State of my Research

Encroachment of the military police state

2005-09-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that another disaster is being leveraged to help shoe-in a military police state. Although denying the military any authority domestically is a long-standing safe-guard, it seems that the current administration is looking into changing all that. The military is already permitted to do domestic emergency relief, but they cannot do policing, searching, or arrests. Apparently that's not good enough, even though what was needed after katrina was prompt emergency relief, not policing. The 'looters' didn't start causing trouble 'til AFTER they were starving and abandoned, and there weren't really all that many of them.

Followup:
Pentagon begins review
Questions asked

Trusted Computing

2005-08-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

So, this trusted computing crap. It puts a little PKI system into the hardware of every computer. The chip builds keys, authenticates keys, and such on chip. The most secure keys never leave the chip, and its memory is secure and encrypted, so no program can get at it. At first this seems like it might be good. We all like the PKI system, it's great. It gives us SSL and GPG and the like. I like those things. Make no mistake about it, this is not friendly for those of us who like computer security!!!

First off, it puts control of those function on-the-chip, in hardware, in such a way that you cannot alter them without losing all functionality it provides. Think of it as your key generator being on-chip. That's what it is. But it's more than that, as one of the critical keys is known by the manufacturer and the chip only, not by you. It can be used to identify your machine no matter what.

This means that security related things can be handed off to this hardware function, meaning you don't need encryption software. Apple might call such a thing CoreEncryption or CoreSecurity. It can be billed as a time-saving feature, especially if it's cross-platform. Then commerce and, banking sites will come to require such things 'for your own protection from evil identity theft'. Soon the government will pass legislation requiring the same thing of ALL vendors 'for your protection' and 'stop terrorism'.

Now step back and see what has been created. There is a separate, top-down controlled, quite possibly government back-doored -- think I'm being paranoid, think of the newest revelation that the printer manufacturers have been embedding secret codes in your printouts that the government uses to track the author of documents -- encryption system that can handle all the problems that big-business and government have an interest in letting you solve. They control the whole thing. Now all they do is make software encryption, or anything BUT this trusted computing, illegal. Boom, one-fell swoop, it's all over. That's the end.

Mark my words, this is how it'll happen. The government doesn't want us to have encryption, but they can't do anything about it now because we use it for banking and commerce and the economy depends on it. With this system they get their back-door -- possibly without our knowledge like with the printers -- stupid consumers don't know the difference, and the big-businesses that implement it get some really useful cartel powers and lock-in tools.

Peace and Injustice in Iraq

2005-07-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

We've all heard of the insurgent hotbed that was Fallujah for a great while. However, I was surprised to learn of some of the events which led to Fallujah's violence. This article does a good job explaining how killings of innocent civilians touched off the violence that cost so much.

A quick, interesting read

2005-06-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I don't have long to post on this. It's a very concise, well-written and well-referenced article on the neo-con hawks that are trying for U.S. Hegemony worldwide. Don't read it right now if it's not a good time to get pissed off. Bastard Bush and Co., grumble mumble, %&#& ...

YAIT (YetAnotherIdentityTheft)

2005-06-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Now, in what is the largest breach ever, some 40 million credit card numbers have been stolen by hackers, proving, yet again, that scattering this sensitive information all around is just asking for identity theft, and that we need a better system.

Hopefully I'm not the only one who sees this.

Defense spending

2005-06-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

I found this link today. The story is good. It's not really new, but it is always good to be reawakened to such things.

It's stuff like this that contributes to my growing hunch that the U.S. might suffer a very significant economic collapse (and I mean collapse, not depression, recessions, or any other such pansy economis term). We're going to be in some very big trouble soon if things don't change, and there are few options for such change. This sort of excess spending only hurts us.

However, on the other hand, when the government runs us into the ground, we'll default on our loans.

It also makes me think about the dollar and the best way to invest these days. As Buffett has made all too clear, the stock market isn't all it used to be. The dollar is currently taxed at what, something like 2%/year, but if shit starts hitting the fan that'll go up. Maybe we should actually all get into debt up to our armpits and then wait for the dollar to devalue. Then we'll be able to pay off our loans in a hurry, once bread costs $100/loaf.

Ah well, it'll be interesting, and people who speak english still have good marketability, and likely still will, even after a collapse, although speaking other languages will definitely help. Maybe I'll have to brush up on my Hindi (the language, not the religion, although that wouldn't hurt either. The transition might be stressful...)

Hopefully the U.S. collapse will be analagous to the dotcom bubble bursting. It wasn't the end of the internet, it was just a day of reckoning for excess zeal. We're overvalued and largely insolvent. So we must go burst.

Principle #1

2005-06-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

I believe I've finally discovered what my primary goal is in my work. I wish to eliminate the monopoly of force that is possessed by governments.

It may seem odd that such an obvious issue has taken me this much time to discover, but that misses the point I think. I have known that I had a problem with the monopoly of force. However, there were lots of other issues to contend with as well. What about decision-making? What about hierarchies? What about representation? Which is most important.

I have found that I respect the goals and the results of many movements/causes/organizations, etc., even if they weren't in some way 'ideal'. Sometimes ideal is impossible, and sometimes it simply doesn't exist yet. Either way, I still am pleased when something 'better' comes along.

This has led to various situations where I've wondered, though, what the difference is between a possible 'ideal' solution and a government program.

Just the other day I was debating with a friend about Government social services. She was talking about Social Security in particular. She was saying how she didn't think a 'private' solution would be better.

I don't claim to know what would work and what wouldn't with any certainty. However, I have a few ideas, and I'd prefer that the government didn't have a monopoly on the issue. Also, it seems to me that if you can't imagine ways of doing a better job than the government at solving social problems you suffer from an extreme lack of imagination. I have little patience for fearful, unimaginative nay-sayers. (Not that they don't have their usefulness.)

I've created a new thought-tool, too, in the form of a question. As the single distinctive element of the government is a monopoly on physical force/violence, the logical question is, does implimenting this require force/violence? Considering that social security is sort of a combination of a retirement plan and a general emergency/accident insurance plan, the answer seems to me to be 'no'. Private solutions to retirement plans and insurance are the norm, and they're at least as reliable as social security. So it doesn't seem necessary to use force to impliment that solution. So why do we?

Additionally, this monopoly on force allows for the service to suffer. People aren't happy with it? Tough. Pay your taxes or go to jail. Worried that you won't get any money, that your payout is cut? Tough, you're stuck with it. Complain all you want.

Using the force monopoly (the government) is like using root in linux/unix. You don't want to use it for everything. You want to use it only when you have to, and even then you do your best to find a new way to NOT have to. Why? Because if those with malicious intents manage to get access to it they can do very bad things. Using it when not necessary can lead to 'accidents', too. Accidents in this context would be any situation where, just by having this excess power a solution was implimented which used the power needlessly and then had significant negative implications that wouldn't have existed if a different implimentation was chosen.

