Tick-Tock. When does it stop?

US debt clock running out of time, space Mon Mar 27, 9:23 PM ET NEW YORK (AFP) - Tick, 20,000 dollars, tock, another 20,000 dollars. So rapid is the rise of the US national debt, that the last four digits of a giant digital signboard counting the moving total near New York's Times Square move in seemingly random increments as they struggle to keep pace. [Yahoo News]

It should scare you that the National Debt clock is running out of time. Because what it really shows is that the Federal Government of the United States is wasting our money. Eight TRILLION dollars and counting to be exact at a rate of $20,000 per second - more than large portions of the population make in a year, lost. Projects such as missile defense, which is neither defensive, nor, practically functional. Bridges to nowhere. Exporting democracy (as the war in Iraq has been called). Tax cuts at a time of increased spending. Gross oil prices to generate energy. All paid for with your tax dollars. The deficit also includes the business of running the government. Literally thousands of buildings with millions of employees, many doing exactly the same job, all with increase security, heat, light, computers, phones, fax machines, data lines etc. If this does not scare you into demanding that your elected representatives do a better job, than you truly do not appreciate the danger that the United States is rushing headlong into.

How do you know they are not stuffing the box?

After 23 years as Emery County clerk, Bruce Funk will decide this morning whether he will resign because he cannot endorse an election on Utah's new voting machines. [Salt Lake Tribune]

Following the debacle that was the 2000 elections, the race has been on to replace the various forms of voting systems in the United States with something a bit more modern, if you consider modern to be a closed black box handling what is one of the most important functions that take place in the country. The Department of Defense has better security around their systems than what has been proposed for electronic voting machines to replace the punch cards and pull leavers currently in use.

The problem is that one company is selling the only product. At least, they have managed to scare off everyone else. Creating a voting system is not difficult. There are several good programs on the Internet that will allow you to cast your vote for any topic you would care to name. The issue is security and veracity. Security, to protect the contents of the ballot box (which may or may not be attached directly to the voting booth, which introduces additional security concerns) and veracity that the voter not only voted, but only voted once and that the vote was correctly entered. Again, none of this is difficult. There are several very good programs that will do all of this and when put together properly, will do it efficiently.

Efficiency has never been the watch word of the US Federal Government, or its associated little governments. As illustrated in this article, when an individual, who is charged with certifying the results of the election has serious questions about the veracity of the results, his concerns are brushed away, threatened or otherwise ignored. In what other area of endeavor would independent observers be so quickly dismissed? And since when was the election (and the results thereto) not the most important issue on the front desk of every governor and elections official in the United States. The more questions that are asked and the less exposure to review that Diabold comes under, the more the integrity of the election will be questioned, to the point that people will begin to doubt the process in total. When that happens (and it is not that far from reality), the underlying values of the democracy will be questioned. Then where will the United States be? Certainly not worth listening to in matters of free and open elections.

Implementing Democracy

Pressure on Afghans mounts over Christian convert By Sayed Salahuddin KABUL (Reuters) - "Afghanistan faced growing international pressure to resolve the case of a man who could face the death penalty for converting to Christianity, but many Afghans said he should be put on trial and punished.

The controversy over the man who gave up Islam threatens to drive a wedge between Afghanistan and Western countries that are ensuring its security and bankrolling its development. [Yahoo News]

So, the question is this - if you bring democracy to a country, do you have the right to then dictate the way that democracy is implemented? Apparently, the answer is yes, if you are also supplying the money. A bit of a double standard, but that is the way the western world seems to be thinking at the moment. While I do have problem with the execution on a general level, the laws are quite clear and currently, freedom of religion is not a right in Afghanistan.

If you teach a man to fish...

Speaking at the Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Symposium, [General] Pace called for patience and collaboration, repeating U.S. assertions that it will be a long campaign.

"Iraq and Afghanistan will over time become stable," he said in a keynote address. "But the war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments."

