[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDO9qrZNpUg]
Courtesy of Don Harrold. Get your handouts while you can people.
Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (Senate Bill 773)
I’ve been reading the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 since around January, when I heard peeps of it on various radio and television shows. As is most government bills, some of it makes sense, but most of it is a hostile takeover of what we currently have now; a largely unregulated (at least to policy) network where people can meet other like-minded people, get info, share files, and bash other people.
Here’s the full bill, courtesy of Govtrack.us. The first tipoff of this bill being bad for the majority of people is the fact that Sir David Rockefeller himself introduced the bill. The first two sections of the bill are the table of contents and a consideration of the need for more cyber security. Guess who is going to provide the security? If you guessed big brother, you’re right. Now, before I delve into what’s wrong with this bill, let me describe my position on cyber security. It’s up to you, not the government, to protect your property. If you download a file called “Superfuntime.jpg.exe” without scanning it or even not recognize that it’s a program, well; you kind of deserve what you’re going to get. In case you think that’s too harsh, let me point you to some common tips for all platforms, courtesy of the Iowa State University IT department. Follow those and you will have a trouble-free computing experience. One thing I recommend on top of that is to display file extensions so that “virusfilledimage.jpg.exe” doesn’t appear as “virusfilledimage.jpg”. Now, back to the bill.
Section 3 calls for a creation of a Cybersecurity Advisory Panel. This panel is responsible for analyzing cyber security development and whether or not they meet the needs of the country. Section 5 outlines the creation of “Regional Cybersecurity Centers” for local implementation of security measures. Make sense, since nearly anything fought at the local level is tailored for, well, the local environment. Plus, it’s more efficient. Anyway, these centers make local businesses aware of new security measures developed by the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST); and assist in the implementation of said measures. They can also make loans to local businesses to assist in cyber security implementation. Funding of these centers will be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury. Section 7 discusses licensing. After a year of implementation of this act, a national licensing and accreditation program will be created, and professionals in the cyber security field will need to be licensed to practice. Also, after three years of enacting this act, any business or individual that conducts commerce over the internet (e-commerce) will have to have a license. The rest of the bill calls for a change in the government’s domain system and incentives for this new security act. This bill has yet to make it out of committee, and I hope it dies in committee. I hope you found the points that I disagree with, if not; please leave a comment and I will answer back as soon as possible.
Just realized something; after the passing of this bill, I can’t download mah torrentz! Excuse me while I buy a few 2 terabyte hard drives…
Finally, Something Local
I’ve been looking for something local to cover for quite some time, and this affects not only Branson (even though they don’t have the items mentioned later yet) but the entire state of Missouri, not to mention it’s quite the spirit booster!
This Springfield Newsleader article highlights the fact that Missouri state congressmen and congresswomen are considering the ban of red light cameras. This is following the Missouri Supreme Court ruling on how the infraction was treated was unconstitutional.
Here’s a breakdown on the situation. After getting his car snapped by a red light camera, former state trooper Adolph Belt Jr., the city of Springfield used administrative hearings to effectively convict him of the charge. This is unconstitutional in two ways: one, you can’t use an administrative hearing. The person being “tried” has no chance to dispute the charges, or hardly any rights at all; way less than a municipal trial. Two, the system only snaps the car, not the driver. By that I mean, there’s a shot of the license plate at the front, that’s it. There’s no face shot what so ever. So, that shouldn’t even be counted as substantial evidence, as anyone could be behind the wheel and the car owner would get sacked with the charge. Maybe the lack of substantial evidence is why they chose to have an administrative hearing in the first place.Initially, face photography was considered, but was ultimately denied due to the possibility people not wanting to be photographed (having their right to privacy be violated).
So, what does this mean to you? One, less cameras watching you. We can all go for that, can’t we? Two, no more unfair treatment for those that do run red lights. I’m not for running red lights, I’m against the way that these people who have been snapped were treated by the city. Their defense in using the administrative hearing is not having that face in the photo to begin with. Essentially, this is saying, “Okay, we don’t know if you did it, but we know that’s your car, so we’re going to slap you with this charge.” Totally unfair. But, I’m making it a point to post some solutions in this blog. My favorite solution is being considered right now, and that is getting rid of these things altogether. Solution numero dos would include issuing a court summons to prove whether or not the person was driving the car in the first place. If it can be proven that the owner was not driving the car, the case can be dropped or turned into a theft case (someone else stealing the owner’s car). If it can be proven that the owner was driving the car (through work scheduling during the day preferably, but feel free to post other ways that it can be proven in the comments), he or she will have an opportunity to plead their case.