So, first priority should be to make the overbloated existing governments obsolete and reduce them to some sort of 'night watchman' state. Then, hopefully, we'll be in a position to eliminate them entirely.

Apple's switch to intel chips...

2005-06-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

They did it. They really did it. That is the craziest thing. The timing? So weird...

However, the cell processor isn't ready for computers yet, so maybe that's part of it. With the new universal binaries they'll be able to fairly easily span both worlds, and maybe they'll keep it that way, or go to the cell later? Who knows

Better still, imagine wine on OS X... Apple could integrate wine, spruce it up a bit, and kill windows dead. Just a thought. This may be a very offensive move... They wouldn't need to announce this feature now. They could announce that feature with OS 10.5, or with the intel-based macs, or whenever. That would be killer, though. Absolutely killer. Then buying a Mac would be VERY Tempting indeed. Spend a little bit of premium (you know macs will still cost a bit more) and be able to run all your favorite apps, plus all the mac apps, on a mac. Make it possible to dual boot into windows? You could... although you might not need to. Heck, since apple's designs are so slick you might see pc users buying macs just to run windows on them because the macs are cooler looking, just like they buy mac monitors and such. I think this is VERY aggressive....

Another example of information insecurity

2005-05-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

I just ran across this. Turns out the University of Chicago wasn't adequately protecting its students (and faculty?) information, including social security numbers. Why do Universities need SSNs? I know that at least some universities have been getting away from using SSNs as student numbers, but they still keep them.

The identity theft problem is the perfect platform from which to launch an attack against invasive privacy violations, nosy companies, and opaque data sharing. There is a need now for an organization to spearhead this issue.

I'm going lulu!

2005-05-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

I don't have time for a long post, but I've discovered another empowering new piece of infrastructure that's been created. People win out with this, as it allows anyone to publish anything for free!

lulu.com allows you to setup an account for free. From it you can publish books, calendars, images, and audio. Lulu makes money IF you charge money. If you give your stuff away for free, they charge no commission. They print and distribute the items AT COST!!!

Better still, it has a comprehensive search/browse mechanism, so your works aren't buried in a sea of other stuff. But wait, it gets better. WHat is the best book distribution system thus far invented? Yes, amazon.com. Well, lulu lets you distribute through amazon, barnes and noble, borders, and somebody else, I forget. Do you see what this means!!! Finally the publishing world has been freed of the chains. It isn't controlled by the publishing companies! You don't have to be a famous author! And better still, using amazon, your work can be found! The is truly revolutionary.

I will be signing up, and maybe even publishing. What are you waiting for?

Avoiding Identity Theft via Gift-Cards

2005-05-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my prior article on identity theft avoidance, I've found that there may be some steps that you can take now to help.

Stored Value Cards (Gift Cards

General stored value cards (like visa or mastercard ones) are a great way to protect your privacy while maintaining the flexiblity of a credit card. With one of these you can pay most, if not all bills without having to disclose your personal information. You can pay cash and then use it anywhere Visa is accepted. It's great. Also, if stolen, no-one can take any more of your money than what is on the card.

This doesn't address the problem of service insecurity (here and here) but it's a start. It can help alleviate credit card fraud, credit bureau mistakes (identity theft leading to a bad credit rating which is HARD to reverse) and so forth.

Prepaid Cellular Service

You can avoid celluar service provider insecurity, like that which I suffered, by using a pre-paid cellular plan. By far the biggest problem with this is that it is still far more expensive than competing service plans. However, the price gap is narrowing and I wouldn't be surprised to see it become competitive eventually. It may never match, but it could get close enough.

Others?

If you know of any others please tell me. Also, if you know of any common stores where you can buy Visa Gift Cards tell me, too. So far I don't know which local stores I can buy them at with cash. You can buy them online... but then THAT store has your credit card information, thus leading to the risk of their being hacked and getting your credit-card info... The ideal would be using cash to buy a gift-card, so you didn't have to open a security hole in the process.

An idea for collaborative document review

2005-05-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

Start with a post. It could be editable (like a wiki) or static (like a blog or forum entry). For this explanation I'll say we're discussing the U.S. Constitution.

Using fancy cutting-edge web-technologies (ajax anyone?) allow people to enter a 'commenting' mode (hit 'comment' button) and select words (not letters, words). They could select one rule, for example. We'll say they select the part that says the executive shall be one president. Then they can rank this part. Let's rank it low. We really don't like this part. Then we go through and rank other parts, too.

We highlight all the words in the first amendment and rank them high. We select the words "a well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." and give it a mediocre rating, and add the comment "confusing. What do you mean?"

We can go through and rank any combination of contiguous words and give them a rating. We can also add comments.

When we're done rating and commenting we click 'Done' or whatever, and we see the article again. The only difference is that now the text we've commented on is colorized (or something that is a finely adjustable change that is easily visually recognizable). For example, text we rated highly is more green, text rated lowly is more red. The higher the rating, the brighter green, the worse the rating, the more red. Comments don't show up at all. Then

Here's where the fun part begins. Let's say that now you go and do the same thing, except you add different comments and ratings. Some of yours overlap with mine, some don't. Then more people do it, then more, then more, then more. What happens? Scores are averaged per word. I selected the entire second amendment. You select just the second half and say "NOOOO!" and rate it badly. Others select the whole thing and rate it well. The average rating of ALL ratings goes toward the color. The NUMBER of ratings could affect the size of the word.

I can also select some words and click 'view comments' or some such thing. This will, surprise surprise, show, perhaps, an excerpt of the total text containing the words I selected, and then all comments that apply to the words, perhaps with the precise set of words selected for each comment.

Uncommented words would appear with default color and normal size. There would be an obvious difference between commented/rated words and uncommented/rated.

This is just a preliminary idea. It could definitely be expanded. I like it because it would provide instant visual information about the most contentious or problematic areas, so you could immediately focus your efforts at revising.

There could be open comments/ratings and a select set of people authorized to revise. You could even allow for different versions (perhaps with a limit) for each section such that sections with multiple versions appeared as layered text, one version closely right on top of another, with the top-X # of versions displayed only, not all of them if there were lots. This is just another idea. If that was implimented then it would make sense for everyone to be able to write AND rate/comment.

You could even set a threshold such that once the text reached a certain acceptability and held it for X period of time it was accepted or something, or had some weight.

This system could be very useful to internet-based decision-making systems.

Privacy is NOT for the paranoid

2005-05-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of people saying that privacy advocates are just paranoid, and that if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide. Honestly, though, you don't hear that anywhere near as much as you used to.

