New Copy Right Bill (2008)

So what's in the new copyright bill?


1... copying that DVD is against the rules. Period. No no no .

2... Time shifting is illegal (copying and watching it later) no no no !

3... Statutory damages are in. That means they don't have to prove they were harmed by your copying they can just have the court penalize you off the top.

4...photographers are now out of work.

Current copyright law in Canada says that if you commission a photograph (or portrait or engraving), then by default you're the copyright owner. The proposed law would change that to make the photographer the owner instead.

That means you probably couldn't stop the photographer from using photos of your wedding or your baby however he or she wants to. You could, of course, change this by contract, but only if you're smart enough to do so, and you'd probably have to pay for it.

Now, to go along with this change, there's a proposed new provision that would allow you to use those commissioned photos for private or non-commercial purposes. So e-mailing them to grandma might be okay, but posting to a public Facebook page puts you over the line.

And, as far as I can tell, it would still be strictly prohibited to tamper with any technological locks on the photo, or to mess with the photographer's watermark, for example. The bottom line, then, is that the photographer calls the shots when it comes to copyright.


Umm...I'm gonna hire you to take my wedding photo...but you own it ? I CANNOT put it on the web or you can sue me for $20 000 ???? I can just see some photographer lining up five or ten rubes , waiting for all of them to do this , and then suing them all. 2 million dollars , lawyer gets half , his business is toast but he's got a million dollars in his pocket what does he care ?

bought a digital camera for 69$ a few years back. Just plug it into the usb port of your computer , down load the pics. You're the photographer , you do as you please. This bill puts photographers out of business if it passes. Pretty amusing actually.

5...Don't cross the boarder with your lap top or your mp3 player, they're allowed to search it , fine you to death , the whole nine yards.

6...Don't break any digital locks. 20 000$ fine.

7...Downloading movies is now encouraged by this law, so they yammer on about. Obviously they havn't heard of Rogers 60 gig per month limit or bells 30 gig limit. Not to mention Bell choaking down any movie downloads except from their own movie sales sight.

8...copying for use of parody is illegal , but criticizing is ok. So I guess this blog will stay legal. :)

9...No copying exceptions for teachers and libraries. If the copy right holder says no , "no means no !"




So ...what are the implications of this bill , you ask ? My take is as follows.
Photographers are out of business. Digital camera makers are in. You always wanted to take up photography as a hobby ? Nows the time. All the professionals just got the boot.

MP3 players are toast. We'll be going back to portable cd players shortly. Not that big a deal really, but I'll miss my Zen Stone. Start building up that CD library.

The music industry will be coming out shortly with a new cd format, and players, whereby every tune is "digitally locked". Since it's a $500 per tune fine to unlock them, and $20 000 per tune if they find their way onto the web , don't expect many people to try and crack it. Not in this country. The music industry has always been good about backwards compatability, but you can expect all new cd's to be in the new format.

Don't trade tunes / movies on the internet. The ISP's (rogers and bell for example) can be legally required to rat you out , and then you're toast. PS: Bankruptcy doesn't cover what you owe the government. Not in canada. Can't make your back taxes go away like that :) Or your court judged fines.

Phones are still locked and you're not allowed to break any kind of digital lock, not even on a phone you own 100% (guess you don't totally own it) but thats kind of irrelevant to most people since there are cheap pay as you go phones for less than 80$ at wall mart (saw them sunday three days ago) so thats only relevant for ripping of people who like to buy 500$ phones.

Cargo pants will make a big splash. Those portable cd players don't fit well in a regular pocket. *grin* Cheap phones and digital camera's (if your phone doesn't have one that lets you keep the pic, my uncles phone wants to charge him to print of pics and mail them to him)

If you lock something down too much , and it's only a toy , it's not required, people will stop using it. Anyone who understands this law will never use the services of a photographer again, and after a couple of scoundrals hit the news suing the pants of people and them losing their houses because they put their wedding pics on facebook all photographers will get smeared with that brush and go down in flames. MP3 players are toast , and no ones taking a lap top across the boarder anymore. Even if the lap top is clean they're gonna want to search it. Oh you put linux on it ? Gee, I don't know how to do that, you go wait over there until I get someone who can ...umm...actually there is no one , I'm gonna have to confiscate that ...

