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Approaching 10 years since the terrorist attacks on America of September 11 2001, I have been thinking a lot about United flight 93, and the actions of the retaliating passengers who thwarted their attackers’ mission.

After the hijackers either killed or disabled the airplane pilots, passengers learned from cell phone calls to loved ones that other targets had been hit: other hijackings had succeeded. They knew they were riding an airplane-turned-bomb, which must have some intended target: they were facing imminent death. They knew that their choice was to retake control of the flight or die.

Faced with their own imminent destruction, the passengers chose to fight. They organized and mounted a counterattack. The combat that ensued bore out the apparent intentions of the terrorist attackers: to maintain control of the airplane toward its destructive goal or else destroy themselves and the passengers.

The flight recorder captured the sounds of the conflict in which the passengers either closely approached retaking control of the cabin, or actually retook it. At that point, the hijackers, faced with the imminent failure of their mission, chose self-and-all-annihilation. On the flight recording is one of the hijackers issuing an order to end the flight, just before the time ground witnesses reported the plane crashed. It approached ground near upside-down at a steep angle, and impacted at about 500 miles per hour in a giant fireball, immediately killing all the hijackers and passengers.

The passengers succeeded in killing two hijackers and thwarting the remaining two. The terrorists succeeded in thwarting the passengers’ attempt to re-take the plane: by ending their own and all lives present.

Whether or not it was the passengers’ intentions to defend America as well as their own lives, they in fact did defend their country. What is more, they probably defended the Capitol; abundant evidence suggests the intended target of the flight was the White House or the Capitol building. At the cost of their own lives, the citizens-turned-soldiers of United flight 93 stopped a plot in action to destroy the housings of our liberty, and all of the life in them.

The survival battle and the sacrifices of the passengers of flight 93 are heroic.

These, and the other victims of the attacks of that day, left many survivors and survived, not only in the United States but globally. In some way we are all survived, but it is worst for those who had to confront this most personally and directly. To any of you, if you read this: To merely function after surviving a forced confrontation with such unspeakable evil is heroic. For all of us, but especially for you, I pray.

I am stunned by this.

Among the 3 million people this census variation is being (apparently) sort of tested on (hey, will they put up with this?), any one of them could be fined $5,000 for failing to answer questions like the following (I summarize):

How many people live in your home? Are any of them Hispanic? Are they citizens? How big is your home? What is your education level? Do you have difficulty making decisions or climbing stairs? Are you able to bathe, dress, or shop alone? How much do you pay for your sewage system? Are you married? What industry do you work in? What is your precise job description? What’s your rent or mortgage payment? Do you own an automobile? Are you covered by health insurance? What type? Are you on food stamps? How much money do you make?

I am not making this up. (Could I? I am not Ray Bradbury, and our world is not yet a Fahrenheit 451 world.) Here is a direct link to the publicly available .pdf form for the questionnaire, which is available from the Census web site here.

Apparently the Census Bureau “rarely” seeks fines for failing to answer. So what? What on earth caused any government official to think it is okay to compel everyday citizens to disclose such excess of private information? In regards to an everyday citizen, so much private information is not the Government’s business. (The puzzled administrative personnel respond: what is private? What exactly do you mean by this term?) Unless your government has evolved much closer to Communism than you may realize. So maybe I’ll make that statement more accurate. Evidently, as things are, precisely such information of everyday citizens is the government’s business – but it should not be.

That statement is mine, and it’s a conclusion I draw (again), after reading this, from an article entitled “Reckless Myopia”:

We face two possible states of the world. One is a world in which our economic problems are largely solved, profits are on the mend, and things will soon be back to normal, except for a lot of unemployed people whose fate is, let’s face it, of no concern to Wall Street. The other is a world that has enjoyed a brief intermission prior to a terrific second act in which an even larger share of credit losses will be taken, and in which the range of policy choices will be more restricted because we’ve already issued more government liabilities than a banana republic, and will steeply debase our currency if we do it again. It is not at all clear that the recent data have removed any uncertainty as to which world we are in..

Andrew Smithers, one of the few other analysts who foresaw the credit implosion and remains a credible voice now, concurred last week in an interview with my friend Kate Welling.. “The good news so far is that the stock market got down to pretty much fair value or even, possibly, a tickle below it, at its March bottom. But now it has gone up… we probably have a market which is, roughly, 40% overpriced. In order to assess value, it is necessary [to speak financial Vulcan about two different stock market valuation methodologies].. The validity of both of these approaches can be tested and is robust under testing – and they produce results that agree. Currently, both q and CAPE are saying that the U.S. stock market is about 40% overvalued.”..