These days, with identity theft at epidemic levels, everything I hear is 'guard your personal information'. That's great, but service providers still ask for SSN, drivers license, credit card, and often won't take no for an answer.

Within the last 10 months 2 of the handful of service providers I subscribe to, my cellular provider and my ISP, have lost information about lots of their customers. T-Mobile was hacked last summer. The hacker had access to millions of customer's data, and it is known that he tried to sell it. I may have suffered from that leak of information as my account was compromised a couple months back, leading to additional handsets being added and hundreds of dollars of extra charges. I'm hoping that nothing else will come of that, but I don't, and can't, know.

My ISP lost user information on 1,200 LOCAL accounts recently. I don't believe I was one, as the news blurg I heard on it said they'd notified those whose information ahd been lost.

So, the question becomes, why can't we have anonymous accounts? Why can't I setup a secure, anonymous money account (think paypal or egold) that is NOT attached to my name. Then if it is compromised I will at most only lose the money in that account, and hopefully even that will be refunded by the service provider.

As it stands, if any one source leaks my information, ALL of my accounts can potentially be compromised. With anonymous accounts, only ONE would be.

In this high-tech age I should be able to sign up to receive cell-phone service. I'd request a number. I'd buy the handset. I COULD provide a p.o. box (or real address if I wanted to) to them for a bill, or they could provide an electronic account number into which I can deposit my monthly payment. All payments are initiated on MY end, not on theirs. They don't have account numbers of mine, no name, no SSN, no drivers license #. They would pretty much only have my phone number. They'd receive payments for my account each month.

In order to retain the convenience of automatic bill-pay my anonymous bank account would be able to make monthly deposits automatically. This is called bill-pay and most banks offer it already.

Due to the fact that some charges vary from month to month, it would be helpful if my bank account could automatically send the correct amount each month. A simple solution to this would be for a standard query method to be built which allows my bank account to connect to my cell-account and ask how much I owe. Authentication could be based on SSH, SSL, anything fairly secure. If someone exploited this all they could get from my bank account is how much I owe. But, they wouldn't know who "I" am. At most they could do a reverse telephone lookup, and maybe get a name and address (if that info wasn't also harder to come by). So they'd know who I was, my phone number, and how much I owe. And that would be it. That's a gargantuan improvement over current vulnerabilities.

If someone tried to hack the bank account through the query method they'd have to wait for the bank account to make a query, intercept it, and then send false information. However, all the query would be able to do is set the amount. It couldn't change the account where the money went to, it couldn't query my account, nothing.

There would be no common identifiers linking my various services and accounts. The services wouldn't even need to know what account was sending funds if the process were properly arranged. My anonymous online bank could send anonymous money transfers. It could shield my account number entirely. What does my account number have to do with anything?

The other catch is credit checking. In some ways this is the root of our problem now. There are a few ways of addressing this problem.

No credit? No problem

We could opt to have no credit check whatsoever. As a result we may not be eligible for certain deals, rebates, or freebies. Perhaps our service provider wouldn't give us a free phone with the plan. Or, perhaps they'd give us a rebate on the price of the phone after 6 months or so. This would work with just about all services, but not loans and other lines of credit.

Anonymous Credit

Perhaps we could have anonymous credit accounts. There would be various levels of anonymity available. The first step, however, is outlining the new credit method at its broadest outline.

Credit would flow both ways. Think eBay. You leave feedback for your service provider, they leave credit for you.

Anonymous Retrival

A credit provider allows you to create an account. It is given an account number of some sort. This number, in conjunction with an authorization password (or other, more secure method) that only you provide allows a service provider to query the credit provider and receive your credit info. They'd be able to see overall statistics (positive/negative) and read the details. There would, however, be no personal info in there, as no-one who commented would have HAD any personal info to disclose.

Both you and the service provider also receive a token of sorts to add feedback to the other's credit account. Nothing in this token would give away any information about you or them. It could simply be a random number/password (or certificate, etc.) that allowed them to submit feedback. Think ebay. If you buy something from someone you have the opportunity to provide feedback: once. And the user has the opportunity to comment on the feedback, too, and leave feedback for the buyer.

That's it. This credit provider has your personal information. If it gets hacked, your info is compromised.

It must be noted, in a system where personal information ISN'T used to creat accounts, it becomes less valuable. So you know someone's name and address? You still don't have their anonymous bank account password or account number or even the bank, or whether or not they have one or pay via some other method. You can't use that information to get information from their cellular provider because the cellular provider doesn't have the info and can't cross-reference with it. They couldn't use it to access your bank account because that doesn't have your personal info, either.

If you stop making payments then they'd leave bad feedback and your rating would go down.

Full anonymity

This is almost the same as the above system except not even the credit agent would have your information. Why should they? You authenticate a credit account, show them the info, and if it's good enough they accept. You could even authenticate someone else (it'd be similar to co-signing). You'd put your own credit account at risk to vouch for someone else.

Risks

The risk in all this is that if your authorization is compromised, someone can hose your credit by using it for themself.

However, they still wouldn't have your personal info and couldn't get into your other accounts, AND your bank account could STILL be completely separate.

Hurdles

There are, unfortunately, some obstacles to implimenting a system like this. One of the biggest is the government. They currently REQUIRE that various service providers and banks gather your personal information. The information that institutions are required to gather is actually going UP, justified by homeland security. Ironically, identity theft is a much greater threat to our security than whatever supposed benefit to security is gained by harvesting all our information. In fact, it has been shown and admitted time after time that our intelligence agencies are glutted with information, and their problem is making heads or tails of it all.

The potential good news is that with the internet it is quite possible that these services can be internet based and operate out of countries without information-harvesting requirements. Unfortunately, some services can't be handled this way, such as utilities, cell-phones and the like, because infrastrucure must exist within the country, thus requiring the company to follow US laws in conducting business there. Banking and online commerce, however, can all be handled anonymously, and we should move in this direction. Also, we should push government to loosen up these requirements in the interest of national security. The bastards.

In conclusion

These are just ideas. I know it needs more thought, but what I'm trying to show is that with just a tiny bit of thought, better, more secure systems can be designed. Things are getting ridiculous, and something has to be done.

www.conversate.org

2005-05-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Conversate is a new web service provided by the delightful folks at Participatory Politics. They are making some very cool stuff and I need to write an entire article about their work, but I haven't yet.

To me, Conversate seems like a distributed blog that is topic-based, not person-based. You make a list of friends and you find something to talk about. Any old thing will do. You then create the conversate (it's easy) and it invites them. Anyone can control how they receive updates, whether it's email or rss (and in the future other methods such as aim/jabber).

What's so big about that? Why post about it on a political blog?

