In this article, which I will paste in a block at the end of this post, we hear an endless string of lies and propaganda used to feed on the fears of the unemployed and the disenfranchised. This target audience, already shaken by presence of a black man holding the highest office in our land, is still reeling from the recession and is terrified about there future and thus highly suspicious of anyone in power let alone a well spoken black man. The author of this WSJ “article” is to be preying on the worst fears and paranoia of the populace, just to push his own political and professional agenda. This kind of fear mongering and blind, thoughtless rage must stop.

Now I responded to this email in kind and would like to share my response with you now. So without further adu:

Ok, do not ever send me disgusting trite like this again. First of all this trash is filled full of lies, misrepresentations, and delusional interpretations of events. It gives no real specific examples of any accusations and relies completely on here-say and paranoia. If you honestly believe all of this garbage then you have forgotten how to think for yourself and really examine each line in what is said here.

While I do not support everything Obama has done I also hold no pretenses both for the mess he was left by his predecessor and for the level of difficultly in both conquering our nations many problems and concerns and balancing the solutions with public opinion and GOP backlash. If you want to determine the cause of and slowness to respond to our nations problems then look no further than Congress itself. Filled with infighting, squabbling, and back-room deal making by BOTH parties we have been left with few solutions and little recourse. This while major media outlets want to point fingers this way and that when the problem lies mostly with corrupt politicians, stupid decisions, immoral lobbyists, and outspoken hypochondriacs from both sides of the fence.

If ever there has been a time of need for great upheaval in government and a disbanding of the medieval party system this is by far the most needing in the history of this nation.

Think before blindly forwarding trash written by the talking heads on TV and their ilk, otherwise known as sheeple.

Sincerely,
Patrick Thurmond

The next bit I must share with you is the article which my writing above is in response to.

“I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984’s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Now, nearly a full year into his first term, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain .

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America.

Now I spent a little bit of time trying to trace down the original article and had no luck on the WSJ website. However I did find some of it here: http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2010/04/fw-wall-street-journal-sizes-up-obama.html

It goes without saying that the true origins of this piece are questionable and the blind coercion it tries to provoke is undeniable. I hope those that find this and the many other trash pieces floating around, both on TV and the internet, will take time to truly think about what is being said and whether or not it represents truth and reality. Don’t be a sheeple, become a thinking people.

Thanks,

Pjerky

First of all research isn’t just about solving one particular problem. While there is always a primary goal, often research into one thing yields discoveries in other, often related areas. These discoveries often give us ways to improve the condition and reduce the suffering of those inflicted with the malady that is being researched. So while a “cure” may not yet have been found for, lets say AIDs, the research done into the subject has yielded drugs and methods to reduce symptoms, extend the lives of the infected, and significantly reduce the risk of spreading the disease. This could not have been done without this research, yet we still have no cure.

The next problem with this article is that ES is a very broad field with research into everything from diabetes and heart disease to spinal cord injuries and Multiple Sclerosis. To say it isn’t done yet or results are decades away is lunacy. There are too many areas of study for ES to be “done” yet. We will probably even be studying the field for thousands of years to come and still gain results. Granted at some point the results will become less and less frequent as we unlock more and more secrets, but that does not mean the information that we gain is useless. So far the study of ES has yielded much information into how the human body develops, how cancers work, how cells gain their position in the body, etc. This information has already led us to solutions and treatments for many different diseases.

Finally, I have a problem with someone whom knows little to nothing about research, save what he Googled in one afternoon, telling a wide audience of public (most of whom are probably just as ignorant on the subject) that Embryonic Stem Cell research is not worth the time, money, and effort put into it. Mr. Fumento, stick to subjects you know and stop spreading discourse about that which you are so ignorant, such as anything to do with science.

As times change and technology changes the world, businesses are expected to adapt to these changes to continue to compete and flourish. When cars were invented buggies, horses, and trains steadily became less and less common. The old way of traveling made less sense and thus, in most cases, became a novelty. Today we have a different revolution. The revolution of information.

