Hip-Hop Lyrics

There is a rally going on in the Dallas Suburb of Pleasant Grove,Texas to sound off about the state of lyrics in Hip-Hop. My only problem is I never hear the lyrics. I can't get passed the brain-dead music accompanying them. I have a simple musical philosophy. It has to have a real melody. I could give a fuck whether you can dance to it or not.

Pete Sessions on Corporation for Public Broadcasting

In July I sent my congressman, Pete Sessions, an email imploring him to vote favorably on the restoration of $100 million in funding to CPB.


Below is the response I received (without comment)

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August 18, 2005

Mr. Terry Groff
(my address deleted)

Dear Mr. Groff:

Thank you for contacting me regarding funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which encompasses both the Public Broadcast System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). I appreciate hearing from you on this matter.

This spring, my colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee decreased federal funding for CPB by $100 million for fiscal year 2006. Each year Congress revisits appropriations funding for allocated programs. When this bill was debated on the house floor, an amendment was added to restore full funding to CPB for FY2006. According to House rules, any attempt to add funding to an appropriations bill would require an offset that takes funding away from another source. Due to the fact that the targeted offset would have decreased important funding for programs vital to the Dallas metroplex, I voted against this amendment. The programs that would receive cuts would be public health care, job training, and education programs.

The amount of CPB funding cut in this year's Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act represents only 3.9 percent of the funding that it receives. The remaining 96.1 percent was raised from non-federal sources. Public broadcasting reported total income of $2.3 billion in FY2003. The largest single income source in FY2003 came from membership. Neither PBS nor NPR receives grants from the CPB for their general operations; only local public broadcasting stations receive these funds.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Background
The CPB was intended to provide a funding mechanism for individual public broadcasting stations in 1967, but not subject these stations to political influence or favoritism. CPB was also intended to provide a funding mechanism for the creation and operation of program distribution systems interconnecting the individual public broadcast stations.

The CPB's appropriation is allocated through a distribution formula established in its authorizing legislation. It has historically received two-year advanced appropriations. The graph below represents the drastic increase in federal funding between 1969 and 2000. Approximately 89 percent of the funding CPB receives from the federal government is required to be disbursed in grants to stations and grants for programming. The remaining percentage of funds is set aside by the CPB for general system-wide needs that individual stations would have difficulty funding. The graph below represents the drastic increase in Federal Appropriations from 1969 to 2000.

Current Legislation Affecting CPB
My Congressional colleagues and I are reviewing funding for these programs. The Labor, HHS bill, which contains many vital programs for medical research and education, passed the House in the House on June 16, 2005. This version would decrease funding to CPB from $400 million to $300 million. On June 24, 2005 the full House approved the bill with an amendment to restore the full $400 million in funding to CPB. The Senate Appropriations committee also approved the bill.1 Currently, the bill is awaiting a vote in the House-Senate conference planned for September.

If you should have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me or my Legislative Assistant, Bobby Hillert at 202.225.2231 or Robert.Hillert@mail.house.gov.

Sincerely,
Pete Sessions
Member of Congress

Book Burning

I'm not really in favor of burning books, but if I were being forced to choose, my pile would consist of The Bible, Koran, Analects, Bhagavad Gita, Talmud, Tao-te-ching, Upanishads and Vedas. There are probably others but these would be a good start. I think these books have propagated most of the mass evils perpetrated on the peoples of this planet. Sure there are the demented few who commit violent crimes without the coaxing of some religious text but I'm talking about all those that feel what is written in these books gives them carte Blanche to commit atrocities in the name of God.

So much evil has been perpetrated on innocent people in the names of these books, the Spanish Inquisition, "Manifest Destiny" and now extremist Islamic Terrorism. All of these tenets were (and are) deemed justified due to the teachings of some "holy" book. It is man's true shame that he can't learn peace simply by opening his eyes and seeing what has truly been placed on his plate.

O'connor announces Resignation... This is not good.

July 1, 2005

Sandra Day O'Connor sent a letter to President Bush announcing she will step down as soon as a successor has been confirmed.

This is sad, indeed terrible news, for the liberal side of the political system.

O'Connor has been the swing vote in many issues such as abortion and gay rights and that vote will soon be gone.

I personally see this as a harbinger of more dark days to come for this country. The "conservative" right is actually doing more to destroy true American values than to conserve them. The recent ruling to allow local governments to decide what eminent domain means (which O'Connor dissented) is evidence of a socialist attitude. Destruction is not conservation. Even war is not a "moral value".

America is headed down a dark tunnel and Americans are allowing it because they have been duped in to believing that it is for the "greater good". Doing something with the pretense that it is for the greater good is the lie that every tyrannical regime has forced on its people for thousands of years.

Will it ever end? Not while the far right is in power. O'connor's resignation will only increase that power. We are in trouble people.

Eminent Domain, A socialist value?

Isn't the concept of "for the greater good" a socialist value. Everything for all? The individual be damned.

Eminent Domain is being abused. Taking private property away from someone and giving it to another private concern is nothing more than legal theft. I don't think our forefathers intended for the concept to be used the way it is being (ab)used today.

To me, public use is highways, libraries, courthouses, NOT Walmarts, townhomes, marinas or shopping centers.

It is sad, no, shameful, when an elderly woman is forced to move from a home that has been in her family for a hundred years.

THIS MUST STOP!

But how? The Supreme Court is no longer the sounder of individual rights. Lately it has catered to the far right and has begun to ignore the wishes of the masses.

There is only one way. We must begin a petition to strengthen individual rights in the excercise of Eminent Domain. Better yet, let's abolish E.D. altogether.

Make these privateers have to negotiate with people for their property.

MAKE THEM WORK FOR IT.

You Are Here

“God” has set in motion a very large and very old universe. We as humans can only pretend to understand it's vastness and age.

We believe things about it that may or may not be true. Some believe we are the only beings that god hath wrought. I find it difficult to understand why a god would create such a marvelous thing and then place us on a "Small Blue Marble" somewhere on a lonely edge of an unfathomably large galaxy.

Cosmologically, we are in the Boondocks of the Milky Way Galaxy in a spiral arm called the Orion Arm. It is lonely out here.

Some thrive on this isolation and are content to just live out their lives in quite solitude. Others allow it to consume them with fear and mistrust of what is outside. Others are spurred to want to leave and see what else is going on in the limitlessness of space. I am among the latter.

There are those "out there" that must also feel this urge to see what else God has created. It is well within reason to believe that there are civilizations that are much, much older than ours and far, far more advanced, both technologically and spiritually, than ours. There are probably those that may well be more advance technologically but are spiritually bankrupt. Then there may be those that are, so far, stuck on their marble in their corner of their Galaxy.

There is nothing to stop them from coming here but for their ingenuity. There is nothing to stop us from going there but for our ingenuity.

I know we are trying.

"Justified True Belief?"

In a comment in another blog (now defunct) someone suggested that I learn something about "Justified True Belief".

That is damn near an oxymoron. Truth is not to be believed it is to be known. Belief is nothing more than a glorified opinion. Belief is not even the bottom rung of the ladder of truth. Belief and faith are bandied about as if they are the cornerstone of existence. They are the cornerstone of man's attempts to justify his actions.

Al-Qaeda believes the more infidels they kill will secure their place in heaven. They have "Justified True Beliefs".

George Bush believes that the war in Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was not a nice guy. Dubya has "Justified True Beliefs".

Belief is the beginning of the search for truth. It is not the end.