This sort of thing is the kind of out-of the box, bottom-up sort of infrastructure that NEEDS to be built before a successful, anarchistic/panarchistic society can function well. It is a SIMPLE way for information to flow. It allows us to tell people about something and they can immediately be brought up to speed. Whereas the blogsphere has a bunch of different blogs blogging about the same subject, that means you have to click all over the place to read them all. Talkback/pingback make that easier, but it is still not terribly convenient. Conversate is TOPIC based, and that's crucial. It is free association. It is people-power. It is affinity groups. It is uncontrollable from above. However, unlike lots of other mass-things like blogs, these aren't centralized around a person. They're fluid, and could easily spread as fast as people can say "Check this out". PLUS, if they're based on invites, there's LESS risk of obnoxious trolls and such. (Certainly they could show up, but the chances are slimmer.) It may not seem like a big thing, but it destoys many barriers to efficient communication, and builds walls in more logical places.

I foresee this becoming VERY successfull, and potentially very powerful.

Political/activist uses aside, this could be a great way to spontaneously organize things from birthday parties to going out in the evening to discussing the problem with the newest Star Wars movie.

US Concedes: No evidence of weapons of Mass destruction

2005-04-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

This should come as no surprise to some of us. The US has finally given up even looking for evidence of WMDs in Iraq. That is tantamount to admitting that the war was illegal, because the only legal basis provided was the WMDs.

Another thought, what's up with Saddam? Haven't heard THAT name in awhile... anyone know?

Problems

2005-04-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, obviously this has its problems...

See, I read the instructions, they said if I put the little end thing at
the end (I won't put it in again because who knows, it might pay
attention this time...) but it still put up my signature and
cryptography stuff... damnation.

If anyone knows how to fix this, please tell me...

#end

Test Post

2005-04-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is just a test of posting via email. I didn't think I'd want to do
this, but not I think I do.

header 1

header 2

paragraph

#end

The problem of cars... and one good alternative!

2005-02-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Well, if you don't know, I have a thing against cars. I don't like them as a transportation system, due to their being horribly destructive, directly and more importantly indirectly, and their being subsidized. I hate having them interrupt me as I walk through my town. But, I do realize that they are impossible to avoid for some people and situation, although less situations than most would admit, IMHO.

A large problem with cars is the sheer number of them out there. Mass transit is imperative for denser cities. The site of a Ford Expedition with one Laura Bush driving pisses me off. Taxis are one alternative, and they're possibly better than personal cars, because they mitigate the need for as large of parking garages and at least there's at least 2 people in the car at a time. However, I ran across a really great alternative I had no idea existed.

Flexcar!

I had even thought of something like this on my own a little while back. There's the white bicycle program in some country, I forget which (I think it's white bicycle.... some colored bicycle....) where you buy all these simple bikes, paint them white, and they're public use. You ride it to where you need to go, then park it. Someone else takes it, rides it, and the cycle continues. As long as there's lots of them it's no problem. Considering the bicycle theft problem here, it's not a bad idea. We'll just ALL 'steal' bikes all the time. None will be locked up, damn it, and screw you, bike thief. But I digress.

So, flexcar. It's not free, but it's a very similar idea. You reserve a car, either via phone or internet, pick it up at a designated location, drive it for your reserved time, and drop it off. Now, there's a few different rate plans, but get this: The annual fee is $35. $35!!!! After that there's either subscriptions, which include X many hours (kinda like a cell-phone plan) or you can pay $9/hour. That's not bad, I must say.

You don't pay:

Insurance

Maintenance

For the car(!!!!)

You do pay:

tickets

I must say, sign me up!!! This is what I've been waiting for. Currently it's only available inter-city, so you'd have to use a traditional rental-company for inter-city travel. No biggy. The point of this is to provide a rental service on your time. Nearly as convenient as owning a car. Much less expensive. Much less hassle. This is what I'm talking about.

Perverse Patriotism

2004-12-13T15:46:00.001-08:00

I just ran across this while browsing around the web. I must say, glorifying war and death and all in the name of "country" really flabbergasts me. How can people think this way seriously? Although that damned Toby Keith song about "stick a boot up their ass, it's the american way" was insanely popular, too. I just don't get it.

On military murder

2004-12-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

This story does a good job of showing the kinds of monsters that can be created by war, the military, and nationalism, out of once normal people (presumably). If this isn't the perfect example of the absurdity, coldness, hatred, and inhumanity that can result from (is a part of) the military, nothing will. It makes my stomache turn. If you're in a situation to destroy your own soul, get out.

Interesting Theory on Election

2004-11-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

Now, I've said something along these lines for awhile now. Kerry was the wrong candidate. Some of the points in this article I disagree with, but it also makes some good ones.

Election Results Maps

2004-11-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

The election is done, but what can we learn from it? We look at the maps of red and blue states but those aren't very informative as they're binary. We don't see which states were close and which were a landslide. We don't see how the size of the state compares to the population. Here are some maps that help visualize the facts and figures. Take a minute to look them over. It's interesting.

Protest against Indymedia HD confiscations

2004-11-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

Witty protest against confiscation of Indymedia drives

2004-10-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

Damn Patriot Act II

In case you've been living in a hole, the Patriot Act is vile. Here's why.

Make it stop!!!

2004-10-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Is Choice more important than the Vote?

The long term solution for governance does not include top-down governments. I believe that their monopoly on government structures stifles innovation in politics and is one of the largest obstacles to a better world. However, I do not believe in forcing any structure upon anything. A truly open market will allow the best solution to be found. It is also incorrect to force people to follow and join these things we call nations and follow their laws with no way to really escape. We claim that people can always leave, but where are we to go? Nations blanket the earth. For the truly radical stuff, read my entries on a decentralized, bottom-up government. That is the future. However, before that can be reached, we may need a solution such as the following. Do not mistake this as a change in my ideas. I simply believe that we must look forward to the long term, and also the short-term. We cannot jump straight to the end. Pragmatism demands steps.

It came to me, in discussion with a friend, that one of the biggest, if not the biggest forces allowing governments to ignore the wishes of their citizens is the difficulty involving immigration and emmigration.

As has been expressed in my other articles, all current governments can be seen through the lens of our future better self-rule, with a few minor modifications to todays governments. We would have to have originally signed to our governments in order to see things that way (and of course we wouldn't sign) for that to work. However, we can still gain some insight by attempting this without these changes.

The governments of the world are a set of methods for creating a society in which people live. We could call them "law-plexes" to use my normal language. Law-plexes are simply collections, plexes, of laws. Fundamentally all a government is is a bunch of laws, using a broad definition of "law".

