Rants

Welcome to the A-times Mayank! Im sure you'll have plenty to say, and maybe i'll be posting regularly sometime soon!

There has been a lot of talk about Bushes unwarranted line tapping, which has been allowed under the patriot act. I am not a fan of the law personally, but I'm not sure of its illegality, and am therefore not going to blindly call the president a criminal as Al Gore did slanderously today. It may just be similar to the national governments right to taxation where a law overstepped its constitutionality (which oddly enough, though has been proven unconstitutional has not been overturned)

I've had a number of conversations on the topic and here is what I can say for sure. Whether or not you believe the phone line to be an extension of the home owners property (Which I personally do not believe,) the Fourth Amendment allows for unwarranted search of "any open space other than the land immediately surrounding a domicile" (wiki quote) which the phone line at the phone company could easily be considered. The obvious thing here though is that they still should either need the consent or a warrant for the phone company unless that has become public domain which I do question.

I welcome talkback on this, as I am not even sure on my stance any more.

This is an idea I've had for quite some time. If the universe is truly analog, which I'm aware many of you dispute, would it not be possible to store an infinite amount of information in the positioning of a single molecule? If the universe is analog then is there not an infinite number of positions from any point a to any point b? There are several problems with this though as several friends have pointed out.

Firstly, in order for accuracy, there could be nothing else in the universe, not even the device for measuring the data, as the gravity of such object would offset the object. Moreover the act of measuring the object would infact alter the objects positon.

Well this was the first official post for the new 'Insight' page.

An English man by the name of David Irving has gone to prison in Austria for "Not Believing in the Holocaust." Do not get me wrong here, I am no anti-Semitist, but I consider what they have done to this man to be the worst kind of evil. Freedom of thought must be ensured. What I can and cannot believe should never be dictated by the government under any circumstances, and should have the guaranteed right to express what I believe. This is not to say that people should not be able challenge ones beliefs, but they shouldn't be able to throw one into prison for it. This is in my opinion as bad as Fascism. When they have the right to tell us what to believe where does it end? Imagine the large sweeping effects on religion among other things. There are many things nonreligious as well that I do not agree with scientists on, but when having a dissenting view is illegal there is no room for progress, improvement nor correction. Quoting the article "Anti-Nazi groups in the UK congratulated the Austrian government." That in it self seems pretty Nazi to me. I thought England was supposed to be a friend of freedom. It has hit me as of late that the United States is the only place where speech is still free.

As a side note this is one of several reasons why we must not give the reigns of the internet over to the EU, along with the fact that we spent billions creating it, If Europe wants control they should first pay off their billions in trade deficit, and then purchase the internet from us for complete development cost.

I was going to stretch this on into covering how Germany is not a democracy because of their complete lack of free speech, but this sentence should do.

Here is the link to the aforementioned article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4446646.stm

There is an amendment to the constitution, supported by many republicans including the president, which would ban flag burning. I, though republican, am very strongly against this amendment. This is not because I am pro-protest but instead because I am con-symbolism. I do not stand for flags, ever, nor the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance, etc. I stand in respect for no man and most certainly not a piece of fabric. I do not respect a piece of fabric. I've mentioned this long ago, but it is my belief that putting value upon symbols is about the worst thing a person can do. Look at the power the swastika had on the masses. A symbol is nothing more than propaganda, something I might add the Nazi's were excellent at.
I wrote a letter a few weeks back on the topic and sent it to Senator Norm Coleman, a former democrat I might add. I got a response back a few days ago and it was very short and to the point. Since I cannot find it at the moment I will state it as I remember it.
"Dear sir: While I am thankful for your input. I disagree with you on this matter. Also Note I hate you.
Yours truly, Norm Coleman"
Well maybe that's not exactly how it went but its close. Anyway I was very disappointed with the response.

Early one morn (more specifically the morning of June 30, 2005) I happened to be waiting in the lobby of Bloomington Acura Subaru (I'm going to abbreviate this as BAS from now on). Now while my problem lies somewhat with Bloomington Acura Subaru, my burning rage caused by the fire websense lit under my ass, shall for the most part be directed at Websense. For those of you unaware of what Websense is, Websense is a utility developed by the Websense Corporation, whose mission according to their website is "protecting productivity". The Websense utility enables corporations to block websites based on the category they are classified in by fine people at Websense For instance there are several categories such as "proxy-avoidance" (yeah I tried it), "Instant messenger", and my personal favorite "distasteful." Anyways, so I found myself bored out of my mind when I noticed they had several internet terminals for customer use. So I sat myself down at one and being so inclined decided to load up ebaumsworld. To my surprise I was greeted by a friendly message from my friends at Websense telling me that the website I was trying to access had been restricted by Websense because BAS had determined it didn't want people accessing sites classified as "distasteful" that could undermine their moral judgment.

Last time I checked, employers are allowed to ensure that they're employee's are getting their jobs done, not to make sure their employees have the same sense of humor, laugh at the same jokes, etc. Websense does help keep employees on task by enabling employers to deny access to messaging programs and in all fairness to BAS it's probably in their best interest to keep its employees on task and away from ebaumsworld while they're on the clock. However the idea of simply blocking it as "distasteful" is such a very flawed way of doing that has managed to go unchecked by flying under just under the radar of logic and public outrage.

