POLITICAL: It wasn’t about “war”; it was about politics

Sunday, October 4, 2009

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Without-Bush-media-lose-interest-in-war-caskets-8310113-62427012.html

Without Bush, media lose interest in war caskets
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
September 29, 2009

*** begin quote ***

But these days, the press hordes that once descended on Dover are gone, and there’s usually just one organization on hand. The Associated Press, which supplies photos to 1,500 U.S. newspapers and 4,000 Web sites, has had a photographer at every arrival for which permission was granted. “It’s our belief that this is important, that surely somewhere there is a paper, an audience, a readership, a family and a community for whom this homecoming is indeed news,” says Paul Colford, director of media relations for AP. “It’s been agreed internally that this is a responsibility for the AP to be there each and every time it is welcome.”

Colford says the AP has a photographer who lives within driving distance of Dover and is able to make it to the arrivals, no matter what time of day or night. As for the network news, it’s not so simple; a night arrival means overtime pay for a union camera crew. And then there’s the question of convenience. “It seems that if the weather is nice, and it’s during the day, we get a higher level of media to come down,” says Lt. Winter. “But a majority of our transfers occur in the early evening and overnight.”

So far this month, 38 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan. For all of 2009, the number is 220 — more than any other single year and more than died in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 combined.

*** end quote ***

So all those “anti war” zealots were just playing politics.

Despicable.

I’d like to see a congress critter at EVERY arrival. Some senior administration type too. Maybe we should have a Czar a day.

Sad!

These “representatives” should see the results of their decisions!

Of course, then the congress critters wouldn’t have tome to legislate. Not that is all bad either!

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Mediasaurus

Friday, October 2, 2009

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/mediasaurus.html

Mediasaurus
Today’s mass media is tomorrow’s fossil fuel. Michael Crichton is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore.
By Michael Crichton

*** begin quote ***

The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification – framing the debate in terms that ignore the real issues. For example, when I watch Crossfire, or Nightline, or MacNeil-Lehrer, I often think, wait a minute. The real issue isn’t term limits; it’s campaign finance reform. The real issue isn’t whether a gasoline tax is regressive, it’s national security – whether we’d prefer to go back to war in the Gulf instead of reducing oil consumption by taxing it more heavily, as every other nation does. The real issue isn’t whether the United States should have an industrial policy, it is whether the one we have – no policy is a policy – serves us well. The issue isn’t whether Mickey Kantor is a protectionist, it’s how should the US respond to its foreign competitors.

*** end quote ***

He hits the nail on the head. The media is just SO biased that it distracts from the data, info, knowledge, and wisdom from the “story”.

It’s a long article but it does highlight how bias and technology are making the “media” obsolete.

Interesting?

How do we capitalize on the replacement?

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TECHNOLOGY: Protecting children on the internet

Thursday, October 1, 2009

If the Internet Service Providers had their heads screwed on straight, if the FCC or FTC was REALLY interested in protecting children, we could have rock solid “age” verification. No one can “prove” their age on the net now. But the ISPs could do it.

They “own” the customer relationship. They issue their paying customer a user id and password for their account. So immediately, we have a defined adult. (If a child steals their parent’s credit card to buy internet access, the parent will know it when the bills come in.) The ISPs are sure they are going to get paid.

They can then provide the mechanism for their Customer to define identiies for others. I’d suggest email addresses. If forced, and / or enabled by law, the ISPs could allow their Customer to define: Child, Tween, or Teen.

Then, a stylized form of communication between the Web Site Providers and the Internet Service Providers can occur.

The user, who may or may not be underage, registers at a website with their ISP email address. The WSP sends the request to the ISP. The ISP notifys the Credit Card Customer. Who agrees or disagrees. The ISP then communicates “Teen, Tween, or Child” to the ISP.

Problem solved!

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POLITICAL: DO we need gooferment?

Friday, September 25, 2009

http://tslrf.blogspot.com/2009/09/motivation-and-greed-rant-2.html

Sunday, September 20, 2009
Motivation and Greed, Classism and Perks- Rant #2

*** begin quote ***

The concept that you should be able to keep 100% of your income is a fine one. It would not work because at the end of the day we need some level of government (how much can be debated hotly) and that costs money.

*** end quote ***

I was with you up to that point.

I’m not so sure that is self-evident.

True, with only a few exceptions, we’ve always had “government”. We’ve also had social diseases too. That doesn’t mean we NECESSARILY have to have them.

Government IMHO is the meme that kills. It gets out of control so EASILY and QUICKLY. Maybe we could do without it.

Maybe, just maybe, we could buy insurance. And, insurance companies would buy protection for us.

Government is the only entity that can force us to buy products and services that we don’t want, can’t use, and at a price we can’t afford.

