Modern America is experiencing an escalating negative political environment. The words “king”, “queen”, and “emperor” causes the mind to conjure a picture of superiority and sovereignty. The title of this article communicates the connection and correlating of these words to the political party of the Democrats. Their collective rhetoric eludes to this idea. After reading the book by Kenneth R. Timmerman entitled "Shadow Warriors," he documents with factual liberal behavior the mindset they are superior with their intellect and sovereign in their insistence that it is their natural action to use government power to install their sense of social justice.
As the book documents, it seems their belief system is evidence of a commitment level far beyond nationalism and loyalty to America as a country in need of defense against an abstract enemy. On the surface it looks as though they are carefree concerning the safety of American citizens. Their quick, almost defensive, response to accusations of traitorous actions some make against their adversaries, the Republicans and the person of President Bush, is rationalized as patriotic. Their continued efforts to redefine patriotism to cover their abhorrent rhetoric is growing old and needs to stop. The democratic party, and the members themselves, have to come clean with their corrosive and destructive actions and activities and accept the fact that they are anti-American, anti-freedom, and anti-individualists.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Why the Democratic Ideology has the Wrong Idea
When one who may be investigating the beliefs of both the Democrat and Republican parties can ascertain them by the words and actions of those who hold offices in the Senate and House of Representatives, or they can also visit either official web sites.
From my end of this installment was by going to this link which was helpful due to many different places it listed to actually determine what the Democratic “statement of faith” is, but then my investigation went down hill from there. Specifically by going to the Democrat party web site to find out what their beliefs are this investigation evolved into a difficult process to summarize in just a few sentences. If one can take, at face value, "What We are About" link on the official Democrat web site is less than informal. In other words if one can determine what is communicated by “feeling” then the Democratic party is yours.
For those that need logical rhetoric, reason, to determine beliefs then the following may help.
The Democratic Stand:
The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American. That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.
The first sentence: The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American.
How can anyone be against this statement. The question is “how” does a political party take upon the enormous responsibility to protect the citizens of a nation; this nation, the American people. The rhetoric that comes from the collective Democratic mouth is establishing a “stronger” communication within the world community. The House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to Syria to “talk” and got nowhere towards the stated agenda of the Democratic political party.
The second sentence: That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.
This does not communicate keeping America “safe” from international factions of terrorists intending on attacking this nation, but “safe” from the “other” political faction keeping Americans unsafe from domestic issues.
To offer Democrats the benefit of the doubt, there is a plethora of believers of the Democrat agenda that form the party’s membership, but the benefit of the doubt stops there. The many different facets of believers fixate, or migrate, to the Democrat Party because it tends to loosely represent their type of government. These collective beliefs culminates into a single “belief statement,” and that is it is people in governmental offices intend to use government power to shape our society in the Democrat ideological eyes. In other words it is those that find themselves in all levels of governmental offices use government power in accordance to their own personal beliefs; what ever they are.
The idea that there are superior people that is endowed with abilities is at the heart of the reason why our founding fathers started a representative type of government. The government in which they were mortally against at the time was the King of England harboring the power of that government pressing upon the colonists as if they were subservient to the King; personally. In other words however the King sees himself as the people are subservient to the whims and wishes of the King.
In this same ideology, the Democrats, without saying explicitly, are insistent that the whole of American people are to be subservient to the Democratic agenda so that all Americans can be equal in the safe and secure idea of America. According to the Democrats then, the collective of Americans as Democrats define it, the American collective is at a higher level of importance than the importance of the individual American. The freedom of the individual from government oppression is chaos to the Democrats.
From my end of this installment was by going to this link which was helpful due to many different places it listed to actually determine what the Democratic “statement of faith” is, but then my investigation went down hill from there. Specifically by going to the Democrat party web site to find out what their beliefs are this investigation evolved into a difficult process to summarize in just a few sentences. If one can take, at face value, "What We are About" link on the official Democrat web site is less than informal. In other words if one can determine what is communicated by “feeling” then the Democratic party is yours.
For those that need logical rhetoric, reason, to determine beliefs then the following may help.
The Democratic Stand:
The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American. That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.
The first sentence: The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American.
How can anyone be against this statement. The question is “how” does a political party take upon the enormous responsibility to protect the citizens of a nation; this nation, the American people. The rhetoric that comes from the collective Democratic mouth is establishing a “stronger” communication within the world community. The House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to Syria to “talk” and got nowhere towards the stated agenda of the Democratic political party.