Flawed you say? Well yeah, for every site Websense blocks, a bored employee will simply find something else to keep them occupied and as far from their actual work responsibilities. I mean hell they might even be so inclined even surf the hell outa CNN.com or something (though I hear there's a movement to get CNN branded as

distasteful too) like barneyandfriends.com (truly a website designed by Satan) that Websense hasn't managed to get offended by yet. And in should a company like BAS be using Websense to filter out ?distasteful material? to help keep its workforce ?pure,? what?s to stop any employee from going home and looking at it anyway. I mean it's like the Great Firewall the Chinese Government set up to keep their billion strong populace under control by denying them access to "objectionable internet content." For every loophole the Chinese Authorities close, the Chinese people just find a new way around the firewall. The human brain is probably the greatest unsolved mystery the world has ever known, and one way or another it will usually get what it wants or something damn close, and just like "the people's republic of China" (so much irony in that I can't even begin) has failed to eradicate content it finds counter-productive to China's future, Websense is doomed to fail as a means of ensuring Employees are on task. It might make it more difficult for them to "go astray" but it's sure as hell not going to stop them from getting off task.

Second what freaking right does Websense have to tell me what's distasteful. I'm the first person to admit America could sure as hell use a "do-over" for plenty of things in the past 226 years but one of things we got right was guaranteeing the right to freely develop one's opinions, and to me it seems very unfortunate that Websense. I am of the camp that believes it's a good thing for people to be exposed to things they might find "distasteful." All too often the things that make us uncomfortable are all too often times the very things that are most important to see. Being uncomfortable leads us to question our existing opinions and views, which in turn causes us to develop more educated opinions and beliefs.

Based on personal observations, there are three reasons any living thing exists. One, to have sex or (insert your favorite euphemism for reproduction here); two, to think about the first reason to exist; and three, to achieve a complete understanding of the world around us. If mankind ever achieves the third one the global population is going to up faster than the population of New York City did about nine months after the 1975 blackout. (For those of you not paying attention, a lot of people had sex? a lot)

For those of you that are unaware during the mid 90's under the supervision of Bill Clinton a bill was passed stating that broadcasters would no longer have to broadcast in analog in the year 2006. Of course now we know that the switch over to digital tuners in televisions hasn't been as quick as one might have hoped. I believe I am the only person I know to actually have a digital tuner in any of my TV's, I know two people with HDTV's and even they are not equipped with digital tuners, we paid an extra $400 on our television just to have one built in. Congress is legislating now not only to push the date up to 2009. Not only though are they going to stop broadcast of analog television but they are going to ban the sales of Analog TV's and Analog VCR's. They want to use the frequencies for better wireless internet and emergency broadcasts. My major problem with this is that the digital signals are not nearly as reliable as the analog. For example I'll be watching 'Desperate Housewives' in HD on Channel 5-1 and all of a sudden 'Signal Low' and the picture goes out, not static-y but completely black. So now when this happens I can just tune down a click to analog, non-HD, 5 and have a lower quality but working picture. This happens all the time too, usually at the most inconvenient times. Sure with digital there is no static, but in place of the static you get black. I find it irritating that people who make over $100k, and making laws about something that mainly affects people who make much less who take advantage of broadcast TV. You know as well as I somewhere there is an old woman who will be watching TV the moment they turn off the analog and think her TV's broken. I guess the one decent thing about it though is that the converter boxes for standard TV's are going to be price controlled by the government, and they are aiming for $35 a box. Luckily for my self when Voom (Great HD) went out of business they never showed up to collect their boxes, so I have 3 boxes that have digital off air tuners in them.

You must remember a few things. Refusing to do something is not forcing your beliefs on others as they can go get it somewhere else (I mean I don't go to church dose that make you an atheist?). A person has every right to sell what they want in a private shop. however a public institution does not and most pharmacies probably fall under this category. Any republican strictly adhering to the thoughts of the group and taking there morals from their political party with no outside thought has major issues. And there are at least would be dissenters (not that I know but I hope so) that are in the party because it lines up on the majority of issues. As for abortion its easy to argue any angle but you really have no idea what its all about until your involved in a situation where it comes up. I've never had to make that decision myself but once you have had a woman cry on your shoulder because of something like that you see things a little differently. . .

Recently a debate has emerged about whether or not a pharmacist should be allowed not to sell because it violates their personal beliefs. As a republican I've got to say this an outrage. You are entitled to your personal beliefs, you are not entitled to force other people to live according to them as these pharmacists believe they are. The pharmacists who are refusing to sell birth control (including the morning after pill) having blatantly overstepped their authority. A patient should have the option to pursue any relevent medical treatment without having to worry about whether someone's religious and moral beliefs are standing between them and their health. As a christian I also believe that abortion is here and here to stay. My personal stance is that abortion should be allowed in the first trimester or whenever the health of the mother is in jepordy, and I find this a hard position to argue with. Regardless, abortion is a serious procedure, and if an inexpensive pill can eliminate the need for a costly medical operation then isn't something like the pill the lesser of two evils (though i dont see it as one) for someone opposed to abortion? Regardless, I think its unfortunate that a few off the deep end republicans are giving the rest of us a bad name.

Jesse wrote: "Jimmy Carter, or the ignorant fool as I like to call him, took us off the gold standard." Actually it was Nixon who took the United States off the gold standard. Interesting no one pointed that out.