What’s wrong with SOPA

          These two pictures are worth more than a thousand words.  Because the images presented such an intriguing message I wanted to use it here, but before I could I needed to do some fact checking.  It took only minutes to confirmed that Conrad Murray was sentenced to four years in prison for killing Michael Jackson and under the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) the maximum penalty for unauthorized streaming of copyright material is five years in prison.   Those are the facts.  I’ll let you decide what it says about congress and the justice system. 

          For more information about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the related senate bill the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), read my blogpost, Old Media and Bad Law. 

          If you know the creator of this graphic please let me know so that I can attribute it.

Preparedness is Common Sense

          Preparedness is more than surviving a nuclear war or the collapse of civilization.  Yesterday Reuters ran an article on the growing preparedness movement.  The writer quoted Michael Snider of the Economic Collapse blog as saying, “A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it.”  That is true, but preparedness is more than that.   read more…>

Odds & Ends

Ice and Snow
So much for global warming.  Winter in Washington State had been mild, but earlier this week there was more snow on my property than I had ever seen.  Hundreds of thousands of customers in the region were without power and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was closed due to falling ice.
Ice chunks force closure of Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Reuters Discovers Preppers 
Reuters ran an article on the growing “prepper” or preparedness movement.  The article mentions SurvivalBlog editor and author James Wesley Rawles and calls his blog the “guiding light of the prepper movement.”  I would agree with that sentiment.  I read SurvivalBlog on a nearly daily basis.
Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization’s collapse

Gay Marriage in Washington State
Every time gay marriage is voted on by the people it is rejected, but liberal politicians and activist judges continue to force the issue upon a reluctant electorate.  The Washington State legislature, controlled by Democrats, is taking up the issue this year and despite what the voters have already said, may pass it.
Gay marriage gaining momentum in WA Legislature   

No Picnic
The News Digest section of this month’s Limbaugh Letter contains a story about Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community farm in southern Nevada.  The farm wanted to serve a “farm-to-fork” meal where neighbors and guests could tour the place and sample the produces.  First, the Southern Nevada Health District required a special use permit and, after the farm complied, still declared the food “unfit for human consumption,” and ordered it “doused with bleach and dumped.  The reason the food was unfit in the eyes of the bureaucrats was because it had no package labels or sales receipts.  As Rush points out, that was because the food was all grown on the farm.  Rush then asks, “What next?  Fines for ‘unlicensed’ lemonade stands.”  Actually, in a blogpost titled The War against Lemonade Stands, I pointed out that in Oregon it has already happened. 

Google Elections

          Saturday evening while searching for South Carolina primary results I rediscovered Google Elections, and have bookmarked it for future use as the election draws closer.  While I’m sure I used this site during the 2008 election, I apparently didn’t bookmark it and promptly forgot about it after the election.The results page at Google Elections 

          The home page is where you can read current political and election news.  The screen shot on the right is from their Results page showing how each county in South Carolina voted and the totals.  This page updated regularly that evening.  There is also a page that shows search trends, YouTube video views and how the candidates name is trending in news articles and blogs.  There is also a news page for each candidate and for many current issues.  I’ll frequently use this site as the year progresses.

Newt Fires Back

            They say that the best defense is a good offense.  Apparently, Newt Gingrich agrees.  He may win the South Carolina primary because of his answer to one question.  Speaking to Gingrich, John King of CNN said, “As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post. And this story has now gone viral on the internet.  In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. She says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage.”  Then King asked, “Would you like to take some time to respond to that?”  This was the type of story that sent Herman Cain home, but Gingrich didn’t back down.   read more (with video)…>

Old Media and Bad Law

          Thousands of websites recently participated in an online protest to kill two piracy bills before congress.  The protection of property, including intellectual property, is a legitimate function of government.  Websites like The Pirate Bay are part of a serious Internet piracy problem.  Such sites allow users to share digital data, such as music, games and software via a peer-to-peer protocol called BitTorrent.  America has a long history of protecting and respecting property rights.Political cartoon from The Pirate Bay  In that regard intellectual property should be no different.  However, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its counterpart in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), were the proverbial bull in the internet china closet.    

          These two bills, which are now stalled in congress, were really a clash between old media, the recording companies, Hollywood and the major networks and the rising Internet industry.  Computers and the Internet make the copying and sharing of music easy and this has hurt the recording industry.  The motion picture industry and television networks are now feeling the discomfort of these challenges.  Everyone in old media wants to be better prepared for the trials they know will come.  SOPA and PIPA would have allowed media companies to block the domain names of offending websites.  If all that was ever blocked were sites that actually facilitated piracy that would be fine.  However is it an offense to link to such a site as I did at the top of this article?   read more (with cartoon)…>

A Conservative Captain

            Mitt Romney is a big government, big spending moderate.  While he did turn a deficit into a surplus by cutting government growth, closing tax loopholes and increasing fees during his tenure as Massachusetts governor, he also championed health coverage that included an individual mandate and has flip-flopped or altered his position on social issues such as abortion, prayer in school and gun control.  Having said all of that, he would be a better president than Barack Obama.