The second sentence: That commitment is reflected in an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.
This does not communicate keeping America “safe” from international factions of terrorists intending on attacking this nation, but “safe” from the “other” political faction keeping Americans unsafe from domestic issues.
To offer Democrats the benefit of the doubt, there is a plethora of believers of the Democrat agenda that form the party’s membership, but the benefit of the doubt stops there. The many different facets of believers fixate, or migrate, to the Democrat Party because it tends to loosely represent their type of government. These collective beliefs culminates into a single “belief statement,” and that is it is people in governmental offices intend to use government power to shape our society in the Democrat ideological eyes. In other words it is those that find themselves in all levels of governmental offices use government power in accordance to their own personal beliefs; what ever they are.
The idea that there are superior people that is endowed with abilities is at the heart of the reason why our founding fathers started a representative type of government. The government in which they were mortally against at the time was the King of England harboring the power of that government pressing upon the colonists as if they were subservient to the King; personally. In other words however the King sees himself as the people are subservient to the whims and wishes of the King.
In this same ideology, the Democrats, without saying explicitly, are insistent that the whole of American people are to be subservient to the Democratic agenda so that all Americans can be equal in the safe and secure idea of America. According to the Democrats then, the collective of Americans as Democrats define it, the American collective is at a higher level of importance than the importance of the individual American. The freedom of the individual from government oppression is chaos to the Democrats.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The World of CD Ripping and Usenet
Anyone who reads this post I would like to introduce an aspect of CD ripping and sharing of mp3 files on Usenet. This article is intended for those that may not know about CD ripping, so, if you do know about this subject this most likely will bore you.
Specifically, I am referring to world of CD ripping and those who are involved.
If you don’t know what CD ripping is, the best description is digitally "recording" tracks from a music CD album, thereby changing the CD track's digital audio format. The music CD track's file extension is most likely "CDA," for CD Audio when looking at the CD's file directory in, for example, Windows.
For example it may look like:
All types of CD players can interpret the “CDA” file format. The format of the CDA file contains pure digital values, much like WAV files found on most computer systems. The simple sound recorder that is installed with MS Windows is a WAV recorder. Every bit of sound is represented digitally in a WAV and CDA file format.
There are other files with formats that most computer users know as "mp3." MP3 formatted files are compressed, and therefore needs a decoder program to play/hear the music file. There are some portable car CD players that can recognize "mp3" formatted music files. Of course, there are other audio file formats such as AAC, FLAC, and OGG to name a few. Specific computer programs can interpret these file formats, or specific hardware players can also interpret these types of formats. For example, the Apple iPod player can play different file formats.
The argument for the many different audio-file formats boils down to preference, general acceptability, and file compression (storage area concerns). The “CDA” format is widely acceptable (and the preference matches), but file sizes can be very large, i.e., a typical CD album is one big file totaling 700mbytes, or more. If one wanted to store a CD collection on a computer hard drive there would not be a lot of space for a large collection. As a typical CD album having 700mbytes, 300 more would be one gigabyte. Average hard drive sizes is ~80 gigabytes (and larger as time goes). That means with all the other software files loaded onto a computer not many albums could be saved to hard drive. Compression ratios of audio file formats vary. WAV files are comparable to CD files in size. MP3 are widely acceptable and can be variably compressed (more about this later) as much as one tenth of a CDA file and WAV files. AAC, WMA and OGG follows MP3 format by acceptability and compression ratios.
There is a growing acceptance of an audio-file format called FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec. Unlike the FLAC format, MP3 is “lossy,” as in loss-ee, in its fidelity, but FLAC is lossless. Which brings up the argument between the MP3 crowd and this new format, and a reason for this journal installment. The point I am making isn’t arguing for or against any particular file format, but instead arguing against the attitudes of some individuals who favorably view these different file formats over others.
The attitude of some MP3ers who are partial to the MP3 format can be described having disdain towards those who may not favor the MP3 format for whatever reason, and visa versa. Focusing on my point further is that within the MP3 crowd there is even more of disdain towards those who may have a favor towards a higher compression ratio, i.e., smaller file sizes.
I should now define what is meant by the variable compressions of MP3 file formats. I will try to stay away from technical abstracts. To create MP3 files computer programs interpret, or “record,” CDA track digital values then compress, or subtract redundant digital values based upon a listening (hearing) model.
