Welcome to the April 27, 2008 edition of Rants.

adso.of.melk1@gmail.com presents Why Gifted Students Hate School, Part Three « Lorem Ipsum posted at Lorem Ipsum, saying, “A rant about why gifted children hate school, part three: Short reason: Because teachers hate gifted kids.”

Jeremy Zongker presents Election Promises posted at Debt Comics.

Michael Hussey presents We are going to laugh at this fad 20 years from now, right? posted at Disaffiliates - Think Twice.

Wenchypoo presents Polygamists or Poly-GAMISTS? posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket.

Ashok presents For My Republican Friends: Let’s Play a Game, And See If Dividing the Democratic Party Permanently Is Possible posted at Rethink., saying, “Does the Obama/Clinton divide mean there’s an opportunity to split the Democratic party for good? I wonder…”

Allen Scott presents No Spin Cycle posted at Journey Across the Sky.

Adam Rosenbaum presents Official corruption south of the border and what to do about it LatinAmericaBlog: Observations and Commentary on Latin America posted at LatinAmericaBlog.

Michael Bass presents John McCain’s typical GOP approach to Drug Abuse posted at Debt Prison, saying, “And we all know it’s always the “what about the children” Republicans that just love fighting this war on drugs. Yeah, they love watching African Americans go to jail so the streets are kept clean of drugs. Meanwhile their teenage son is buying and selling more dope than they’ve seen in their entire lives.”

The Whited Sepulchre presents Pennsylvania Primary Results posted at The Whited Sepulchre, saying, “Here’s a rant on the Pennsylvania Primary results. Enjoy.”

Wenchypoo presents Inflation + Shortages = Stealth Tax Increase posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket.

Leslie Carbone presents Olympic-Scale Ignorance posted at Leslie Carbone, saying, “Thanks for hosting.”

P.L. Frederick presents The More Times Change, The More They Stay The Same posted at Small and Big, saying, “Regarding The New York Times.”

Sammy Benoit presents Throw the UN in the Attic With the Other Old Stuff That Doesn’t Work posted at YID With LID.

Sammy Benoit presents YID With LID: Terrorist Supporters Bash McCain’s Use of Islamic Terrorists posted at YID With LID.

Sammy Benoit presents Hey Dems, Cut the Pork, Feed The Poor posted at YID With LID.

NotYourDaddy presents Sometimes Nothing is the Right Thing to Do posted at Government is not your Daddy., saying, “While Senators Clinton and Obama are leaping over one another trying to come up with more innovative and expensive ways for the government to manipulate the housing market, Senator McCain is quietly saying it isn’t the role of the government’s to bail out either the banks or the borrowers.”

NotYourDaddy presents It’s Not About Race, Rev. Wright posted at Government is not your Daddy., saying, “African Americans today are split between two cultures. One is a culture of assimilation and success. The other is a culture of victimization and failure.”

NotYourDaddy presents When is a Lie Not a Lie? posted at Government is not your Daddy., saying, “It’s always easier to predict the past than the future. As history unfolds, it’s starting to look like, not only did Bush not lie, neither was he mistaken. There is new evidence that Iraq did, in fact, have WMDs, which it was systematically transferring to Syria all the while it was stalling the U.N. inspectors.”

NotYourDaddy presents Obama Understands posted at Government is not your Daddy., saying, “What these cynical critics fail to realize is that Obama wasn’t attacking these poor benighted folks, he was making excuses for their ignorance. He’s actually on their side, don’t you see?”

NotYourDaddy presents Back to Basics « Government is not your Daddy. posted at Government is not your Daddy., saying, “A lot of what government provides today could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. But everybody thinks, if they can get the government to pay for it, then it’s free. It isn’t.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Rants using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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I am so sick and tired of the music industry!!! My involvement with the music moguls has been only as a consumer of music. I really enjoy my Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Warren Brothers, and Van Halen music, to name just a few of the hundreds of artists whose albums I own.

Here’s some background material that demonstrates my disdain for the recording industry:

CEO of Universal Music Is Clueless
Music Lessons that Apply to (Almost) Everything
Compact Disc outlook weak

So, today, I got this letter (reprinted below) — through the grapevine (and no, I won’t tell you from whom, for fear that the dickheads of the RIAA will hunt her down and sue her) from the CEO of MP3tunes, Michael Robertson. The service allows one to store her digitized music online in addition to the way we all store our digitized music now, on local hard drives.

When you buy a CD, for example, free-use allows you to make a copy of it and store for archival purposes. Nobody can tell you where to store it. It doesn’t matter whether you store it on this hard drive or that. You just cannot share it. Bah!

