Two items sticking in my shoe today. First is this bit from Scotland the (formerly) Brave, where a Conservative Party bigwig is being told off for saying that
"almost nine out of 10 Scottish households take more from the public purse than they contribute in taxes". Second is the
Supreme Court of the United States is going to decide if people have a right to sell their own stuff second-hand. Yeah, for real.
So first from Bonny Scotland, the Big Cheese of Scots Conservatives is going to address a Tory Party conference, and in her speech she will mention certian truths. This it seems is "controversial."
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, is to highlight official figures showing that only 283,080 households north of the border – 12 per cent of the total – pay more in tax than they receive in public services.
[snippage]
"The rotten system of patronage, which denies so many people real choices in their lives, has created a corrosive sense of entitlement which suits its political gang masters," she will say. "Only 12 per cent are responsible for generating Scotland's wealth. I wonder how many of them work on public sector contracts."
Referring to her party's dismal election record, the Scottish Conservative leader will conclude: "If the gang master state is the only provider people can see for their housing, education and employment, it's no surprise those who seek to break the stranglehold find barriers in their way."
Now, what bothers me here is not that Ruth Davidson is blaming other people for why her party sucks. That's lame, and she's lame for doing it. No, what bothers me here is this guy:
Kenny Gibson, a Nationalist MSP, described it as Miss Davidson's "Mitt Romney moment". He added: "At least Mitt Romney only insulted around half of Americans, while Ruth Davidson believes almost 90 per cent of Scots do not 'contribute' to society."
The British Crown presently teeters on the very knife-edge of insolvency. They certainly spend a lot more than they take in taxes, making up the difference by borrowing. Like Greece, but not quite so far along. In that environment, criticizing a politician for saying that nine out of ten Scots receive more from the state than they put in, is insanity.
Mitt Romney was right, 47% of Americans ARE clients of the state, and Ruth Davidson is right as well. If nine out of ten people are depending on Big Jimmy Government for their daily bread and roof over their head, literally, that's a freakin' disaster. Its the kind of thing to be screamed from the roof tops, not hidden under a bushel and tut-tutted about.
Second, we have a state of affairs that only a crooked lawyer could possibly come up with, and only a Lefty activist judge would countenance in their courtroom.
At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products. Under the doctrine, which the Supreme Court has recognized since 1908, you can resell your stuff without worry because the copyright holder only had control over the first sale.[snippage] That's being challenged now for products that are made abroad, and if the Supreme Court upholds an appellate court ruling, it would mean that the copyright holders of anything you own that has been made in China, Japan or Europe, for example, would have to give you permission to sell it.
Coles Notes version, some kid named Supap Kirtsaeng made a million bucks buying American textbooks really cheap in Thailand and selling them on Ebay for less than cover price in the USA. John Wiley & Sons sued him for "copyright infringement", which is utterly, utterly stupid. You buy a copy of War and Peace published by John Wiley & Sons in Thailand, it is not your fault that they A) sell the same book in the USA and B) sell it for three times the money in the USA. That's their problem, right?
WRONG! Now its
your problem.
In August 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court's ruling that anything that was manufactured overseas is not subject to the first-sale principle. Only American-made products or "copies manufactured domestically" were.
This falls out of the "are you kidding me?" area and lands squarely in "you're out of your f-ing mind!" This is nothing other than a complete rejection of legal history and precedent in favor of abject insanity. The two lawyers for Kirtsaeng, being lawers of course, raised the following objections:
Both Ammori and Band worry that a decision in favor of the lower court would lead to some strange, even absurd consequences. For example, it could become an incentive for manufacturers to have everything produced overseas because they would be able to control every resale.
It could also become a weighty issue for auto trade-ins and resales, considering about 40% of most U.S.-made cars carry technology and parts that were made overseas.
That's true, but that's not the thing they should be worried about. The true and serious danger is that people (and companies!) will simply ignore the law. They will stop complying with it altogether and go completely black market, just as they do with music downloading now. Which would be a disaster, because black markets always are. The criminal element gets rich, and those are not the people you want getting money and power in a civilized society.
Just two more examples of socialist imbeciles doing their flat-out best to founder our peaceful, prosperous society on the rocks. May they all contract a terminal case of boils.
Here endeth the rant./
