The Hindsight Factor with Jay Daverth

From The Hill:

Congressional Republicans are divided on how to change the public’s perception that they are not working with President Barack Obama.

According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted earlier this month, 58 percent of the 1,004 respondents said Republicans have not reached out enough to Obama.

Is there no sense of irony among the Republican Party?  The way to stop being the party of no is to stop being the party of no!  There is no pride to be taken in voting in unified blocks.  Some questions:

Are you telling me none of these people have a problem filibustering anything and everything under the sun after threatening the ‘nuclear option’ only a few short years ago?

Are you telling me that there wasn’t one single Republican who thought that the stimulus was a good idea?  Because for all the bluster they mustered in Washington, there were dozens, DOZENS who bragged about how great it was to their home constituents.

Are you telling me that there was not a single Republican in favor of health care reform?  Really?  Even though these same legislators made a huge push to “fix” Medicare back in 2003?

Are you telling me that there is not one single Republican willing to break ranks in order to allow an up-or-down vote for Obama’s choice to head the TSA – even in the wake of a terrorist attack?!

And are you telling me that Republicans are now outraged at federal deficits and big government after not only ushering in the single largest expansion of federal government in history, but bringing the country to the brink of bankruptcy in the process?

This isn’t about perception vs. reality – this IS reality!  This is a group of petulant children who have been voting for one thing and one thing alone – to shut down the federal government.

In the midst of our ongoing debates over file-sharing and the latest twisted headlines from the RIAA, the discourse seems to have slipped into whether artists need to be compensated for their work (which they should) and whether the poor suicidal copyright watchdogs have gone over the deep end in attacking their own consumers (which they have).  Yet it is important to remember that this is more than just an economic debate – this is part of an ongoing struggle to determine the appropriate line between comodification and our cultural evolution.

Let’s face it – to varying degrees, we all enjoy what Hollywood spews out no matter how trite and repetitive it can be.  Such endeavours require a substantial amount of capital and investors should be able to profit from their work if we expect them to continue being produced.  Much as in the publishing and music industries, copyright law has existed for the purpose of safeguarding this monetisation.  Yet it is important to remember that copyright is meant to be of a finite duration.  This allows artists to profit from their work while also ensuring that future generations are able to continue building on this work when it enters the public domain.  As James Boyle of The Public Domain notes:

Our markets, our democracy, our science, our traditions of free speech, and our art all depend more heavily on a Public Domain of freely available material than they do on the informational material that is covered by property rights. The Public Domain is not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by property law. The Public Domain is the place we quarry the building blocks of our culture. It is, in fact, the majority of our culture.

Perpetual copyright effectively consolidates our cultural heritage into the hands of a few wealthy industrialists and restricts creative expression worldwide.  This trend must be stopped. 

You can read the full Manifesto here and please take the time to sign it.

You just can’t make this stuff up!

A high level Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as Ambassador of Saudi Arabia because his name, Akbar Zib, equates to "Biggest Dick" in Arabic. 

Link

Alternate title: Gotta post something or I’ll never post again.

Today marks seven months since Lori’s funeral and it’s not getting any easier.  If anything, I’m just getting more comfortable living in a state of dulled funk punctuated by sudden and unpredictable bursts of anguish.

I’ve nevertheless gotten quite adept at performing my life; indeed, even an idealized version of it.  But even though I’ve sat down to write often in the past few months, I’ve been balked by the omnipresence of my previous post.  Amongst all the happenings in the world, good and bad (and let’s face it, there has been some shocking Bad), there has been nothing sufficiently monumental, earth-shatteringly worthy of bumping Lori further down the home page and into the dank oblivion of THF archives.

And there never will be.

So, either I consign THF to the dustbin of Google-was, or I find a way to take that first step.  And I can think of none better than an inside joke between me and the sister I will forever miss.

I love you sis.

 
Help … Me … !!

I tend to keep my lifehackery obsession separate from THF, but this bookmarklet seemed to be worthy of the crossover.  If you’re not familiar with bookmarklets, they are bits of javascript that you can store as a bookmark in your browser to perform certain functions.  They are not only speedy, but also prevent you from having to download a bunch of browser extensions you may hardly use.

KTC (or Know Thy Congressman) provides a wealth of info should you find yourself reading the funnies er, the political news.  I used it to capture this screenshot of Pelosi which tells me anything from most used words to who are her major donors.  From their website:

KTC is a bookmarklet that displays an abundance of political and biographical information about current members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

To use it, highlight the name of a legislator on a webpage and click the bookmark. Or, click it anytime to search for a politician by name. To install, drag the link below into your Bookmarks Toolbar.