When you rip a CD’s contents and convert it to a technologically inferior format (like mp3 or AAC — both lossy formats), I don’t see any issue with doing so. To me, it’s like recording your LP to a cassette. The music industry may have not liked it in the 80s, but they lived with it. And the courts decided in the favor of the consumer.

However, now that there is widespread sharing of music, even in inferior formats, the industry has been having hissy fits over music copying.

(Did you know that when you “buy” a downloadable song from iTunes, for example, you are not buying the music file per se, but rather the rights to play the music file? What kind of crap is that?)

I’m not really even sorry that the music industry’s attempt to dominate the entire copyright world was usurped by technology that they should have and could have envisioned. I’m downright sick and tired of them bitching about (and suing) people who they think may have copied, some of whom may have shared said music with some people.

Here’s the letter from Robertson:

Dear MP3tunes Customer,

Let me start by saying that as the CEO of MP3tunes I appreciate your support over the last few years. Your suggestions and patience have helped us build the Locker system we have today. We just launched AutoSync that makes managing your music collection easier than ever.

As you may be aware, the major record label EMI has sued MP3tunes, claiming our service is illegal. You can read about the case here. Much is at stake — if you don’t have the right to store your own music online then you won’t have the right to store ebooks, videos and other digital products as well. The notion of ownership in the 21st century will evaporate. The idea of ownership is important to me and I want to make sure I have that right and my kids do too.

I would like to ask for your assistance in our battle for personal music ownership. We need your help because we are a small, 15-person company battling an international giant. They would like to make us spend all of our money paying legal bills. Here’s what you can do to help:

1) Please upgrade to a Premium account. This week MP3tunes is launching 3 service levels. I hope you will consider signing up for one of the paid levels. This will not only help us pay for the costs of our service (machines, storage and bandwidth) but a portion will go to cover our legal costs in our case with EMI.

2) If you have a chance to talk publicly about our cause on your blog, with friends, reporters or even EMI personnel please do so. MP3tunes is working hard to design a secure personal music service. We don’t promote sharing of music in any manner. We want people to legally acquire their music. But once they do, we think it’s important that you be able to use it how you want for your personal use. The AmazonMP3 store says: “You may copy, store, transfer and burn the Digital Content only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use.” and this is what MP3tunes allows you to do.

You have my commitment that I’ll continually battle for your right to store your music online and listen to it anywhere on any device. I hope you’ll consider helping MP3tunes in our battle. Thanks.

– Michael Robertson
CEO
MP3tunes.com

So this is my attempt to get you, my loyal readers, to do something about EMI and their recording industry brethren’s attempts at separating you from your music and your money.

Write about this. Comment here. Tell your friends. Copy this letter and send it to your employees, also known as your Congressional representatives in Washington, D.C.

I implore you: Please DO SOMETHING!

These rapscallions of the RIAA will do anything and everything to keep their empires alive, even though it’s their own fault for letting them die. Sick bastards!

The next president and vice president may be the most
important choices in the history of the U.S. Why would I say such a thing?
Look at the world. China and many third world countries
are “coming into their own” now. They compete for every
resource on the planet. I do not believe there are enough
resources to supply everyone. Food, water, and oil are the
primary commodities. Many countries have oil, they are low on
water. In many countries they do not have food or water and
the people are dying. That is not really new, but it has
increased exponentially over the last 30 years. China
owns/leases land all around the world that they grow rubber
and food on; they cut the timber and decimate the ecology.
The middle eastern countries are money mad because of the oil
that drives the world. They feel like they control the money.
We have politicians here that are only worried about keeping
their jobs and lining their pockets. The russians are
building up again. They failed the democratic route. In south america,
we have dictators and idiots espousing hatred for us, but they sell
us their products and take our donations. We give billions of dollars
to countries all over the world.
They spit at us and call us names, then tell us how bad we
are. Islamic terrorists think they can get into heaven by
killing us. I am pretty sure that there is no such thing as a
moderate muslim, but the apologizers say there is.
Hell, in Greece, they are threatening to vote the U.S. out of NATO
if we do not stop using the name America?! I always thought the Greeks were alies and reasonable. I guess they decided to get on the “bash America” bandwagon.
They take our money though. Screw them.
Oh yeah, must not forget iran. They say they are not trying to build nukes.
That is not something I believe and I do not trust any of them with nukes.
The United Nations is a joke. They believe they have a say in what happenes
in every country, even the U.S. They are corrupt and full of pompous
blowhards that should be removed from the country.
Our borders are open to anything. The government will not follow the
constitution. They will not protect the country. To them, the borders
are just another problem to talk about, not to resolve. There are so many
other problems going on also.
So why is this election so important? The next president will have
to be strong, completely for America, and capable of making tough fast
decisions. If the rest of the world does not like it, he/she will still have to
make those decisions. I believe in that in the next few years, we will be in a
major war, not for the sake of oil or the downtrodden, but for
the survival of the U.S. This president should be able to
order nuclear retaliation if need be without asking for votes
in congress or the opinions of his pollsters. Are you willing to leave that
choice to Obama or to Clinton? I sure hope not. Yeah, McCain is not the
perfect choice, but the country might survive with him. I wish we
had other choices, but we do not. One of these three will be answering
the phone at 3AM and we will be screwed if it is obama or clinton

