Only While It's Useful

Government is not a right, it is a privilege and therefore should be refused when it doesn't suit you.

Broadband Speeds

My DSL at work gets: 384 kbps down, 379 kbps up. sDSL in case you hadn't noticed.

My cable modem at home gets: 4.55 Mbps down, 361 kbps up.

Numbers side by side:

4,559,704 bps up/361,752 bps down - CABLE
 384,496 bps up/379,240 bps down - DSL

DRM = DRSUX!

The DRM is a law to protect analog structured industries in a digital era. The product has evolved without the seller. Good for greedy, impersonal entities that will die off in a hundred years. Bad for the advancement of civilization.

Flag Burning...yes again.

You can tell when it's election year in this country when the dumbest ideas come up for approval for Congress to codify into law. I don't understand why our lawmakers want to add Constitutional amendments restricting rights? Why start that precedent? I actually think they'd be shocked if they got something ridiculous to pass. They just want to appeal to their constituents, not really change anything. It's a dangerous game they play, regardless of their intentions.

So flag burning is up for debate...again. They want to make it a constitutional amendment to ban this practice. I have said this before but it'd be interesting bookends if it passes, the last amendment superseding the first.

Personal view aside, I don't understand why we need law enforcement for this action? Is the practice really that rampant that force is needed to respond? Does our law enforcement not have anything better to do? As I understand, the number of yearly cases of this is virtually 0. It's something like less than 100 cases of flag burning in a country of 300 million people, if you don't count the patriotic groups that are disposing of old flags in some ritual fashion that makes it ok to burn it. And how do you enforce that? How do you write that law in a way that millions of police officers can discern between the proper way a flag is being burned and the improper? It can't be done. Mistakes will be made, assumptions incorrectly created, conclusions improperly drawn. You just can't do it on a national level anyway. Not even on a state level. Maybe you can neighborhood-level...MAYBE.

So a few people want to burn the American flag every year. Why do you care? Because it's offensive to you? If we passed a law for everything that offends people, we'd be living in a police state and no one could do anything! We'd be in a country so full of laws, the Nazi's would say, "That's cold."

You might think public flag burning hurts the country's image, creates disrespect, incites rebellion, etc. I really don't see that happening. Not as long as people like you are committed to protecting that flag and people like me swear allegiance to our country. They will never convince us otherwise. We will stand together, united and not be swayed by these protestors. Not with blackmail, not with torture and certainly not by asking us to bear witness to a burning of a piece of fabric. I know it won't change my mind about my country.

So let them do it. Best case scenario, they burn themselves during the stunt. Why would you want to stop Darwinism?

We don't need the amendment.

Summer Wonderland

Half way to Christmas...

"Who controls the past, controls the future.
Who controls the present, controls the past."

--Rage Against The Machine

Recorded Thoughts

The lead character in the fourth Dune book, God Emperor of Dune, had a technology that was wirelessly tapped into his brain. And during his 3000 year reign of the universe, whatever thought he had was recorded somewhere in some archive. All he had to do is consciously think it and it was written down.

There are times I wish I had this technology. Many times I've had ideas that I wanted to write down or even blog about here, but I'm usually not in a position to get it added before the thought is gone.

I'm sure the idea for the technology came about from the author of the book, Frank Herbert. He was a thinker and probably wished, like me, he had the technology to provide the service.

Summer, Summer, Summertime.

Yesterday, happy Anniversary to me and Mrs. Lock. Happy Summer Solstice to everyone. I performed my annual summer solstice ritual again last night. I blogged about it last year. Loads of fun. Woot.

Flashback to Newer Songs

It's funny to me to hear the local "new rock alternative" radio station still play songs from Nirvana. And even more funnier when they play one of their songs from 16 years ago and then immediately start the "Flashback Nooner. This one goes all the way back to 1995, ten years ago..."

Rituals

I'm not a fan of rituals. I don't like giving or receiving gifts on a certain day of the year when it's expected of me. I'd rather give gifts when I feel like it, not when it's required of me or of someone else to give them to me. I say this on the eve of my anniversary too for no particular reason.

I really don't like rituals (unless they're my own and I think them up). Mrs. Lock asked me if we could get married on a certain day. I agreed. She arranged the wedding and we did it. Every birthday/Christmas I'm asked what I want, I say, "nothing." I never get nothing though. Curses.

Celebrate life not dates. It's an emotional feeling and you're not supposed to schedule emotions. Celebrating something on a specific day, the same day from year to year implies you don't care for it the other 364 days. If you know when it's coming, what kind of joy is that?

Oh well. I guess it does something for the economy.