Before traditional media existed news travelled slowly by word of mouth. While someone in the same community would find out about something within a few hours or days, but people outside of that community would rarely hear of it and when they did it was months or even years later. Then came mail carriers and information began flowing regularly between communities, interconnecting them in an exciting new way. Then printed news papers started delivering the same news to everyone within a day or two. Radio stormed on the scene, able to reach a much larger audience than print media, audibly and instantly sending information as soon as it reached broadcasters and providing a more personal form of entertainment. Television brought pictures and video to the audible news and added ever more value. Now we have the internet.

With the internet the news is now. Not only do you get it on your computer, but also on your mobile phone anywhere you are. News is instantaneous and viral. Within seconds the entire world can be saturated with information on some newsworthy event. Traditional media has a difficult time competing with that because most value that can be offered by traditional media can also be offered by the internet.

Newspapers, especially, are fearful and they are now trying to put the cat back in the bag. They don’t want online news to be free. They want a subscriber base, like the good old days. Just tonight I saw a TV advertisement for the New York Times online. They are offering a subscription-based service to deliver you their news reports for $4.70 per week. This is the same New York Times that sends me free news via email alerts, an iphone app, an RSS feed, and via a website. Why in the world they expect me to want to pay for the news I already get for free is beyond me. Nothing in that commercial indicated that they were offering me something new or extra. No information about advanced services, no added value whatsoever.

If newspapers expect to survive, then they need to change their business model to one that will work in the age of information. Some will say that you can’t adapt, there is no way to make money online. Most people said that about search engines, but one of the biggest companies in the world is Google and their flagship product is a search engine. If the newpapers offer content people want to read then people will come to read it. From their advertising and special offers takes over. Give the customer a reason to come and a reason to stay and you will be profitable.

The first story that leads me to believe this is one that has been around for a few months now. Apparently some teenagers in Italy filmed themselves attacking and abusing a mentally handicapped person. Then those kids posted the video on YouTube. Authorities in Italy found the video and used it to find and prosecute the teenagers. This would have been a great example of how the internet could be used to stop criminal behavior. However, the story doesn’t end there. Within a few hours of being made aware of the offensive content of the video, Google (owns YouTube) promptly took it down. But instead of praising Google for their swift action and cooperation with authorities, Italy has now charged several Google executives with criminal offenses for allowing this content to be posted on the internet on a Google-owned site.

This is insane. Not only did the team at Google comply quickly and professionally, but the video itself helped catch the perps. There is no reason for them to arrest the execs.

That was just the beginning. The authorities have been trying to implement a three-strikes law like France recently passed recently. This law basicaly says that if you are accused of even attempting to pirate media more than 3 times will automatically be banned from the internet. Then they added to that law by requiring all blogs to register with the government. Thus, making it easier for the government to monitor citizens. This is of course scary not only because it attacks anonymity on the internet, but it also sounds like the first steps to stamping out free speech online and arresting dissidents. Italy is considered a parliamentary republic, which is a type of democracy that doesn’t have a clear separation of the executive and legislative branches.

Then the owners of an online music site in Italy were thrown in jail because the Italian music industry body, SIAE, has accused them of copyright infringement. This is in spite of the fact that they did obtain a license to sell the music. Though apparently, according to SIAE and the IFPI site, not the correct licenses. Note plural, meaning they have to have multiple licenses in Italy to sell music. In fact one man even claimed that you need as many as 33 different licenses to sell music in Europe. Though some have disputed that number. Why is it that this is not simplified, seeing as how the countries of Europe have been slowly building one unified governing body known as the European Union. Doesn’t sound very united on this front. Another question, why is it that criminal charges are being filed for copyright infringement. This is not larceny, burglary, murder, or any number of other heinous crimes. It is simply a business dispute. It is barely even that because the owners thought that they had obtained all the correct licenses. If you keep changing the rules, how can you expect anyone to follow them?

It gets even better. The Italian government has decided that they want to be able to listen in on the calls made with the popular service, Skype. They want a back door installed so that they can listen into whichever calls they like. It seems the wiretapping issue has reached a whole new level. In Europe, Skype is a very popular tool. While it can be used for evil, such as coordinating terrorist attacks, it is generally used for private conversation to save money (over the cost of local phone services, which are generally high). There are a number of issues with this. The first that comes to mind is that the internet has no borders. What if they use this to listen in on conversations people in other countries are having with people in countries that are not Italy? The privacy warning radar is going nuts on this one.

