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There seemed to be quite a bit of controversy stirring today over the President's comments on the role religion played in his nominating Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice. While he didn't come out and directly say so (his words were "part of Harriet Mier's life is her religion" when asked about her background), it is quite obvious that religion did play a part in Bush's nomination. Bush has said in the past that he chose Miers and Roberts because they share his values, and Bush makes no qualms about his Christian beliefs. What I don't understand is why we should expect the President to do anything other than choose someone who shares his same belief system. I can't see why it's news that Bush, a conservative Christian Republican, chose a conservative Christian Republican for the Supreme Court. Who else would he nominate, Al Sharpton? If I were president, I would definitely make religion a deciding factor in a choice for Supreme Court justice. I certainly wouldn't nominate an evangelical Christian conservative because I don't share those fundamental beliefs. It seems to me that these nominations were determined when Bush won the election in 2004. It's one of the perks of being the President, and it just so happened that Pat Robertson prayed out two during Bush's stay in office. That's just how it goes.
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For the past several days, I've been enjoying the new Fiona Apple album "Extraordinary Machine." I had downloaded the leaked version a while back, and am now happy to have paid my few dollars for this wonderful CD (even though some of the songs have undergone some changes, not for the better). I ended up buying the DualDisc version, which has some great video clips. The improved sound quality over the MP3s I had in addition to the nice DVD extras definitely made it worth the purchase.
In case you don't know the story, here's some background info: Epic (Fiona Apple's record label) had no plans to release "Extraordinary Machine," claiming that it had no commercial appeal, but they quickly changed their minds once the entire album leaked out on the Internet and was rabidly snatched up by her fans. Today it's Amazon's #2 seller in Music (despite Slate magazine's prediction to the contrary).
The whole debacle over the release of Apple's new CD just seems to be another example of how piracy of intellectual property is actually driving some industries. A similar phenomenon has happened in the video game arena; re-issues of classic arcade games that have been emulated on PC using MAME for years are constantly being released for all the major consoles. Turner Broadcasting System has started a new service called GameTap, which lets users download and play old video games from virtually every platform, for a small monthly fee, of course. Nintendo is set to launch downloads of their entire back catalog when their new Revolution console ships next year to counter the rampant ROM trading of classic NES, SNES, and N64 games on the web. Though they may deny it, it sure seems to me that piracy of commercially unavailable materials is sending a wake-up call to the industry; in these instances, they seem to actually be responding to existing demand among consumers instead of trying to create it using hype and marketing nonsense. What a concept.
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Here is a recent dialog between my wife Marjorie and the woman at the register where I got my oil changed this weekend. Now I know how it feels to face a master typist. I feel so humbled.
Marjorie: Here you go [hands her the receipt]
Register Woman: That'll be $28.34. What are you paying with?
Marjorie: Credit card.
RW: Do you want to do debit or credit? [Takes the card]
Marjorie: Oh, you can do it as debit.
RW: Okay, enter your PIN.
[Marjorie enters PIN. Silence ensues.]
RW: Did you push the green button?
Marjorie: Oh, no [pushes green button]
RW: What's on the Enter button of every keyboard?
Marjorie: Um...[looks blankly]
Me: Are you talking about the arrow?
RW: That's on every keyboard [She points to the green button]. It means Enter.
Me: Yeah, that's from the old days of the typewriter when it was the Return key, indicating that it returns the carriage to the next...
RW: [Holds up her nasty-ass computer keyboard] See? It's on the Enter button.
Me: Yeah, I know, I...[I begin to say something about how I work with computers every day, then give up]
Marjorie: Thanks [Takes receipt]
[RW goes back to reading her romance novel from the 80's]
End of scene.
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