As a side bar, digital images use the same concept in file compression, i.e., JPEGs. Movie files with an extension of MPG also uses compression schemes. Dish Network broadcasts their signal in the MPG2 compression scheme, the unit that sends the signal to your TV set interprets the MPG2 scheme from the dish receiver.
The “subtraction,” or the compression ratio, is partially the fidelity information of the CDA track. When players decode MP3 formatted files back into the CDA, or specifically WAV, original to be played, and because of the subtraction process, the resulting decode is not exactly like the original CDA. Therefore, MP3s are known as “near” CD quality.
Next, MP3 coding by computer programs have the ability to vary the compression ratio, either manually choosing one of various choices, or the program will vary the compression ratio automatically. The recording process incorporates what is known as sampling and recording frequency. The higher the recording frequency and the sampling rate the better the playback fidelity, or moves closer to CD quality. What is sacrificed in the coding process is file size. The higher the frequency and sampling the bigger the file size. Sampling rates start from 16 bits and ranges to 320,000 (320k) bits per second. It is said that 160k or 192k bit sampling rate is equivalent to CD quality. The higher rates qualify at studio quality.
The FLAC crowd, then, has the argument that if a bigger file size is needed for saving fidelity, then keep the fidelity yet compress the file size, and in the process why keep MP3 formats.
To reiterate, I am not arguing for or against a particular coding format. What I am arguing against is the attitude of some individuals who look down upon those that prefer the smaller file size of MP3s due to storage constraints. Yes, some MP3ers disdain other MP3ers who favor smaller file size for better storage ability. Why? It is the fidelity issue of recording, or ripping, of a CD that irritates some against others when recording at smaller sampling rates and then share them in the Usenet. Again, why? When “sharing” MP3 with others using the Usenet, some individuals will tag (replying to a post) with “WARNING, DO NOT DOWNLOAD… 128s” in the re: subject line. Somehow they get the satisfaction of warning their fellow Usenet mates that certain files for downloading are "inferior" in quality.
“128” is referring to the sampling rate of the MP3 coding process. When I mentioned that MP3s are known as “near” CD quality, most MP3s are recorded at 128kbps for the file size attraction. In other words there are those who claim they can determine/hear the difference between a file that has been recorded at a sampling rate of 128kbps and a file that has been sampled at higher rates. My argument, again, isn’t towards any one file size or format, I am arguing that those who prefer the higher sampling rate of MP3 recordings need to keep their hands off postings of files that are recorded at the lower rate. Specifically, I am saying that it isn't any of their business what files are of any specific sampling rate. If files are found to have "inferior" quality sampling rates then don't down load them, plain and simple.
Let me put my argument in another term. (Knowing there are international members, please forgive me if you do not know the geographical region of the US).
If I drove from Orange County, Ca. to Adams County, Co., it can be said without distortion of facts that I drove from L.A., Ca. to Denver, Co. Those that favor higher sampling rates will disagree with the human hearing differences between a MP3 file of 128k sampling and a file with a 192k sampling. I am arguing the point that there is not enough differences between the two to harbor the kind of disdain attitude. This attitude is not normal and need to steer away in a different direction.
Continuing, my contention is that any posting is property, a free flea market, if you will. These posted files have ownership. This argument cannot be ignored or waved off as unimportant. A poster is sharing THEIR files, it is THEIR property, with whoever wants to download them. The disdain of some that feel they have the right to “mark” posts as unfavorable is essentially “spray painting” posters property. Instead of having a favorable liking of files that have a higher sampling rate, they are instead criminal “taggers.”
Here is the rub of the issue. Some, maybe allot, do not have high speed (DSL and cable modem) Internet provider. Therefore, those, the "taggers," who do not have high speed internet, also who disdain 128s, are irritated over those who post them and don't inform potential downloaders, in the subject line or with a NFO file, what sampling rates the MP3s are in. So, when one downloads and finds out it is "inferior" there is hell to pay for them spending time downloading "crap." They rationalize "tagging" for their wasted time in downloading.
It is too bad that they feel, or think, that way. An arguer once told me in the signature part of his post that those who think of themselves as normal are in fact delusional. In other words, if normal why change. I say they see themselves as normal, which applies to them, also.
Specifically, I am referring to world of CD ripping and those who are involved.
If you don’t know what CD ripping is, the best description is digitally "recording" tracks from a music CD album, thereby changing the CD track's digital audio format. The music CD track's file extension is most likely "CDA," for CD Audio when looking at the CD's file directory in, for example, Windows.
