WhatComesToMind.com

I’m honored to have seen LeRoi in concert. Helluva talent.

Thanks goes to Erin…

It is a very sad day, as the USA and EU are turning a blind eye to Georgia. Its borders need to be defended from Russia. The USA and EU should already have troops there. W didn’t have a problem running around Georgia three years ago, being treated like a rock star. Today, he’s sitting at the Olympics saying “you guys shouldn’t do that”. It’s pathetic.

America has been so selectively hypocritical, it makes you wonder what we stand for. We stand for things when they benefit us. When it’s hard, however, it’s not a worthwhile cause unless there’s oil to be had.

Whoever is next as president, which cannot be soon enough, will need to react better to the world. We cannot root on democracies and then abandon them at the moment of truth. A blossoming democracy in the near east is dying today, and it’s only because we won’t stand up to Russia. Another sad day for America, and a tragic day for freedom.

This is an iPhone test post.

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Happy 4th to everyone today. I think today is a day that needs to remind us of some of the reasons we are where we are today, and how history has a distinct habit of repetition.

First, today (of course) the Minnesota Secretary of State didn’t quietly handle the selling of a vote. Instead, it was trumpeted as an affront to all those who died in battle. Lovely, hypocritical grandstanding for the Fourth.

Speaking of the Fourth, the Fourth Amendment is still MIA. If only we defended the Fourth like the Second.

And really, how in the world can you say that a vote isn’t for sale? Or do you have to be elected to sell your vote first?

I’m of a mind that we need a constitutional amendment that prohibits the contribution to elected officials by anyone that is not an individual citizen of the USA. The people cannot sell their vote, therefore I think it’s time to eliminate the sale of votes to companies. Under the law, corporations are said to have the rights of a person, but the reality is that companies should never have direct access to politicians. Congress is the representative of the PEOPLE of the United States, and have never been servants to the companies that do business here.

That needs to change. We have had upheavals and struggles in this country first for its birth, then for its citizens’ servitude, then its rights, and now the Fourth Age of our country seems upon us. The Responsibility of the Government to the people and land it exists for. If we are to continue with a legitimate form of democracy, we must constrain the democracy inward to be defined as the people it governs. Encroachment by religion is the first step towards theocratic tyranny. Ask the Jews about that one. Encroachment by corporations is the next step towards irresponsible government. Ask Enron about that one… or better, one of their former employees. And the erosion of the Rights guaranteed us by the Constitution are an erosion of democracy. There is no way to dilute these concepts; they are absolute, linear, and contrary. You either uphold rights or you don’t. You govern as a democracy or you do not. And you separate the Church and State, or you do not. If you intermingle the Church with the state, you lose religious freedom, unless you are the religion the State requires. You have leaders stand for people, and if that is good for one business or not, it is people first. To be influenced more by corporate money relegates employees to serfs. And if you do not protect some rights, when the right you need goes missing when you need it, you are to blame.

The Founding Fathers understood these principles clearly, and did not waver because the Enemy was a Monarchy. These poor influences over life in America were polarized and focused as The Crown. Yet as we have become a theocratic state, with politicians taking most of their money from companies, and laws being bent to “fight terrorism” in whatever convenient form du jour happens, we find ourselves in the same set of confines from which we fought 232 years ago.

Yet today, we still have one powerful weapon our forefathers did not, and that was the right to vote. Challenge your leaders, find out why change is not just lip service, and vote for your rights in whatever form that is. It is less a function of what leaders we choose from which party, but to what level of accountability we hold them.

I hope this little rant reminds us that democracy is practiced, not simply achieved. Happy Fourth. And if you have time, with all its flaws and triumphs, read this. And instead of doing nothing but ranting, today, I joined the ACLU.

For anyone who hasn’t visited Wisconsin, particularly in the summer, you haven’t yet had the pleasure of a simulation of what it must’ve been like to fall victim to Dracula. The mosquito (say it Rich, moh skeeh toh) is obviously the State Bird of Wisconsin. They’re huge, annoying, and draining.

I love Wisconsin, but with that one exception. They’re everywhere. YUCK!

Well, I guess I have waited too long to update, but there’s no time like the present, I guess. Kim and I made it to Indy, and we’re still in boxes. We have too much stuff, I guess, and we still don’t have internet, cable, or anything beyond our phones. Fortunately, our location is awesome. We’re a 9 iron from the Indy Arts Garden, and that has free wi-fi. Thus, I can do a little work.

I’d like to get some pictures posted, but of course I’m limited in what we can do. I’m looking forward to the July 11 update for the iPhone so I can start posting things directly to a site over the air. Until then, I think I won’t be on here until I have home internet service.

Oh, the things we take for granted. Now if I can get our house to sell…

Kim and I have made it to Anaheim for two days at the Disney Parks. It’s a well-deserved rest after getting the house on the market!

So you got a shiny new Mac, and maybe even a new iPhone to go with. You are an audio geek, and you have your entire audio collection saved as FLAC. You do this knowing it’s a perfect copy of your audio, and you can get it into almost any format. Until you meet up with iTunes.

That bastard iTunes. It has that wonderful Apple Lossless, but no FLAC support. Punks.

Well, don’t fear. Of course you could use Foobar2000 and the Nero mp4 codec to give you some great AAC files (Low Complexity, since your iDevice won’t read anything HE). But you want to keep lossless lossless. And I can’t blame you.

The tool for the job is awfully hard to find. It’s called X Lossless Decoder, or XLD. Why haven’t you ever heard of it? It’s on a website you’ll never remember…

http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html

Grab XLD.app and change the preference to Apple Lossless for the Output Format. Then batch your FLACs to Apple Lossless to your heart’s content!

As I sit here writing this, it’s snowing again in Seattle. Really. It’s that pellet-type of snow at the moment, but it’s pretty miserable. This is usually when you get to play some golf finally. Not this year. It’s been pretty miserable.

On the upside, I was able to miss an earthquake! Leave that one for the midwest. Hah! Out 3 days early!

Besides, we get enough of them here. What I’m really thankful for is to have Kim here for a couple of days, and a few more next week! Finally. Normal? We don’t do normal.