These law-plexes offer us different solutions to help us live our lives. We could compare them to see which we prefer, which works better, which makes happier people, etc. There's one major obstacle preventing that. In a normal market, we can look at the available products and pick which we want to buy. However, with governments we get no choice. We are defaulted to receiving whichever one our parents belong to. Worse still, changing to a different "product" is incredibly difficult. If I decide that the Kenyans, the Germans, the Indians, or anyone else has a better system, a better law-plex, than the U.S., I can't simply move there. Now, there are more obstacles than simple immigration. There is language, custom, and all of the usual challenges of relocation. However, the immigration one is typically a deal-buster, at least for the average person. Many languages speak english. It is the most widely accepted language. Many people speak other languages, and many cultures are similar enough to not pose a serious deterrent to adaptive people. But, I can't simply move there and begin living under their system because they won't let me buy their product!

We have set our governments up as exclusive groups where no-one else is allowed in unless we have damned good reason to. We see newcomers as inherently bad. In actuality, though, they needn't be seen that way. Just as a company selling a product doesn't hand over decision-making power to its customers, a nation wouldn't need to scatter voting privileges to every newcomer. That could still be a privilege granted to whomever they decided to grant it to. The point is, opening up a base level of immigration, analogous to opening up your product for public sale, would put nations, law-plexes, in competition with one another in such a way that bad, unresponsive, wasteful, corrupt government could be dropped as quickly as a bad product. It would force them to be responsive or face mass emmigration.

Hold on, you say, this is crazy! Not allow voting? What kind of f^&#ed up idea is that? That's the most important thing we've fought for in the last several centuries! Well, I reply, maybe we messed up. In all honesty, opening up immigration/emmigration in this sense could have a much more "democratizing" effect than broad voting rights. Right now we're stuck in these arbitrary groups. If one group comes up with a good idea, we may or may not be able to institute the same idea in our group, but more likely than not we won't. And, we will have different groups pulling different ways. It would be as if you took a random sample of customers all with completely different needs, told them they would receive all their services/products from a single company, and then fight for what services/products those would be, with limited resources, methods, etc. It is asinine. However, we don't bat an eye when the same happens with our governments. We receive much better satisfaction from the evil corporations than we do from our governments in most regards. They tend to be more responsive than government, because they don't have to meet everyone's needs, they just meet the needs of those who choose their service. They look for a need and fill it. Imagine if governments sought out our needs? Ha! Ridiculous! Although we'd like to reform our companies so that they were more democratic, they still perform better than government, because they are subject to market forces. The reason state-capitalism (aka (mistakenly) communism) failed is because people had to choose the state product and there was no competition.

Just imagine, governments could specialize. One might do its best to appeal to technophiles, another to woodsy-folk, another to families, another to seniors. It could become logical to move from one nation to another at different parts of your life, just as we move around our nations. Florida is a senior hot-spot now. In the future it could be Mexico, Spain, or Ecuador. The best internal system, as regards who gets to vote, etc., would be sorted out in the process.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Make a nation for me and I'll come a knockin, if only you let me in!

2004-10-25T04:33:00.000-07:00

Eugenics in Action

The Issue

We all think that the eugenics movement largely died around the second world war. In a specific sense it did. However, the underlying argument continues on in many fields of thought to this day. To see this we need only take a closer look at the mistake made in eugenics thinkers, and then look for that mistake in other places.

The Mistake

Eugenics, for the uninitiated, is the belief that we can further the human race by helping evolution along. In a population there are the weak and the strong, the fit and the unfit. Our population remains healthy due to "Survival of the Fittest". So, if we help natural selection favor the strong and weed the unfit then we make the human race stronger, which is good for everyone.

Eugenics therefore advises against anything which helps the weak. Social aid for the poor, the elderly, the disabled, or anyone in need is a bad idea, because it is helping the weak. They are in need for a reason. They are not as fit. We'd do a better service to humanity by speeding their death, not by limping them along. Sure, it sounds cold, but it's the entire species at risk! Modern medicine, technology, and sympathy allows weakness to persist that previously would have been eliminated. Therefore with our advances we are killing the race. This is the idea of Eugenics. Hitler took Eugenics to its logical conclusion by actively killing all of those who were thought to be unfit.

This theory made sense to many people, scientists included, around the world at the beginning of the 20th century. However, it became suspect after Hitler, and soon thereafter was discredited by a better understanding of evolution.

Before evolution people believed that a divine creator made all creatures fully formed right at the beginning (among other theories, but this was fairly generally held, and still is today by many, of course). Creatures are fixed and unchanging. Variation among a population of a given species was deviation from perfection. No one of those creatures is perfect. They are all inferior when compared to the "original" or "ideal" form. Grossly mistaken versions are clearly visible as the injured, debilitated, and otherwise sickly creatures. However, among the general population there are countless examples of inferiority, in different ways. All deviations from perfection are inferior.

Originally evolution theory adopted some of the same mistaken ideas from the creation worldview. It saw creatures as evolving better, but it still pictured there being an ideal form, but only at a given time. Right now, an ideal form is like this. This is the best that's evolved so far. This critter here is the best. He's fastest, strongest, smartest, best adapted, whatever. So, the ideal is changed from being a past ideal to a present ideal, with the possibility for better in the future. But, we still have the idea of a single creature being compared to an ideal. Is there a better critter out there now? Is this the best?

The problem, in a sense, is the failure to realize that no creature is an island. Every creature is simple a link in an unfathomably complex chain linking the past populations to the future. The best adapted are selected, but that's not the only thing happening. These creatures live in a dynamic, changing, and varied environment. The environment of a species' ancestors is not the same as the environment of today, or of that of tomorrow. And, the environment in one area is not exactly the same as another. Therefore the best creature of the same species may not be the best for another. Additionally, many traits (if not all) have advantages as well as disadvantages. Look at it this way. If "fitness" were a mathematical problem, there would be more than one answer. It's not a simple problem. It's complex. Additionally, getting back to the island analogy, a creature cannot carry the burden of carrying on the species by itself. A species is a population. Population genetics revolutionized evolution theory.

A population of creatures, although competing with each other in some ways, also depend on each other to perpetuate the species. If they fail to do this they will become extinct. This dependence need not be intentional, psychologically, for the creatures, but it is necessary. So, in order to judge fitness we really must judge the fitness of a population, not of an individual. And, as things change, and as environments vary, we don't know that a creature who is fittest in one corner of the environment at one time will be the fittest in another part of the environment later. So, more important than anything else is the ability for a species to survive change. This changes things. What if something the benefits of a trait become irrelevant in a changed environment, and the disadvantages become very much amplified? A once fit individual is now very much not fit. So, the way to maintain a species is to have variety. Difference, diversity, becomes the key. This is why you hear that inbreeding or a reduced population results in an unhealthy gene pool. If the gene pool is too small, there aren't enough variations to face the challenges of a changing environment. So, the species dies. This is fact, by the way, not theory. An insufficient gene pool kills.