One of the fascinating aspects of the past few months is the lack of equilibrium thinking with respect to what happened to the trillions of dollars in government money that has been spent to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. Almost by definition, money given to corporations will show up most quickly as improvements in corporate earnings, and then slightly later, as executive compensation. A few pieces came across my desk last week, hailing the ability of the corporate sector to bounce back from the recent economic downturn even though revenues have continued to suffer and employment has been steeply cut. Why is this a surprise? Where else could the money have gone? Labor compensation? It is truly mind-numbing that a moment after a temporary surge of trillions of dollars, borrowed and tossed out of a helicopter (though to specific corporations and private beneficiaries), analysts would hail a subsequent improvement in corporate results as evidence of “resilience.”

Since early 2008, beginning with the provision of non-recourse funding in the Bear Stearns debacle, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have repeatedly allocated or implicitly obligated public funds to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies. This has included the outright and non-recourse purchase of nearly a trillion dollars in mortgage securities that have no explicit guarantee by the U.S. government. By purchasing these securities outright (rather than through a well-defined repurchase agreement), the Fed is effectively obligating the U.S. government to either guarantee them or to absorb any future losses.

Aside from the fraction of bailout funding that was specifically allocated by Congress through legislation, these actions represent an unconstitutional breach into enumerated spending powers that are the domain of the elected members of Congress alone. The issue here is not whether the Fed should be independent from political influence. The issue is the constitutionality of the Fed’s actions. The discretion that it has exerted over the past two years crosses the line into prerogatives reserved for Congress. That line needs to be clarified sooner rather than later.

Emphatically, the trillions of dollars spent over the past year were not in the interest of protecting bank depositors or the general public. They went to protect bank bondholders. Instead of taking appropriate losses on those bonds (which financed reckless mortgage lending), those bonds are happily priced near their face value, for the benefit of private individuals, thanks to an equivalent issuance of U.S. Treasury debt. But that’s not enough. Outside of a very narrow set of institutions that are subject to compensation limits, just watch how much of the public’s money – which benefitted several major investment banks following a very direct route – gets allocated to Wall Street bonuses in the next few weeks.

I find this simply scary.

The past few days, the Philadelphia Bank Index (which allegedly “leads” the markets) has been dramatically declining in comparison to the S&P 500 stock index, which has been making defiant yet pathetic attempts at remaining bullish. At the same time, volume is declining sharply – big money is selling out of large positions (and buying up hedges, and loading up on option puts, which profit from declines). Banks decline, prices expand, volume contracts – the whole picture is undecided – or maybe decidedly tearing apart in several directions. Something has to give – and today the S&P finally started to drop fairly quickly at closing.

I have speculations in the market turning down (even sharply). And I still think it will. Watch the TZA ticker, which goes the opposite of the S&P, times 3 (meaning UP three times as much, I’m hoping). I’m banking on it taking an upswing or spiking, to above 13.35, by Dec 19th.

It has been horrifying and surreal to read, hear and see the events unfolding around California’s State Ballot Proposition no. 8.

I’ve spent more time reading, listening to and watching the advertisements and arguments of the movement I disagree with (No On 8 ) in order to grasp their point of view.

Items:

1. Disappointed “No on 8″ voters protest outside the walls of the Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or “Mormon”).

One thing at least the protesters aren’t happy about is that, leading up to the Ballot vote, the LDS Church had urged its members to contribute to the cause of the “Yes on 8″ campaign – and it worked.  Wikipedia cites mercurynews.com that about 45 percent of out-of-state donations to “Yes on 8″ came from citizens of the state of Utah (which is mostly populated by Mormons and where the LDS Church is headquartered).

The following YouTube video, about 10 minutes, is footage of the protesters shouting “Go back to Utah!” – “You wanted Armaggedon?” – “SHAME ON YOU!! SHAME ON YOU!!” – and “TAX THE MORMON CHURCH!! TAX THE MORMON CHURCH!” – or that’s everything I picked out.

Slanderous, hate-filled messages on signs (link – Flikr gallery) from protesters condemn Mormons and/or their Church.  The hypocrisy of these signs is well-described at this post at the One Thousand and One Parsecs blog, here.  I would only add that the Flikr gallery evidences vandalism on Temple walls, vandalism of sacred grounds, from people preaching “love” and “tolerance.”

The source of the protesters’ ire?  If, as they believe, they’ve lost a civil right, this is freedom fighting.  What is a slap in the face when you’ve lost your human, your civil rights?  That’s the morality of it, from their vantage.  But this has started to go beyond slaps.  Some apparently felt justified in physically attacking – beating to the ground – an onlooker who, out of pity for the sacred grounds, proceeded to remove the offensive signs – as reported at Meridian (link).

Granting what I think is a radically far stretch, that these beliefs justify such measures (the Democratic process is still very open! – I’m not out slugging Obama supporters because of my disappointment!) – how good are these protesters’ arguments?  Well, I think the aforementioned blog post also dismantles that.

