Right to Opine

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology makes us illegally download digital content like movies and music. Or so says Cambridge professor Patricia Akester. Yes, and

• Bars on store windows make us break in and steal cash from the register
• Car alarms make us steal cars
• Home security systems force us to burglarize our neighbors
• Bank safes make us robbers

I could go on but you get the point. It’s amazing the lengths to which liberal academics will go to justify immorality.

When it rains it pours. There another silly story going around about a gun incident at a middle school in Louisiana. Of course we know it can’t possibly be true because shotguns and handguns are banned on campus and we all know gun bans stop gun crime.

There’s an unbelievable story circulating among our media that a young man was shot near the entrance of a Harvard University dormitory. It can’t possibly be true because guns are banned on campus and we all know that gun bans stop gun crimes.

You have to watch National Geographic Channel to get this gem, but one of their recent shows demonstrates just why Ben R’s passes are devastating to opponents’ defenses.

As a Steelers fan, I must admit I’m torn about this show. It shows why my boy has won two Super Bowls in just a few years of NFL experience. But that’s a good thing and a bad, scary, thing. Ravens coaches…are you watching this? I hope not! Ignore it! It’s all just hyper-media BS and your defenses can’t possibly learn anything from it. Really. Please?

The European (Socialist) Union has decided to fine Intel Corp. for roughly $1.5 billion for “antitrust” activities. (No, I’m not going to provide easy links this time. Look it up.) This is problematic to traditional Americans on a number of levels.

Anti-trust and -monopoly laws were enacted in order to protect consumers against companies that garnered a corner on a market and then raised their prices. Yes, I italicized and bolded that word. For a number of years I was a big critic of Intel, not because of their success, but because they tried to cover up the mathematical issues with the first generations of their Pentium processors. (Said cover ups are well documented on the web if you do a little homework.) In recent years, however, Intel has done consumers a great benefit by providing processors which provide greater processing power with less electric power consumption at a lower cost.

Reread that last sentence. More power. Less electricity. Fewer $$ out of my wallet. Where, exactly, is the harm to consumers? Do you really understand that the average American company can now construct (out of off-the-shelf components) a computer that would rival the power of a multi-million dollar Cray supercomputer of just 10 years ago at a fraction of the cost? Intel is entirely responsible for that.

Disclaimer: I’m currently employed as a factory automation software engineer by a French/Italian semiconductor manufacturer who stands to benefit if Intel is punitively fined by the EU.

Back to that italicized, bolded word: raised. The fact is that as Intel has made their processors more powerful and simultaneously power-efficient (i.e., more miles less gas). If, in the process, they had garnered a corner on the market and raised prices, there might conceivably be a legal argument that they had violated some anti-trust laws. The fact is, however, that as Intel has made its processors more attractive for technological reasons, they have simultaneously made them cheaper. No matter how loudly AMD may scream that Intel is a monopoly (or whatever) the truth is that Intel has made its processors better and less expensive. (Are there specific applications for which AMD processors are better? Sure. But in general, Intel CPUs are cheaper for the same power.)

Second disclaimer: I’m a long-time Macintosh fan and have both an Intel-powered laptop and an old IBM/Motorola-powered G5 tower. My older G5 machine is used to perform video and audio processes that the current Intel CPUs still don’t match (Apple and Intel propaganda notwithstanding). The Intel laptop is used for the easy, daily stuff (where most consumers live) like email and FaceBook.

So let’s count it up. I’m a Mac fan who works for a company that would benefit from a big Intel fine. Not exactly a good profile for a defender of Intel, eh? But that’s what I am. Intel stands for everything that the lefties in Europe hate & that I love. Performance. Power. Low cost. Hyundai is going to beat BMW & Chrysler/GM/Ford in America for that very reason (they own that trifecta).

Aaargh! I got away from the main point again. The bolded, italicized word was, “raised.” The truth is that, wherever you live on this planet, Intel has made it possible for you to do things with your personal computer (whether you use Windows, Linux or OS X) that you could not have imagined doing just 10 years ago at a fraction of the cost. The only issue this raises is the opportunities for “the rest of us”.

Punish that at your peril.

Only about 50 students are expected to show up for a protest of Obama’s invitation to address the university’s commencement cermonies this year. Generously, that’s only 2% of the graduating class. Very sad note, considering the church which nominally supports the school opposes much of Obama’s social agenda including abortion “rights”.