For example it may look like:
track01.cda
All types of CD players can interpret the “CDA” file format. The format of the CDA file contains pure digital values, much like WAV files found on most computer systems. The simple sound recorder that is installed with MS Windows is a WAV recorder. Every bit of sound is represented digitally in a WAV and CDA file format.
There are other files with formats that most computer users know as "mp3." MP3 formatted files are compressed, and therefore needs a decoder program to play/hear the music file. There are some portable car CD players that can recognize "mp3" formatted music files. Of course, there are other audio file formats such as AAC, FLAC, and OGG to name a few. Specific computer programs can interpret these file formats, or specific hardware players can also interpret these types of formats. For example, the Apple iPod player can play different file formats.
The argument for the many different audio-file formats boils down to preference, general acceptability, and file compression (storage area concerns). The “CDA” format is widely acceptable (and the preference matches), but file sizes can be very large, i.e., a typical CD album is one big file totaling 700mbytes, or more. If one wanted to store a CD collection on a computer hard drive there would not be a lot of space for a large collection. As a typical CD album having 700mbytes, 300 more would be one gigabyte. Average hard drive sizes is ~80 gigabytes (and larger as time goes). That means with all the other software files loaded onto a computer not many albums could be saved to hard drive. Compression ratios of audio file formats vary. WAV files are comparable to CD files in size. MP3 are widely acceptable and can be variably compressed (more about this later) as much as one tenth of a CDA file and WAV files. AAC, WMA and OGG follows MP3 format by acceptability and compression ratios.
There is a growing acceptance of an audio-file format called FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec. Unlike the FLAC format, MP3 is “lossy,” as in loss-ee, in its fidelity, but FLAC is lossless. Which brings up the argument between the MP3 crowd and this new format, and a reason for this journal installment. The point I am making isn’t arguing for or against any particular file format, but instead arguing against the attitudes of some individuals who favorably view these different file formats over others.
The attitude of some MP3ers who are partial to the MP3 format can be described having disdain towards those who may not favor the MP3 format for whatever reason, and visa versa. Focusing on my point further is that within the MP3 crowd there is even more of disdain towards those who may have a favor towards a higher compression ratio, i.e., smaller file sizes.
I should now define what is meant by the variable compressions of MP3 file formats. I will try to stay away from technical abstracts. To create MP3 files computer programs interpret, or “record,” CDA track digital values then compress, or subtract redundant digital values based upon a listening (hearing) model.
As a side bar, digital images use the same concept in file compression, i.e., JPEGs. Movie files with an extension of MPG also uses compression schemes. Dish Network broadcasts their signal in the MPG2 compression scheme, the unit that sends the signal to your TV set interprets the MPG2 scheme from the dish receiver.
The “subtraction,” or the compression ratio, is partially the fidelity information of the CDA track. When players decode MP3 formatted files back into the CDA, or specifically WAV, original to be played, and because of the subtraction process, the resulting decode is not exactly like the original CDA. Therefore, MP3s are known as “near” CD quality.
Next, MP3 coding by computer programs have the ability to vary the compression ratio, either manually choosing one of various choices, or the program will vary the compression ratio automatically. The recording process incorporates what is known as sampling and recording frequency. The higher the recording frequency and the sampling rate the better the playback fidelity, or moves closer to CD quality. What is sacrificed in the coding process is file size. The higher the frequency and sampling the bigger the file size. Sampling rates start from 16 bits and ranges to 320,000 (320k) bits per second. It is said that 160k or 192k bit sampling rate is equivalent to CD quality. The higher rates qualify at studio quality.
The FLAC crowd, then, has the argument that if a bigger file size is needed for saving fidelity, then keep the fidelity yet compress the file size, and in the process why keep MP3 formats.
To reiterate, I am not arguing for or against a particular coding format. What I am arguing against is the attitude of some individuals who look down upon those that prefer the smaller file size of MP3s due to storage constraints. Yes, some MP3ers disdain other MP3ers who favor smaller file size for better storage ability. Why? It is the fidelity issue of recording, or ripping, of a CD that irritates some against others when recording at smaller sampling rates and then share them in the Usenet. Again, why? When “sharing” MP3 with others using the Usenet, some individuals will tag (replying to a post) with “WARNING, DO NOT DOWNLOAD… 128s” in the re: subject line. Somehow they get the satisfaction of warning their fellow Usenet mates that certain files for downloading are "inferior" in quality.