Oh , mp3 player ? Let me hear the tunes ? wow..nice beatles tune ...over 80 tunes on this thing huh ? That will be 40 000$ fine , pay up . No money ? American jail time. Hope you like being repeatedly sodomized.

Dells Little Monster Parte Deux

Ok, so I call dell support because it's still happening. And we discover the most fascinating thing. The windows service pack 3 has "compatability issues" with dell computers. Specifically , as we discovered, that the reformat from the hidden partition didn't work.

We spent about an hour or so on the phone, the tech was sure it was the speakers for some reason. But uninstalled the service pack , and went down the list of windows wave files until we identified the beeping as the device installed / device uninstalled sound.

And then the battery on my phone died.

but , as I discovered, the reformat utility now worked again ! Hurray ! Note to self : never install service pack three again.

And I reformatted and reinstalled.

And it happened again . And my mouse froze. And I was soooooo ticked that this "device unplugged" sound was going off....hmmm...press the windows key on the keyboard, and the menu popped up. Ok , so windows wasn't frozen , just the mouse. Check the connection ?
Trace the connection to my computer. Nope ! Trace the connection to my old KVM box (keyboard video mouse) where you plug in one monitor , one keyboard, one video , and you could hop back and forth between two computers. Pull the power on that , put it back in , the mouse works !
five minutes later it happened again.
Completely bypass the KVM entirely and plug the mouse and video directly into the computer.
And it hasn't happened since.
I spent two days reformatting windows three times for a stupid failed KVM ????
Open up my new browser and type in my blog site so I can record my stupidity for all to see.
Hmm..keyboard isn't working.
Yep. Keyboards plugged into the now powerless KVM. Move it to the computer, works fine.
*sigh*
Well...for a device with only a 90 day warrenty I got about two years out of it , didn't I ?

Stupid McAfee Trick.

McAfee wouldn't uninstall , because it kept complaining the virus scanner was running all the time. Thats why I was cheating with sabataging files and everything in the first place.
Saw that message , AGAIN ! and was totally ticked...looked down at the system tray , saw the big M , clicked on it , ....virus shield..... you know. The old mcafee from Dos had a vshield program that was a TSR (terminate stay resident) that always ran in the background ....
yep. Turn off the virus shield. The uninstaller for mcafee runs problem free.
*sigh*
Oh and Windows Mediaplayer 10 ? Was there from the moment I reinstalled. Guess it came with the system and didn't secretly download despite the automatic updates being turned off as I thought.
*sigh*

Dell's Little Monster

Article = None , personal Experience

Started getting this annoying beeping noise on my winxp machine. This two tone beep , the same one you hear when you plug a usb device into the port and it detects it. The trouble was, there was nothing in the port, and it was happening while I was playing an online game. It would hang the controls...and so the bad guys would beat on me while my character just stood there like an idiot and took it.
You can bet I was pissed at that.
Call up Dell, since it's a dell computer, and find out a few interesting things.

Bought it March 18 2006 , so it's gone more than two years since it was reformatted (ie: this will be the first reformat).

Wait for the dell logo to start, then hit pause, then Control-F11 a few times to get to the hidden partition utilities to reformat the drive.
Move the cable back to the orginal video card ..not the new one you just installed ...or you'll get a black screen a lot.


Just gonna put those up there so I remember . :)

So I reformat.
And I remove Mcafee. Why ? Because it's a 90 day trial ,and then it wants money. And it locks down your computer and denies you internet access when the 90 days run out. And if you phone mcafee on how to remove it they want the equiviliant of a one year license to tell you how to get rid of it.
And , this is the most amusing part of all, every ISP in canada is giving away an anti virus program for free. Plus Microsoft giving away it's Windows Defender Antivirus. Plus the AVG free antivirus ...
Oh , and the stuff is impossible to remove without help if you aint a techie.
I'm a techie. I consider it a challenge. A direct challenge of my Techiness that this program might beat me.
The fact that it amounts to digital extortion also ticks me off. And Mcafee is a famous well thought of company too ! I'd switch to norton ,but they're the same.