Pace also told the crowd that military action alone will not be enough. Economic growth, good education systems and solid governments also are necessary to quell terrorism. [Yahoo News]

This is not the first time I have said that you cannot kill an ism, and terrorism is one of the hardest to stamp out because it is such an effective weapon. What surprises me is that General Pace is not as dumb as most of the current members of the Administration seem to be. Either that or he has very good writers because he is bang on with the solution of one of the root causes of the current round of unrest, that being lack of anything better to do because the economies of these nations are in the tank. Solid governments only evolve from good economic drivers (or strong dictators) and the middle east region has been economically out of whack (I want to say depressed, but it has the wrong connotation) for so long that no one quite knows what to do. A danger that is lurking in the United States as well, but that is a different issue.

If a tree falls?

Calif. City to Enforce Immigration Law By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer COSTA MESA, Calif. - A new city policy that would give police the authority to enforce federal immigration law is hurting local businesses even though it has yet to be implemented, merchants say.

The policy would ally Costa Mesa police with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau, making it the first city in the nation to train its officers in federal immigration enforcement. Border security has historically been the purview of federal agencies. [Yahoo News]

The United States is a study in irony at the moment. Immigration is just another recent example of this. While the motto on the Statue of Liberty may be give me your poor, your tired etc, she stand in New York harbor where the desirables come through, while along the Mexican border, where the people that do the bulk of the work that is below the level of anything a typical American would do, there is a fence, dogs, guns, and vigilantes saying go away.

Isolationism is nothing new in the United States. This is a country that stuck its head in the sand through the better part of two world wars, most of what has been happening in Africa and the Middle East (as long as it has nothing to do with oil at any rate), and ignored the ravages going on in Asia and the Indian subcontinent. So keeping migrant farmers, who pick, sort and provide the majority of foods for the table that the obese American sits down to should come as no surprise. Do not be mislead, however, to think this is an issue of security because it has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with the ever increasing burden being placed on local jurisdictions to provide services in the forms of medical care and education. Services that they cannot bill back to the Federal Government and that the local population is tired of paying ever increasing (to their minds at least) taxes to cover. This is about money, like so many issues are. The question, though, is this - is it cheaper to ignore illegal immigration (what ever that means) or to spend billions to regulate it and as a side affect, see the additional costs show up on the grocery shelf?

Here Comes Peter...

St. Paul City Office Boots Easter Bunny ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Easter Bunny has been sent packing at St. Paul City Hall. A toy rabbit, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" were removed from the lobby of the City Council offices, because of concerns they might offend non-Christians. [Yahoo News]

Further on in the article, a council member wonders "removing the decorations went too far, and he wonders why they can't celebrate spring with "bunnies and fake grass.""

The answer, which is quite plain, is for the same reason the decorations were removed in the first place. So as not to offend someone, in this case, Christians. The problem here though is you have a the second most significant religious holiday on the Christian calendar being juxtaposed with probably one of the leading pagan celebrations (pick your deity, they all worship the spring some how as a time of rebirth). I have long had a gripe about this. Easter falls on a Sunday - always. And every store seems to be closed on Easter Sunday for reasons that I have yet to figure out. The Fourth of July does not cause this fanatical following, and even on Thanksgiving, most stores are open part of the day. But on Easter Sunday, you better have plans to work in the garden because you will not be spending money.

Like the flap over Christmas and good old Santa Claus, the United States has become a nation that is afraid to offend at the same time it cannot figure out what it wants to support. It is this confusion between religion and reality that is at the root of so many of the real issues that are facing the US today and until they are resolve, will continue to divide the country for decades to com

Missile Defense?

DOD removes missile defense system report from Web site BY Bob Brewin Published on Mar. 20, 2006 The Defense Department has removed from the DOD inspector general’s Web site a critical report that states that the network that links radar systems, missile sites and command centers for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) ground-based defense system has serious flaws in the security technologies, policies and procedures needed to protect the integrity, availability and confidentiality of information on the network. [FCW]

If you have been following the whole missile defense initiative, you already know this is a project that is little more than a whole in the ground into which the Federal Government has been pouring your money. And large quantities of your money. The program has yet to have a successful test (even when the telemetry data was fed directly into the missile guidance system), is judged by those who know something about it to be in the category of impossible with the current state of technology and from the standpoint of most laymen, a system that is unnecessary.