Each person is responsible for their actions and also for
what they say. Words have always been powerful. We are judged
and held accountable for what we say. If you are interviewed by the police and say something,
later on you better not change your story. Now we come to presidential candidates. When you are a candidate, everything about you is circumspect. Everything
you say and do is monitored and judged. It is the same for
your associations. The people you know, visit, listen to, or
follow are also included in this evaluation of your suitability.
It may not seem fair, but it is a part of the process and it
is necessary. In this day and age, we need to know as much
about presidential candidates as possible. What they believe,
what they SAY they will do, their attitudes, how their values
were shaped, and more. Enter “reverend wright. For 20 years, obama
has listened to this guy. Obama actually said that wright was his mentor.
So, it is clear that wright helped to form the Obama family ideals and opinions.
It cannot be denied, that is the way it
works. You can see the same type of influence with the cult members
in texas and the women and girls there. Brought up to believe
without thought.
If you need a clearance from the government to work, the FBI
will investigate your life with a comb. If there are problems
in your backround, you just might not get that job. So here we have
a new politician; he has ties to very radical friends. Idiots like his minister,
he has ties to farakhan, ( a very anti-white, anti-american guy) and he has
ties to Ayers.( That is the terrorist from the 70s that bombed
and killed a cop. He says he wish he could have done more.) There is also Rezco.
I cannot give obama the benefit of doubt. The reason I
cannot is because of the job he is trying to get. It is the
most important and powerful position on the planet. We may not
get the best person, but we sure do not need someone that has
been influenced by that minister, sharpton, ayers, or
farakhan. Can you see any of these guys in the White House
with the ear of the President?! I don’t think so.

I admit that I have not watched this as closely as some people, but I do know that they do not have any guilty people there, not yet. Also, I have not seen anyone discuss it from this angle at all in the blogs or news.
Now, I believe that if any of them forced young girls into sex and marriage, they should be drug out in the streeet and shot. However, all I know is that they said a 16 year old girl called asking for help, saying these things. Maybe that is true, but they have not found the girl yet have they? In fact, they used this call to justify raiding the place of this sect and taking all the children.
What if there was no way the authorities could get into the compound legally, but decided that they had to. What if there never was any call and this was a pretext to the raid?
Yeah, I know that sounds far fetched, but our authorities have been guity of a lot more than that.
The news service says that childrens services here in texas has taken all the children over 5 years from their mothers. They said it was easier to get the children to talk if the mother was not there.
Stupid people! Of course it is easier! You promise the kids they can go home if they talk and they say what children services wants to hear.
I know that sometimes children services is a good organization, but it is my opinion that they have a “holier than thou” attitude. The mothers not the children have any rights at all. Not while the children are under control of childrens services. All they can do is hope that the children are not coerced into saying something innocent that can be manipulated into something more siniister. I know, children services and all those authorities would never do anything like that. You kn9ow what though? They HAVE to find abuse. There is no choice. If they were to determine that there was no abuse indicated, then the whole state would be wide open for lawsuits and many of those “authority figures” will lose their jobs. We cannot let that happen.
Honestly, in all likelihood, there was probably abuse. That is my opinion, which seems to be the same as most people the the state of texas.
I differ though in how they did this. They had no proof of anything at all, but the children have been taken from their mothers. That is where my problem is. They did it upon a call from someone, and they had no proof. None. And now, even if those people are innocent, they will be found guilty.