2. There’s contradiction among “No on 8″ supporters in their condemnation of religious reasons for supporting Prop 8.  (There’s contradiction among Mormons, too, which is sad.  Your prophets make their occasional prophetic statement – in this case supporting something – you believe your prophets are prophets, you support it too.  That simple.  Unless you don’t believe they’re prophets.  Which admits complication.)  According to a KUTV report I saw, the “No on 8″ campaign does not support the infamous ad portraying LDS missionaries invading a lesbian couples’ home and shredding their marriage certificate.  However, that campaign has repeatedly singled out the Mormon church as antagonists to their campaign – their news section fairly frequently mentions the Mormon church and Utah, and scarcely mentions the wider religious coalition or other bodies opposed to their campaign.  Clearly the Mormon church is consistently in their sights – and meanwhile, many of thier associates, if not the “No on 8″ campaign itself – these protestors, and the producers of that vile commercial clearly condemn motives for supporting Prop. 8. that originate in religious motivations.  “SEPARATE CHURCH AND HATE!” reads a sign.  “Say NO to a church taking over your government”, says the ad.  Clearly many of these folks are opposed to the LDS church urging a yes vote. Confusing, in light of “No on 8″ often reporting that this or that religious institution urges you to vote no on Prop. 8.  Examples: [link 1]- [link 2] – [link 3, a video, clearly displaying the No on 8 campaign logo]. There was an ad from their campaign with a man clearly stating his church says to vote no – end of ad, final point (wish I remembered the link).  So how would it be not okay for the LDS church to religiously support the Proposition, while it would be okay for any other church to religiously oppose it?

Point to underscore: this is a moral question, often or usually founded in religious feeling. Religion is by definition irrational.  It explains the unexplained and cosmological.  (So does science, more often than we usually admit.)  Opponents to the proposition openly appeal to religion.  So do proponents.  Because, strictly, both are thinking irrationally – that is to say, religiously – they may never agree.  Therefore, appeal to religion has no effective place in discourse over state policy questions, which is what this question is. And we’re mixing those up.  Religion can have appeal to individual citizens’ right of conscience, and how the people collectively vote becomes law. Religion influences the State but is not the State. No religion’s reason dictates the law. That would impinge on the religious right, or right of conscience, of one religious group, while putting forward the other.  Which, as pointed out from my first link, has happened to churches. Won’t put kids up for adoption to gay couples?  Blam – you can’t put up any kids for adoption anymore.  Won’t marry gays?  Blam – out goes your tax-exempt status.  Meanwhile, gays in civil unions in California retain all the same legal rights as heterosexual marrieds.  Who is losing rights?  Whose religiously asserted right is impinging on the rights of others?

A very thought-provoking post at one blog got me, well, thinking:

“One post commented wondering if there was a way for both sides to get what they wanted. There probably is. It would be for the state to acknowledge that homesexuality [sic] is a faith based practice.”

I haven’t even begun to think through the implications of that.  But it made me stop.

Meanwhile, George Lucas.. disappoints me again.  As if the writing in Episodes I-II wasn’t bad enough (if largely redeemed in episodes III, IV and V), now Lucas buys the line that anybody is losing any moral-civil rights, and shells out $100,000 to keep the line going.

When did you not grasp the actual machinations that give rise to an Evil Galactic Empire?

I’ve got to end on a good note.  (That is, unless you disagree with me.) As a Mormon, I’d like to express a thank you to the people who said and created the following.

To: President Bush <comments@whitehouse.gov>

Subj: OPPOSED to H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008

Dear President Bush,

I am very alarmed by the so-called “Orphan Works Act” of 2008, which has twice very recently been “hotlined” by Senators and has now passed in the Senate.  It is a basic philosophical reversal of copyright law and could spell economic doom – not an overstatement – to the enterprises of countless artists.  If the bill also passes in the house, I ask you simply to veto the bill.  I suggest that your best source of opposition to the bill may be found in the ample resources and rhetoric of the Illustrators Partnership of America.

Sincerely,

Alex Hall

[My street address]

[My phone number]

Perusing the blog of a friend’s friend with Flikr photographs of posters in a WWII museum led me to look for this treasure – man, I love this.

http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-422:1

There’s a larger archive of them at that domain.  I was moved by this one displaying a painting and poem, An Open Letter to the Unconquerable Greeks.  And intrigued by this one.  I haven’t perused the tenth of these posters probably.

Where has the world gone that gave so much place for posters like this?  Nowadays so much of it is nay, nay, America the evil, the guilty, and crazy delusions that we should do things like give our enemies the right of American citizen trials.  Uh.. they aren’t American citizens, and they kinda want to destroy our country?

And about that last poster, are folks careful about what they write in war time anymore?  Not so many any more, and not so much.

I’m pasting this letter from the Illustrator’s Partnership [edited only to change links to hyperlinked text]. Also following it with my comments is a reply I got from my Congressperson, Chris Cannon (R-Utah) about my letter to him opposing the bill. show

OR: How the Copyright Office Plans to Aid in Mass Infringements

Update May 16th 2008: I read today that the bill was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Aaagh! I had meant to write my Senator, Hatch. Now I’ve written him, and Bennett, too. Here’s the letter I sent them via the Illustrator’s Partnership form. I accidentally left the last sentence referring to the House, but I’ve decided that makes a nice negative contrast to the Senate.