Now the IG reports that the system has serious technical and security flaws has been yanked. While the explanation that will be forth coming will be something along the line of it was only a draft, it is yet another example of how the administration does not like to look stupid, even when they are doing stupid things. The Office of the Inspector General is supposed to prevent fraud and abuse and they are not supposed to be subject to political pressures. So far, in terms of missile defense, they are doing a lousy job because this is the second largest case of government fraud and abuse currently being undertaken by the Department of Defense.

Yer outta there!

Soriano refuses to play outfield for Nationals By Tim Walters, For The Associated Press
VIERA, Fla. - Alfonso Soriano refused to play the outfield for the Washington Nationals in what was supposed to be his spring training debut Monday night, and general manager Jim Bowden said his biggest offseason acquisition will go on the disqualified list if he doesn't agree to switch positions this week. [USA Today]

I am a fan of baseball. I think the way the Expos were treated by Major League Baseball is a crime. I feel that the District of Columbia has done almost everything in its power to force the National out of town, regardless of their position that they want a major league team.

All that being said, this is inexcusable and Bowden should bench Soriano for the season without pay. I also happen to think that the salaries of all professional athletes have gotten so far out of hand that they are almost a detriment to the enjoyment of the game. Yes, it is a business and I understand that, but at some point, someone has to say enough.

Under the B...

Days May Be Numbered for Town's Bingo Game By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer ROSSVILLE, Ga. - Most nights, a hushed crowd of at least 50 sits at lunchroom tables in this border town's bingo parlor, scratching off each square with oversized markers. Many of the regulars make the short trek from Tennessee, where bingo was banned in 1989, for the chance to win as much as $1,500. [Yahoo News]

OK, I can understand the government of Georgia not wanting money from Georgia residents filtering into Tennessee, but is it really any different fundamentally than people going to Las Vegas or Atlantic City? Yes, I understand the arguments (and I am a little bemused by the entire gambling is a sin mentality that pervades most states in the union, yet they allow bingo and ban poker). Perhaps it would be better to ask for a cut of proceeds. That, frankly makes more sense in the long run. People are going to gamble. Might as well make money at it. After all, what is the lottery but state sanctioned gambling?

Jackson living in Bahrain - forgets to tell employees

"It is public knowledge that Mr. Jackson currently resides in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain," Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain said late Thursday in a statement. "He therefore decided to close his house and reduce his work force." [Yahoo News]

Clearly someone forgot to tell the State of California or the employees of the Neverland ranch this public knowledge. Michael Jackson has clearly become a joke. Not only in music, but as a representative of the human race. Perhaps he will fare better in an Islamic state where they tend to cut things off for transgressions, rather than find you innocent.

Survey Says: War Hurts USA, Helps Iraq

"Without some milestones by which they can evaluate whether progress is being made or not, Americans are very unsettled about the war," Republican pollster David Winston says, "and it makes them unsettled about the direction of the country." [Yahoo News]

At the risk of sounding callous, some of us knew that the direction the country was going was the wrong way, round about April of 2001. By the time the administration had invented the proof they needed to justify the invasion of Iraq, there was no question if you were even paying the slightest bit of attention, which, clearly, few people were.

Now, in 2006, after what has been called a series of mis-steps and use of incorrect information, rather than calling it lying, the American people are finally realizing how far down the garden path their leaders have hoodwinked them. And it is not just the war the war that is making people uneasy. From the instable and increasing costs of gas, which affect all goods from groceries to HD TVs (why do we need HD TVs? The FCC still has yet to explain this suitably. The "emergency responder" answer does not hold water, but that is a different discussion), the number of displaced residents in the Gulf that are now defaulting on their loans because they never really hand economic stability to companies shipping the high paying jobs off-shore and eliminating the pensions and retirement funds that so many are depending on, there are serious markers that the average American notices because it directly affects them.

As more and more soldiers return to a United States they do not remember, many without their friends and relatives that are forever resident in foreign lands, they must surely be asking themselves, is it worth it? A much better question that the average American should be asking, is did it really need to be done? And, more importantly, how will I vote in November to make it better?