Or maybe it's dell. You go to msconfig utility and disable mcafee, reboot, and it all comes back ! Not allowed to turn it off ! Ho ho ho ! Look at that ! It gives the exact path and file name it's launching. go to that directory and rename the files so they can't be loaded.
Ach ! They're protected ! The names won't change ! Well...there must be something protecting them. Go to task manager, find the tasks with the same names as the files, and terminate them. Then rename the files...then reboot ...
And they're gone.
Install my game. Start the update processs on that. Two hour up load.
Go to work. Come back in 8 hours , and it's finished. Play my game.

And that annoying double beep still pops up. ANd my game still pauses... letting the bad guys pound on me. And I'm swearing, and I'm still ticked.
Windows updates. Service Pack three. Try it all. And the beeping occurs during that process as well, when the game isn't running , so I know it's not the game.

Did I mess up the removal of Mcafee ? Did I take something out I shouldn't have ? The system logs show some kind of DCom error, not to mention a windows fax error , could that be whats buggging my system ?

There's a mcafee removal tool available online.
I'm gonna try it again, this time I'm gonna use the removal tool instead of doing it by hand.

Man ..when did reformatting your computer become a several day saga ?

ACTIVATE MIND CONTROL TECHNOLOGY !!!

Fear-based ads sneak into subconscious, researcher says


The undecided voters also watched an ad attacking John McCain for saying the U.S. could be in Iraq for the next 100 years. After watching the ad, the group gave it a thumbs-down. But researchers said the data showed that it left them feeling McCain has poor judgment and is too close to President Bush.

The results were identical when the same test was given to a much larger group of 100 voters.

This happens because the ads trigger a response in the part of the brain called the amygdala, which experiences emotions such as fear. When it is aroused, it overrides logic, according to Westen.



Who rules the nation (any nation) no longer depends on who is the best man. Now it simply depends on who hires the right advertising agency.

Welcome to the new age !

Union vows to step up action against GM

Article


"We just ratified a new three-year collective agreement on May 16," Buckley said. "We gave General Motors some cost savings to remain competitive here in Canada. General Motors felt comfortable enough to agree with the tentative agreement. They committed to products in this plant … and as of today they've pulled that product out from underneath us. It's nothing short of betrayal."

Buckley is one of the leaders of the blockade of GM's Oshawa headquarters, and said the action will continue until the company reverses its decision to close the truck plant.


These guys shut down all the plants , so were ticked ! We're gonna strike ...

Ummm...where are we going to strike ? They fired us all and closed ALL the plants ?

We'll strike at their headquarters ! Thats where !

Ummm... a headquarters with no plants to be headquartering ? The only thing they're doing there is closing out files and packing things up to leave. Hate to be the landlord of that place since those tenants are gonna abandon and probably not pay the rent.

We'll strike as long as it takes !!!!

Ummm... Unemployment insurance runs out eventually, and lots of people can't live on unemployment their rent is too high so they can't join you on the strike line. In fact, in three months most of your workers will have other jobs anyways, just not as good.

And that office you're striking will be empty by then anyways.

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Zimbabwe aid cutoff endangers 2 million people: UN


U.S. Ambassador James McGee said Friday that Mugabe's government is distributing food mainly to supporters while people who support the opposition are offered food only if they hand in identification that would allow them to vote. McGee warned that "massive starvation" will result if the situation continues.



I would just like to say to all the aid groups out there, from the bottom of my heart , thank you for getting me re-elected so I can continue my dictatorial ways,crushing and murdering my own people , etc etc. You really are a great help to dicators everywhere you know ? I really appreciate your support.