Update May 8th 2008: In a page linked from this entry, today it reads: “H.R. 5889 unanimously sailed through the House IP Subcommittee yesterday..” - that should not have happened.

Today I wrote my representative, Chris Cannon, about this bill. It turns out he is on the subcommittee presenting the bill – and my Senator, Orrin Hatch, is on the Senate subcommittee presenting it to the Senate! Two of my representatives! If you are in Utah and Cannon is in your district, your voice has more power opposing this bill. Anyone in Utah has more power writing to Hatch as well. Here is my letter to Cannon (which you may adapt and use; I’ve slightly revised it from what I sent). I pasted it into the form provided by the Illustrator’s Partnership.

But you needn’t be an artist (or for that matter a citizen of Utah ) to oppose this: every voice is valid in a democracy. Here is a link to write to your representatives on behalf of an artist you know. Please use it. Or use this representative finder and simply write about any reason you dislike the bill. You like independent creative work of any kind. The bill will squash that. So squash the bill. Here is someone else’s sample letter. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.

If you are on FaceBook, you can join the “Artists Against the Orphaned Work Legislation” group (773 members at the moment – they need thousands upon thousands) as a way of letting others take notice (they’ll see the group you joined).

Also, I’ve got interesting words from an uncle who knew Shawn Bentley:

..how did Shawn Bentley’s name get tacked onto this? Shawn has been dead two and a half years. He was a gospel doctrine teacher in our ward [or congregation]. He in fact left two “orphan” girls – orphans in the historic sense given that their father died, even though Becky (the mother) survived. So maybe this was someone’s clever sympathy ploy.. it’s rather disquieting that this is being packaged with the sainted memory of my friend Shawn, thereby making it sort of like a sacrilege to oppose it.

Update May 7th 2008: The Illustrator’s Partnership has now provided a tool to easily send a letter to your government representatives expressing your opposition to the bill. This is the link:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

I urge you to use that link and write your representatives.

Original post; April 30th 2008:

When I first read about this, it sounded too extreme to be real.

But I researched this, and it is true.

There is a bill now before Congress which would reverse the fortunes of independent artists, creative enterprises, etc. in the United States of America. The bill would see the Copyright Office formally aiding infringements of copyright.

Your government representatives apparently take the bill seriously and don’t blink at it. I wonder if they were told any of the negative practical consequences of the bill. Reading statements about the bill from the presenting committee, it is seemingly given to help use already “orphaned” art works (no copyright holder known), but, in practical terms, this bill would enable the change of status of millions of contemporary works clearly connected with their author to “orphan“ works, free for use for any purpose by anyone, without any practical copyright protection afforded the original author if the author even finds out that their work has been infringed.

Your government representatives should be made to blink at this bill. More than blink. It should be tossed out of Congress without even a vote, and that is what I ask you to ask your representatives to do, if I persuade you, and I’ll provide links to contact them.

Here is an outline of the situation the bill would create. I’ll cite all the sources (including the actual bill) at the end of the entry.

It would mandate the creation of a government-certified database for copyright searches, allowing more than one, or many. The databases would not be government owned; they would be private business-owned and operated.* A search of any one of these databases would determine whether an individual or organization that infringes any copyright can claim “limitations” on penalties for violation of copyright, should the author of the work find the infringement and come against them for their copyright violation.

This is how the situation this bill presents would play out in practice:

1. An individual or business finds an artwork (of any kind) that they want to use or incorporate commercially. But it has no author name affixed or associated with it. Under that circumstance or even if this individual knows the name of the author but cannot successfully make contact with them, then
2. The individual may search one of the few, or several, or many privately business-run databases of artworks which this bill will inevitably cause to come into existence (the reason: the databases will require fees to register works in them, and many companies are eager to start up such databases). If the individual doesn’t turn up a connection of the work to its author or is unable to contact the author, then
3. The individual may file a notice with the Copyright Office of their intent to use the work commercially. Many situations would end here: they would use the work without owing the author anything. Now comes what kills art.
4. If the author of the infringed work finds out that it has been infringed, and should he go against the infringer for it, the infringer may claim to the court that he made a “good faith” effort to find the author of the work or make contact with him, but never found them to be in connection with the infringed work, or never made successful contact, and therefore
5. The court will order the infringer to pay the copyright owner only a “reasonable fee” but the infringer may continue use of the work, without limitation, and
6. The infringer cannot be compelled to pay attorney’s fees to the individual whose copyright he has violated. This is the real death blow to the authors of infringed works, as this current protection – where copyright violators must pay the attorney fees in cases of violation – this is what currently protects copyright most effectively. But under this bill, this protection will be removed by “limitation”. What this means in practical terms is that the author of the infringed work could never afford to go to court against anyone who infringed their work, because the most money they could get out of it would be far less than the attorneys fees which they, the author of the infringed work! – would have to pay.