Glenn Beck’s “Insider Extreme”
It’s not a new concept, but Glenn Beck announced in one of his news letters of a new, novel concept, the “Insider Extreme” program.
If you’re not familiar with Glenn Beck’s Insider program, it’s a pay program that gives you access to the podcast, a studio-cam, a separate forum for its members, and little downloads like desktop wallpapers. Now, with the Insider Extreme, in addition to what you get with the normal Insider package, you get to watch him with a broadcast-quality video setup that has six cameras, not to mention some “documentaries”.
Now to break my sales pitch. This is not a new concept (check the first link). Not to mention, you can watch the Alex Jones show for free over at the Youtube channel, although it’s broken up into ten minute segments. You can also watch the documentaries online for free, and he doesn’t complain about it all that much! How much you wanna bet that Beck will go after the people that subscribe to the Insider Extreme just to repost his documentaries on Youtube, or some other video sharing site? Remember, he works for Murdoch 
. The same Murdoch that that wants all of News Corp. off of Google.
Kludgey Comment Direct Link Developed
Essentially what it amounts to is a direct link to the post in the blog subdirectory, enabling readers to easily type in their comments. A lot better than that solution of just linking you guys to the blog. You take what you can get. Coming up tomorrow are forums, assuming my internet connection is up to the task. They will definitely be up by Thursday.
To see a demo of the linkage, look at the last blog post.
Follow-Up: Forums are now active! Go up there and give them a spin. Spammers are welcome to try it too. It’s in its infancy right now, and new forums will be added as they are thought of.
Plutonomy: Of the Rich, By the Rich, For the Rich
I want to take up the webmaster’s space and your bandwidth to talk about something that some key people feel is coming in the future. The thing I’m talking about is a plutonomy.
Essentially, a plutonomy is an economy where most of the activity comes from the wealthiest people participating in that economy. It’s the complete opposite of what we have now. Believe it or not, the middle class and poor contribute the most to this economy on a continual basis. Sure, the rich need to eat too, but it’s not like they go out and buy a new Enzo every other day. In fact, most of the money from rich people goes to charity, taxes, food and once in a great while, extravagant things. So they don’t contribute a lot directly to the economy, like they would in a plutonomy.
It seems kind of random the fact that I’m highlighting this, but leaked memos (thanks to jdeanicite for the link) from Citigroup point to such a thing happening. According to the document, there is a widening gap between the rich and poor, and the rich are beginning to contribute more to the economy; which is something I felt for years now. The middle class is going away. Oh, and that document is from 2006.
So, what will happen when the middle class goes away? Essentially, the United States (and the whole globe eventually) will become an economic feudal system with multiple lords, while still selling the idea that anyone can claw their way up from the depths and be who they want to be. In a sense that will still be true, just don’t expect to make as much money as people previous, because most of it will be tied up in the government or this plutonomy. It will become more important, maybe even essential to do what you like to do; as the money will be discouraging.
Here It Is All You Conspiracy Theorists!
It’s the big one guys. This is what I have been tossing around for a year or two while watching the government prints more paper, fractional reserve banking keeps relying on growth, and the Fed bleeding more green into our systems. Echoing China, the head of the IMF proposed exploring a global alternative to the U.S. Dollar on Friday. That’s right, while I was working on homework, while you guys were probably working, and while your kids were getting their regular eight-hour block of indoctrination in, the IMF was planning to explore a new global currency.
It was noted by Alex Jones in his Sunday broadcast (today’s, 2/28/10) that the banking cartel wanted to see a square-off between the U.S. Dollar and the Euro, then the IMF would offer the global alternative. I used to ask why they would make the local currencies duke it out only to have the IMF pull the global smack-down. I thought it out then and came to the conclusion that maybe once the dominant currency came to be; the IMF could offer their global currency based on convenience (where the whole of the world takes one currency in varying amounts). But, there I go digressing again.
Follow-Up:I did more research on this issue and it seems confidence in the global economy is dwindling, as the Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish economies get ready to default on their debts., and the US unemployment rate isn’t helping either. What does this mean? Read the second paragraph again. It’s that chain of collapses that Glenn talked about a few weeks ago (can someone help me out with some linkage?).
Alex said on his show the the top 24 central bank kingpins are gathering together to formulate a global banking constitution. While I couldn’t find anything to support that, it would not be out of the realm of impossibility. I’m also theorizing that the new constitution would be constructed based heavily on SDRs.