So, while Eugenics seeks to help the population, it actually harms it, because it destroys the diversity of a population. It has the same effect as inbreeding. It results in a population much more at risk for extinction than otherwise. (I might point out that technological dependence also puts us at risk, because our livelihood depends on the reliability of the technology, but that's a separate topic.)

The Lesson

There is a bigger lesson we can learn here. Let's give a new name to the Eugenics argument. Let's call it the "Centralized" argument. We'll use this term because eugenics believes in having a single set of traits that would be best for all creatures. The modern evolutionary population theory we'll call "decentralized". That is because it believes in having many different sets of traits all over, competing in a changing environment, and doesn't recommend any set for the creatures. It realizes that things like that have to be allowed to work themselves out in order to function properly.

So, centralizing fails because the same solution doesn't work for all, because different individuals face different challenges, and because times change. Decentralization works because it allows for the necessary diversity to guarantee that a working solution exists no matter what may change. It realizes that the necessary solutions to a changing world won't be discovered if all the "solutions" are the same and are locked in. Many "solutions" need to be out there already in order to meet all of todays challenges and tomorrows.

If you look at the education system today (as well as any other centralized system) you see the same mistake in action. With the "No Child Left Behind Act" we move even closer to a fully centralized system, which is inflexible, closes out innovation and exploration, and locks us into a single "solution", leaving us blind to better ways, and open to disaster when the next change occurs, big or small. Centralization begins a countdown to disaster.

A Better Way

With regards to education, a better solution would have to allow as much diversity as possible. Although completely ridding ourselves of centralization might eventually result in some very awesome results, an interim step, which would allow for limited decentralization while still being politically feasible in today's political climate, is the voucher system. This is still somewhat centralized, but it allows for different solutions (albeit all based on the same price-bracket) to the problem of education. We should all be applauding vouchers, but the left is terrified of decentralization, despite their claim to like freedom and science. If they practiced what they preached they'd recognize the benefit. However, their misguided hatred of capitalism (which the also mistake as a free market) causes them to hate anything private. They also wish to force their agenda by taking over the children by controlling the education system. However, although true liberals are for freedom, this amounts to tyranny, and they need to take off their blinders and recognize that freedom is not the problem. This is not to let the right off the hook. They are at least as mistaken on many other issues and are far too closed to change to allow true innovation.

Opening up the system, embracing decentralized markets (which is all that creates the marvel of evolution and many other things) is the best method for solving all of the problems we face. Reckless change, however, can cause as much trouble as stagnation, so it is important to open things and decentralize things at a pace which doesn't break too many things at once. This should not be mistaken as an argument for limited decentralization or limited freedom. It is an argument for gradually opening and decentralizing, but the end is still the same.

2004-10-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

IRC on Mac OS X

The Quagmire

I tried every IRC program I could get my hands on just two weeks ago and found myself beating my head against a wall. Configuring them to actually connect was a nightmare. The one that I did manage to connect with was quirky and didn't work well.

The Solution

Well, never fear, RSS is here. On one of my subscriptions today was a story about the announcement of a the 2.0 version of a mac IRC client. It is called Conversation and it is a dream. It has an iChat feel to it and is by far the simplest, most elegant IRC program I've run across. It makes IRC usable to me. I have but 2 complaints.

When you try to open a connection to a new server or search for the channels it doesn't automatically fetch the list the first time. You have to push the little refresh button. It looks like the only option is to search, but that's not true. Once it fetches the list, the "search" field, it turns out, is an instant filter a la iTunes/Finder. But, it'll throw you for a second as you think there's nothing there.

There aren't enough good servers in the favorites list by default. Some IRC servers require an account and such and wouldn't work with the standard config with Conversation (although I suspect that if I went to the site, filled out a username, and then tried to log in it would work) so when you try to connect to them it doesn't work. It took me a little while to find one that worked (efnet is good). More built-ins would make things more accessible to the new user.

If you're interested in IRC, or use IRC, give this app a try. It's my IRC app of choice, and the only one to receive any sort of approval from me at all. I trashed all the others well before this one came along.

2004-10-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

On a Decentralized Economy

Before I begin

I must express my enthusiasm for the progress I'm finally making! I have been thinking and researching politics for some years now, and I haven't felt like I was finding the solution. Many systems are idealistic. Others depend on people being perfect or being the same, or getting along. Others aren't even an attempt at treating people justly/fairly/equally, etc. This decentralization thing (unlike the supposed decentralization of most "decentralized" governments, this free market of laws and governing bodies, is truly, honestly a fascinating idea. I, of course, cannot take credit for it. It is a synthesis of anarchist, libertarian, open-source, and probably other ideas that I have come across over time. Each has had parts that made sense, but each is corrupted by something and none would allow for freedom, or weren't expanded enough, to necessary to make a truly culturally accepting, people-ruled government. Yay, I'm so happy! Okay, on to economics...

To print money or not to print money...

I had my first bit of feedback today and it was definitely productive. Many things came up, and just talking about things with someone else gets the gears grinding in more productive ways. The concept of decentralization isn't entirely natural to us in this day and age and we are perpetually drawn to clumping things together in a centralized manner, without realizing it. My friend thought the idea of having a computer control things would be good. I wasn't seduced by centralizing yet (I have a head start as I've thought about this more). A computer may be a good idea, may not. It isn't necessary to mandate the use of a computer, however. Groups are free to do as they wish. If computer use becomes highly desirable than many groups will adopt it. Who would I be to proclaim such a thing. How would I know what will work for every group? I wouldn't. The question of group membership came up. Who would hold and manage that list? Again, there would be no master list. Each group would know its members and wouldn't need to know any others. This, of course, wouldn't be mandated either. There's no need to mandate how a group keeps roll. They wouldn't necessarily have to keep roll, for all I know. Some groups might be completely open and not keep any member lists at all, if they thought it was a good idea.

But, I didn't realize until 5 minutes ago, as I was reading a book about the IMF (bastards), that I was totally missing something when it came to the economy. The thought had come to me earlier that played off of the e-gold idea. In case you're not familiar, e-gold is a handy setup for exchange. It has a website and works with online transactions. There are actually a few other related services that work with e-gold, and if you're not familiar I recommend you become so, as it is very interesting. It works by transferring ownership of gold, but not its location. All the gold is held in a nice tight vault somewhere, and there is a set amount, although I do believe the e-gold folks do buy more from time to time. They actually have a whole variety of e-metals from e-silver to e-lkajdlfoiaud that I cannot pronounce. If I were to buy something from you I could pay you with e-gold. The nice folks in charge simply transfer ownership of the gold from me to you. You can now buy something else with it. It saves you and me the trouble of physically transferring the gold.

