A Hamas-run television station defied Israel and the Palestinian government on Friday by continuing to air a controversial children's puppet show with a Mickey Mouse lookalike preaching resistance.
Quoted from Ron Paul's house.gov website. Been reading his reports for a few years now and am refreshed to see that he has thrown his name into the hat for the Republican nomination. Too bad he's being shunned by the mainstream media even after basically winning the Republican debate.
RE: HR 1592. I have always believed that the concept of a "hate crime" is ridiculous. If I murder someone, they are dead. I should suffer the consequences of my actions. Whether I murder someone because I hate them or I wanted some quick cash, there is no difference in the result. Are they more dead because of my motivation?
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Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called “hate crimes.” The legislation defines a hate crime as an act of violence committed against an individual because of the victim’s race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Federal hate crime laws violate the Tenth Amendment’s limitations on federal power. Hate crime laws may also violate the First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech and religion by criminalizing speech federal bureaucrats define as “hateful.”
There is no evidence that local governments are failing to apprehend and prosecute criminals motivated by prejudice, in comparison to the apprehension and conviction rates of other crimes. Therefore, new hate crime laws will not significantly reduce crime. Instead of increasing the effectiveness of law enforcement, hate crime laws undermine equal justice under the law by requiring law enforcement and judicial system officers to give priority to investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. Of course, all decent people should condemn criminal acts motivated by prejudice. But why should an assault victim be treated by the legal system as a second-class citizen because his assailant was motivated by greed instead of hate?
HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts. Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts--as opposed to willful criminal acts--is inconsistent with a free society.
HR 1592 could lead to federal censorship of religious or political speech on the grounds that the speech incites hate. Hate crime laws have been used to silence free speech and even the free exercise of religion. For example, a Pennsylvania hate crime law has been used to prosecute peaceful religious demonstrators on the grounds that their public Bible readings could incite violence. One of HR 1592’s supporters admitted that this legislation could allow the government to silence a preacher if one of the preacher’s parishioners commits a hate crime. More evidence that hate crime laws lead to censorship came recently when one member of Congress suggested that the Federal Communications Commission ban hate speech from the airwaves.
Hate crime laws not only violate the First Amendment, they also violate the Tenth Amendment. Under the United States Constitution, there are only three federal crimes: piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. All other criminal matters are left to the individual states. Any federal legislation dealing with criminal matters not related to these three issues usurps state authority over criminal law and takes a step toward turning the states into mere administrative units of the federal government.
Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society. Fortunately, President Bush has pledged to veto HR 1592. Of course, I would vote to uphold the president’s veto.
Cringely's latest column is about IBM possibly cleaning house at Global Services to the tune of 100,000+ plus jobs. The plan is:
"For two years Big Blue has been ramping up its operations in India and China with what I have been told is the ultimate goal of laying off at least one American worker for every overseas hire. The BIG PLAN is to continue until at least half of Global Services, or about 150,000 workers, have been cut from the U.S. division."
If this turns out to be true, he makes an interesting point:
"It is especially disconcerting for an action of this scale to take place at a time when many companies (including IBM) are complaining about a shortage of technical workers to justify a proposed expansion of H1B and other guest worker visa programs. What's wrong with all those U.S. IBM engineers that they can't fill the local technical labor demand? They can't be ALL bad: after all, they were hired by IBM in the first place and retained for years.
What is unstated in this H1B aspect of the story is not that technical workers are unavailable but that CHEAP technical workers are unavailable.
Not trying to use this as a big bat to beat my point in, but I see the same type of issue with illegal immigration. I've heard the point that since there is such a massive influx of immigrants (an indeterminate amount illegal but ballpark estimates are 12 to 20 million depending on who's numbers you agree with) that there is market demand for their labor. There is a fine difference between a market for labor and a market for CHEAP labor. You can attach to the CHEAP labor category all the arguements you hear about how we've created a virtual slave class from illegal immigrants.
It's one of those catch-22 situations though where you can't sort out cause and effect. Would the market demand have been there and grown if the illegal immigrants weren't able to be paid crap wages in the first place? There's also a tangent I keep in the back of my head: The housing bubble. That bubble has popped, and over the next 5 to 10 years we are going to see a contraction like we've never seen before as the loose lending practices that helped fuel that bubble force people to pay the piper.
