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Perhaps you remember the law of supply and demand from school. Now what happens when a business increases the price of its product beyond its demand? One of two things happen: people learn to do without or they find an alternative method to get that product. Enter internet piracy.
I know internet piracy has existed for a long time and will continue to exist, but I wager to you that its popularity is due in large part to absorbent prices of movie tickets, software, and other media.
A big part of illegal file sharing had included many commercial-free versions of prime-time TV shows such as Lost and Heroes. In an attempt to stem the piracy of these shows and to regain some profit, some networks tried selling these shows on iTunes. But that never seemed to take hold. People wanted to watch the shows when they wanted, but they didn't want to pay for them and didn't want to purchase a DVR.
Thus, hulu was born. A quick Alexa comparison between thepiratebay.org and the rise of popularity in hulu.com shows a direct correlation.
Today the most popular torrent seed is the new Star Trek movie. This begged the question, "How much is a ticket?" In my town that's $13 for just one adult. Ouch!
Charge people $2, let them watch it on their computer, make them watch commercials, and you will see ticket sales skyrocket.
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democrat,
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Recently the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was gutted by the FISA. Despite the outrage, the bill was passed, and the mainstream news moves on to other news like lipsticks and pigs.
FISA may seem like a huge tragedy(and it is!), but it is one of many Constitutional violations committed in the last few presidencies. The Republicans and Democrats are both guilty.
Here's a few more examples:
H.R. 5122: John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2007
This grants the president the ability to declare martial law without a vote in Congress.
Homeland Security Act
Patriot Act
I understand a feeling of helplessness, but there is a solution.
It's called the American Freedom Agenda Act(pdf).
The American Freedom Campaign summarize the bill well:
"The American Freedom Agenda Act would bar the use of evidence obtained through torture; require that federal intelligence gathering is conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); create a mechanism for challenging presidential signing statements; repeal the Military Commissions Act, which, among other things, denies habeas corpus to certain detainees; prohibit kidnapping, detentions, and torture abroad; protect journalists who publish information received from the executive branch; and ensure that secret evidence is not used to designate individuals or organizations with a presence in the U.S. as foreign terrorists."
I implore you to call your representatives. If you aren't sure how to contact them, us Congress.org. It's an excellent source.
Now is the time to take action!
This is the essence of what is wrong with our government:
Now, I'm not for socialism by any means, but why is our government sending $1 billion to the country of Georgia when gas prices are about to shoot through the roof from an impending hurricane? An infusion of a billion dollars could stem the cost of gasoline, or better yet, aid the recovery for the impending destruction of homes and businesses in Texas.
The government is broken.
"The fact that industry generated data to support the safety I don't think is an unusual thing."
Mitchell Cheeseman
As a quick review, Bisphenol A (BPA) is a polymer used in many applications which require plastics such as the manufacturing of shatter-proof plastic baby bottles.
The FDA recently released a Draft Assessment of Bisphenol A for Use in Food Contact Applications, and in this assessment I found this:
"FDA estimates that BPA exposure from use in food contact materials in infants and adults is 2.42 μg/kg bw/day and 0.185 μg/kg bw/day, respectively. FDA has determined the appropriate no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for its assessment of BPA to be the NOAEL for systemic toxicity of 5 mg/kg bw/day (5000 μg/kg bw/day) derived from two multigenerational rodent studies. This NOAEL results in adequate margins of safety of approximately 2,000 and 27,000 for infants and adults, respectively. The data reviewed on highlighted endpoints, such as the prostate gland and developmental neural and behavioral toxicity, were insufficient to provide a basis to alter the NOAEL used to calculate the margins of safety. FDA has concluded that an adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure from food contact uses. At a later date, FDA will publish a separate document that provides a safety assessment of BPA exposure from other FDA-regulated products."
In short, we are all consuming/absorbing BPA, but the FDA says it has "insufficient" data to prove the levels we are receiving are dangerous.
Because this is the U.S., and we have too much bureaucracy, there is another federal department studying the same thing. The United States Department of Health and Human Services recently published this report on the Potential Human Reproductive and Developmental Effects of Bisphenol A. That's when I found this:
"Recognizing the lack of data on the effects of bisphenol A in humans and despite the limitations
in the evidence for “low” dose effects in laboratory animals discussed in more detail below, the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed."