SOOooo, maybe we can do without it.

It’s interesting that someone will spend millions to get a job that pays thousands. That’s the tip off that there is something very wrong with the whole proposition of government.

imho.

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LIBERTY: Honest money begets success

Friday, September 25, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/smith-g.f5.1.1.html

How Much Money Do We Need?
by George F. Smith

*** begin quote ***

There will always be people who wish to live at the expense of others. Government does this through taxes and inflation – which is here used as an increase in the money supply – and in modern times, inflation, because it is generally misunderstood by the public, is a politically safer method of confiscation than taxes.

*** and ***

Fiat paper money regimes are not designed to promote a healthy economy. They are designed as a means of wealth distribution for the benefit of a few.

That probably doesn’t include you, and it definitely doesn’t include me.

*** end quote ***

It sure isn’t me!

Here in two paragraphs the author explains the problem with gooferment paper money.

I’m not sure how this all unwinds. We can see in history that: in France, the aristocrats lost their heads; in Germany, Hitler came to power; and in Zimbabwe, the people starve despite the fact that when it was Rhodesia it was Africa’s breadbasket.

As an “old guy”, I may not be here for the final act of this morality play. I think it’s going to make the Great Depression look like fun. All empires pass. And, the passing isn’t pretty for those in the empire.

Argh!

How do we fix it?

Civic virtue. Honest money. No more Ponzi schemes like Social Security. End welfare. End the Psuedo Drug War. Bring the troops home.

Will it happen?

I pray it will.

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POLITICAL: Politicians can’t be trusted

Sunday, September 20, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/09/wither-change.html

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wither change?

*** begin quote ***

I don’t want to use the word disappointment — and not just because it is still early in his presidency. I don’t want to use the word because it implies that the president somehow is letting down liberals. The reality is, of course, that he’s only doing what he told us he’d do — tack as much to the center as he could, while substituting bipartisanship for a principled commitment to a political philosophy.

*** end quote ***

Obama is nothing more than an opportunistic Chicago machine politician. When his lips move, he’s lying. JUST like any other politician of either side of the supposed aisle. The guns of gooferment are too dangerous in ANY politicians’ hand. Power corrupt; absolute absolutely. We need to cut the beast down to the absolutely minimal size to protect us from force or fraud. And, not a smidge more. They have really feather their own nests at our expense. Champion? Please!

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POLITICS: The attempt to have welfare and warfare destroys us; just like LBJ did

Saturday, September 19, 2009

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-missile-defense-2572467-nuclear-iran

Friday, September 18, 2009
Mark Steyn: Obama helping Putin restitch Iron Curtain
Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia’s new czar.
Mark Steyn
Syndicated columnist

*** begin quote ***

In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.

*** end quote ***

Don’t you wonder how this one action is going to hurt our ability to be safe in the future?

If I was a foreign country, I wouldn’t trust us.

Would you?

We are clearly untrustworthy. And, we, the dollar, and the world will suffer from our failure.

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LIBERTY: A slender thread!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=612

Celebrate the Constitution by Becoming an Activist
By John W. Whitehead
9/14/2009

*** begin quote ***

   “I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better to have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.”–Thomas Paine, 1776

Federal law mandates that all high schools, colleges and universities across the country that receive federal funds host educational events about the Constitution on Constitution Day, September 17. There will also be various festivities in Washington, DC, and in some communities across America celebrating the Constitution.

*** end quote ***

A scrap of paper is all that stands between us and the camps!

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FUN: Michael Moore can’t sing, but he can bring back memories

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/09/leno-tuesday-ratings-.html

September 16, 2009

Jay Leno’s ratings drop notably for second episode

*** begin quote ***

The Leno episode featured an interview with Michael Moore in the studio

*** end quote ***

I think Michael Moore is a muddled thinker. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Times They Are A Changing”. While he’s no Dylan or PP&M, I can remember singing that in Greenwich Village along with all the other audience of the many folk singers.

For the times they are a changing?

How’s that “hope and change” working out for you?

For the loser now, Will be later to win, For the times they are a-changin’.

“We, The People” have been losing for a long time at the hands of the Political and Elite. Time for us to start winning.

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TECHNOLOGY: We’re at war against foreign powers and criminals

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0020002HDYSG&page=1

World War 3.0: 10 Critical Trends for Cybersecurity
September 2, 2009 7:22AM

*** begin quote ***

The Internet, private networks, VPNs, and a host of other technologies are quickly weaving the planet into a single, massively complex “infosphere.” These connections cannot be severed without overwhelming damage to companies and even economies. Yet, they represent unprecedented vulnerabilities to espionage and covert attack.

*** end quote ***

Bottom line: We care complacent. We’d better deploy IPv6 for its improved security now. Next, we better start encrypting everything in sight.

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