Kudos to Mary Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor, who declined ND’s Laetare Medal (which honors a Catholic layperson who most personifies the ideals of the church) upon learning that Obama would be honored by the university at the same time. Ms. Glendon, your response only clarifies the fact that you deserve the recognition.

Try a Google search for “Notre Dame Mary Glendon” and you’ll find that the top 20 articles aren’t even from mainstream media sources. Our “media”, which are supposed to provide us with important news, give us more “data” about Carrie Prejean (who admittedly opposes both abortion and gay marriage but whose only real qualifications are two nice man-made globes) than about Ms. Glendon, who is a very serious and respected jurist. If you’re ever in doubt about the quality of your information, consider your sources.

At a speech in the West Bank today, the Pope demonstrated his apparent lack of comprehension of the current Israel-vs-everyone-else situation. Let’s look at this piece bit-by-bit. After passing through the border barriers,

he expressed regret over Israel’s construction of the separation barrier

That barrier is there because Palestinians seem intent on using terrorism as their primary method of negotiation.

In Bethlehem, he offered a prayer for Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza.

When Palestinians stop the whole human-walking-bomb thing, I bet Israel will consider that request. Until then, don’t count on Jehovah’s (or Yahweh’s) intervention.

[H]e also urged young Palestinians to “have the courage to resist any temptation to resort to acts of violence or terrorism.”

Hey Benedict, how about growing a pair and talking to Iran and Syria about stopping their support for Palestinian terrorism?

At the Aida refugee camp, the pope said it was understandable that Palestinians feel frustrated.

“Their legitimate aspirations for permanent homes, for an independent Palestinian state, remain unfilled.”

Except that he’s wrong here. It’s not understandable. Walking into a shopping center or elementary school with bombs strapped to your body will get you a pretty negative response in any civilized country. Truth is (if you’re willing to do your homework) Palestinians are treated rather well if they relocate just a few miles east and live in Israel than if they stay on the West Bank and support the terrorists. (Pretty much like black Americans moving south and being treated better in Tennessee or Alabama than in my home city of St. Louis, where my relatives feel no shame at calling them “niggers” routinely.)

“In a world where more and more borders are being opened up … it is tragic to see walls still being erected,” Benedict said. “How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built.”

I’ve just about reached my breaking point with this one. Those borders are there because certain Palestinians insist on their right to blow up innocent Israeli children to make a long-dead political point. You want to see the walls torn down? Stop killing kids. Monsignor Benedict, how about praying that Palestinians will get a #$(*&^!% clue! That would end it.

A two-year-old was killed when he strayed onto the tracks of a roller coaster. While I don’t have all of the facts and certainly can’t completely exonerate the park’s administrators, I must quote the Showmen’s Guild’s representative here:

The HSE [Health & Safety Executive] will look at where the child’s parents were in this incident and we will do our own investigation.

Indeed.

The Senate has approved a credit card reform bill with an amendment sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-OK) which would definitively allow states’ firearms laws to apply to national parks. Just last year over 6,000 felonies were committed in national parks, many of them rather violent (rape, robbery, and kidnapping). The federal government can’t possibly pay for the manpower to provide protection for park visitors. The Coburn amendment would change the current restriction (no handguns, period) so that individuals who are allowed to carry a handgun per state statute would be allowed to carry in national parks.

As a simple example, concealed carry permit holders are convicted of gun crimes at a far lower rate than the US population at large. (Gun grabbers can start their whining now, but it’s true.) Allowing CCW holders to carry in national parks would not only not make our parks less safe, it would allow us to legally provide the protection for ourselves and our families that our federal and state governments simply cannot.

Write your House representative and urge him to support passage of this bill with the Coburn amendment. You can find the contact info for your rep here (if you don’t know your ZIP+4 there’s a link on the page that will give you that number). If, like me, you’re a Republican represented by a rather liberal Democrat, let him know that passage of this bill with the amendment would demonstrate true Congressional bipartisan effort as promised by The Messiah. (OK, I didn’t use that exact terminology in my letter.) Conservatives aren’t thrilled with the credit card bill. Liberals aren’t thrilled (alright, they’re outright terrified) by the Coburn amendment. Passing the bill as is would go a long way toward mollifying the 70%+ of Americans who consider personal gun ownership a Constitutional right. (And ease up the market pressure on those Federal 230 grain Hydra-Shok rounds I prefer. 😉 )

You have to give the French credit when it’s due. And under their new President, that’s a lot more often than before. A trio of pirate attack boats mistook a French warship for an easy target. I got the giggles just wondering what went through their minds as they came under fire from a helicopter and French troops, who took them into custody.