I have been waiting quite a while to see this video by Geert Wilders. Mostly because it caused so much commotion and threats. I react badly to threats myself.
Evidently, the service provider that was supposed to show it first canceled in the face of Islamic terrorism and intolerance for freedom. I finally got to see it though on LIVEFEED, before they took it off the net. It seems their people were getting death threats.
I watched it and found it interesting. Actually, it did not really show me anything I did not already know. I have read parts of the quran also, and have seen the same quotes that he used. What was different though, was the way they presented verses out of the quran, and then visually displayed the reality. It was not a pretty sight.
By seeing this video though, I realized I was not the only one to believe that islam is a threat to the rest of the world. I guess that makes me a hatemonger, but I am not cutting off heads. Also, I do not get enraged when someone misrepresents Christians or Jews. I just think of them as uninformed or simple minded. Here is a link to the video, but not sure how long it will be played there
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vadl_fitna-the-movie-dutch-official-rele_news

Should Obama quit his church? That is funny. He has been influenced and following the guidance of this “mentor” minister for 20 years. His wife said she had never been proud of being an American until her husband was running for president. Osama’s’ minister screams hate and anti-Americanism from his pulpit and that church supports Sharpton and Farrakhan and awarded Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award! For what, being a black Nazi? Obama says he never heard that or suspected any of this from his minister. However, his minister did not all of a sudden decide to say those things. It is pretty apparent that he has been spouting that for a long time. So, regardless of what Obama says, he is heavily influenced by his “mentor”. On top of that, I recently heard on the radio of different organizations that he donated money to. Not a problem, except for one of them. He donated money to CAIR. CAIR is the Council on American and Islamic relations. It sounds fine on the surface, but many of their organizers and leaders have either been accused or convicted of having dealings with Hamas and Al Qaeda. Just yesterday, one of their leaders in Michigan (I think) was arrested for supporting terrorism.
Obama is either a fool or he believes the rest of us are.
Although he was not my choice as a presidential candidate, I thought he was a smart, nice guy. Evidently, that is wrong. Now, I am vehemently against Obama and what he really stands for. Obama had a chance to distance himself from this guy, but chose not to. He tried defending him and then made it sound like corporate America was to blame for all the problems. I am not a fan of corporations, they will make money off anyone, however, the problems that Obama and his ministers of racism espouse have nothing to do with corporate America. It is pretty clear to me that Obama and Clinton are very much alike. They will do anything to get what they want because they know they are right and are the “future” of the United States. Yeah, right!
Blacks can use the “n” word but I cannot. I am guilty of promoting slavery and intolerance because of something my ancestors “might” have done”. I do not know if they owned slaves. I suspect not. By not jumping on the liberal bandwagon of presumed guilt means that I am guilty.
I try not to be insulting to people. I normally do not want to hurt anyone. However, I refuse to be forced into being politically correct, just because someone may take offense. Horse crap! If other people can say nigger, so can I. I have known niggers before. They can be white or black or any other color. They are judged by their words and actions, not by their race.
There is the black caucus, black college fund, Ms Black America, black history month…Lots of black only things going on. Where is the white caucus, the NAAWP, white college fund……… Oh yeah, they call those hate groups. Maybe we should ban all nonwhites from the Ms America pageant?
Rev Wright though can denigrate the white people, he can say that we made HIV in order to get rid of the blacks, he can say God damn America and tell us we are responsible for every major holocaust there has been.
Yeah we nuked Japan, they started the war. They should have stayed on their island. The Nazis murdered millions of Jews and Christians and anyone else they did not think “fit in”; but the blacks have had it so much worse. So they say. There is no mention of the fact that blacks were sold into slavery most times by their own people. Did the whites go to Africa round them up and make them slaves? No, that is not what happened. The Moors and their own people enslaved them and sold them for profit. That is how they got here.
That was very long ago. There are no black slaves here and there are no slave owners here. There has not been for many generations. The ones yelling about their bondage have no idea of what it is like. They have never been slaves, all they know is what they have read about or seen in movies. If they were interested, they would discover that slavery goes back a lot farther in time. Most peoples of the world were held in bondage at one time or another.
It is 3 am, the red phone rings and China is about to nuke us. Obama calls rev Wright, Sharpton, and Farrakhan for their opinion. Is this what anyone wants in our country? I do not believe that anyone wants these guys running around the White House and having influence. Anyone that uses any of these kinds of people as advisors should not be in any position of power. They should have some sense slapped into them. On the Obama web page they had an ad by the black panthers but removed it. I suppose that even though he is supported by them, he does not want people to give people the impression that he would accept them. Obama seems to be ashamed of his name. No one is allowed to mention his middle name. Hussein, hmmm, guess they thought that was too provocative.
To be fair about it, Clinton is no better. I always suspected she was the one running things when Bill was in office. If you look at the Clinton machine and their history, you will see that the Clintons will do whatever they want to get what they want. There is a very large list of people that suddenly died that were in the Clinton circle, or against them. No proof of anything, they are above suspicion, they do not care about anyone else. They know better than any of us. Didn’t Bill spend two terms in office? He got kicked out. No one seems to remember that, no one seems to think that it is important.
After watching Clinton the last few months, you see that nothing about the Clinton machine has changed. Her blatant lie about Bosnia is an example of her opinions of the rest of us. Like Obama, she must believe that we are complete fools and she can say what she wants.
As far as Bill is concerned, he just runs around telling everyone how much good his wife will do for the country. Does everyone forget that he is a proven liar and that he was kicked out as president? And people flock to him and admire him. Maybe they are right. Maybe the majority of Americans are really that stupid. I sure hope not.
Now we get to McCain, he really is a hero in my book. I respect him for who he is and what he has gone through. However, there are a few things I do not like about him either. He supports NAFTA and GATT, he said he was in favor of a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Europe. In my estimation, those treaties are a crock and have done nothing except further American dependence on other countries. For some reason, I also think he may not be strong enough to do the job. I may be wrong, I hope so. Even though I do not believe in the effectiveness of McCain, I will vote for him. There seems to be no other choice.
None of the candidates want to talk about illegal immigration very much. I guess they can lose a lot of votes if they gave their opinion, even illegal votes. However, illegal immigration is very important to me and should be important to everyone. All three candidates are very wishy-washy about it right now.
Our candidates, not any good choices at all, and we will be stuck with one of them.