I’ll list some of the bad practical results of this now with capital letters.

• A. Someone else profits from work they did not make, and the author of the work has no means of obtaining any money for it.
• B. The market value of the author’s work is diluted by two thirds, since he can’t guarantee exclusive use to anyone on sale or license.
• C. No author is afforded any copyright “protections” unless they register, and they would have to do this for every work of art they have ever created, paying a fee to each of several or many databases, and if they fail to register with all of the databases, anyone can pick up their work for unlimited use from a database they might have overlooked. Worse, the databases are not perfectly searchable, and many works properly registered will fall through the cracks. Images not in any database – the vast majority of contemporary images, since they cannot capture every living artist’s every work of art – are also unprotected.
• D. With infringing parties filing their intent with the Copyright Office to use a work, the Copyright Office would be keeping a file of individuals they permit to use someone else’s work without any practical limitation; the Copyright Office will aid with infringement.
• E. It’s a reversal of copyright protections. Currently if you register a work you can claim damages whether or not the infringer found you or knew you to be connected with the work, but under this bill, your work would not be protected, if the infringer, uh, managed not to find you. Which would be very easy to do when there are two, three, five, seven databases to search – which database won’t find you? The court will hold that up as a “good faith” search. A simple failed search of any database will be enough.
• F. With the private, business-run registries on whose contents decisions of copyright limitations hinge, the Copyright Office – or part of the United States government – would be handing control of citizen rights (copyright protections) over to private enterprise. Do you like this? Your rights being given to private business without your knowledge or consent? That you, or an artist you know, will have to monitor private enterprises for the governance of your copyright?
• G. Worst, even if an author successfully monitors all of their works of art in all of the databases and pays a fee to each of the many databases for every work of art they have ever created, and ever finds any work to be infringed, the practical protection of their work remains as nonexistent as the above numbered points describe.
• H. It violates the Berne Treaty (Convention) an international copyright treaty to which the United States is signatory. Article 5 of that treaty, regarding copyright protections, that:

• The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality..

• The Orphan Works Act does not protect copyright unless authors do certain things (and then it doesn’t really protect them anyway). It clearly subjects authors to formalities for the exercise of their copyright. It also contradicts articles 11bis, and 12, and 14, and 36 (which reinforces 5). It expressly violates the Berne Convention.
• But the bill makes no mention of the convention. Instead the title makes us blubber over would-be orphans (more like the kidnapped children of Pirates!) that Big Company, Inc. would otherwise have to pay to use. Or, else, like, create something all by themselves!

Lastly, it must be pointed out that the Copyright Office seems to have, or breed, contempt for the copyright protections of authors. This was the Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs’ reply to Brad Holland (of the Illustrator’s Partnership) in a meeting where Holland questioned the bill:

Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?
Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!

This all completely assures those who infringe work that they can expect no trouble, while causing those with otherwise sole use of their work unending and excessively expensive trouble, unless they surrender to the involuntary total government/business control of their copyright, hand in their paintbrushes, and surrender their profit to strangers who deserve zero use or money for the work, and go get the MD degree the family always pressured them to get anyway. This bill would be a death blow to independent creative enterprise, and a serious boon – for all ethical purposes – to pirates.

For extra credit, if you’ve read any arguments favoring this bill which seem reasonable, after I cite my sources I will dismantle some which I have read.

Just a firm reminder, since you picked this up already, I oppose this bill. And I ask you to.

The Illustrator’s Partnership is organizing opposition to this bill. They’ll have an opposition “button” soon. I’ll update this page when they do. I am not affiliated with them, but for updates from them send an email with “Add Name” in the subject to mailto:illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com.

Or, the last link in my sources below in turn links to resources to do the same. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.

Feel free to link to this page or copy the text of it wherever you please – get the word out against this bill. If you live in Utah or have strong ties to Utah, register your disappointment to Orrin Hatch for even allowing this bill on the Senate floor. He is on the committee that witnessed the drafting of this bill (first link in this entry).

SOURCES.

1. The very text of the bill itself. Reading that is the real test. I have, and all of the above logically holds – or rather it is all a logical conclusion about how illogical and nasty the bill is.

2. Any of these articles about the bill from the Illustrator’s Partnership. This one in particular got my attention.

3. This article, which as well as corroborating other things, points out the contradiction the bill poses to the Berne Convention the United States is obliged to.

4. This 40-minute interview by Mark Simon, of Brad Holland of the Illustrator’s Partnership, from this page. Mark Simon has stated that he gives this mp3 for free distribution to oppose this bill. Disclaimer: Mr. Simon is drawing conclusions of ill-will and the like against the supporters and drafters of this bill. I make no such conclusions, but I am, frankly, very suspicious of their intentions. This interview occurred some time ago in warning of the legislation, and now (very recently) the legislation has appeared.

