mycatharsis.com

They show they’re every bit as beholden to corporate interests as the Republicans, passing bill H.R. 4279 through the House by a massive vote of 410 to 11. Dubbed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, an apparently painfully mangled phrase meant to abbreviate to PRO-IP Act, it should be named the “Government is going to come and take your computer act” if the sponsors were at all interested in a descriptive, rather than gimmicky, name.

The key phrase as far as forfeitures go ..

`(iii) Any property used, or intended to be used, to commit or substantially facilitate the commission of an offense under subsection (a).

Pretty general, to say the least.  If this kind of forefeiture of property sounds familiar, it should …

(B) The forfeiture of property under subparagraph (A), including any seizure and disposition of the property and any related judicial or administrative proceeding, shall be governed by the procedures set forth in section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970

So they’re going to follow the example set by the drug war, in forfeiting as much property as possible from people.  Of course, the government would never think of seeing these laws as a way to enrich  Apparently the fact that our government is already devaluing the money we earn, and taking a larger portion of it all the time, is not enough.

Of the 11 votes against it, included are both Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.  Good company, but unfortunately way too small.

Ok Bob Barr, you’ve got my attention.  As much as I like Obama, if the Congress he’s going to work with will pull this kind of garbage, I can’t see any reason to vote for them, because nothing will truly be any different.  Seeing what happens when it gets to the Senate will be interesting.

How much would YOU pay for a watch that doesn’t tell time?  $300,000 you say? You’re in luck!

Jon Stewart embarasses the MSM yet again with dead-on analysis you just don’t see much from them.

Is this about stopping the terrorists, or terrorizing the populace?  Why are police that are ostensibly working to detect hidden bombs as opposed to directly confronting the ‘bad guys’,  manning the transporation checkpoints with submachine guns and body armor? Why do they need such arms? They’ve already determined the citizenry never have a need for automatic weapons with their federal machine gun ban, so why do they feel the need to traverse the subways with them, especially when they’re tasked with finding devices, not direct confrontation.

Actually, yeah, I really like the Democrats proportional representation/delegate system.  Criticism of it has been rife lately, mainly because Hillary Clinton has been losing under this system since about February 5th.  And any system that does not allow the Clinton’s free rein over the Democratic party is immediately suspect.   Now the superdelegates, on the other hand, I certainly do not think that was a good idea.  But look at what has happened to this campaign under the current system.  Every state has become involved, and the candidate who adopted a 50 state strategy has the nearly insurmountable lead over the establishment candidate.  Turnout last night in Pennsylvania was great, and with the way delegates were apportioned, there was great incentive even for Obama voters, many of whom probably knew deep down he wouldn’t win, to get out there and make their voices heard. Even though their guy lost, their votes still worked to elect delegates who will represent them at the Democratic convention.  Perhaps the closeness of this race is partly a function of the proportional representation, but on the other hand, so is the 50 state strategy that now seems integral to winning the Democratic nomination.

This system forces their nominee to tailor a message suitable to all of America, not just the cities and college campuses they see as their strength.  And this, I think, could help them greatly in November.  They actually have to run a little to the middle now during the primary season, while the Republicans, who value loyalty and a clear winner, all had to line up behind the most unpopular President in history in order to get the nomination. And that’s going to be a central theme in the campaign against McCain.

Since Senator Clinton is losing this race, I expect a movement to start among her cronies to ‘reform’ the system and make it more ‘fair’ (politcalspeak for unfair, ironically) once all is said and done.  However, moving to a winner takes all strategy would reform nothing, and again only serve to tailor their message to the coastal big delegate states. In fact the Republicans should adopt this very same system as a way to get their message to all of America, although there’s virtually no chance that will ever happen.  Does it seem fair that, under a winner take all strategy, that a win by one of these candidates in PA last night would count more than a win by the other in Wyoming, Hawaii, Mississippi, Vermont, and Wisconsin combined? Or that the votes of the losers of all of these states would count for nothing? And under such a system, doesn’t it seem obvious that Pennsylvania would then also receive a greater amount of attention from the candidates than all five of these states combined?  Ok, so maybe that happened here, but that was more a function of Pennsylvania being the only primary within a two month time span.

Maybe the Dems should shorten the primary schedule for 2012, and it seems indubitable they should get rid of the superdelegates next time around.  But keeping the proportional delegate system should also be just as high a priority for them …

I wonder what kind of scale Hawking is thinking of when he talks alien life. Just our solar system? Our nearest stars, our entire galaxy? Certainly not the entire cosmos? Just by sheer scale of the number of stars and galaxies out there, billions of galaxies each with millions of stars, you’d have to think the odds would be good there are others looking at their night sky wondering if we’re out there. But yet, there is the question

If there is life elsewhere in the universe, Hawking asks why haven’t we stumbled onto some alien broadcasts in space, maybe something like “alien quiz shows?

What is the effective range of such radio/tv communications?  Would it be indefinite?  Since the universe is 13 billion years old, but our sun only 4, the range of stars/galaxies from which we could hear signals seems to depend more on signal strength than time.  Should we be hearing these signals?  Could it really be that we’re alone out there, the only life sentient enough to yet learn about the wonders of space and the cosmos we live in? What does that say about the miracle of our own life and existence?

I’ve been thinking about the Big Bang and the cosmos a lot lately, and really I think the only conclusion that makes any sense is that there is guiding hand to the universe’s creation.   The sheer wonder and scale of our universe, from the massive size and distance between galaxies to live that can fit on the head of a pin. The wonder of our existence,  boggles the imagination. Without a god guiding creation it seems the basic argument is that we’re an explosion that became self-aware, and a random one at that.  Neither one is provable I suppose, but one explanation makes a lot more sense to me than another.