With it being presidential election season, and with the circus that was the California Govenor recall. And the fact that I started listening to NPR, I have heard quite a bit of political discussion. And the thing that I can't understand at all is the deep rooted belief in some people that they always need to vote for whatever candidate their party trots out in front of them. The don't care if its the best person for the job, just as long as its a Democrat or Republican. I hear things like "We need to pick a candidate with the best chance of beating George Bush and getting a Democrat into the whitehouse." What the hell. How about we need to pick a candidate with the best chance of doing the Chief Executive's job well. The only rationalization I can come up with is lazieness, I mean I am as lazy as the next guy, and can understand they have chosen a group of people that best represent their thoughts on politics and instead of understanding the issues in great detail. I mean its the reason you hire an expert to fix your car or do your electrician work, because you don't know how it all works and you really don't want to know.

But is suffrage really something to make this trade off with. People have and are currently dying for the right to vote, the right to have a say in the way their country is run. If you are going to vote, it is your responsibility to understand for who and for what. So take a minute to try and understand if someone may be right to run the country, don't just vote republican because your dad did and so did his dad, and that is just the way it is. Stop voting in the lizards.

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

This entry is about a story I received on the Politech mailing list. The story is concerned that HIPAA, the new law intended to protect the privacy of personal health information. You probably know about it if you have been to the doctors or dentists office recently. They are now required to publish and make available to you a copy of their privacy practices, among other things. So most offices are handing you a sheet of paper full of legal-speak and require that you sign something indicating that you have received the materials. (To be fair the sheets I have read are not packed with jargon, and are easily understood if you take the time to read it carefully. YMMV) But anyway, aparently the press was distrought with this new law arguing that it would limit their ability to cover certain events, or to be effective reporters. The posting at politech was an excerpt of this article. Basically the report said there was a tragic porch collapse and it lamented the fact that reporters were unable to pump the hospital for any information regarding the victims of the collapse, therefore were unable to give as rich of a report as they had been able in the past.

If the result of this law is that random people claiming to be press are unable to get personal information about me from my dealings with medical establishments, I am all for it. I hadn't ever considered the fact that someone could walk into a hospital that I visited and expect someone to divulge any personal information about me. The argument made in the article is ridiculous , reporters should have no reasonable expectation that trusted medical personel would hand out information on their patients. As far as I am concerned if a reporter wants to use any of my personal information to sell newspaper advertising, they can come request it directly from me.

Certain other people felt the need to respond to the posting, and Declan will often aggregate responses and publish them to the list. (If I hadn't been so far behind reading Politech, I might have been counted among the respondents.) But some Privacy and informath consultant Robert Gellman also felt my outrage and responded in kind, with quite a bit more detail and precedent. The remainder of the follow-up including a response by the author of the article to some criticism can be found here.

Basically the response to Mr. Fitzgerald's article is, we do not feel your pain, and as a matter of fact are outraged to know that your profession has routinely requested and even received, and *gasp* even published personally identifiable information about the victim's of tragic accidents without their knowledge or concent. So bugger off, jerk.

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AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

Those of you who are busily consuming your Soma in large doses will be happy to know that despite your indifference to the political and legal make-up of a great Nation, a blow has been struck for freedom. It did not involve bombings or potentially staged rescues. It invovled a dull legal battle for free speech. The content of Federal District Court Judge Cougenour's decision can be found here. An excerpt I found particularly poignant follows:

However, we live in a democratic society founded on fundamental constitutional principles. In this society, we do not quash fear by increasing government power, proscribing those constitutional principles, and silencing those speakers of whom the majority disapproves. Rather, as Justice Harlan eloquently explained, the First Amendment demands that we confront those speakers with superior ideas ...

By the way, if you are interested in following this type of information more closely, check out Declan McCullagh's Politech, very high signal to noise ratio mailing list, on politics relevant to technology.

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AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

None of that biased, lying, garbage on Fox or CNN is news, this is:

Green Bay police are on the lookout for a monkey named Jasper, who they say isn't armed but might be dangerous. Jasper dashed out the back door of a tavern where he and his owner are regulars, Lt. Mark Hellmann said Monday. Hellmann described Jasper as small, dark and hairy, but didn't know what species he is. The police department's humane officer said Jasper may try to harm people if he's scared and advised anyone who sees him use caution.

Since the war is over, we might as well pass around the soma and get back to our happiness.

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister

So Andrew Carlssin is arrested and being held for Insider Trading. Kind of like when 1955 Biff got his hands on that sports almanac. Of course I know it is the Weekly World News supermarket tabloid. But I still think its funny.

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

The oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Yesterday: cnn.com:

At 10:15 p.m., Bush gave his address to the nation. "On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," he said.

...

At the White House, officials said that just before Bush addressed the nation, he pumped his fist, winked, and said "I feel good." He then delivered his address, which lasted four minutes.

The man enjoy's his work.

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

Marcus Ramberg led me to an interesting analysis:

Ironic isn't it? In the same way, they used our airplanes to kill our people and devastate our economy, now they are using our own government to kill our people and devastate our economy on a scale 10 times larger than the original attack. In addition, they are using our own government to increase the chance of future terrorist attacks on America. All with the majority support of the American people!

The core value of America is freedom. But the terrorist have also leveraged our own government into taking away our freedoms at home, via the Patriot Act and Patriot II.

The terrorists have won. They have successfully convinced America to attack itself.

While I don't completely agree with all of his premises or conclusions, he makes some good points and certainly brushes many major issues. I am a big fan of the United States, and I like living here. But some of the recent dumb things: Freedom fries, Ready.gov, The Patriot Act, etc.... Have made me even more skeptical than usual of our elected leadership. But the die is cast, and when the head bashing is done, hopefully there will be some changes and enlightenmt in my fellow Americans.

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AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

Here Rich Kulawiecis gives an interesting, and probably highly accurate, interpretation of why some of the major players in the software industry oppose some of the suggested restructuring of the DMCA.

If that kind of stuff is interesting to you, contribute to the Electroninc Frontier Foundation and you'll certainly find Declan McCullagh's Politech interesting reading.

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics

explosion on horizon, car swerving to side

In the event of a nuclear explosion, drive around it.

The current regime's terrorist propoganda has spawned the FUD promoting site Ready.gov. Fear mongering at its best.

Luckily there are great generic images there that have been appropriated for the purposes of comedy. Apparently adding new captions is highly entertaining and fun. You can see a bunch of this at the Internet Infidels Discussion.

Thankfully there is the Crackmonkey list, or I might never have seen this. And then where would we be?

Posted
AuthorKevin McAllister
CategoriesPolitics