"...protecting our freedoms"
HEADLINES:
| Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. |
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Benjamin Franklin |
Dina Dwyer "Undercover Boss" -- Long time Rockefeller Habits practitioner, The Dwyer Group, will be featured on CBS's hit reality series "Undercover Boss," this Sunday, January 22, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (7p.m. Central Time). Notes CEO and Chairwoman Dina Dwyer, a.k.a. Faith Brown, "I accepted the chance of a lifetime to see how The Dwyer Group Code of Values is taking hold across our franchise family as we celebrate more than three decades of business success and a focus on putting customers first." Tune-in to see "Faith" work in 118-degree heat in a uniform that includes a wig, long fingernails, colored contact lenses and steel-toed boots!
No More Insights -- some random government employee hired to police the internet, pressured by a top government official taking payoffs from Big Pharma, claims my insights "endanger public health" because of the piece I wrote on Vitamin C IVs and Stem Cell 100. So they are pressuring Rackspace, the company hosting our website, to shut us down without notice and hinting to Google they should no longer point to my blog or website. Since I'm a small fish in a big pond, they're doing it "voluntarily" and I have no reasonable recourse. Believe it can't happen?
Section 105 of SOPA -- entitled Immunity for Taking Voluntary Action Against Sites that Endanger Public Health, this is just one of many sections in SOPA which have nothing to do with protecting music, movies, and other IP that seem legitimate on the surface but open the door for all kinds of abuse down the road - the same way the "general welfare" clause in the U.S. Constitution has been used to encroach on a myriad of freedoms. Who is to say what is and isn't endangering public health when it comes to mere public speech? Do you trust a handful of people to make this decision? I've always felt the number one right we must defend, to the end, is free speech. Those who trade freedom for safety end up with neither to paraphrase Franklin.
What About Piracy -- iTunes proves that most people, when given a reasonable option, prefer to honor intellectual property. In turn, when an industry is taking ill-deserved gains and trying to preserve its monopoly, the market is going to react. I'm in the Intellectual Property business myself, doing business in Russia, China, etc. and recognize that it's better to go with the flow, making our tools open source. Like it did for the Grateful Dead which became one of the most successful bands by letting audiences record and distribute their music freely, 21st Century companies are figuring out powerful new business models based on the ubiquity of the internet. It's the old guard trying to hold onto the past and governments in yet another power grab that support SOPA.
Insights Return Next Week -- I'll get off my soapbox and return with a regular insight next week (no, I've not been shut down -- yet) - but keep the heat on your elected officials.
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