Google goes to court

U.S., Google Set to Face Off in Court By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer SAN FRANCISCO - The Bush administration will renew its effort to find out what people have been looking for on Google Inc.'s Internet-leading search engine, continuing a legal showdown over how much of the Web's vast databases should be shared with the government.

Lawyers for the Justice Department and Google are expected to elaborate on their opposing views in a San Jose hearing scheduled Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge James Ware.

It will mark the first time the Justice Department and Google have sparred in court since the government subpoenaed the Mountain-View, Calif.-based company last summer in an effort to obtain a long list of search requests and Web site addresses.
The government believes the requested information will help bolster its arguments in another case in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration hopes to revive a law designed to make it more difficult for children to see online pornography. [Yahoo News]

On one hand, I think we can all agree that there needs to be some monitoring of what children have unfettered access to on the Internet. However, and this is key, that job is not and never has been the purview of the Federal Government. It is the exclusive purview of the parent. If the parent is abdicating this responsibility, it is still not the job of the Federal Government.

What I search for on Google, or Altavista or any of a dozen other sites is no one's business. Really. Unless I turn that search into a purchase, it is little more than asking for a string of letters that have a meaning to me and me alone. Trying to say that the search criteria of millions of people will help the US Government's case to impose the CDA which is a law that is so flawed and broken it make the Patriot Act look unified and well thought out is such twisted logic that I have trouble following it.

Not only should Google be fighting this, they should prevail. And shame on Yahoo and Microsoft for turning over their search results without so much as a whimper.

Uncle Sam may not want you

With U.S. casualties rising in wars overseas and more opportunities in the civilian work force from an improved U.S. economy, many young people are shunning a career in the armed forces. But recruiting is still a two-way street - and the military, too, doesn't want most people in this prime recruiting age group of 17 to 24. [Yahoo News]

I have to laugh. The military considers the following grounds for rejecting candidates:

• tattoos and piercing
• having taken Ritalin
• being overweight

Further, of the population that are considered in the prime recruiting age bracket...some 32 million...the Army deems the vast majority too obese, too uneducated, too flawed in some way, according to its estimates for the current budget year.

In one broadside to a great number of accepted institutions, the United States Government has just lambasted themselves. Here is a body of evidence that indicates all of the improvements made to society can be seen as anything but improvements. As schools struggle to cut such luxuries as gym and art to enable more focused teachings on exam preparation, the first generation of kids exposed to this improved education system are too uneducated to be gun toting members of the United States military.

Now, I will be the first to admit that some of the systems in the US arsenal are far to complex for the soldiers that have been trained to use them (heck, most of them are to complex for the people who designed them to use them) and you have to have almost a PhD is various disciplines to use them, but carrying a gun into battle is still a fairly simple duty and at the rate of attrition, the military is either going to have to open their own schools or lower their standards...or both. The US military is still a rare animal in that it is all volunteer. However, if the leaders of the free world continue their march against the oppressors (whoever that is), they are going to have to have a solid military behind them. If the inflow is less than the outflow, then some in power might decide that the all-volunteer experiment has run its course. The question, then, is, what are the options?

Next they will require opera for the deaf

Chicago Requires Driver's Ed for the Blind CHICAGO - Most high school students eagerly await the day they pass driver's education class. But 16-year-old Mayra Ramirez is indifferent about it. [Yahoo News]

OK, I am not 100% sure which I feel is more asinine. That Drivers Ed is actually a required course for graduation, or that the local districts never thought it was asinine to require it for even the visually impaired or for the state not to better educate its districts that it could be opted out of. Actually, I think all of the above.

Bad manners or bad politics?

Ariz. Governor Orders Troops to Border By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 8, 10:38 PM ET
PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday ordered more National Guardsmen posted at the Mexican border to help stop illegal immigrants and curb related crimes. [Yahoo News]

Quoth the Governor "They are not there to militarize the border. We are not at war with Mexico."

