Sometimes I think things through before I write. Other times, I just start spewing forth whatever comes to mind. Today, I am doing the latter.
I think it would be cool if Michael Jackson arose from his casket and did "Thriller" for all the contest winners. It would be cool simply because people could finally see main stream media for the shock jocks they are.
Today I heard about some poor woman that is getting sued for 1.92 million dollars. She is a Minnesota mom by the name of Jammie Thomas-Rasset. She is being sued by the RIAA for downloading songs "illegally". I am mortified. How are we to know something is "illegal"? Do we just assume that "nothing is free"? I can't tell you the number of applications that I've downloaded and used for free simply because the download site told me they were free. There is sometimes a little agreement you have to OK before installation, but not always. How do I know that these are free? Will some SIAA (Software Industry Association of America) come and sue me?
I went to see the Texas play in the Palo Duro Canyon on the 4th. They had a USA birthday special after it was over and did some cool fireworks. I have a bunch of pictures. I'll dedicate a separate posting to it. It got me to thinking about the USA and what it stands for and why the entire planet can't be something similar. The UCE or UCW. I'm quite confident that we can all get along.
I like the fact that Obama seems to listen to his critics. He doesn't necessarily agree with them and his arguments against their arguments aren't always very good, but at least he listens. He was talking about the possibility of a second stimulus package when he said, "There are a whole bunch of critics out there who said we shouldn't have any stimulus at all. And in fact, some of the same folks who are now saying, 'Where are the jobs?' don't really have a recipe other than doing nothing for the economic circumstances that we're in." I really like that he listens.
My oldest daughter asked for a camera for her birthday. She takes some really cool pictures. She took pictures at the Texas play that I'll post later. My favorite one that she has taken so far was taken at a restaurant in Germany...
Nice photo! Have you bought her a copy of lightroom yet (or for free, GIMP)? A good eye for composition coupled with some electronic darkroom skillz is a potent combination.
ReplyDeleteRe: Obama--my favorite recent quote along these lines is this:
"If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best-quality healthcare -- if they tell us that they're offering a good deal -- then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?" Obama asked. "That's not logical."
I'll concur with ed that is a lovely picture... :)
ReplyDeleteI have a problem with the Obama quote about healthcare...the gov't already did it's part to drive up prices for people without health insurance who were trying to negotiate and get better prices for themselves. The gov't did this atrocity when they introduced Medicare and Medicaid Fee Allowables. The gov't set prices for healthcare a very, very long time ago. Healthy competition drives prices down, not forced, gov't subsidized health insurance.
My youngest daughter is the photo editor. She taught me how to use GIMP which I used to make my blog logo. What I need to do is get my eldest spawn to let my youngest spawn edit her photos. I'll let her edit this one when she gets time. It'll be interesting to see what she does with it.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time I like what Obama has to say. Thus far his policies have neither helped nor hurt me as far as I can tell.
I worry that the Federal Government is becoming (or has become) too powerful.
I think we all must agree that Health Care is a unique beast that needs taming. Someone is going to have to do some thinking outside the box to come up with a good plan.
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ReplyDeleteNice recent piece on rationality & the healthcare debate (it's NYT, so it might nag you for a free sign-in). Peter Singer is a really well-known bioethicist & he's got an amazingly utilitarian look at ethics and (in this case) healthcare.
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