Alleged 9/11 mastermind appears at Guantanamo tribunal

Article


Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001, is onThursday making his first appearance before a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base and high security prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


We got someone big. We're going to try him in a place where our laws don't apply, where we just make up any laws we like.


The U.S. government is seeking the death penalty for the accused men.

And we seek the death penalty under these laws that we just made up to insure that we get whatever we like.


Asked by the judge if he understood the charges against him, Mohammed said he rejected the laws and the system under which he was charged and would only agree to be tried under Muslim Sharia law, according to CNN.


How can you reject the laws you are to be tried under ? There are no laws, just whatever the military people feel like making up.


U.S. authorities have admitted that the controversial simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding" was used on Mohammed, but they say he wasn't subjected to severe physical pain or undue duress.


Honest ! We didn't torture him ! We just made him feel like he was drowning until he confessed to whatever crime we felt like accusing him off ! Really, we're nice people.

Yeah , how about you undergo waterboarding for a while and see if you still consider it "non torture".


His military lawyers have said they will argue that Mohammed's confessions are not admissible as evidence because they were obtained illegally


The coffession was not obtained illegally. There were no laws to be broken.


The administration of President George W. Bush has refused to put the Guantanamo detainees on trial in either the standard military justice system or a standard U.S. civilian court, arguing that they are unlawful enemy combatants and not entitled to the same rights as ordinary criminal defendants.


Yep ! We do what we want with them. Torture, years of confinement, anything we want !


Concerns that Mohammed or his fellow defendants might divulge classified information about their interrogations or whereabouts will be addressed with a special microphone system that allows military censors to shut off audio feeds of their testimony.


And in case he might say something that might actually win public sympathy, we shut off the mikes and no one hears his pleas.

This is a kangaroo court , pure and simple. I have no sympathy for these terrorists, but you are making a sham of justice here. This system doesn't even attempt justice. This is a simple Torture until he confesses then execute him. Maybe it couldn't happen to a nicer guy , but you gotta live with someone else demanding a similar kangaroo court with you as the star defendant later on.

You should just line these people up against the wall and shoot them, and not bother with this travesty.

Cell phone users secretly tracked in study

Article


Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home.
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Study co-author Cesar Hidalgo, a physics researcher at Northeastern, said he and his colleagues didn't know the individual phone numbers because they were disguised into "ugly" 26-digit-and-letter codes.


We have decided that we want to do this study of you. Without your permission. Because you're going to get annoying about this whole privacy thing, we'll make some minimal attempts to vaguely obscure your identity.


Barabasi said he did not check with any ethics panel. Had he done so, he might have gotten an earful, suggested bioethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania.

"There is plenty going on here that sets off ethical alarm bells about privacy and trustworthiness," Caplan said.


We have decided WE DON'T CARE that you don't like us studying you. We're going to do it anyways. You don't get to say no. You don't get to opt out. We have money , and we're taking what we want. And we're making up any bogus excuse we can, like pretending to sort of protect your privacy, which we are not even required to do.

Next week we're doing a different study. And since you didn't scream toooo loudly this time, it will have even fewer privacy protections than the last. Until eventually we're doing studies with no protections at all.

This is called breaking it in. We do this to horses all the time to train them to allow us to ride them.

(edit : June 15)
Got feedback saying there were newspaper retractions indicating there were ethic reviews and they followed their advice.
But ... they still did the study. And the people involved were not informed. And it pretty much just means they bought off the ethics committee that rubber stamped it. And next time around the ethics committee will have even looser rules to deal with.
Still breaking in the horse , buddy. Thanks for the url's... but they still did it and still didn't tell the people involved or give them an opt out.

Billions needed annually to raise food production: UN chief

Article


Between $15 billion and $20 billion will be needed each year to increase food production to tackle the growing global food crisis, the head of the United Nations said Wednesday


We want *YOUR* money to solve *OUR* problem !

We want you to pay for the fact that we took all the farms away from those evil white people in africa and gave it to a bunch of blacks that have never farmed in their life and now there's no food to sell !