Well, I thought, why stop with metal? See, my helpful friend made a comment about cooperative companies being able to swap food for some other good, for example. Yeah, I thought, but there are reasons to get away from a barter system... it is slower, and what if I don't want eggs? How does the egg-man pay me? Does he really need to go trade with the butcher first and then bring me steak? Of course it wouldn't be like that, but it would be complicated and wouldn't lend itself to large, complicated markets. Nothing wrong with money.

Then my book on the IMF mentioned inflation. Inflation is, in case you didn't already know, just like splitting stocks, except that if companies did it the way the government did it they'd be in deep shit, because it fucks the shareholders. See, normally in a split you multiply the number of shares a shareholder has in relation to how many new shares are added. If you double the number of total shares, each shareholders shares "split" and he/she (damn the english language) now has two for every one he/she (DTEL) previously had. That way your total share of the company remains the same. That guarantees that you get your fare "share" of the return on the profit, which is the whole damned point. However, with inflation the government prints more money, thus making more "dollars" (for example) and thus making every other dollar less valuable. However, us "dollar-holders" don't get our share appropriately adjusted so as to have the same "worth" of dollars. That is why inflation sucks. It is in effect a tax. Didn't know that? Now you do. Don't argue the point, it's true. The justness of it can be argued (it's bull shit) but the truth is pretty clear. When we print up money it's called counterfeiting. When the fed does it, it's hardly talked about. They do much more than private counterfeiters do by a huge margin.

So, what does inflation have to do with e-metal and decentralized economics? Simple. I started thinking to myself, "Yeah, ya know, the trouble with money is that it can be twisted so. What happens if money is printed?" Then it finally clicked. Wait a second, who would be printing the money? Which group? Yes, every task is done by someone, and usually by some group. And, no group is bound by rules of any other group. So, a "money-making" group would only be as successful as it served the other groups' needs for a common currency. If they pulled nasty tricks then... then... Eureka! There would be more than one group doing currency! There could be any number of groups! Anything could be used! If one group tries to exploit its popularity and jack the other groups it would be abandoned in favor of other groups. Exchanging currency is never terribly hard. Would this system imply all of the other bull-shit associated with money-markets? Perhaps, but without governments attempting to leverage moneys to their advantage all the time by tweaking their various "controls', and with currencies made by people to meet their own needs, in as many flavors and varieties, and with as many policies as people needed, I highly doubt we'd have the level of bull-shit that we have nowadays.

If you're not finding this as absolutely great as me then either I'm up too late or you're not seeing the big picture. The magic is that this would be a large step towards guaranteeing that money wasn't abused, because money wouldn't be fixed. Money would be a commodity like everything else (as it fundamentally is now, except that it's so controlled and restricted by the governments. You can't buy stuff in america with euros...) and would be no more valuable than its demand. With the genius idea of e-commodities, we could have e-wheat and e-milk competing for our use. Would this avoid all money-related problems? Of course not. However, it would greatly reduce if not eliminate money manipulation problems.

It must be noted that this entire idea of e-commodities would only be a possible solution that a particular group use as a solution. Other groups would not be in any way required to do this. Some groups could, and probably would have an established currency, and others would mandate barter. However, good ideas when left to roam freely have a way of catching on and I have no doubt that great money solutions would present themselves.

2004-10-06T01:31:00.000-07:00

Bottom-up Works! -- A case study (With Link)

Just a quick blurb. In Oregon there's something called the RAINS system/network which is some sort of law-enforcement technology which was built entirely in the private sector from the bottom-up and is SO GOOD that it is gaining the recognition of national law enforcement folks.

DISCLAIMER

I am in no way endorsing law enforcement, crime prevention, or better tools for said. However, I am in support of bottom-up organization and like to point out its superiority.

2004-10-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

Bottom-up Works! -- A case study

DISCLAIMER

I am in no way endorsing law enforcement, crime prevention, or better tools for said. However, I am in support of bottom-up organization and like to point out its superiority.

2004-10-05T19:58:00.000-07:00

Schoolkids fighting with dead fish

I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream when watching these stupid political debates. They basically amount to a series of:

"Uh-huh"

"nuh-uh"

"uh-HUH

"nuh-UH"

ad infinitum

I have pondered the electoral college, the voting system, and ways of eliminating the two-party system before. One of the best reads I've seen so far on it was shown to me just the other day by a friend. It is a very thorough, mathematically sound analysis of the effects of voting systems on the political structure, and recommends a voting system which best represents undistorted views of the people. I am not thoroughly convinced that the electoral college needs to be abolished, simply because it obviously aids one side (democrats) more than the other. I prefer to find solutions that hurt them both equally or hurt neither, because I don't want to get involved in politics between those parties. Once the voting is reformed those parties will disintegrate anyway and THEN perhaps the electoral college can be removed. For now such an idea seems like it would simply distract away from the more important issue of the voting system. READ THIS because it is a very good idea.

2004-09-26T03:38:00.000-07:00

"My form of government, summary of beginning -- draft"

Introduction

I have looked and thought hard about government. I find it to be one of the most interesting aspects of our lives. A huge power exists. Many of us don't like it. However, we all are the source of its power. It's like a ouiji board gona horribly wrong. (I apologize to anyone who believes ouiji boards are the work of something besides all those involved in holding it...) I don't just study the american government. I study any government I can find info on. I'll be the first to admit, however, that that isn't a helluva lot of them. Regardless, I've looked at a few. I've read papers from communists, anarchists (anarcho-syndicalists, libertarian-socialists, libertarian communists, Green Anarchists, etc.), libertarians (see anrarchists and also the Libertarian Party...), and some from democrats and republicans here in the ol' U.S.

One of my main critiques of many different groups is that although it may be a solution for some people, it isn't inclusive enough to be a solution for everyone, or a majority, or anything. Take the Constitution Party as an example. If the members of that party had their way they would probably be happy, or at least happier. However, everyone else, which is most of us, wouldn't be all that pleased with their setup. There is no way in hell they're going to get anywhere.

The libertarian party in some ways has its head screwed on pretty straight. Now, all you anarchists and "left winger" don't get bent out of shape over that comment. The libertarians, you see, believe people should be left to organize themselves. They don't want to impose their thoughts and such onto anyone. The only place where they don't go far enough with that idea is with property rights. More specifically, the believe the government should enforce property rights. If you nixed that from their thoughts then you'd about be an anarchist, except for the tiny residual government, which still handles things like national defense, etc.