Then finally, last but not least, the Italian government is also looking to entirely ban anonymity online. Opening up the prosecution flood gates. Everyone from annoyed citizens complaining about products, services, and politicians to everyday social network chatters and forum posters will become targets. This would become a lawsuit free-for-all. Plus, being that government does not give you the right to control the thoughts of your countrymen. This will definitely create problems for dissidents.

After reading all these stories I am starting to believe that the ghost of Mussolini has risen and started to regain control of the Italian government. These are certainly scary markers. Especially because the politicians are taking most of their queues from corporations that are trying to serve their own interests and to hell with everyone else. Europe is becoming colder and darker. Science and reason are sounding more and more scarce. Along with morality.

Look for unexplained disappearances and mysterious arrests in the future. Sounds an awful lot like the kind of things the Nazi’s did. I would recommend that anyone tread lightly in Italy.

This article is based off the one found at: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090504/0148494730.shtml

Ashton has been accused of making multiple bomb threats from internet-based phone calls (using Voice-Over-IP). The FBI then did an IP address trace that led to Ashton’s personal computer. With this information they gathered a search and arrest warrant for him and barged into his house in the middle of the night, guns out, to arrest him. There is a huge problem with their evidence that lead to the arrest, but more on that later. This boy’s basic rights as granted by the Bill Of Rights has been violated. The most obvious right being violated here is sixth amendment which states:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

He has been denied a speedy and public trial for sure, especially the public part. His family has not been given much access to him, a gag order has been put on the case, there is no information for public record, and details about the charges are being hidden behind the Patriot Act. Without such details it is difficult to build a case to defend him. It would also seem that his 4th amendment rights may also have been violated, though without more details it is hard to discern if this was an unreasonable seizure of property.

Unfortunately the details on this case are sketchy, so that even if the FBI was fully justified in their actions they have also made sure that it is difficult to trust anything they say. Making people even more concerned that we are heading towards becoming a police state. However, even if the threats made did justify their actions, the evidence (from what I have read so far) seems to be pretty disputable. The evidence as far as I can tell that they have is an IP address.

IP addresses help identify a computer or other internet device or server on the internet and act almost like a mailing address. The problem with IP address tracking is that not only do most internet providers use dynamic IPs, which are regularly updated and replaced with a new one users log in/out or as their computers just automatically refresh its IP address. So these floating addresses make it difficult to pin down who had which IP address at what time. To make matters worse these addresses can be spoofed or faked to make a computer look like a different computer on the internet. Which means just about anyone could have highjacked his IP address and used it for nefarious purposes (though I doubt they knew who it would be associated with).

It is frightening to think that our government can get away with whisking away citizens, especially children, to undisclosed locations for no particular reason at all and hold them indefinitely. To read more on this case please view the links at the bottom of this post.

References:

• The Original YouTube Video
• Teen homeschooler jailed under Patriot Act
• US Patriot Act

So far I have seen most services offered around an open source project to make money for the creators. These services usually include tutorials, customizations, hosting, technical support, and other offerings that usually require a lot of extra work on the creators part that is above and beyond the making and upgrading of the software that they created in the first place. Thus they have to do double the work to earn money. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes the developing groups can pair up with other companies or projects and share profits or get advertising profits, but those models are hit or miss.

Most programmers have a favorite text editor or IDE to use to develop their application(s). Mine happens to be an editor for Windows called E Text Editor. It is an application that was inspired by my favorite Mac OS-based text editor TextMate. I have been using this editor for about a year and a half and I absolutely love it. So when the owner/creator decided to make his product open source using a new business model that will not only still monetize it for himself, but also for others, I was thrilled and excited.

Alexander, the creator, is testing a brand new business model that will open source most of his code except the core, which includes his licensing system (to discourage pirating). It allows others to contribute and earn based on a trust metric. As they earn more trust and contribute more they will gain access to more and more code. Eventually even gaining access to the core.