It’s a New Idea; a Green World Order
Lifted from Infowars, leaked (and badly scanned) UN documents outline a plan for a “Green World Order” (a transition from a “brown economy” or a more open, less regulated mass of goods and services responsible for the phenomenon known as man-made climate change to a “green economy”; or more regulated mass of goods and services) takeover via a treaty that establishes a new global institution called for by the “Global Minstrel Environmental Forum”. It oversees the United Nations Environmental Protection’s operations. Nice!
Here’s the beginning of the strategy outlined in the section labelled “UNEP medium term strategy for 2010-2013″:
The current environmental challenges and opportunities will cause the environment to move from often being considered as a marginal issue at the intergovernmental and national levels to the centre of political and economic decision-making. The linkages between environmental sustainability and the economy will emerge as a key focus for public policymaking and a determinant of future market opportunities.
New and exciting avenues to achieve sustainable development will emerge from the use of economic and regulatory instruments, new and existing technologies and the empowerment of stakeholders to establish enabling environments for innovation and creative solutions.”
So what does all that mean? In a nutshell; problem-reaction-solution. A problem has been “realized” (ie. created), the way to react is to bring the issue from the back burner to the forefront, then have people create innovative solutions; for a problem that has been proven to be a fraud (here’s a link to the infamous Climategate documents, don’t plan to read them all in one sitting).
In addition to the typical greeny stuff and solutions you hear about in the news (such as throwing money at high-speed rail developments, the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, etc.), there will be a new entity, what is deemed the “clean energy economy”; which is a “comprehensive energy and climate change plan to invest in clean energy, decrease dependence on oil, tackle the ‘global climate change crisis’ and create new jobs.” Now, I’m all for getting us away from the dependence on oil (fuel-wise anyway, plastics are made with oil), there needs to be more than one facet from which we draw fuel (such as expanding nuclear fuel) so if one source or company somehow becomes corrupt, we can go to another. Notice I don’t mention anything about the climate in our decrease with the dependence on oil. Anyway, that all can be found in Section E of page 14.
Here’s a lovely statement, “Government alone cannot manage and fund the transition to a green economy; the private sector and civil society play a fundamental role but requires incentive and an appropriate investment environment.” Translation: we need to regulate out the “bad stuff” and create incentives for environmentally-friendly production; so that consumers have no choice in the matter. That gem can be found in page 27, paragraph 24.
Don’t let me interpret this document for you though, download the PDF yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Personal Federal Financial Assessment: We Were Screwed 100 Years Ago
I’ve been wanting to post something like this for quite some time, but I have been way too busy; what with setting up a website, going to college, practicing for SkillsUSA, etc.
To get a general introduction as to why we were screwed 100 years ago, read up on The Federal Reserve. To sum it up here, it is a central monetary institution created back in 1913; it essentially manages all the money in this country. This is accomplished through loans to the federal government and banking institutions, both domestic and foreign. It also maintains economic stability and contains “systematic risk that may arise in financial markets.” It’s a fairly good setup, except for a few flaws. The biggest issue I have with the Federal Reserve is that it’s a private institution. Yeah, you read that correctly. It gives the image of being a governmental institution by being housed in a Roman-style stone building, and it has quite intimate ties to the US government; but it’s still a private institution. M.A. Rothschild sums it up nicely when he says, “Give me control over a nation’s currency and I care not who makes its laws!” In the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, we pretty much handed control of our currency to a private institution of high-level bankers. These guys can then manipulate money to their will, or have large financial institutions like CitiGroup to it for them. The Fed practices the Fractional Reserve” style of banking. In a summary, the bank lends loans and only a little bit of those loans are backed by cash on hand. These loan payments are repaid with cash, so the bank’s money supply grows; which is leverage for making even more and bigger loans. This is why our money is worth less and less as time progresses. The banks essentially create money out of thin air; in when major loan repayments and depositing is going on. In conjunction with fractional reserve banking, the concept of interest brings down the value of the dollar as well. Interest is an addition to the loan payment that ensures banks make a profit. When the government or large banks take out a loan from The Fed, they have to repay the base amount plus interest, which guarantees the government will always be in debt. One of the things Andrew Jackson was proud of was reducing our government’s total debt to only $33,733 ($695544 in 2008). Try doing that today with Social Security, welfare, medicare, and medicaid (notice a pattern there?).
Derivatives act as a catalyst to our national debt (the national and federal debts are totally different). In short, derivatives are a contract for a financial instrument whose wealth is assessed by another asset. So, you can sign a contract with another company and agree that you will be paid the gains or soak up the losses of the company’s stock you signed for. If the stock takes off, you make a gain; and the inverse is true if the stock plummets. Do you see the inherent issue here? Companies no longer have to be responsible with their money. They know if they lose money, the other company takes the heat. This explains the phenomenon with the real estate market. bigger companies went out and contracted derivatives from real estate companies, since there were big gains as the housing market was good. When the government pressured real estate companies to sell homes and make loans to those that were less-than-desirable people (higher credit risk), the real estate market turned into what it is today; foreclosures everywhere. Big companies lost a ton of money along with the real estate companies on this deal since the market lost value, and this nearly destroyed AIG. Of course, AIG had way more derivatives than real estate, but the entire market taking a dive starting after 2007 did not help any.
