Question: So what’s wrong with a bunch of gays promoting love and acceptance? Answer: the hypocrisy and wickedness they demostrate when they don’t get their way. (Coupled with the wickedness of… well… their couples.)

Do they really want love and acceptance? Look at these, prior to the vote:

Proposition 8 - They Just Want Equality??

Proposition 8 - They just want acceptance??

Proposition 8 - They just want love?? (Photo by Kara Leung)

Okay, FINE. Supposedly they seek love, acceptance, and equality? No. Look at these, post-vote:

Proposition 8 Vandalism

Gay Marriage Ban Protest - Around LDS Temple Grounds

This is the acceptance they want?

This is the love they want??

If their coalitions for love and peace and acceptance and equality are “so right,” then why are they so hateful and unjust and mob-like and violent now?

Why are they targetting the LDS Church? Consider this: there are about 770,000 Mormons in California. Suppose about half of them are active. Another third of those are children/minors. That leaves about 256,000 members of the Church in California that may have voted in the affirmative in proposition 8.

There are 36.5 million people in California. So the Church members perhaps influenced less than 1% of the final vote - that’s if everyone voted. Remember: the proposition passed in the affirmative by plenty more than 1%. Why do they target the Church? It’s as if the Catholics, Protestant demoninations, and other good Christian churches don’t support Proposition 8. In fact, at the time of this post, if you search Google News for “catholic church proposition 8,” the first result is about the Mormon church taking a beating. Why are the gays not striking at the Catholic church? There are more Catholics in California than Mormons… by a landslide… makes you wonder, huh.

What happened to racism, anyway? Check this out: 70% of African Americans voted YES on Proposition 8, according to a recent exit poll. Yet we don’t see the gays bashing the African Americans (or the Latinos) - how come?

The First Presidency of the LDS Church released “The Family: A Proclamation To The World” in 1995. Nobody seemed to give it much thought then even though it was a direct statement from the Church asking citizens and governments to uphold the sanctity of marriage. The Church has a right and obligation to its doctrinal beliefs to defend and uphold that proclamation. It is declared to the world (regardless of political sect or region) to be the ultimate and absolute truth of God’s eternal plan for the foundation of society.

These people are not just void of religion, they are also void of logic and depraved of the knowledge of what is important.

At this point, I’m going to link to a forum post on Democratic Underground where the protests around the Los Angeles temple were getting national attention. A word of caution: the text of the discourse between these people may offend some people. It’s full of senseless bantering, not unlike other comments by gays about Prop 8. Read their rant. Is this the kind of people we want more of?

Obviously, considering how the gays are reacting, it’s a good thing they cannot - by law - get married and reproduce.

Oh wait.

ACHTUNG!

Das machine is nicht fur gerfingerpoken und mittengrabben.

Ist easy schnappen der Sprinngwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken.

Ist nicht fur gewerken by das Dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das Pockets.

Relaxen und watch das blinkenlights.

Did you know that you’re violating federal copyright law by watching a movie with a group of familiar acquaintances in your living room? Well, that’s apparently the deal here at BYU, anyway. I, along with my roommate and FHE group co-leader, have been cited in the books as copyright felons because we watched Ironman in the apartment lobby (during legal visiting hours!)

Frustratingly enough, nothing can be done about it. But, cringing in any regard to authority, I argue my case here. BYU’s housing guidelines (which nobody reads because generally they’re common sense…) state:

Also, please be aware that copyright laws prohibit showing video or DVD movies in common areas in or around the residence halls.

Oh do they now! I can prove that statement wrong in about a minute. Copyright laws do not prohibit showing videos or DVD movies in “common areas around the residence halls [at BYU]“. Find me one place in the law books where it says that BYU students can’t show that type of media in their dormitory living rooms.

“Common areas”… interesting words. Each apartment’s kitchen is as common as the lobby during visiting hours. The “lobby” is each apartment’s living room, basically. The R.A. that wrote us up (from Bowen Hall) used the term “public area” several times.