We want you to pay for our rice because it doesn't grow well in our country , only wheat and flour grows here, and our people don't feel like switching their diet around, so you need to give us BILLIONS of dollars cause w'ere too lazy.

We want you to pay for our food because we reallocated all our good crop land to growing drugs to addict your youth because we hate the west and we want to tear it down (and get stinking rich in the process)


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters at an international food summit in Rome, said much of that cash would come from nations working to avert the crisis in food costs and supplies.


Lets talk abuot Burma , or Mynamar , or whatever they call themselves this week. What was it, 100 000 dead from that hurricane , and still the releif workers arn't allowed in ? The government prefers to let it's own population starve to death than let in any foriengers ?

Why ?

Because their own population isn't their own population. They're just some people we hate that we havn't finished killing off yet and taking everything they own for ourselves.

I've said it time and time again (maybe not n this blog) The UN is a congress of dictators and ethnic cleansers. Every nation in the world has a seat ? And 80% of the 200 nations in this world are dictatorships that are happy to kill their own people if they think the dictator in charge can make a nickle out of it ?

The "world" food crisis is a scam by dictators to try and extort BILLIONS from the west. billions that WILL NOT go to feeding anyone but their armies. And the starving people ? Yeah , they're real enough. And they'll continue to starve and die. Because the dictators dont' care. They actively hate their own people. And want them to die.

No one is solving anything , because no one wants to solve anything. The people in charge want to go on killing their own people, and actively prefer that those people die. But if you give them some cash they'll let them live a little while longer before they kill them anyways.

The problem is these dicatorships need to be cleaned up. Plain and simple. And you cna't really direct funds from getting rid of them , to supporting them, no matter how many people they use as hostages.

Copyright bill faces obstacles

Article


...make it illegal to unlock cellphones, transfer music from CDs to digital music players such as iPods, ...



I walk down the street.
Everyone and the dog has a music player in their ears.
and you want to make it illegal.

Can you say zero support ?

How about this ?
A simple tax on music players that can be used to transfer music (or other files) but specificall exempt music players that cannot. For example, a music player that you can copy files to the player , but not back out from it to somewhere else again ... would be untaxed. Or perfectly legal , or whatever. Since it could not be used to copy the file from one computer to another.

I'm sure if you did that , manufacturers would quickly modify their units to comply and avoid the tax (or outright illegallity) and everyone could continue to listen to their music.

The record companies would hate it of course. They're not in this to be fair , they're in this for Vender Lock , make them pay through the lungs over and over and over , but that would be a fair use situation, I think.

http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/default.asp

(Premier Dalton Mcguinty, of Ontario, his website where you may send thoughts / opinions to him)

Bell launches video download store

Article


With more than 1,500 movies and TV titles available, the Bell Video Store is the country's first online service ...
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Bell says the content is “DVD and above quality,” delivered at bit rates from 1.5 to 2.5, resulting in file sizes of about one gigabyte for one hour of content. As a result, the service requires a broadband Internet connection capable of sustaining transfer speeds of 800 kilobits per second or more.


Didn't you choke down your connection to prevent such abuse by high traffic users ? Isn't your limit 30 gigabytes per month ? Thats about 30 hours ...

... oh yes. Not your own product ! Only the competition !

*laughing out loud*

And you can't sell to anyone else, like rogers, because they have download limits too, so they can't do movies by anyone !

Vender lock. You on the bell network may buy bell movies only. And no one elses.

Personally. I go to the store, I buy movies for 15$-30$ , and I keep them. Forever. I have quite the selection.

Polygamist case price tag: $7 million

Article


emoving 460 children from a polygamist sect compound and then reuniting them with their families will cost Texas $7 million, according to the state Department of Family and Protective Services.
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Meanwhile, a state district judge told senators that legal costs in the case had topped $2.2 million. Most of that burden falls on Tom Green County, where the district court hearings were taking place, and Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said Judge Ben Woodward, according to a Senate statement.

Neither county, Woodward said, has the money to cover the legal costs.




HAHAHAHHAHAH !
This is so american !!!