But, the worst is yet to come. Glenn Beck may be kinda-right and kinda-truthful on some of the issues, but I feel he is spot on with everything financial. The fact is, we do owe billions to many countries and entities (the IMF is the one that scares me the most) The thing he has yet to talk about though is a looming commercial real estate bubble pop. You don’t need to look into real estate all that hard to know that commercial real estate is worth more than residential. As such, if the bubble bursts hard, there will be more of an effect felt; and it’s looking like the bubble is going to burst some time this year. How do I come to this conclusion? By combining the unusually high unemployment with lowered consumer confidence (especially with cars) and ever-increasing strictness with how business can conduct business (more regulations). High unemployment means more people have less money (once their unemployment insurance runs out; and yes, it is an insurance, not an entitlement), less money means less revenue for business owners and stockholders, which means they won’t be able to pay their loans; and such, foreclosures. This will probably be coupled with a dip in the stock market as well, and only the most profitable of corporations will make it out alive.
So, what do I propose? If you’re reading this on the We Are Change Branson website, you will notice that “End the Fed” element on the right of the picture. I support it, but it’s not going to be as easy as flipping a switch. As noted above, we owe a lot of people a lot of money. More money than we can provide in collateral. Even if this country provides all of its able-body workers, we still won’t pay this debt off. So, what do we do? We can wait for other countries to say, “Screw it! Here’s your money back! You don’t owe us a thing!” This may work for smaller countries (and I emphasize may), but we owe billions to China, and trillions to the IMF. Do you think the IMF is going to do that? Me neither. Plus, having all those dollars flow back into the US would fuel hyperinflation, and give us a bad rep; preventing other nations and multi-national corporations’ investment in the dollar. We could open up the floodgates and say, “Alright guys, take the collateral while it’s here!” But, we would lose our country in the process. We could do that North American Union thing that politicians have been talking about for quite some time, but we would lose a bit of sovereignty in the process; not to mention all it would equate to is a shifting the responsibility to pay off the debt. Our neighbors would not be that happy to inherit our debt anyway.
So, what’s left to do? In my opinion, cut the liabilities and focus on paying off our debtors. This is going to piss off a bunch of welfare mommies, unemployment beneficiaries, the Boomer generation, and countless other groups but it’s something we need to do. Now, this won’t be as easy as flipping a switch either. Generations of Americans have come to rely on these liabilities, and would be irritated to not find them there anymore. So, I suggest the government steadily decrease the amount of money given to these departments and tighten the requirements in order to get this assistance. As the amount of money given to liability programs decreases, the payments to those that have our debt would increase. It would be a long, drawn out process, but it would save our image and reinstate confidence in the dollar, something that is long overdue. After paying off these debts, the nation could absolve the Fed and put the monetary control back into the hands of the government, where it’s supposed to serve the people, instead of Wall Street.
Pennsylvania School District Spies on Students
How would you like it if a school gave you a laptop? Pretty sweet deal right? This one, however, comes with some strings.
According to Engadget, the Lower Merion school district issued students laptops with webcams; that can be flipped on remotely. One student was called to the principal’s office for being “engaged in inappropriate behavior at home.” Some fellow students emailed Gizmodo (the people who broke the story) telling them the green light by their webcams turned on at random times. When asked about how the principal knew about “inappropriate behavior”, he said that the cameras can be activated remotely.
In response to the accusations, the superintendent claimed that the remote webcam activation was to aid in finding lost or stolen laptops, but then how would the principal know if students were conducting inappropriate behavior? Maybe that was the principal; ! This ability is now “under review”.
So, does this mean that all schools have the ability to monitor students through webcams? Not necessarily. One reason why this humble reporter recommends students buy there own laptops is because of this reason. When you are issued a laptop by the school, you are bound to terms dictated by the school. Not to mention, you’re limited to what you are issued. If worse comes to worse; and you either don’t have enough to buy your own laptop, or policy dictates that you can’t use the school’s resources with your own, you can always disable your webcam (for Macs) or if you can’t access those functions, put a piece of electrical tape over it.
Follow-up: There is now a civil suit against them. As if that isn’t enough, the FBI is looking into the matter.