Thus “public” is synonomous with “common” (according a residence halls authority). The US Code states:

17 U.S.C. § 101 (1988) (definition of “publicly”)

20. To perform or display a work “publicly” means –
(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.

Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000101—-000-.html

Obviously, the absolutely substantial amount of three people gathered outside the normal circle of our FHE group family and our social acquaintances and totally transmitting the movie to those standing outside the window at the same time was very public and obviously falls within this definition.

That whole last paragraph was a load of sarcastic rubbish, by the way. (The window blinds were closed too.)

So much for a public setting.

Title 17 also mentions this:

17 U.S.C. §110 Numb. (5) Paragraph (A)

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringements of copyright:

(5)(A) except as provided in subparagraph (B), communication of a transmission embodying a performance or display of a work by the public reception of the transmission on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes, unless -
(i) a direct charge is made to see or hear the transmission; or
(ii) the transmission thus received is further transmitted to the public”

Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/110.html

Since neither this paragraph nor subparagraph B nor does the defintion of “publicly” apply to my situation, and since the only reference the BYU Housing Guidelines cite is the copyright law (not even creating their own, stricter “rules” - only enforcing the laws that already exist), in no way is the accusation made by the R.A. on duty valid at all.

Next, BYU Housing differentiates “video” and “DVD,” I’m assuming, to include both VHS and DVD video formats. Ironman was downloaded - yes, legally - from iTunes. I preordered it in September for about $15.00. It is neither VHS nor DVD, nor can it become such (thanks to DRM).

Looking extensively into Apple’s website, iTunes’ legal pages (scroll down to number 9 for Usage Rules) and various windows in iTunes, I’ve found only this warning applying to copyright:

FBI ANTI-PIRACY WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED COPYING IS PUNISHABLE UNDER FEDERAL LAW.

Okay. I didn’t do any copying. And, I’m sure they’ll let me know if they care if I ever violate their law… which I won’t, cause that would be stupid.

Did you know the movie, purchased from iTunes, doesn’t even have those usual FBI piracy warnings at the beginning? Obviously, the laws still apply - the laws which I have not broken (how the heck did I copy the movie anyway, according to that RA?) - but the movie does not have the warnings embedded in it. Probably doesn’t matter, but I thought it was interesting.

You know, what’s more is that when she originally came by and asked us what we were doing, informed us of our crime, and told me to turn the movie off, I turned off the movie without complaint. Okay, fair enough I initially thought. I prepared to go back inside my dorm and call it a night when she came back and wrote us up. So now we’re in the books. And hey, my roommate wasn’t even watching the movie; he was diddling on his laptop or something. But alas, guilt by association.

Should I be surprised?

I hoped to get away from this at BYU… I had enough issues with unjust authority at my high school.

Mozilla has a secret: It’s called Minefield. It’s their “underground” development project that they stuff full with new, pre-release Firefox features and open it to the “in-the-know” crowd for download (some dinky bland FTP site, even).

A look at Mozilla Firefox: I mean, Mozilla Minefield.

It’s been around a little while; you may have only heard of it recently. The hype comes from the unprecendented “speed” Javascript and rendering engine. While benchmarks can show it is up to 10% faster than Google Chrome (which is worth using, by the way), I’ve had some different experiences.

Most blogs will instruct you to configure it so the JIT compiler is enabled within Minefield for “the fastest Javascript on the planet.” Heck, mine came with that setting enabled already (which makes sense…). So: my take?

Its download and rendering time is pretty crazy. Definitely quicker than Firefox 3, and maybe even Chrome. The Javascript engine, however (the meat and potatoes of today’s modern websites), is a different story.

Perhaps I should configure something (since I haven’t touched about:config except to see the JIT setting), but the Javascript performs pretty poorly for me. I’ve noticed this especially on my own site, where the drop-down menus at the top here actually lag. Chrome is speedy with them but lacking on the image rollovers. Firefox seems to handle both just fine. (So does IE and Opera).

So, I can’t be too impressed so far. I’ll update it once a week or so and see if I notice any improvements… benchmarks or not, though, it should perform well on real websites, not test-oriented ones, before it is released. I don’t usually trust benchmarks.

If you’re a little adventurous, go check it out. It won’t interfere with your Firefox or Chrome installation… just don’t install it as your default browser, and realize that most of your plugins will not work on it.