Excuse me Madam Governor, but is it not considered bad manners to station troops along a friendly border? It really does seem like the State of Arizona is declaring war on Mexico. Now, there is the issue of illegal immigration that everyone is so suddenly up in arms about. Undeclared immigration is one of the founding tenants of the United States (OK, so it maybe one of those undocumented ones), but there are key economic jobs that are being filled by these workers (besides flipping burgers) and unless the United States wants to build a trench between itself and its neighbours, cut off all trade, access routes and airspace, undocumented illegal workers will get in. And they will not all be coming from Mexico.

ACLU rejects "kinder, gentler" execution on 1st Amendment grounds?

ACLU: Lethal Injection Violates 1st Amend. By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 8, 11:25 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - The American Civil Liberties Union claimed Wednesday that California's lethal injection method violates the First Amendment rights of execution witnesses by not allowing them to see if the inmate is experiencing pain before death. [Yahoo News]

It is cases like this that give the ACLU a bad name. What exactly are they hoping for? A more gruesome execution or the end of all executions? To say that [t]he paralyzing drug makes it impossible for witnesses to determine whether death row inmates in California are being subjected to substantial and unnecessary pain before dying....and [t]he induced paralysis...conceals significant information to which the public is entitled makes no sense to me whatsoever. Inducing paralysis conceals information? Like the death throes of a human being is something to be studied in-depth? The ACLU has in their day championed some very noble causes, but this folks, is not one of them.

OMB's continuing push to IPv6

OMB driving the IPv6 market A long-delayed Commerce Department report suggests that the federal government is walking a thin line in its push toward IP Version 6 traction.

On one hand, the government shouldn’t intervene in the market, but let the business requirements of agencies and companies drive the development of IPv6 products and services, a task force of public and private experts said. On the other hand, the Office of Management and Budget’s plans for agencies to move to the new protocol is in a sense creating the IPv6 market. [GCN]

I have discussed, in depth and in print, the issues related to the Federal government's adoption of IPv6 and why it really is not a good idea. This is not to say that IPv6 is not a good idea. I believe the adoption of the new protocol will come, but the idea of it being driven by the least technical of sectors is one of those you're kidding, right? issues.

For the Federal government to adopt IPv6, major systemic changes have to occur, both in technological adoption practices as well as management, hiring and training. All of these changes have to occur and in a fairly short period of time. Short and change are not words that are associated with any governmental system, much less the operations that are the United States government. Further, there has to be products in place to support the move. This is not a trivial issue, and currently key pieces of the infrastructure just do not exist and putting band-aids in place to make them work is worse than not having the products there in the first place because 20 years from now the band-aids will still be in place.

IPv6 will come to the United States, but it will be a move driven by the tech sector and a killer app, not be the forced adoption of the Federal government.

More on the bankrupting of America

Reich: U.S. headed for 'day of reckoning' SAN JOSE, Calif.--The United States is headed for a "day of reckoning" as oil prices and the budget deficit remain high, consumers keep spending and not saving, wages remain stagnant, housing prices rise and the working population ages, warned Robert Reich, former Department of Labor secretary in the Clinton administration. [C|Net News]

The American economy is going to have to inevitably make a structural adjustment (with regard to lack of consumer savings and the budget deficit), or the entire world is going to suffer.

This should come as no surprise and yet there are millions of people, both in and out of government that just do not understand enough basic economic theory to grasp these simple principles. As a nation, the United States is in serious debt. What is worse, the debt is being held by countries that the current administration has deemed to be threats to the stability of the country because of their links to terrorism. But they are holding the paper the future generations of Americans are going to have to pay off or deal for and it is getting to the point that some of these countries do not want monetary concessions. Think about that with your morning coffee...

Patriot Act Renewed

Congress Renews Patriot Act WASHINGTON -- The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists. [Wired]

Republicans on Tuesday declared the legislative war won, saying the renewal of the act's 16 provisions along with new curbs on government investigatory power will help law enforcement prevent terrorists from striking.

The Patriot Act, as I have long held, is a bad law. It is badly crafted, badly implemented and badly understood by both law enforcement and the public. It should have been allowed to expire so that the desires for strong enforcement can be properly implemented and balanced with the (proper) concerns of civil liberties. The renewal does nothing to address these concerns and will further muddy the waters for generations to come.

