Not since Ross Perot have we seen a breakout candidate such as this.
His accelerating but frugal grass-roots campaign burst him into the limelight as it was revealed that it earned as much money as some of the front-runners -- and it has more money in its warchest than most of them.
Ron Paul is an authentic Libertarian. As an obstetrician, he did not accept any government program as payment for his services. His kids went to college without any government loans. He votes against any program that he judges as not specifically authorized by the Constitution (his nickname is "Doctor No"). He's the only Republican candidate calling for a full withdrawal from Iraq. He believes that a person has a sovereign right to their own bodies and what they do with that right is nobody's business.
He deserves a look. More info:
Good Morning America on Ron Paul: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=36976
The Orange County Register: http://www.ocregister.com/column/paul-ca
complacentThe record industry thinks that copying your CD to your MP3 player is piracy. "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song," Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and anti-piracy for Sony BMG Music Entertainment, testified Tuesday.
Even sampling the briefest snippet of a song, and using the sample in your own song, movie, or website, requires a license.
Major League Baseball asserted that player's names and statistics are protected by copyright, and that watching your local baseball broadcast on Slingbox is illegal.
The application of the Copyright has gone too far.
An idea is just an idea. Once communicated, that idea is released for analysis, discussion, and even re-use as part of something else. This concept is widely accepted. However, reasonable people seem to agree that it is wrong to outright copy and sell someone else's work as if it were your own.
Just like CD and DVD burners make it easy to copy recorded music, the printing press makes it easy to copy written works. In fact, shortly after the invention of the printing press, competing printers began selling unauthorized copies of various works. This free-for-all undercut the income of authors and editors of the original work. The need for the copyright was born.
The US Constitution requires the Congress to, "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And the Congress did, protecting works with a copyright lasting for 14 years with a renewable 14-year term if the author was still alive.
Over 200 years of lobbying have corrupted the Constitution's simple directive. Now a copyright lasts until 70 years beyond the death of the author, and corporate works (something created by a company) are protected for 95 years after publication or 120 years after the creation.
As a barbershop-quartet singer, I've provided the musical entertainment for birthday parties. At the end of the show, I've directed the audience in a round of "Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You! (and etc.)." Guess what? That's a copyright violation! How stupid is that?
The copyright law as it exists and is applied today totally ignores that people naturally re-use the ideas of others as part of their own ideas, and the expressions of others as part of their own expressions. It ignores the fact that, at some point, ideas and expressions are so widespread that they are part of the culture and cannot be controlled.
It's time to stop the madness. It's time to return to a simple 14-year term, renewable once -- or some similar law that recognizes both the rights of the creators and the nature of ideas and art.
sick