I can't give you raw data that is craved in situations like this, but I can give you anecdotal evidence. Back when the housing boom was in full swing and houses were popping up like mushrooms, you could take a look around at any construction site and understand at a glance where the majority of labor force came from. Two things came together: "Cheap" lending and "cheap" labor. Substitute "cheap" for "shady" and I think you see my point.
Interesting dynamics at play. The IBM thing is just another data source for it. If an 800 lb gorilla like IBM is firing US workers and replacing them in growing markets overseas, what's the case for more H1B's here? I know IBM is not "the" tech industry, but I think it's safe to say they are a bellwether.
Watcha thing? BTW I'm not trying to grind an immigration axe at this point, I know we've gone back and forth on that before. Honestly, I've grown to regard it as mostly academic at this point. I'm happy that Nashville has adopted 287G and is now enforcing immigration laws that the Feds didn't have the cajones to do. I can live with that.
New Info about Blade Runner 25th Anniversary Re-Release
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:07 am EDT, May 4, 2007
The second half of this year will see the release of the, "Blade Runner" Box Set. The set will not only include never before seen footage. It will also contain newly shot scenes for the 25-year-old movie. Many consider "Blade Runner" to be Ridley Scott's best work.
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There have been other movies in the past that have been re-released with newly shot scenes only to have a backlash from fans. The redone versions of "Star Wars" would be a prime example of this.
"Blade Runner," is considered to be a classic movie by many science fiction fans. Director Ridley Scott has stated that he had never been happy with the way the movie turned out.
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I hope he doesn't tinker with it too much. I was just hoping for a cleaned up remastered version with maybe some footage that got dropped on the cutting room floor. If what Lucas did with the Star Wars flicks is any indication, the formula of mixing new tech with a film from an older period usually clashes on screen.
Did he ever do this with any of the Alien re-releases? Might be a reference point to see if he's any good at mixing new back into old.
At any rate, glad to see some more info about this finally.
Unlike the World Trade Center, the 580/980/880/80 overpass was reinforced against earthquakes and was not under the enormous compressive load that the towers were when they fell. The overpass was designed to support gridlocked traffic in an earthquake, but it collapsed without even a single car on it. The fire consumed only 8,600 gallons of fuel, whereas the WTC was allegedly brought down by 24,000 gallons of fuel. Does Governor Schwarzenegger really expect us to believe a story even more preposterous than the already-discredited official story about 9/11?To answer the question “Who is responsible for this terrible tragedy?” we must ask who stood to gain the most. George Soros? The California Department of Transportation? The Jews?
We pray that those drawn to the 4/29 issue by sensationalist claims will stay long enough to learn the less theatrical but equally damning truth.
On April 23, 2007, The SCO Group, Inc. (the “Company”) received a letter from The Nasdaq Stock Market (“Nasdaq”) indicating that the bid price of its common stock for the last 30 consecutive business days had closed below the minimum $1.00 per share required for continued listing under Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(4). Pursuant to Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(8)(D), the Company has been provided an initial period of 180 calendar days, or until October 22, 2007, to regain compliance.
They'll just reverse split if they have to, and they'll wait as long as they have to, but yeah, their stock is going down.
Just saying, because this is a little piece of space I have on the interweb tubes:
DIE SCO DIE SCO DIE SCO DIE SCO DIE SCO DIE SCO DIE!!!
I propose a DIE SCO PARTY when they finally shutter their windows or are acquired, whichever comes first. Only question: Should we do it in ATL or BNA?
Decius wrote: !! Absolutely no explanation given. The site is EXTREMELY slow right now, I suspect a number of people are attempting to mirror it prior to it's disappearence. Cryptome is one of the most important anti-censorship resources on the Internet. Its existance on the net is certainly a canary in the first amendment rights coal mine. Expect a widespread reaction when it finally goes away this Friday.
I just ordered one of the archive DVD's. Looks like now would be a good time to do so to show support.
Direct link to the donate for DVD page:
http://cryptome.org/other-stuff.htm
For what it's worth, I think the current situation will not kill Crytome.org. This just tells me get a different ISP and boycott NTT. Now, if he shops around and EVERY ISP snubs him for undisclosed reasons, that's a cause for concern and is a bigger issue.
Cryptome is not going to go quietly in the night unless John just gets tired of doing this thing and uses this as a pretense to let it fade.