Government Smart-Cards - an oxymoron?

Government Smart-Card Project Hits Snags on Fingerprints, Costs By Stephen Barr The government's smart-card project appears at risk of falling behind schedule.

Federal agencies are supposed to begin issuing government-wide identification cards that can vouch for the identity of federal employees and most contractors in October, but the Government Accountability Office warns that setting up and testing new ID systems may not be completed within deadlines set by the Bush administration. [Washington Post]

I am going to go out on a limb here and ask a question. Who finds this surprising? If you do not live in the Washington, DC area, or interact with the Federal government more than to file your taxes, I suppose that you probably do not even know there is a move afoot to standardize the credentialing process for federal IDs. In fact, I would be willing to bet that you do not know there is no such thing as a standard federal ID. With the exception of law enforcement officials and perhaps the military, I would be willing to bet that there is no standard ID for most cabinet level departments. I say this having worked in more than a half-a-dozen. What is the ID in Washington, say a green card with a picture and the department logo, might be a red card in New York and a blue card in California, for the same department with a different logo and layout.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) was supposed to change all that. The (admirable) goal was to define a standard ID that would stand up to the provisions of the Real ID statute and have some other goodies, like biometric information and be transferable among the various agencies. So if you worked for State and decided to transfer to Interior, you would not have to be reissued an ID card, a process that could sometimes take weeks, depending on who you worked for. It was also meant to make it easier for contractors to move between departments, or a least cut down on the lai of ID cards they had to wear on any given day.

HSPD-12 also requires a background check for all federal employees, contractors and everyone else who might darken the door of a federal building.

Those of us with any experience in these matters simply snorted, shook our heads and went back to work. Why? For exactly the reasons that Mr. Barr highlights in his article. Let me point out a few:

• Six agencies were reviewed by the GAO. This should send up warning bells right away. Different implementation plans were in place at each agency. This comes as no surprise - really. While guidelines have been established (sort of) for implementation, the actual implementation was left up to the agency and as everyone in DC knows, no two agencies implement anything the same way, even when explicitly directed to do so.

• GAO discovered a lack of reliable information about card cost, equipment cost and software modification costs. All this assumes that the agencies have even bothered to try and start the process and did not just hand over the swag budget numbers.

• The move to smart cards was initiated in August 2004. Full deployment was to begin by October 27 of this year. The Department of Defense alone indicates in will issues some 3.7 million cards to its employees, contractors and dependents. It does not take a mathematician, an accountant and a network engineer to tell you that this is impossible.
  
  

• All background checks on employees and contractors are to be complete by 2007. There are not enough investigators in the federal system to do background checks on all the new employees and contractors coming into the system by 2007, let alone the existing federal workforce and support staffs.

• Snags have developed, particularly in the fingerprint area. The cards are to carry two finger prints for employees, and as many as all 10 for contractors. Agencies are balking because of the system requirements to capture, process and store that sort of data. What they are really balking at in many cases is the costs of upgrading their sub-standard computing infrastructures to handle the work load. Most agencies are still two to three operating systems behind the mainstream. So, if the current desktop platform is Windows XP SP2, most agencies are somewhere between Windows NT and Windows 2000. Finger print processing takes a very beefy machine. The GAO reports that it can take up to 30 seconds to read the finger prints causing an unacceptable delay in admitting people to the building. This is also not a surprise. In the post-September 11th world, most federal buildings only have one entrance and two guard stations. If the process of access is automated, you would have a queue out the door and around the corner if it takes more than a second to admit you through the turnstiles at the beginning of the work day. And the Federal government is still one of the last bastions of the nine-to-five work mentality. Finally, we have the issue of proprietary software for storing and reading the finger prints. If the goal was to make the ID usable across agencies, this issue almost dooms the project before it starts.