“128” is referring to the sampling rate of the MP3 coding process. When I mentioned that MP3s are known as “near” CD quality, most MP3s are recorded at 128kbps for the file size attraction. In other words there are those who claim they can determine/hear the difference between a file that has been recorded at a sampling rate of 128kbps and a file that has been sampled at higher rates. My argument, again, isn’t towards any one file size or format, I am arguing that those who prefer the higher sampling rate of MP3 recordings need to keep their hands off postings of files that are recorded at the lower rate. Specifically, I am saying that it isn't any of their business what files are of any specific sampling rate. If files are found to have "inferior" quality sampling rates then don't down load them, plain and simple.
Let me put my argument in another term. (Knowing there are international members, please forgive me if you do not know the geographical region of the US).
If I drove from Orange County, Ca. to Adams County, Co., it can be said without distortion of facts that I drove from L.A., Ca. to Denver, Co. Those that favor higher sampling rates will disagree with the human hearing differences between a MP3 file of 128k sampling and a file with a 192k sampling. I am arguing the point that there is not enough differences between the two to harbor the kind of disdain attitude. This attitude is not normal and need to steer away in a different direction.
Continuing, my contention is that any posting is property, a free flea market, if you will. These posted files have ownership. This argument cannot be ignored or waved off as unimportant. A poster is sharing THEIR files, it is THEIR property, with whoever wants to download them. The disdain of some that feel they have the right to “mark” posts as unfavorable is essentially “spray painting” posters property. Instead of having a favorable liking of files that have a higher sampling rate, they are instead criminal “taggers.”
Here is the rub of the issue. Some, maybe allot, do not have high speed (DSL and cable modem) Internet provider. Therefore, those, the "taggers," who do not have high speed internet, also who disdain 128s, are irritated over those who post them and don't inform potential downloaders, in the subject line or with a NFO file, what sampling rates the MP3s are in. So, when one downloads and finds out it is "inferior" there is hell to pay for them spending time downloading "crap." They rationalize "tagging" for their wasted time in downloading.
It is too bad that they feel, or think, that way. An arguer once told me in the signature part of his post that those who think of themselves as normal are in fact delusional. In other words, if normal why change. I say they see themselves as normal, which applies to them, also.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Celebrities and the Values of Political Opinions
Celebrities who politically bloviate outside their chosen professional arena is a recent phenomenon of modern society. The status of celebrities in the lives of individuals and families have become over valued. The value of celebrities should only be realized with the talent they have developed, and that is creatively acting for some, and creatively promoting story telling. I only bring this up due to Johnny Carson’s death. Now, and in the last few decades, celebrities have moved into the realm of the political opinion.
Those that place undue value in the opinions of journalists and TV interviewer celebrities, and the Hollywood celebrities themselves, have contributed to the development of reinforcing a false idea that somehow the value of the opinions of those celebrities are inherently high.
In comparison of celebrities that can be classified in the same category as Johnny Carson to other celebrities that have a high regard for their own opinions are definitely in a different category. The question is then why have those, that are like Johnny Carson, moot when it comes to political opinions, and those that fall into the other category bloviate about theirs? The answer is those celebrities that fall into the trap of providing political opinions are dissatisfied with their own career of acting. Johnny Carson was very stable with the career he made himself as an entertainer. Celebrity's narcissistic tendencies bloom when they opine politically. Notice Johnny Carson has no public label of being either Democrat or Republican. Because politics in his realm of public entertaining didn't matter.
What the Hollywood crowd needs to do is develop more of a character like Johnny Carson’s, and try to have a better sense of satisfaction with the career of acting.
Those that place undue value in the opinions of journalists and TV interviewer celebrities, and the Hollywood celebrities themselves, have contributed to the development of reinforcing a false idea that somehow the value of the opinions of those celebrities are inherently high.
In comparison of celebrities that can be classified in the same category as Johnny Carson to other celebrities that have a high regard for their own opinions are definitely in a different category. The question is then why have those, that are like Johnny Carson, moot when it comes to political opinions, and those that fall into the other category bloviate about theirs? The answer is those celebrities that fall into the trap of providing political opinions are dissatisfied with their own career of acting. Johnny Carson was very stable with the career he made himself as an entertainer. Celebrity's narcissistic tendencies bloom when they opine politically. Notice Johnny Carson has no public label of being either Democrat or Republican. Because politics in his realm of public entertaining didn't matter.
What the Hollywood crowd needs to do is develop more of a character like Johnny Carson’s, and try to have a better sense of satisfaction with the career of acting.
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