We can't afford to arrest these people ! So send them back and let them continue their child molesting ways !

After all those articles of underage girls having children of their own ... send them back ! We have no money! Let them go !

I'm sorry. It's too expensive to prosecute these criminals. So our elected judges who are more interested in the next election than in enforcing the law have decided to let them all go.

I'm still laughing my butt off at the americans on this one. Money first and EVERYTHING else sometime later on , if ever. Including Justice.

Canada's tourism industry on verge of crisis: report

Article

A report due out Monday says the Canadian tourism industry is on the verge of a crisis.

Who wrote this report ?


But Randy Williams, the president of the Tourism Association of Canada, said the report -- which took a year and a half to create -- will put a lot of blame on internal factors within the industry.


This is the closest I can get to a claim on who wrote it. Notice it doesn't actually say this Randy Williams was in any way responsible for the report , he's merely talking about it.

So we got ourselves an unknown report from gawd only knows where written by gawd only knows who.


One of the problems is access to Canada, Williams said. He pointed out that there is a lack of approved destination status with China, open-sky agreements with Europe Union and the Asian-Pacific countries, and logjams at the Canadian border.


Umm...china hates us because we dont' enforce their human rights abuses on Tibet. We don't have open sky agreements with anyone because the terrorists would abuse the heck out of them and bomb us to bits.


He also said Canada is not doing a very good job of promoting itself in emerging markets such as India and Brazil.


Yes, lets promote ourselves to a bunch of poor indian peasants so they can come over here and not spend a single rupee and then go home again afterwards. Sounds like a brilliant plan.

This is the age of the muslim terrorist , unfortunately. Making travel easy for anyone , to go anywhere , is just plain a bad idea. And that is a kick in the teeth to everyone's tourist industry , yes , but still.

It's better than watching parliment hill being blown to itty bitty bits.

Khadr judge fired, says his military lawyer

Article


The U.S. military judge presiding over the trial of Canadian terrorism suspect Omar Khadr has been fired, said Khadr's lawyer.

In a news release issued Thursday, Lt.-Cmdr. William C. Kuebler said the judge, Col. Peter Brownback, was replaced after threatening to suspend proceedings in the case earlier this month.

Brownback told prosecutors they had to provide Khadr's defence lawyers with records of his confinement at the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or he would suspend the proceedings.
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Kuebler's news release also included an email sent Wednesday by lead prosecutor Maj. Jeff Groharing, which complained of numerous delays in trial proceedings


Lemme see if I have this right.

This kid joins al queda and goes to a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. What exactly he did in that camp , did he throw a grenade were the soldiers lying ... is up in the air. But he wasn't there to learn ping pong so it's pretty much a given he's a terrorist.

A court is set up to try him and people like him. But it's kept out of the United States, it's kept off in a little corner by itself where the only laws that count are the ones the USA feels like abiding by this week but that could change at any time. Might be abiding by different ones next week.

And this whole camp system was set up by people who don't like these terrorists too much so they're pretty much inclined to find everyone and the dog guilty of all the crimes they're accused of.

Some Judge comes along, a REAL Judge, from a REAL court where there are actually REAL laws to follow, decides the prosecution is having just too much fun , and they gotta get serious and treat this like a real case and quit messing around with the evidence and give the defence it's chance to , you know, actually defend this kid.

So the prosecution complains. And the REAL judge is removed.

I do not defend Khadr. He's obviously as guilty as sin and as black a terrorist as they come. You don't volinteer to cross to the other side of the planet and leave the comforts of your home to learn to play ping pong in the middle of a terrorist training camp, after all.

But this Kangaroo court business is just getting silly here. No one has any respect for the so called "judgements" of that internment camp anymore.

And the way they act, no one should.

Higher Canadian standards bar top marathoners from Olympics

Article


The first Canadian man and woman to surge across the finish line of the Ottawa marathon this past weekend won't be going to the Olympics in Beijing in August even though they both met international Olympic standards.

Canada shouldn't participate in the games at all , if you ask me.

