“Protect IP/SOPA” will damage citizens’ freedoms
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
The groundswell against “Protect IP/SOPA” is enormous, and with good cause. My particular objection regards how the legislation would affect Internet searches. Google describes the situation this way: “The U.S. government could order the blocking of sites using methods similar to those employed by China. Among other things, search engines could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results. That’s why 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law professors have expressed grave concerns about the bills” (source).
That companies and artists should be able to protect their work is unquestionable. Piracy is ruinous, and it stifles competition and creativity (one has only to look at China, where movie producers cannot thrive because nearly everyone there is buying pirated, American movies). But giving corporations and courts broad powers to censor the web is unacceptable.
It has also been noted that “Protect IP/SOPA” won’t actually stop piracy. Ironic. Still more ironic is that the industry is capable of adapting to circumstances. In the 1990s, digital music threatened to destroy the music industry. Countless millions simply downloaded music for free, robbing both artists and corporations of their just profits. Yet, the industry adapted. Today, the industry sells — profitably — 30-second ring-tones of songs for a buck or so. That’s pure gravy.
The greater consideration is, and should always be, the rights of citizens to gather information freely. “Protect IP/SOPA” would damage that right.
© 2012, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Not voting for a Mormon
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Truth is, I don’t know that I wouldn’t vote for a Mormon, but I know I won’t be voting for Mitt Romney. His record as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007) does not reflect strong conservative (even Mormon) values. Strikingly, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum seem better choices for religious conservatives.
© 2012, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Sarah Ferguson will not be deported for exposing abuses in orphanages
Turkey wants to arrest former princess for secret filming
Hear, hear –
“I am a human rights activist for children. I’m apolitical and multi-faith. I go with the governments, not against them. But I will be a foghorn for silent whisperers if I feel that children are not given the life that they should be given. In other words if they’re in institutions and haven’t even seen the light of day, that doesn’t sit well with me.” — Sarah Ferguson, 2009
Ferguson’s crime, according to Turkey, is secretly videoing children in orphanages, in which she exposed abuses. Turkey claims the former princess violated the children’s right of privacy. If convicted, she could face upwards of 22 years in prison — but that won’t happen. “It has to be an offence in both the countries’ laws. It’s not an offense in U.K. law, so the duchess won’t be extradited,” a British government source told the press (see here).
The notion that children should suffer abuse privately is appalling and unacceptable. Ferguson is to be commended for her work, not condemned.
© 2012, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Mayor Nutter: Murdered teens should have been in bed
Philadelphia mayor chastens parents for allowing teens to stray
His words may not be politically correct, but they are right on the mark. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter criticized parents of three teens murdered Tuesday night, saying, “Seven young people, somewhere between 14 and 16 years old, on a Tuesday night — a school night — are out in a car going to somewhere to have a fight with some other teenager. That is completely insane, it is irresponsible. Parents have to know where their children are and what they are doing” — (full story at MSNBC).
He continued, saying, “The least you can do is know where the hell your kids are, in the daytime, in the nighttime, or at any time during the week or on the weekends. That’s the minimum we should ask and expect from our parents. You want to have kids? Take care of them.”
The loss of these young lives is tragic indeed, but more tragic is the loss of a generation, given to violence and malice. It’s time for men like Mayor Nutter to speak out. A generation depend on them.
View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.
© 2012, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Clever words, dirty politics
Why Romney can't get elected
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© 2011, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Cain: “We need a leader, not a reader”
Actually, Mr. Cain, we need leaders who read
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I rank Teddy Roosevelt as one of the five great presidents of the United States — the others are Lincoln, Washington, Adams (senior), and Jefferson. NB: All were avid readers, even the unschooled Lincoln, who was a voracious reader — he’d put most English teachers to shame. That Herman Cain should be so ignorant of current events is stunning. That he should say, “We need a leader, not a reader,” is more astonishing still.
Cain complains about Obama having too many experts (re: “readers”), but if he himself is not a reader, who is he going to rely on?
© 2011, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
Scapegoat
People's anger toward Ruth Madoff is misplaced... and we'll all pay for it
A lot of people are having trouble believing Ruth Madoff didn’t know her husband was running the largest Ponzi scheme in modern history. Some find her recent interview with 60 Minutes last Sunday offensive. “It just reminded me once again how twisted this family was,” said George Christin, a victim of Madoff’s.
As of today, Ruth Madoff has not been charged with any crime, and she vehemently asserts her innocence.
“I can’t explain it. I mean, I trusted him,” she said. “Why would it never occur to me that it wasn’t legal? There was nothing that would ever make me suspect.”
The idea that a woman would not know her husband’s affairs is not unbelievable; in fact, quite the contrary. I quite accept, absent solid evidence against her, that she did not know.
What is unbelievable is that federal regulators — and even some of the investors — did not know. Regulators had access Madoff’s records: they were responsible to monitor his affairs. But no one acted. Unless we, as citizens of a free-market economy, acknowledge this point, we will suffer again, again, and again…
Consider Harry Markopolos who testified that he warned regulators about suspected fraud in Madoff’s enterprise. In 2005 he wrote:
Bernie Madoff is running the world’s largest unregistered hedge fund. He’s organized this business as [a] “hedge fund of funds privately labeling their own hedge funds which Bernie Madoff secretly runs for them using a split-strike conversion strategy getting paid only trading commissions which are not disclosed.” If this isn’t a regulatory dodge, I don’t know what is. — source
You can also view his congressional testimony:
In 2008, when Madoff was exposed, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox admitted serious errors. “I am gravely concerned by the apparent failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations or at any point to seek formal authority to pursue them,” he said.
Yet Ruth Madoff is the villain?
© 2011, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.