(I also don’t like the music in this interview.)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

*The language of the bill does not specify that the government will create the database(s). Toward the end of the bill it mentions that the Copyright Office “shall” certify a database; toward the start of the bill it allows for the creation of private registries. That means that private businesses will be clamoring for certification, and there will be more than one, and potentially many, databases.

REBUTTALS TO ARGUMENTS.

show

It was an odd coincidence, after watching so many episodes of the new BattleStar Galactica on DVD, that after I penned that essay yesterday I watched an episode where the abortion debate was raised.

(By the way, I waited five weeks checking three different Blockbuster video stores for the right disc of the right season of BattleStar Galactica to be checked in – there was a conspiracy to keep me from checking out that disc – and then one day my wife brought home the entire season of the show, checked out for far less a price, from the Orem Public Library. Now, as well as for the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum, I have a testimony that the Orem Public Library is true.)

The premise of the show is that the Cylons, robots created by humanity but which betray humanity, wipe out all the planetary colonies and drive and hunt the very small remainder of humanity into space. The entire show is humanity outsmarting, outmaneuvering, thwarting, and seeking to destroy the malevolent forces which they themselves created – while the evolved Cylons who are indistinguishable from humans fool people into David/Bathseba fiascoes.

In this episode (Season 2.5, “The Captain’s Hand”) President Rosylin is presented with a young pregnant woman who stowed away on the fleet command ship (Galactica), seeking asylum from her evil, fanatic, controlling parents to abort a child she apparently doesn’t want and/or can’t support. Rosylin has begun campaigning for re-election to office (she became President de facto as the highest ranking surviving political officer of the human race), and apparently the majority of the fleet is “pro-choice”, and her whole life Rosylin has fought to support the right, as she puts it, for a woman to control her own body. But General Adama reminds her that after the Cylon struck and nearly destroyed humanity, one of the first things she said to him was that “..if humanity is to survive we need to start having babies now.” Adama points to the number of humans still alive which Rosylin has kept on a whiteboard behind her desk since being sworn into office – around 54,000 – and says “That number hasn’t gone up for a long time.” Despite her position on abortion, Rosylin issues an executive order declaring any interference with the birth of a child as subject to criminal penalty – she makes abortion illegal. At the same time, since the executive order occurred after the young woman’s abortion, and the woman had already claimed asylum, Rosylin does not hold the woman subject to criminal penalty, which outrages the religious, fanatical representative from Gemenon. This principled compromise also outrages the eleven of the twelve colonies who support abortion (uh, how reflective of America or humanity would that be in real life – not very – the issue is very divided, and pretty equally). It also opens the way for a former political ally to come out in opposition and betray her in a factioning bid for the Presidency. Not bending to either extreme, Rosylin outrages everyone. Huh. Sounds like prexy Bush, dudn’t it?

The episode, in my opinion, underscored what Orson Scott Card said of the Science Fiction genre, in his main address at Life, the Universe, and Everything XVII (which symposium I very much enjoyed attending). Card sought to answer the question of why so many prominent writers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy happen to be Mormon. Apparently Mormons have been heavily dominating winners in the Writers of the Future contest for many years – and the contest is run blind. None of the judges know the names of any of the writers who submit, as the names are stripped from the entries before judging. Card argued that Science Fiction often embodies both the American plain narrative style and the American pragmatic hero – the hero who tests and tries things for himself until he finds the best solution – and, Card argues, Mormonism is also an embodiment of both of those, or more specifically, of the Scientific Method in harmony with religion. Mormonism does not ask its followers to simply blindly accept the religion, but to try it out.

“Prove me now herewith“,

- echoes the Mormon God in the Book of Mormon,

“..if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.“

And again in Moroni:

“..And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.“

If you are showing faith in Christ, if you are sincerely seeking Him, if you have changed your life already, if you are experimenting on the word (Card didn’t mention the verses that say that), and you have a sincere desire to follow these things if they are true, God Himself will manifest the truth to you by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you sincerely try Mormon principles and doctrine in your life, Mormonism promises, you will know for yourself whether the doctrines are true. That, Card argues, is the Scientific Method – run tests, try things out for yourself, experiment on a hypothesis until you have an idea whether it seems true or false – that is the Scientific Method in complete harmony with the Mormon religion.

In summary then, Mormons who are raised with these values of pragmatic experimentation find themselves very easily at home in a body of literature where pragmatic experimentation is the norm.

And what pragmatic truth does this episode of BattleStar Galactica unfold to our view? (By the way – I heard asides from Card that he doesn’t like the overt references to Mormonism made in BattleStar Galactica – because the leaders of the 12 colonies are more like the 12 idiots.) When the human race is driven to near extinction by evil robots, abortion is not a good idea

An article at this blog persuades me.