Why ?

Because the system is fixed.
Some american loses to a canadian and they'll demand the canadian be drug tested. Like Ben Johnson. And nobody , noooooo body .. makes it to the olympics without being hopped up on steroids. It's just not possible.

And so the canadian gets stripped of his title.
But don't even think about testing an american ! They'll pull their funding from the olympics, the whole game will go broke if you do that !


The game is filthy rotten with drug addicts destroying their bodies for something they're not allowed to win. Victory is determined by politics , not performance. And even performance is permanently scarred because it apears in the newspapers so often that everyone and the dog is on steroids.


We have no business in the olympic business. It's a bad example for our kids. Little Johney wants to be the best runner in the world, but you can only do that if you take these pills and don't tell anyone because it's illegal and you'll get banned even though everyone does it ...

We should dump the whole thing.

Feeding at the US Government Trough Continues

Senate deal struck on mortgage aid


A major part of the legislation would allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure $300 billion in new loans for at-risk borrowers if lenders agree to write down loan balances below the appraised value of borrowers' homes.


Now let me see how to rip this system off...


Ok then. Get an apprasial on this house worth 350 000$ to , say 200 000$

Bank writes it down to 199 999$ and the FEDERAL (US Governement) Housing Admin insures it.

Price continues to drop. No one buys the overpriced house.

Bank takes the cash from the FEDERAL government.


Plan would let government back loans for at-risk borrowers. Key lawmakers reach compromise - taxpayers will not be on the hook if loans go bad.


Really ? I don't believe you.
The only way for the tax payers not to be on the hook for these loans is for the federal government not to make them. You *HAVE* to know at least some of them are going to go bad and get collected on from the government coffers.
Statements to the contrary are simply outright fabrication.

The banks made these bad loans.
The banks are now getting protected from these bad loans.
Joe Average is left to twist in the wind because the banks lost money on him so they're gonna slash his credit rating anyways.

Its so American.

Ad on side of news article : Myanmar

Salvation Army
Has been on the ground in Burma since 1915, and now has more than 40 ministry units, children's homes, shared farms, pig loan programs, 60 well projects to deliver clean water, education and tuition programs as well as several health clinics. You can call 1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769), visit the website, or drop off financial donations at the closest Salvation Army unit in your area, specifying your gift is for the Myanmar Cyclone Relief Fund.


Yes. Drop off your financial donations. Help support the Myanmar Military as it steals all the aid , lets all the victems starve, and uses *YOUR* donations to continue to oppress the poor and the helpless.

You may hold your money back and let them starve , or give generously , and the Military will take it all , and they'll starve anyways. Either way you save no one. Help make Myanmar Military strong ! Give till it hurts the poorest of all !

Television : The Torture Continues

NBC-Vista copy-protection snafu reminds us why DRM stinks


Handfuls of Windows Vista Media Center users found themselves blocked from making recordings of their favorite TV shows this week when a broadcast flag triggered the software's built-in copy protection measures. The flag affected users trying to record prime-time NBC shows on Monday evening, using both over-the-air broadcasts and cable. Although the problem is being "looked into" by both NBC and Microsoft, the incident serves as another reminder that DRM gives content providers full control, even if by accident.


DRM = Digital Rights Management


I don't blame the TV media for trying to make a profit. I blame the public for not being able to add up a column of figures.


How much are you paying for tv a month ? 60$ ? 80$ with a few specialty channels ? More ? And what do you get ? 22 minutes of show and 38 minutes of commercials. Oh , I forgot, that doesn't count the openning and closing credits so it's really 20 min of show and 40 minutes of commericals.

And the broadcasters continue to tighten those screws. Squeeze for just a little more, and a little more. Like how you can't hear the show, so you turn up the volume. Then the commercial comes on and it's MUCH MUCH louder than the show, so it blasts you and you quickly turn it down.