            The American ship of state is heading for dangerous waters.  We need a radical course correction or this nation will sink on the rocks of economic and cultural collapse.  Obama is calling for full speed ahead as the danger looms ever larger.   read more (with picture & video)…>

Locking Up Liberty

          When I find myself agreeing with the ACLU I have to pause and reflect.  After several weeks of reading and contemplation I can say that it is not that I agree with the ACLU it is that we both agree that a new law is “particularly dangerous” and basic liberty is in danger. 

          On New Year’s Eve President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) which allows indefinite detention of terrorists without trial.  The idea of jailing terrorists doesn’t bother me, but the idea that it would be indefinite and without a trial does bother me.  Someone might say, “Terrorists need to be arrested and who cares if they are held forever?”  But, I find myself wondering, if there is no trial, who decides if someone is a terrorist?   read more…>

Education is Paramount

          The Washington State Supreme Court, and perhaps most parents in the state, believe our elected officials have not been living up to the law.  The state constitution has an entire article, number 9, devoted to the subject of education.  This article begins with, “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders….”  Notice that the constitution does not say it is a paramount duty, but rather that it is the paramount duty and the provision is not to be simply sufficient, it is to be ample.    This means that education is more important than anything else; it is the supreme duty of the state and full provision is to be made for it.  However, I’m convinced that many things are more important to the legislature than education.   read more…>

A drive around town

            A drive into town this morning provided surprising examples of how much our economy is determined by the very visible hand of government in the market.  Shortly after breakfast my wife and I climbed into our pickup and headed toward Centralia the largest town in the county.  Our home is on a two-lane country road lined by trees.  At one time logging employed thousands in this region.  However, the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994 protected the spotted owl, but not the jobs of my neighbors.  We encountered few cars as we drove toward the town.   read more…>

Reflections

          The month of January is named for the Roman god Janus.  This mythical deity of beginnings and transitions had two faces, one that looked into the past and the other that peered into the future.  It is from this myth we get our custom of reflecting on the past year and making resolutions about the future.  In that spirit I offer these reflections.    

          When I started RuminationsBlog in March of 2009, I had no plan.  Back then the blog was merely a means to vent my frustration about local, state and federal government.  Looking back, I should have done some planning and started keeping records immediately.  I only began recordkeeping in 2010 and I only started recording page views this year.  However, the records I do have show tremendous growth in readership and for that I am thankful.    

Year	Unique Visits	Percent	Page Views
2010	4367
2011	10,063	+122%	26,205

          Similar growth has occurred on the RuminationsBlog Facebook and Twitter pages.  Compared with other older and better known blogs these numbers are small, but as RuminationsBlog has grown it has picked up readers in every state and the District of Columbia.  My wife wonders if the D.C. readers are with the FBI, ATF or TSA.  Whoever they are, I’m just grateful they visit the blog. 

           Readership has grown outside the United States as well, but since I cover only United States and northwest regional politics I am always surprised that readers continue to come from Europe, Asia and Australia. 

           RuminationsBlog remains a very low budget, one man operation, but in the coming year I hope to increase the number of blogposts to every other day or at least fifteen a month, with even more frequent Facebook and Twitter postings.  Maintaining a growth rate of 100% or more will be challenging, but I believe that it can be done with hard work and continued support from my readers at the FBI, ATF and DHS.

Thank you to everyone who reads RuminationsBlog.  

A Goofy Waste of Money

          Their goal was to create something that people would see as “so goofy and fun that they would tell their friends about it….” That is what Timothy Church, the communications direction for the Washington State Department of Health, stated about the Washyourhandsington campaign.  Well I’m not sure how much fun I had watching it, but I’m telling my friends.

          I originally wrote a blogpost about the YouTube video in December of 2010.   It is not that the video is bad (as I write this I find myself humming the silly tune) or that the message is wrong (my mother told me to do all the things the video mentions), but as the state has continued to wallow in red ink this video has become, for me, a symbol of Governor Gregoire’s lack of fiscal leadership.   read more (with two videos)…>

The Real One Percent

            The real greed that plagues American society is not on Wall Street or any other street where legal business is conducted, but it can be found on the streets of Washington D.C. Coupled with ever expanding legislative power and a lust for gain the greatest internal threat to America comes not from terrorism, but from the marble and granite halls of the Capitol building, White House and Supreme Court.   read more…>

Redistricting News

            Due to population growth, Washington State earned a tenth congressional district.   Under the latest proposal from the Washington State Redistricting Commission the new 10^th district will be centered on Olympia and include most of surrounding Thurston County and some of Pierce County.  There is no incumbent for this new left leaning district. 

          The map with this story shows the proposed statewide district boundaries.  Click on the map to enlarge it.  Here is a map of the districts as they are now.   read more…>

Permission to Work

          Increasingly government requires that you get their permission before you are allowed to work.  We are all familiar with child labor laws and state requirements to be a doctor, lawyer or dentist, but there are many more.  Louisiana has a Retail Florist License that allows the holder to “arrange and sell floral designs, cut flowers and ornamental plants.”  However, the sales of “woody ornamentals” are specifically excluded.

  There is also a tree surgeon license; called an Arborist License, but if the tree must be removed that requires a different professional and a Utility Arborist License.  Massachusetts requires a license to be a fortuneteller.  The license specifically prohibits “fraudulently taking money by ‘pretended fortune telling.’”  Only real fortunetellers should apply.   read more (with video)…>