John McCain is the only pro-life candidate seriously in play.  If Clinton or Obama are elected, they will likely have a turn to appoint a few judges to the Supreme Court – and they will appoint activist judges who will tighten the bulwarks against reversing Roe vs. Wade.  (How common is the knowledge that the victor in Roe vs. Wade has since decided it was wrong?)  Obama and Clinton both favor having a “choice” for partial-birth abortion – sticking a needle of poison into the skull of a baby as it is being born.

If McCain comprehends the wrong of abortion, it’s easy he may comprehend the issue of the life and survival of our nation – and of the Iraqis we have pledged to help build a new nation – a lot better than whichever Democratic opponent he’ll face.   (I say this because something I read frightened me regarding McCain’s foreign policy approach.  But his policy has to be better than Clinton’s or Obama’s.  And regarding that linked article, the landscape has changed since then – Romney has unofficially endorsed McCain as our hope toward winning the war.)  McCain can be talked to if the citizens cry loud enough.  He’s been against building a border fence, but pledged he would.  I doubt it would happen in four years, but he has to take steps.  The first would be firing one of his staff in particular.

To my mind, holding out until victory in the war hangs on the same principle of valuing all life – do we finish the job of aiding the Iraqis in establishing a new nation of independence, no matter the cost, or do we retreat and value the lives of those we began to save less than our own lives?

(How common also is the knowledge that Saddam Hussein enacted genocide on Iraqis?  Nuke questions aside, that is the main reason I supported ousting him.)

Do we value the life of a mother over her child?  Will we terminate the birth of a new nation underway?

I think I may vote for McCain.

I recently heard arguments for universal health care that seemed maybe okay. Then I went back and looked at some things that convinced me against it. The following part of an argument I’ve quoted before most convinces me against universal state-provided health care.

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I know health care is expensive. That’s why I’m focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how you do that? You do it with conservatism! I’m by no means out of touch on this. If the health care industry were priced like every other industry is on the patient’s ability to pay, then we’d fix the problem, and that’s the direction we have to head in.

But if we’re going to keep this notion that everybody’s entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society. You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don’t depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn’t want to be obligated. I didn’t want to be dependent. I didn’t want to owe anybody. I don’t buy into insurance plans because it’s a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don’t have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that’s conservatism again. People are much better than they know. They have much more potential than they know. But when you’ve got a Democrat Party and a movement telling them they suck, telling them they can’t get anywhere because the deck is stacked against them and the people stacking the deck are Republicans and so forth, then you are diminishing the country; you’re diminishing the future, and you’re destroying people’s lives.
……
The health care problem in this country is getting worse, while people are voting on for people who are making it worse because they hear these people saying, “I’m going to fix it.” Well, the people in charge of fixing it have no interest in it getting fixed, because if it gets fixed, you don’t need them. You can rely on yourself. This health care debate is one of the most infuriating things I witness every day, because I get so sick and tired of people buying hook, line, and sinker a lie. “I’m going to get everybody covered. I’m going to make sure everybody gets health insurance in this country. We’re going to make sure it’s not just the rich.” It doesn’t happen, does it? When you have government telling private industry how to operate, this is exactly what you get, and it’s going to happen in energy. It’s already happening in a number of other industries, too. It’s happening in the auto industry…

I’ll add to this. I recently read that the top ten poorest cities in the United States have been governed only by Democrats for the past thirty years. Democrats repeatedly promise this and that measure to raise folks out of poverty, which never happenss, but the next time around folks think maybe it will. Lucy lifts the football every time and you still fall flat on your back. No one says what needs saying: your wealth is your responsibility, so go to work. Of course genuine misfortune can prohibit that. But many poor people work 8 or 10 hour weeks when they could work 40. I suspect lack of motivation generated by welfare dependency. Why work if someone else will pay the bill? I think it was on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show I heard this – kids who know they have a large inheritance don’t work and study as hard. (I would like at this point to declare my forgiveness toward my grandparents for dropping tens of thousands of dollars in my lap when I was only a kid. Yeah, the money didn’t stick around long – but I must also credit my own foolishness. Which I also forgive.) When kids don’t know they have an inheritance, they buck up and study and work harder.

If you are rich, stamp out any suspicion in your kids that you are generous by being a chore-driving pig of a parent. Well, be a nice pig and give them ice cream every now and then. By the way, the LDS church has one smart solution to welfare dependency: welfare recipients work in the orchards, canneries, farms and distribution centers that produce the goods they themselves receive.

State health care is welfare. Someone else gives you what you could earn yourself. It takes away working motivation, dragging workers out of the economy, producing less taxes from less work, giving the government less money to subsidize people’s laziness, and the vicious cycle goes downward until somebody thinks it’s a good idea to say that some people deserve taxes and some don’t, and heck, the rich deserve a lot more taxes – and what do you have? An economy that only thrives because America happens to be exceedingly ingenious despite all the retarded “equality” legislation that strangles everyone, and despite most of the middle classes seeing a whopping forty percent of their income go to government programs that do nothing for anyone other than exist as a mirage that something is getting done.

