible event to some outside agency which is both malevolent and self-aware. I would much rather have actual demons and a devil to contend with rather than something random and impersonal. At least with demons, one has some sort of a chance. At least if there was an absolute evil out there, the converse, an absolute good, would also have to exist. And that means we at least have a fighting chance. For things like the VT rampage to happen "just because" leaves us impotent and without any chance to alter events. That I can't accept.

My heart goes out to those left behind; parents, siblings, grandparents, other family, loves and friends. I grieve for all those promising lives cut short and for those who, although older, still had so much to offer this world. And I feel a sort of grief for the young man who did this atrocity, but I feel more grief for the innocent child he once was, and for the promise and hope that was snuffed out by his own hand.

Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News

Actually, I'm not really interested in the fact that that the Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News. I'm more interested in the fact that the President of the United States, a going concern with a budget of over a trillion dollars and at least a couple million employees (if you count the military), has a salary of $400,000. People, I think that the President of the United States should be the highest paid citizen in the country. Make his salary the cap, and then adjust all the rest to what they actually should be...

Really, if you want your sports stars, entertainment personalities and corporate executives to make tens of millions of dollars per year, then give your President a slightly larger amount. After all, he is the person who guides our societies destiny for his term in office. So, put a marginal tax rate of 100% on every dollar of earned income in excess of what the President makes. Be sure to include in the definition of "earned" income such things as performance royalties and bonuses. Allow people who build or create things to gain riches from those sources, but make sure that huge fortunes do not get passed on to heirs who have done nothing on their own to derserve such wealth. (If the holders of great wealth wish to create charitable foundations to preserve and distribute income from those fortunes, sobeit. That I can live with.

To get back to those taxes, my wife and I, together, made a little more than 1/3 of what the George and Laura paid in taxes, yet our tax rate was within a few percentage points of theirs. This is not equitable. What George and the rest of the "gimme mine" crowd forget is the concept of "noblesse oblige". For those who do not recognize this concept, it basically states that those who have more have a moral obligation to help those who have less. This can mean sharing your cardboard refrigerator carton with someone who doesn't even have that to "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Nobless oblige falls somewhere between those two extremes, but this generation of Americans have turned their collective back upon that concept. So, I say tax the rich more and more heavily on each and every one of those marginally incremental dollars.

I am such a consumer....

So, yesterday I checked my Yahoo email and there was the daily flyer from Buy.com, and the very first item was a Weber gas grill. And not just any Weber gas grill, but a Genesis Gold Natural Gas grill. Now, you have to understand that Home Depot (aka: The Toy Store) wanted to charge me $50 bucks extra to have it burn natural gas and then they were gonna toss in a shipping charge. The nice folks at Buy.com sold me the grill for the same amount that The Toy Store would sell me a propane grill, and they didn't charge me any shipping. In addition, because I utilized the Google Pay option, I got another $10 off. This is a win-win situation for me. So, I will be getting this really cool gas grill in about a week, and my lovely wife will take the summer off from cooking...

But that's not the all of this story. Today, when I got home from slaving in the book stacks of Barnes & Noble, I checked Woot.com to see what their deal of the day was, and there, staring me in the face, was a Sansa 1gig MP3 player...for $34.95 shipping included. One gig...MP3 player...expandable to 3gig with a 2 gig SD card. And those cards are on sale all the time either at Woot or Buy.com or one of the other discount sites. Right now I am using a Sony Walkman which plays MP3 discs...but I can only burn 150 songs on a CD-ROM. Just the native 1gig of memory on the Sansa player gives me almost 100 more songs. I bit with alacrity.

So, in a couple of days, I'll be getting a new gas grill and a new MP3 player. And tomorrow I'm going to go automobile shopping. I want a Subaru Outback. I'm going to get a Subaru Outback. The only undecided points are where and when. Tomorrow is the first major step in that direction.

Now all I need to do is ditch this loser job and move on to something more suited to my talents and temperment. I know that, while I could be a CEO type, I would/will most likely function best as some entrepreneur's COO. I do the detail, day to day operations while the CEO goes out and develops new business.

Oh yes, and I found an ottoman in my mother's attic. Granted it needs to be re-upholstered, but it will round out my office. I have streaming music to my bookcase stereo in here: I have streaming music to my powered speakers on the patio and in my basement workshop: I have streaming audio to the living room. I have DVR in both my living room and my office. Life is getting really, really good!!

Family Research Council: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 cites 600,000 year old "evidence".

First of all, credit to where credit is due: I got this from Fred Clark (aka Slacktivist) first posted this alert. It seems that the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization that steadfastly attacks any science which contradicts literal Creationism, has shown its true colors. Namely that its leadership are nothing more than cynical, hypocritical poseurs who actually believe in nothing more than maintaining their power and economic position in this world. You see, in their fervor to show that they are "RTBs" (that's Real True Believers as opposed to the rest of us who are not included in the elect) these people, Tony Perkins foremost among them, reject any science that purports to show that the world...nay, even the universe...is only approximately 6,000 years old. However, in this little attack on the science of Global Warming, Perkins et al cites their own scientific "evidence". The cool thing about this is that the "evidence" they cite is reputed to be 600,000 years old. That's 100 times as old as the Universe.

Assholes!