Like how those commercials lie to you all the time. Oh, I'm sorry. They don't actually lie. They just stretch the truth , just a little bit, in a legally acceptable manner. And then a little more, and then they send some money to your government to weaken the advertising rules a little bit ..and a little more ... and a little more ... forget it ! They're lying. By the common definition of the word they are making you believe things that are patently false, even if they have skirted breaking the law by the most razer thin of margins.

Oh and thats not enough , so they now invade the 20 min of show itself. The actors now use name brand products, and state the company names and everything , as they go about the show's meagre time limited plot.

And then the show is watered down by the governments broadcast agencies (CRTC in canada here) Too much violence ! Too much sex ! Can't show that on TV ! Water water water ...

And then theres the hight of folly itself. Infomercials. A 30 minute show that is in fact ALL COMMERCIAL ! They're trying to sell you stuff for the whole 30 minutes !

You paid 500$ for that nice high definition Television. And you probably pay 80$ a month for the "service" of being spammed to a fair thee well by commericals.

Learn to add people !

A DVD is 20$-30$ a month (1 dvd brand new legally bought) . And it doesn't take long to get a nice collection going. 500$ in DVD's , is like 50 of them (because most will be old shows and the price has dropped to about 10$ a pop ) instant library. No commericals. After which it's only 1-2 DVD's you'll like coming out a month ,and many months with none, the movie industry likes it's summer block buster schedule and doesn't release much over the winter :) And thats a lot cheaper than 80$ a month.

Television is dead, and should be allowed to die. It has ratchetted up the pressure way too high ,and refuses to change it's ways. And there's a cheaper more satisfying alternative than being interrupted every 7 minutes to be told you can buy a plane ticket to England for only 200$ ! (plus surcharges, plus taxes one way only , must buy a two way ticket that will be 800$ please. )

Go DVD , dump these fools.

Houses Made of Pyramids

Article


Having trouble understanding the American Housing Crisis ? Let me help you.


Get a loan with a low teaser rate on the first house, sell at a profit and use your new equity and another round of easy credit to get a grander house. Patti Arnold, who handles house closings as an Orange County escrow officer, says many of those loans had minuscule initial payments, allowing borrowers to put off paying back principal. "Everyone just kept moving," recalls Ladera resident Darlene Kelly, speaking on the front porch of the foreclosed home where her husband, a broker, is hosting an open house.


This is called a Pyramid Scheme.

You see what happens is a few initial investers get in , sell to others , get out. Then the others try to repeat that , and ... well... sooner or later the music stops. In this case, sooner or later the 2 year teaser on the morgage runs out and then someone is stuck paying full price.

If you're a sales agent , this is a great scheme, because all those sales mean commisions for you. If your the one stuck holding the bag when the music stops ... *CRASH* goes your finances.

It's a scam. And it's convoluted enough to be legal. It doesn't look like a pyramid scam , but it is, just the same.

Newspaper cartoon a hate crime, Islamic group claims

Article


Police in Halifax are investigating a complaint about a political cartoon that some members of a local Islamic group claim is a hate crime.

The cartoon, published April 18 in the Chronicle Herald newspaper, depicts a woman in a burka holding a sign that reads, "I want millions," and she says, "I can put it towards my husband's next training camp."
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The cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon is a reference to Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a woman from Nova Scotia whose husband was arrested in 2006 in an anti-terrorism raid. Qayyum Abdul Jamal was released from jail after charges against him were stayed on April 15.
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In an interview with the Herald before the cartoon ran, Jamal said she wanted to sue the federal government for what her family has gone through and told the reporter, "I want millions," Leger noted.

"[MacKinnon] depicted her exactly the way she looks and used her own words, and that's the genius of cartooning that you're able to do that," he said.


ok, so someone acted like a total buffoon, and you've decided commenting on it is a hate crime ? It might engender hatred towards muslims ?

Maybe you need to get your people to stop acting like buffoons instead ?



The cartoon is aimed at a single individual , so your case won't fly. Rather like us making fun of the prime minister.

Your reaction to the cartoon is most interesting, however. You seem to believe Muslims should be untouchable no matter what they do. And thats not gonna fly either.