Who thinks universal health care is a good idea? Hillary Clinton is more religious about it than she is about defeating extremist Islam. Except that she isn’t religious about defeating extremist Islam. For all I know Barack Obama thinks state welfare is a good idea, but I’ve tried not to really pay attention to him or to Clinton.

I guess I have to now, because people swallow their balogna philosophies wholesale.

What a way to exit. I’m with him. He’s absolutely right to stand on the most important principle our nation is questioning – our survival. Michelle Malkin copies this transcript from the speech – and I copy it from her -

I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues…(audience boos) but I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq… And I agree with him on eliminating Al Aaeda… If I fight on in my campaign all the way to the convention, I want you to know that I forestall the launch of a national campaign.

Crowd: “NOOOOO!”

Frankly in this time of a war, I cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror. This isn’t an easy decision. I hate to lose. …Not just about me…I entered this race because I love America. I feel I have to now stand aside. We cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism.

Romney makes a rousing exit.

I like ALLAHPUNDIT’s questions:

What’s the best thing about this? The goodwill it’ll earn him among the party establishment for not dragging out the primary? The fond memory it creates in the mind of the base of a man willing to sacrifice his own ambition to support victory in Iraq? The venom it’ll draw from the left about him using the war as political cover for his own failure? Or the fact that it backs Huckabee into a corner by framing the continuation of his own campaign as effectively furthering the Democrats’ plans for withdrawal?

Bravo.

In this chat with a coworker I comment on the current revision of this Wikipedia article on the Laffer Curve – involving economics (this was an offshoot of discussion about game theory, which is work-related – I find, two paragraphs into the article:

(12:27:18 PM) Alex Hall: “..Critiques commonly point out that socialist states, such as the U.S.S.R., have been able to derive revenues at a 100% tax rate, though they would have derived more if tax rates had been lower.”
(12:27:35 PM) Alex Hall: Oh, good. I’m glad communists can get higher taxes from rates lower than one hundred percent.
(12:27:42 PM) Alex Hall: !
(12:27:45 PM) MoD: hehe
(12:27:49 PM) Alex Hall: Can you believe that?
(12:27:53 PM) Alex Hall: Ah, Wikipedia.
(12:28:18 PM) MoD: Probably has something to do with people earning more or something
(12:28:47 PM) Alex Hall: Maybe. I haven’t investigated that. I think I’ll go home and see if MY LIFE produces any MOTIVATION which might produce any TAXES.
(12:29:01 PM) MoD: hehe
(12:29:11 PM) Alex Hall: LOL what a joke.

Last night I watched ABC around 9:30 to try to follow emerging Presidential Primary results (tragic to be watching ABC’s coverage, yes, but my internet connection wasn’t available). They brought on Huckabee via satellite interview, glowingly fawned over him (following the orders of their favorite party in doing so – now they’re just roping him along to steal votes from Romney) – and they swallowed unchallenged his incredibly deceived line that he’s run one of the most civil campaigns anyone has seen in a while (read my disagreement about that here) – then provided extensive coverage of Clinton and Obama, and covered McCain’s speech claiming he’s the front runner (it has to be said he has about twice the delegates pledged to him now that Romney does – which simply baffles me. The man is simply not a conservative. And Huckabee would like to rewrite the Constitutation to align with his personal religious whims! Romney is the only conservative running!) They had signs sliding on and off the bottom of the screen saying who won what states, and though it was hard to follow them, I gathered Romney had won maybe five or six states (including Utah at 8o percent – I can’t imagine how that happened ) – I had a hard time tracking it. Along with that they had longer heads-ups displaying pictures of candidates with a list of won states underneath them. As I said, from watching the sliding displays I knew Romney won five or six states, but how many states were listed under the picture of Romney? Two – Utah and Masachussets, the states in Super Tuesday he has close ties to. And how much coverage time do they devote to any interviews or footage of Romney? Virtually zero. A few pictures and short clips, interspersed with long clips and coverage of every other candidate in play. And they list only two of the five or six states he won. Virtually zero coverage of Romney and blatantly displaying his gains as far less than they are.

Tell me mainstream media isn’t biased against Romney! The candidate that the liberal mainstream media is blatantly biased against is the candidate that conservatives should be blatantly biased for! Romney has pledged to stick it out to the convention! Rally for him! He’s the only conservative in play!

[Update: if you wandered here by clicking my trackback at MichelleMalkin.com, IMO this post may work for igniting one of the gaseous issues emanating from NYT's fat penumbra, but you may wish to read my post favoring Romney and opposing McCain and Huckabee (link).]

Three blogs I’m seeing relay and question a story in the New York Times: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, The Autopsy – it’s probably all over the place.

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