Love Conquers All

U.S. Supreme Court Decision Legalizes Gay Marriage for the Nation

Future project?

CK, I thought of you when I saw this.

The next phase of life

My daughter, Min, got engaged last week!  She had never met anyone she wanted to marry, and I was settled in the thought that she never would marry.  This is so wonderful!  Her fiance, Luke, got her an opal surrounded by diamonds because she didn't want the traditional diamond solitaire.  They are planning a Spring 2016 wedding, in the woods, very Bohemian style, which fits well with Min's hippy nature.  They are currently looking for a suitable wooded venue that will let them bring in food, and have music well past the 11 p.m. Noise curfew time of most State Parks.  Min has a friend who lives on 300 acres, so she's planning to see if any place on the property will work.  I'm so happy for them.  Luke is a really great guy.  He's a vegetarian like Min.  He dotes on her and is very kind and considerate of her, plus he has a good job and a good head on his shoulders.  Min is very happy and I couldn't ask for more for her.

Internet Censorship

I received the following e-mail today.  Have any of you heard about this?

In just a few days, key lawmakers will vote on a new scheme that will facilitate the spread of a restrictive ‘link tax’¹ online.  This backwards censorship plan is supported by a politician named Jean-Marie Cavada. A classic Internet villain who wants to hold onto the past.

Will you demand that Cavada back off plans that would restrict your right to link before it’s too late?

We know Cavada hopes to usher in new powers that could see links and comments on Soundcloud, Facebook, and WhatsApp to your favorite blog redirected or blocked entirely.

Have you seen those “not available in your area” geo-block-like messages? Yeah, more of that sort of thing. We hate them too. 

If Cavada gets his way we’ll see much more of that frustrating Internet censorship and it will affect users everywhere. Let’s all send him a message he can’t ignore now.

Here’s the rub: Cavada’s link censorship plan is about to be voted on in a powerful EU parliamentary committee he chairs.²

Regardless of where you live many of your favourite websites and key web infrastructure will be covered by his irresponsible censorship scheme. 

As it stands, if Cavada gets his way you could see some of your favourite websites being forced to pay a ‘link tax’ for pointing to information that’s freely available elsewhere.³

Get this: he even tried to scrub the input from Internet users from this decision-making process.⁴ He then tried to block a UN free expression expert from talking to key decision-makers about the problems with his restrictive plan.⁵ Who does that?

For Cavada to back off he needs to hear from as many of us as possible right now. The vote is in just a few days. 

This isn’t the Internet we want: tell Cavada to back off this link censorship plan right now.

Every story has a hero and a villain, and this story is no different. We know which role Cavada is playing.

We have a hero: Pro-Internet champion Julia Reda has actually set out a positive roadmap⁵ for how to bring more of the Web we love to more people around the world.

Cavada is trying to ruin this forward-looking plan by inserting his censorship plan into the process. Let’s not let him do that.

-Meghan, on behalf of your OpenMedia team

PS: We need to make sure that Cavada hears our message loud and clear. And the more people who share this action, the easier that will be. Can you take a moment to share on Facebook and Twitter today?

 

Footnotes:

[1] 'Link tax' also known as 'ancillary copyright.' Find out more about it's effects here and here.
[2] Jean-Marie Cavada’s bio. Source: European Parliament.
[3],[4] What does Cavada want the future of copyright to look like? Source.
[5] MEP scuffle points to EU copyright controversy. Source: EU Observer.
[6] Copyright evaluation report - explained. Source: Julia Reda.

Plodding Through

 Last week I cleaned out one side of the garage, hauled three truck loads of stuff to the dump.

Today I began working on the basement.  B is finally home from Taiwan (Yay!) so he was helping me with all the heavy lifting and sorting. 

We only got a little further than what you see in this picture.  It's surprising how exhausting it is to lift case after case of legal books (easily close to 100 pounds) and make multiple runs to the dump.

We will get right back at it tomorrow.  M will be here to also help.  Yes, she came back early from England :-( but after she told me about the conditions of living and training, I can't say as I blame her, though I was hoping she would make it longer.  Oh well.  Now I'm off to visit blogs that I've neglected as of late.