I just found out that hillary will be in Abilene, TX tomorrow. I would like it better if she went somewhere else instead of contaminating the soil of texas. I thought of going so I could boo her, but then, I do not care enough about her or her husband to bother with it.
Personally, I hope she beats obama. I think McCain would have an easier time of beating her than obama. There are too many people that believee obama is the greatest. I don’t see why though. He has not done anything, he promises change, but no idea of what kind, he has no experience. In addition, his church displays some problems with their agenda. They push for black supremacy. I do have some reservations about his heritage, not because he is black, but because of his relationship with his fathers country. I figure they will end up with more of our money.
Why is it that the press does not ask hard questions of clinton and obama? Why would we want an ex-president that was kicked out of office, back in the White House? Do we trust the clintons any more? Hve they changed? I have always believed that Hillary wore the pants in the family back then. It is out in the open now.
That list of friends and associates of the clintons that show how many of them have died over the 20 years. It seems kind of odd when you look at the list. Good thing for me I am no friend or aquaintance of theirs.
I am going to vote for McCain. I am going to vote for him beause he may do less damage to the country than the others. Some of his ideas and policies I do not care for, the democrats the time around are so much worse.

I have been reluctant to post anything over the last month. If you watch the news you will see what I mean.
Lets see, there is a prisoner that claims his rights are being violated. Why? Because while in prison, he cannot get a sex change operation. he wants to be a she. He said that his breasts were disappearing and his genitals were working and he has reverted back to being male. LOL
Evidently, a judge has decided to consider whether the taxpayers should pay for his sex change. Since he is in prison it is his right?
That Peterson guy has demanded his guns back. I think I heard that he had 11 of them that had been confiscated by the police. He has had 4 wives. One is missing and two were murdered. But since they have not charged him, they have to give them back.
And congress. LOLOL They seem to spend more time worrying about drugs in sports and running the country. I have not figured out why they got their nose in it anyway. If illegal drugs are involved it should be a police problem. Not congress. What a bunch of silly baffoons. I think they are afraid to tackle real problems.

Political debates are a waste of time. I have been watching a few of them. No one, not the debators nor the media or any one else seems to want to ask the questions we want answered. What about secure borders, or illegal immegraiton? What about the two border agents that were railroaded into prison for doing their job? What about islam? When do they think the war on terror will end? What about companies outsourcing their customer service calls to India?……. What will they do to get the United States energy? Do they believe in the transamerica corridor, nafta, gatt? Come on! Ask some real questions, don’t let them just trash each other out over nonsense. I do not like obama. He seems like a nice guy, but he has baggage I do not care for. Hilliary is so much worse. She is tougher than obama and was probably the one running things when bill was president. Trouble is, the clintons are crooked as hell. They care about no one except themselves. I do not like obama, but I curse the earth the clintons walk on. Our republican choices are pretty limited. The guys running there are just another group of graft collectors. We do not have any good choices, again. So, I guess I will be voting against someone, instead of voting for someone. That is a stinking way of doing it. When the democraps took over, they were promising all these changes for the better. They were going to cut pork. LOL, well, what they really meant was they were going to cut it into more equal shares. Although I will not like it, I predict that hilliary will get what she wants. The war will wind on and on, the economy will not get any better, more jobs will disappear, they will not fix the border problem, amnesty will be given, and sooner or later some idiot looking to be with allah will carry a dirty nuke into the country.