This is great for several reasons. The first and foremost is that the development has been stagnating because of a new addition to his family. This would allow others to pickup where he left off and improve what they want to improve. This means that the community a large will see more frequent bug fixes and improvements because many more people will be contributing on a regular basis. Secondly it will allow those people to get paid for their work. Which should encourage even more contributions. Third, this experiment could possibly applied to other software applications and if successful could change the way the open source community operates. Fourth, not only could this model be applied to software, but also in other industries such as the failing newspaper industry that has been whining about the internet changing things from the way they used to be in the “good’ol days”.

I welcome new ideas for business models, especially those that allow the community around a business to interact with it closely. Years ago I heard many clamorings about how open source could never work in a business model and that it would eventually fail. These clamorings have died down quiet a bit since the 90’s, especially since Linux has proven itself such a strong survivor of this. Unfortunately I am having trouble finding any links to such stories.

So far the open sourcing of the text editor has led to a Linux version of the application as well as several bug fixes. I am curious to see where this goes, especially since Alexander put his business on the line to test out this new model. I hope that other businesses take notes and try to learn something useful from this experiment.

This, in part, may be related to news from cable executives that say that market saturation is the real cause of recent slowdowns in subscriber growth and not the worldwide economic woes nor increased competition from telephone companies. If this is true then they should instead focus on opening markets for free-for-all style competition instead of lobbying to limit the number of cable operators that can serve an area (often forming local monopolies). They should also increase their competitiveness by offering new and creative services, especially those related to music and movies (accessible over their networks and not blocking competition). There are a finite number of consumers on this planet. Eventually you have to reach critical mass where it is simply not possible to have any more subscribers than you already have. Before that happens they should diversify their offerings and find new revenue sources (excluding using ridiculous service limitations to create overage charges for internet usage).

It is unreasonable for any business, or economy for that matter, to expect perpetual growth. There is a finite number of resources on this planet. Resources used to create products and provide necessities for consumers to survive and even thrive. This, of course, limits the number of humans this planet can support and thus the number of customers a business can have. This drive for perpetual economic growth on all scales is part of what is causing this global economic meltdown. The unreasonable expectation that money will continue to grow without end. Instead an expectation of maintaining a stable level of income seems to be a lot more practical for everyone. That or create interstellar space travel to find new life and new civilizations to turn into customers.

I won’t bore you with the details of what it all means. Instead I want to share with you a free Myers-Briggs personality test. Recently, a colleague of mine created a simple HTML page on our internal intranet that gives you a list of questions and then, using Javascript, calculates your personality type. I have since ported it over to work on my blog and I thought I would share it with you. I have also included a page with the detailed descriptions of each of the types possible. Take the test and enjoy!

Personality Test: http://www.pjerky.com/personality-test/

Personality Type List: http://www.pjerky.com/personality-test/personality-types/

If you are from the United States you can proudly say that your nation created the cell phone and changed the world with it. The world has embraced our endeavor and has built empires from it. Yet, though we were the first with it, we are ashamedly behind the rest of the world in not only our use of the technology, but also the advancement of it.

In November of 2008, I went on a trip to London, England. I had never been to the UK nor had I ever gone further than just crossing the Canadian border (as a kid no less). I was experiencing the world from a very different point of view for the first time and I learned much. While in London I decided to buy a mobile phone so that I could check on times for restaurants and attractions and so that I could call home. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money since I would only be there for a week, but after running the numbers I found it to be cheaper than buying phone cards or bringing my American phone (on AT&T) with me. I found a small shop with a phone that cost me £5 which, at the time, was roughly $7.

With each phone you buy in the UK and across Europe you must also get a SIM card for it. No big deal, I have done that before with AT&T and I knew that T-Mobile here uses that as well. So I bought a T-Mobile SIM card and put it in the phone. With less than 4 minutes of talk time (calling home) I ran out of minutes. Quickly realizing that I couldn’t afford those rates I decided to go with another carrier. However unlike here, when I found a carrier with better rates I didn’t have to buy another phone. I just bought another SIM card and swapped them out. No contracts, no hassles, nothing. This was amazing to me. I figured at least they would put me through some rigamarole just to irritate me. I expected it so much that I almost wanted it to happen. But it didn’t and I went on my way with a new carrier that had stellar international rates (something like 7 pence a minute).

