Lykke Li

Also at YouTube

It's safe to say I love this song but more so love the whole CD. Support young artist, buy the CD - good luck finding it as music stores are disappearing fast - buy, choke, iTunes version. Yes, make Apple richer, but still consider helping young musicians, especially when they produce good stuff like this song and CD.

And by the way, it's really good stuff in the morning with coffee to wake up the brain and senses. Really.

There Should be a Law

Update.--Senator Kyl's office had revised the official print copy of his speech on the floor printed in the Congressional Records. The Senate allows Senators to change what they said on the floor, in front of cameras, for corrections, updates, etc., meaning undo an obvious, blatant lie. That changes the record but it doesn't change history or his arrogance to lie to the American people on the Senator floor.

Original Post (4/15/11).--There should be a law that all members of Congress, when speaking on the floor of the House or Senate, that requires them to use facts or face disciplinary action by the ethics commitee for lying. When Senator Kyl told an obvious lie on the floor of the Senate about Planned Parenthood of America, and he knew it was a lie, he should be held accountable for his discrimination and hate speech.

And all his spokesperson said was, "It was not intended to be a factual statement.", meaning for effect only. Except someone on his staff had to write it and he had to know it was a lie and still stood there and said it. It was a conscious lie with all the intentions of fabricating falsehoods about Planned Parenthood of America (PPA).

And I've seen time and time again Representatives and Senators stand at the podium and not speak a word of the truth, and make up facts, to make a point which they had to know was blatantly wrong and had to know they were lying to make their point. Senator Kyl did it to show a point but only showed how stupid he is and how far he'll go to show how stupid he is, just to make a point.

It's wrong for them to lie on the floor. It's wrong when they call the facts lies and use their opinions as fact ("I said it so it must be true."). It's wrong to discriminate with their hate to condemn people who don't deserve it and haven't hurt them. And they should face some rule which bans them from speaking for a period of time, like a week for one lie, and a month for a whole speech of lies.

They should be held accountable to the American people for spreading lies and hate, and Senator Kyl should apologize to PPA on the Senate floor in a speech written by a neutral party which is honest and admit he intentionally lied to all of us.

A Fair Trade

This is for both the Democrats, Republicans and Tea Party members of Congress. I'll offer all the Republiicans a fair trade with the fight over raising the debt ceiling this spring and the 2012 federal budget. In return for more budget cuts you'll agree to terminate the tax cuts for the wealthy, all gross incomes over $1 million, terminating subsidies to energy companies, wealthy farmers and ranchers, and other unncessary subsidies, and a restructure of the tax codes to get corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, meaning closing all the loop holes.

This way you get your budget cuts, we all get additional revenue to help balance the budget, remember you ran on that issue, and we get everyone to pay their fair share. This way we should increase the revenue and lower the annual deficit and national debt at the same time. Seems fair to me. So, Democrats, that's the strategy and tactic. And so, Republicans, put up or shut up about lowering deficit and debt.

That's it in a nutshell. And it's a workable plan where all side agree on the goal of reducing the deficit and debt. It's a winner for all. So are you Democrats too chicken to stand up for the American people and are you Republicans too chicken to negotiate an agreement? A real one the American people will love. And isn't that what this is all about? What you're supposed to be doing? Workng for us?

And for what it's worth department, Social Security is off the table. It's not negotiable for the budget deficit or national debt. Congress has borrowed about $5 trillion from it to balance past budgets. You should stop borrowing from it and return the money you have borrowed by 2025-2030 to restore the full balance of it and never borrow from it again.

It is currently self-funded until about 2040 and with the restoration of the borrowed money would only take a few tweaks, like raising the taxable income level and adding more enrollees - hint, solve the illegal immigration problem to make the citizens and add to the rolls to make it solvent until 2075 and beyond without cutting benefits.

So, now go and get it done.

Signed, the American People.

Screwing the Voters

The retail liquor businesses and wholesale distributors have tried several times over the last 10 years to get voter referendums passed to privatize the distribution and sale of hard liquor in the state (Washington). To date they can only distribute and sale beer, wine and similar alcoholic beverages. The state runs the sale of all hard liquor through state-owned or state contracted stores.

Last November voters rejected two referendums, one brought by retailers, sponsored by Costco (like Duh), and one sponsored by distributors. Both took the state out of the liquor business in exchange for a tax on sales and pushed enforcement on to law enforcement agencies, who are already stretched and stressed under the recession.

With easier access to hard liquor, available anywhere other liquor is sold, law enforcement will have more problems and we'll have more alcohol related automobile accidents, domestic violence and other crimes. Hard liquor will be available 24/7 almost anywhere other liquor is sold, even gas stations. This is why voters have consistently rejected it.

Now with the state looking at a $5 billion shortfall, and cutting all sorts of social services while maintaining tax exemptions and breaks for businesses, the liquor distribution industry sees a windfall by offering the state a $300 million one-time, up front purchase of the state's liquor distribution and retail business.

In short what they couldn't do with voter referendums, they'll pay off state legislators to pass the law in the two-year budget. It's a sham and a shame on the people of the state. It's screwing the voters of their vote and it would take another voter referendum to undo what would already be done.

The state legislature is screwing the voters of the state in the name of short term profit while the retailers and distributors will reap billions down the road. They know this and the state is caving to their interest than the voters who said no. We elected the legislators but apparently votes don't count and money does.

Photographer's Hypocrisy

I was reading a photography forum, at Photo Net, where a photographer posted the instructions he found on another photographer's blog, a successful wedding photographer (meaning professionally and financially successful), about jailbreaking Adobe's Lightroom 3, a photo library and editing software package.

I have this software, and while I don't use it very much, prefer using Photoshop for most editing, Lightroom is handy for catalogs and other uses. But if you read Adobe's license agreement for Lightroom it stipulates each copy is for one user with two computers, one main PC/Mac and one laptop. Any additional users have to use that copy on those computers.

Adobe specifically designed catalog sharing tools into Lightroom so other photographers in a photography studio can share images across copies of Lightroom. Note across copies of the software, sharing the catalog but not the software. Each must have a copy of Lightroom or use the individual's computer(s).

This means it wasn't designed to be use on a network. Catalogs can be shared across a network but not the software. At $300 per user license, it's not cheap, but any successful photographer can afford copies for their studio. It's good business. But this individual tricked his computer to be a network server for one copy across his office computers, and users, on the network.

This was not how Lightroom was designed to work or intended to be used. It clearly violates the license agreement. But this didn't bother the photographer, because they're out to save money to make more money for themselves, and as we like to think, software companies are rich and can afford people prirating their software or simply mis-using it.

But if you ask any photographer if they would allow anyone to do likewise with their images, you'd get a long, loud lecture on copyright infringement or outright theft. In short, what's good for them is only good for them, and everything else is open to stealing. That's hypocrisy.

When I questioned it, I was told my posts weren't on topic. Ok, true, but I only asked why they suggested jailbreaking Lightroom and linked to the instructions when it's not what they agreed to when the bought their copy. Apparently there are degrees of stealing and robbing Adobe of their software isn't a bad one.

Anyway, I forwarded the thread and the blog entry about the jailbreak, which identifies the photographer violating the license agreement, to Adobe, who immediately thanked me for the information. What they will do I don't know, nor really care. A successful photographer can easily afford additional copies.

And he certainly loses rights to bitch if someone steals his images, "Gee, I was just jailbreaking your catalog of images. What's the problem?" Like hypocrisy?