Are you surprised?
In May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed to send a man to the moon. What an audacious (and liberal!) move, and a huge expense to the country! However, future will tell that the payoff has been immeasurable. Scientific advancements in electronics led to the Computer Revolution and ultimately the Internet. John F. Kennedy who, in his tragically short presidency, did amazing things for this country. He was a true liberal and a good one.
Barack Obama is running a campaign on the ambiguous idea of change. Sounds liberal enough. However, in Barack Obama's Plan for Lifetime Success through Education he plans to cut funding from the NASA Constellation Program. The goal of the program would be to create a new generation of spacecraft for human spaceflight. Barack Obama doesn't have only liberal ideas.
Theodore Roosevelt. . . Wow! Just, wow! Reading about some of the things he accomplished nearly brings a tear to my eye. I can't see the future, but I doubt either McCain or Obama could accomplish in eight years what President T. Roosevelt accomplished in one. Setting aside more land for national parks and preserves than all previous presidents combined. Apparently he didn't even want to have a Christmas tree in the White House fearing it would come from a virgin forest. Theodore Roosevelt did hunt, but he believed in sportsmanship.
Palin electrifies conservative base, or so the headlines go these days. She is against abortion, and that's about all I have on her conservatism. Yes, Sarah Palin is a member of the NRA, but unlike President Theodore Roosevelt, she does not support good sportsmanship in hunting. In fact, Sarah Palin is a member of the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group for oil companies, which is suing to keep polar bears from the protection of the Endangered Species Program. Even worse, Palin supports the aerial hunting of wolves which looks like this. That's not very conservative.
Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy weren't perfect presidents. They were great presidents. In the Bible, David is referred to as "a man after God's own heart," and he accomplished much. But, David cheated on his wife with Bathsheba and later killed Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. I point this out because we measure David's accomplishments by their sum.
I don't want you to find me a politician who has done a few good things for this country and it's constitution. They are a dime-a-dozen.
I want a candidate who has made a career of fighting for our liberties and the Constitution.
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There really are no substantive differences between the two major party candidates:
Which candidate will end the fraudulent and unconstitutional War on Drugs, which funds covert counter-democracy CIA activities abroad while eroding civil liberties here at home?
Which candidate will end the fraudulent and unconstitutional War on Terror, which transforms the Middle East into a breeding ground for radical jihadists who are eager follow in the footsteps of the CIA-manufactured ones that attacked us on September 11th?
Which candidate will dismantle the secret state within the CIA, which has waged a continuous and covert war against peaceful, progressive, socializing movements throughout the world by aiding and arming repressive regimes who abet the plunder of their nation's resources by Western elites?
Which candidate will end our unconditional military, economic, and moral support for the apartheid, Zionist state of Israel?
Which candidate will eliminate the Federal Reserve, which puts control over our economic future and prosperity into the hands of a supra-elite cartel of international bankers?
Which candidate will repeal the unconstitutional income tax, which funds the cancer that is the military-industrial complex?
Which candidate will disclose what the government really knows about UFOs?
Which candidate will nullify the authority of sovereignty-eroding global governing organizations, that set policy and law on an international scale without any representation from or accountability to the people of any nation?
Which candidate will start a genuine investigation into 9/11, as opposed to the underfunded, stonewalled, still-born, shameful whitewash that was the 9/11 Commission Report?
Which candidate will ferret out and bring to trial the traitors in the White House, State Department, Justice Department, Pentagon, Congress, DHS, FBI, CIA, FEMA, and any other agency, who have been responsible for the subterfuge of our democracy, starting with the current president and vice-president?
Which candidate will restore our constitutional democracy by drastically reducing the power and scope of the federal government as well as that of the corporate estate?
If you still buy into the stage-managed "left" versus "right" game of political hot-potato that passes for political discourse in our society, these words will probably fall on deaf ears. But if you're willing to dedicate yourself to seeking the truth of things with an open mind, you'll soon wise up to the fact that so-called consensus reality is a well-crafted charade designed to conceal and perpetuate a power structure of global scope which is unmistakably totalitarian in both action and intent.
So, which candidate will work to abolish the institutionalized causes of terror, conflict, inequality, injustice, and suffering, in our nation, and throughout the world? Neither.