All posts by Jack

General

Desire

It occurs to me that, in my desire to remove my foot from under my horse’s hoof this morning, I may have strained a knee muscle. Ouch, it hurts.

Geek Stuff, General

The Crux of the Matter

Internet access providers, like Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Sprint Nextel, etc. will not block, degrade, alter, modify, or change the data consumers send or receive over the Internet.

If the above statement were true, then we would have net neutrality and it would be a non-issue. I think that, historically, the monopolistic communication companies have a tradition of violating this premise, and now it is time for a new generation to learn a lesson.

The internet backbone is a shared public utility. It may be owned and managed by corporate giants, but it only functions as an internet if it is shared and public.

Continue reading The Crux of the Matter →

Liberating Thoughts

Immigration

There’s been a fair bit in the news about immigration reform, and its attendant problems. I am the descendent of immigrants, legal as far as I know. My grandparents emigrated in the 1920’s to head for a land of opportunity. (Ireland was no great shakes at the time)

My first thoughts were, why not just open the borders? All someone would need is a passport or official documentation of the country they are coming from and they can enter the US. The US may even have agreements with its free-trade partners that Driver Licenses or national ID cards would be accepted in lieu of passport. Once the immigrant is in the States, they can get jobs and work per US Labor laws, i.e. they get at least minimum wage and they can report improper working conditions without fear of deportation. This may help to get rid of some sweat shops and some black-market employment practices. Additionally, they would have their FICA and income taxes withheld and fed into the governmental maws. They would even be eligible to collect SSA if they ever become citizens.

States could issue Driver licenses to these immigrants, probably with a code that identifies the country of origin, or at least non-US citizenship. The immigrants could get insurance, their families could enjoy public schools and take advantage of most things that citizens can.

Continue reading Immigration →

Politics

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

My main reasons for dismissing the whole ‘stolen election’ conspiracy are:
1) I have a hard time believing that the Republican Party could coordinate a national conspiracy like that and
2) that the Republican Operatives wouldn’t be boasting or bragging about it everywhere they went.

Then I realized:

Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America’s voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. ”We didn’t have one election for president in 2004,” says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. ”We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.”

and that it may not be a coordinated effort on the part of the National Republican Party but the grassroot efforts of a rabid, fanatical county and state officials that were all leaning in the same direction at the same time. (The author of the article goes for the national conspiracy theory)

And the sum of the parts is greater than the whole…

Oh yes, the sources for the article

In the next election, I hope that every polling station that exceeds the margin of error in the exit polling is challenged, rather than restating the exit polls to match the polling results. We have Freedomn of the Press for a reason, and this is one of the primary reasons; to ensure fair elections.

Geek Stuff, General, Politics

Net Neutrality Finds Bipartisan Support

InternetWeek | News | Net Neutrality Finds Bipartisan Support

I’ve seen a few other comments on ‘net neutrality’ lately, but this article from Internetweek had a link to the telecom group against it, Handsofftheinternet. So I went to their page but it looks like it just got started because they say they are going to explain their side and then don’t.
Continue reading Net Neutrality Finds Bipartisan Support →

Geek Stuff, General

Evolution

The Colbert Report interviewed Ted Daeschler, one of the paleontologist discoverers of the fish-tetrapod missing link. As viewers realize, Colbert is an insightful interviewer who doesn’t take kindly to quackery and other wishful thinking such as evolution. So he asked the guy to explain ‘evolution’ in simple terms, and the response was “sex and time”. Such an eloquent explanation. Short, sweet and succint.

If you want to see the video, you will probably need to search the video archives for Daeschler.

General, Politics, Preparing for the worst

— C H A P T E R 6 — Privacy

Rights of the People: Individual Freedom and the Bill of Rights

An excellent article on the history and evolution of the the right of privacy in the United States. And it is from our Department of State! There are links to a whole set of articles on other Rights.

I think that the three references they start the article with neatly summarize why we think today that every indivuidual has the right to be free from governmental review of their activities and property without a court warrant.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated…
— Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.
— Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law.
— Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

(I wonder how much longer they will leave this page online?)

Some books that are referenced

For further reading:

Ellen Alderman and Carolyn Kennedy, The Right to Privacy (New York: Knopf, 1995).

David H. Flaherty, Protecting Privacy in Surveillance Societies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

Richard F. Hixson, Privacy in a Public Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Philippa Strum, Privacy: The Debate in the United States since 1945 (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998).

Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York: Athenaeum, 1968).