• Finally, there are the costs associated with converting ID systems. As I mentioned, processing fingerprints takes a beefy machine. Most agencies do not have more than a cursory visual inspection of the ID card today. To have to go through a finger print verification process means, in many cases, that the equipment to do all of that has to be procured. This procurement has to take place in a day when the federal deficit is skyrocketing and the federal departmental budgets are being slashed to the point where keeping the lights on is about all most agencies can manage. And you better have a coat in the winter time, because in some cases, it is either lights or heat and not both.

As much as I applaud the general ideas behind HSPD-12, I find that the problems with it are no surprise. Neither, quite frankly, should the GAO. And that is only one of the problems.

Six Headed System

If you need a multi-user system with only one CPU and six operating postions, this post might help you get there [Linux Today]

Let's hope they are not going down

NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks were mostly lower Tuesday on resurgent fears of rising interest rates. Investors sold stocks as bond yields remained high, government data showed wages rising and a Federal Reserve official warned more interest rate hikes may be needed. [WTOPNews]
Let me get this straight. The US economy is not the healthiest it has been in quite a while, we are mortgaged to the hilt at all levels from the Federal government down to Ma and Pa and the farm they reside on. Credit debt is at an all-time high and the Mint cannot print money fast enough. And there are fears the rate might be raised? I would be more afraid if it was lowered.

Thought about anything today?

Colo. Teacher Defends Lecture on Bush DENVER - A high school social studies teacher who was put on leave after comparing President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler defended his lecture on Tuesday, saying he was trying to encourage students to think. [YahooNews]

So, we have a teacher, in the public school system, that bastion of boredom and brainwashing, where passing the test is the key to the future and along comes Jay Bennish and compares the State of the Union speeches made by the current President of the United States to Adolf Hitler. His reasoning?

My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society.

Gee, a teacher who actually understands what their job is, rather than just feeding pablum to his students to digest and take as fact. If you have never had a teacher like this, then I can understand the confusion. Thinking requires far more work than just showing up and passing the test, something that the United States education system needs to get through its skull before the only jobs its citizens are prepared to do are work as government employees or ask "do you want fries with that?"

Let's be clear. Adolf Hitler was not a nice man. But that does not mean there are not things that can be learned from his writings, if only that thou shalt not walk in his footsteps. He was a masterful orator and his rhetoric was so powerful that he convinced thousands of his countrymen to rise up and follow him. By contrast, the current President of the United States lacks any sort of oration skills whatsoever and he would not know good rhetoric if it bit him. Worse, he does not even understand the basic principles of lying well enough to be effective. As a result, he has zero credibility and is little more than a joke. He has been called no less than a moron by several governments. Bennish and I will disagree over the comparisons (Mr. Bennish believes that the things the President has said are eerily similar to those that Hitler said. Perhaps the words are, but certainly not the tone, or the emotion, or the power).

Regardless, the issue is one of teaching the children to think. Until we do that, we have become nothing more than a nation of cattle waiting to be slaughtered by the first leader who comes along with enough charisma and skill to lead them to the gates of hell. In some ways, a lot like 1930s Germany.

Welcome to the New Reality

It might come as a surprise, but this is not my first go around on the blog scene, simply the most recent incarnation. If you want to see what has me musing, check out the Radio Userland site where the first musings from the back room were heard.

I tend to comment on things political, banal, or so far from the reality of the day that if I do not comment on them, I would either end up yelling loudly or banging my head against the wall. As you will learn, the stupidity of government (especially the current administration), lack of intelligence in Homeland Security, an organization that needs to be taken with a lot of salt (and tequila) and the religious rantings of people that feel that faith is more important than logic and proof tend to draw my fire more than anything else. I occasionally comment on the absurdity of the current state of music and the RIAA's continuing desire to squash anything that might be a stimulus for it. I am a technophobe at heart, but live on the bleeding edge of technology, so I comment frequently, not on what is new, but more on why we need it (or more often do not need it).
So, sit back, relax and let me expound. Oh, and if you disagree with what I am saying, you had better be prepared to back it up with documented facts and a rational arguments. I may not agree, but if you can back your position, you get points. Otherwise, you have no voice and should return to the rock you crawled out from under. Now that the rules of the game are in play, let us explore.