May 25, 2005

FEDS SHUT DOWN BITTORRENT HUB:

Federal agents shut down a popular Web site Wednesday that had distributed copyrighted music and movies, including versions of the latest “Star Wars” movie.

Homeland security agents from several divisions served search warrants on 10 people around the country suspected of being involved with the Elite Torrents site, and took over the group’s main server. The agency said it was the first criminal enforcement action aimed at copyright infringers who use the now-popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology.

Visitors to the Elite Torrents Wednesday found a bright red screen displaying a message that operators were under investigation for criminal copyright infringement.

I think we have to support copyright; people who create music and films and books deserve to profit from their hard work.

I’D LIKE TO WELCOME ANOTHER FRIEND OF MINE TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: EX-LIBERAL IN HOLLYWOOD.

Clark Baker, the proprietor of this site, is a former LA police officer, and a current private investigator. He really knows the police scene. Check this post out, in which Clark fisks a Huffington Post article by Stephen Elliot.

[Baker quotes from Elliot’s post:] …a fifteen-year-old boy named Alonza Thomas walks into a convenience store wearing a bandana over his mouth and nose. He’s carrying a gun. He places the gun against the clerk’s chest and demands money. Another clerk tackles the boy and a struggle ensues in which the gun is fired leaving a tidy hole in the store rooftop. Plaster and dust sprinkles on the combatants while the boy is subdued.Here are the facts: It is the boy’s first crime. His record is as clean as an upscale restaurant. He is alone. No one was hurt…

[Baker responds to Elliot:] Lee Malvo had a clean record when he murdered his tenth victim. Mr. Elliott assumes that this is Alonza’s first criminal act. Let’s consider that Alonza carried a concealed and loaded firearm to a convenience store. The gun wasn’t his and it’s doubtful that the owner gave him permission to use it. Alonza entered the convenience store with the intent to commit a theft or a felony, which is a burglary. Both of these crimes occurred before Alonza pushed the loaded handgun into the clerk’s chest demanding cash. Figuratively speaking, Alonza was a third-striker before his first arrest.

...Mr. Elliott confuses the absence of a recorded criminal record with what he assumes is a first-time criminal act. The last time I checked with the FBI, the typical street criminal like Alonza commits eighty (80) crimes between arrests.

This looks like it’s going to be another very cool site.

NEW FROM BLACKFIVE—THE MEDIASLANDER WEBLOG:

The goal of Media Slander is to hold journalists and bloggers to high ethical standards regarding coverage of the War on Terror and other military-related issues. We plan to achieve this by highlighting bias, rumor and falsehoods that have been creeping into military coverage under the guise of objective news.

We by no means advocate censorship or the deliberate suppression of well-researched and relevant stories about the war and the military.

As much as journalists feel that they are the guardians of the First Amendment, its true protectors are standing watch in Iraq, Afghanistan and places no one will ever hear about. Journalists owe it to the true gatekeepers of our liberties to be fair, balanced, relevant and accurate in covering them.

Signed,
   The entire staff of MediaSlander.com

We citizens have our own media now. The days when MSM could misrepresent the news may be numbered.

The Party that Favors Religion—Has Higher Birthrates

Last weekend I heard a briefing about population trends in Israel, and the subject came up of those trends in Europe. Bennett and Roberta, the experts presenting the briefing, said that Europeans are breeding themselves out of existence, just by having low birthrates. I asked why that might be. Someone in the audience, Allyson, mentioned her opinion that it was because those Europeans had abandoned religion. I said, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to check the birthrates of American Liberals versus Conservatives? Wouldn’t it be a bombshell if there was a difference in those birthrates?”

When I got home I did a quick Google search, and to my surprise, there appears to be just such a difference in the birthrates of Liberals versus Conservatives.

From Paul Cameron:

The growth states are mainly Republican … and the dying states are mainly Democrat… The rapidly dying states averaged 0.7 (that is, only 0.7 away from a perfect Democrat 0), the dying states averaged 0.95, the growing averaged 1.75, and the rapidly growing states averaged 2.3 (0.7 away from a perfect Republican 3).

Gay rights was strongly correlated with demographic decline: 5 (50%) of the 10 most rapidly dying states and 6 (32%) of the 19 dying states have gay rights (states with gay rights averaged 0.1). No growing state has gay rights.

From The Baby Gap: Explaining Red and Blue—How birthrates color the electoral map:

You could predict 74 percent of the variation in Bush’s shares just from knowing each state’s white fertility rate. When the average fertility goes up by a tenth of a child, Bush’s share normally goes up by 4.5 points.

...white birthrates and Republican voting are closely correlated…

While these two articles make no reference to religion, it is striking that Liberals, who oppose religion, are showing substantially lower birthrates than Conservatives, who favor it.

As I’ve noted in this previous post, in my opinion the Liberals are making an error to oppose religion. They are correct that there is no guy with a long white beard sitting in a gold chair up in the clouds; but there is surely something real to which people have referred by the word, God. Just because science can’t yet specify what God is, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s tons of things science hasn’t yet discovered.

By opposing religion, many Liberals have inadvertently, and I think, mistakenly, turned their backs on their own true feelings of worship, reverence, and devotion. When was the last time Howard Dean, or Al Gore, or Hillary Clinton, showed strong feelings of worship, reverence, or devotion, for anything? The party is almost defined by the lack of these feelings.

The opposition to these feelings may very well result in lower birthrates; it seems to be the reverse of romantic.

In closing, permit me to quote from my favorite poet, W.B. Yeats:

IX. The Four Ages of Man

He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.

Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.

Now his wars on God begin;
At stroke of midnight God shall win.