Stories like that don’t happen in the United States unless you specifically hunted down and purchased an “unlocked” phone. Though carriers here have all but criminalized having unlocked phones. In fact Apple has criminalized it and has taken measures to stop it. Now what, you may ask, is going on in Europe? How did they get the freedom to move from carrier to carrier without penalty or contract? How can they take a phone sold by T-Mobile and use it with another carrier’s SIM card? Why don’t we have this available?

I can almost feel the outrage bubbling in up in the gut of anyone reading this story. I can also answer these questions. In Europe, sometime in the early days of cell phones, a few wise lawmakers and others saw trouble brewing. Carriers wanting to use proprietary technology to crush their competitors. Technology that they wouldn’t allow others to connect to. This would mean that every carrier would have to build their own cell phone towers. They also saw that innovation was being stifled in the US because of device to carrier lock-ins that were occuring and they took action. Europe’s limited space would mean that fighting for space to setup competing cell phone towers was impractical. So they passed laws that first required all carriers to adopt the same transmission technology, in this case the chose GSM. They also required carriers to allow competing carriers to relay calls from their towers. Thus significantly reducing the number of towers needed per square mile.

But they didn’t stop there. They also required carriers to sell unlocked versions along-side the locked versions of phone models. Customers took to these unlocked phones in such great numbers that it became a norm and the demand for locked phones greatly deminished. This opened up not only innovation but choice and better competition and the customer got to decide who won, not some deals done behind closed doors.

Unfortunately none of this skipped across the pond over to us. So we are left where we are now. Locked into contracts, no freedom of carrier and phone choice. You have to pick one or the other. Yes there are some carriers that offer no-contract services, but that is nothing compared to what we are missing because carriers insist on controlling the customer on every level. That includes telling us what phones we do and don’t like and what plans that we should have. Choice is not an option here and it is rediculous.

Recently some changes have been happening. More and more people are clamoring for more cell phone freedom. Hopefully we will get some. A further discussion on the issue can be found at TG Daily. Please feel free to leave your comments about this here.

-Pjerky

The second one is called “S. 425: Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act” which attempts to establish an extensive online database designed to track food from the moment it starts growing all the way up until it enters your digestive tract. It not only does that but also sets up the authority to force the recall of food which is currently done only on an advisory approach but is ultimately up to the manufacturer and/or distributor.

Now in principle these ideas don’t seem so bad, that is until you stop to think what this actually does on the larger scale. In order to implement such changes the farmers themselves will have to buy new computer equipment and learn to use it. The farmer will have to follow much stricter guidelines that even tell him what fertilizer to use, the minimum amount to use (say goodbye to organic farmers), harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water. All this is actually taken from the wording of the legislation itself. This means essentially the farmer has no real control of his farm. He just does what he is told. It seems to just stop short of telling them what they can grow.

Essentially all this means an end to organic produce and farming as well as farmers markets because the small time farmers simply can’t afford to comply with the regulations. What is the point of these things anyway? We don’t have problems with people dying left and right from poor quality food. When a product does have problems it doesn’t last long once consumers catch wind of it, so market forces essentially kill poor products.  The only thing that has actually hit news as of recent related to food problems is salmonella, a bacteria that grows absolutely everywhere, coming up in testing here and there. When that happens the production of the product is halted and the bacteria is eliminated. Plus anyone that actually cooks their food and washes their hands properly won’t have any problems.

There is no real need for any of this. It is simply over-regulation. So I decided to look a little closer and the involved politicians are heavily connected to companies that would profit greatly from the passing of this bill. To make matters worse, by killing off the small time farmers it means less competition for the bigger fish and an easier time raising food prices and increasing profit margins. This matter isn’t about public safety, it is about greedy politicians and companies trying to line their pockets.

To top all of this off I found another article, “Commodities down but food prices lag” By Lisa Baertlein and Ted Kerr at Reuters, talking about how the cost of producing processed food has gone down since their component prices have significantly dropped, yet the consumers are not seeing any price drops at all. It seems like everyone in the industry is trying to take more and more away from consumers and these companies wonder why the economy is suffering.

-Pjerky