I must admit I'm not entirely certain if the complete absence of government is viable this day and age, because we must have something called a "Nation" that deals with international matters. Even if you desire a self-contained country (which not everyone's gonna want...) you still can't ignore the outside world. They'll come knocking. They'll want to travel through. Policy will need to be set, and if you just ignore the situation then undesirable things will happen. Others will take advantage of you. That said, must it be a government, per-se, and not just a committee, council, or something that really just relays info to other nations without any authority over the people? I see no obvious reasons why not, although there is the potential for devilish details. More later, however. I must press on for the moment.

In order to make a successful solution to this life we share (and that's what all these different government/organization/economic plans are: purported solutions to our situation of sharing this planet!) it should be a solution for everyone. Being a solution for everyone does not mean that everyone will initially favor this solution. No. It simply means that the solution does not exploit or abuse anyone, and leaves people with their proper freedom and choice in the matter. Any purported solution that removes the individuals choice in the matter is not a solution for which I stand. So, this is axiom number 1:

Everyone has choice in all things. They are free.

It may strike you that this is a very simple statement. I agree. It will become more elaborate as we progress.

In order to be a solution where everyone gets full freedom this system has to be a bottom-up system, because you cannot have complete freedom in a top-down system. So, our first choice in organization is made. This is a bottom up system.

What does that mean, a bottom-up system? Now, I'm sure most of us are familiar with the term. It means that things are organized from the masses. People self-organize as they wish and make groups voluntarily and the organization grows up. Top down is where a rich dude hires managers and they hire employees, pay them, and tell them what to do. In theory our government is bottom-up but in practice it really isn't. This brings us to the reason I just asked the question, "What does that mean, a bottom up system?" I mean something a little more precise than the usual system. Bottom up means individuals must choose to be a part of it, and that all higher levels (in the hierarchical sense) are simply self-organized and voluntary units created by a lower level with no more power over anyone than anyone allows it to have. As opposed to a system where lower levels inherit the rules passed down by higher levels (in the objective programming sense), higher levels are really subsets of lower levels formed for a more specific task than whatever is shared by the members of the lower level. Let's use a worker-owned grocery store as an example.

At the bottom level is everyone who works at the grocery store. They all have become employees there through a system they devised. Perhaps some people decided they'd like a store, spread the word, and found quite a few people who'd like to work together. They then wrote up a proposal where everyone pitched in a certain amount of money to get the store started and then they split the profits. They could write up whatever system they want. The point is they all agreed to it.

Now different employees have specialized on different parts of the store. Some people work the deli, some the registers, some stocking, some purchasing, etc. This they decided upon and actively manage together. These different departments have different needs. All the employees share some concerns, but they don't all share deli concerns. So the deli workers self-create a deli organization which handles deli concerns. So deli workers belong to both the store group and the deli group. The deli group is a subset of the store group, and is a second tier of organization but it in no way bosses the store group around. It is a subset. It only relates to deli folks. The deli group might work out how they want to rotate meat so it doesn't spoil, where to store tools, the best way to clean, etc. So, opposed to a normal top-down system where the higher the organizational level the less particular it is to your needs, in this sort of bottom up system the higher up it is the more particular it is to your needs. And as should be clear, there are many many different branches of levels. This is not a pyramid setup, it is a tree. The most common interests are the trunk and the particulars are leaves, with varying levels of limbs, branches, and twigs in-between.

Obviously, people wouldn't only belong to one "leaf" either. Oh no. People could belong to many many leaves. And people would only belong to those groups that they wished to belong to. They could quit any group at any time.

Now let's look at the groups that might exist for more typically "governmental" functions. Let's look at laws. Let's look at crime. How can we possibly regulate crime through such a setup?

Well, we'd have groups. You could have a group of people that all agreed not to kill each other, and if anyone broke that promise they gave permission to the group to carry out a pre-arranged punishment. For example, if you kill you agree to be killed or exiled to X island where many many groups sent criminals. You'd never be welcome back in this land again, and if you did come back you would be killed. This is of course just an example. Another group could force you to go to therapy or simply kill you, or lock you up. I simply substituted a system I'd prefer (exile) with a nice harsh one so people could see the range of options. Obviously no-one could quit the group between the time they killed someone and were punished. Groups would, logically, have to have more thorough agreements. Now, since many members of this group (the non-homicidal group) would not really want to be wandering around town with people who wouldn't agree to becoming members of this group, it would be a group likely to be geographically based. This group might find itself its own town to live in and thus protect itself from the savages outside.

Fortunately for the non-homicidal ones, this group would likely be pretty damned big. So, they probably would have a fairly large membership. You'd likely end up with whole countries of people all agreeing to that simply rule. In fact, there'd be quite a few rules people would all agree to. The only catching points for most of them would probably be the aforementioned punishments. However, people would be in a situation where disagreeing for a petty reason (I want 19 years for murder, not 20) will be naturally discouraged. Likewise, people will find good ways of agreeing to these rules. You wouldn't want to have everyone who's interested in such a rule crowd into a big stadium and scream out their ideas. No. Small groups of like-minded people would get together and write up proposals and then submit them to others. Ideas would be revised, submitted, and the groups would grow if they caught on. It would be the free market of laws.

If you're tech savvy you may know what this little setup resembles. Yes, it resembles the way the open-source software movement works. The open-source movement is an excellent example of a community of self-organizing communities doing amazing things. dozens of groups will tackle the same problem. Pretty soon the interest of working together will lead to a standard. Alterations can still exist, and there is no limit to that number. If you disagree with the way something works you branch off, switch projects, or make your own. Simple.

These laws would grow into law-plexes. Much as software combines into distros or complicated multi-featured programs, common, similar, or simply widely held laws would grow. You could have the ACLU's law-plex. There would also be the religious right law-plex. Each would be different, and would list all of the laws it contained (and probably a version #). Someone could write their own laws, accept laws written by others on an individual base, accept law-plexes containing laws that he/she agrees with, using the law-plex as a time-saver, or take the law-plex on reputation and good name of the provider, not fussing over the details unless they become a problem, or only looking at the parts he/she expects to have trouble with. Now, one wouldn't want to be too reckless with their acceptance of laws, but this system of agreeing to laws would be completely free. It could be customized and improved upon in countless ways. Standard formats could be made just for laws to be written in, which summarized maximum penalties you were agreeing to, maximum finds, maximum restrictions, maximum taxes, whatever. There is no limit to the tools which could be made to help one find the perfect solution.

And, just as their are law-plexes there could be group-plexes. Really the two may be indistinguishable. The laws are simply very simple versions of groups. So, what seemed initially to be a very complex process of choosing laws and groups would become much simpler. In fact, all of the governments we have today could be placed into this system as an abstracted layer. All of the laws that the U.S. has could become a U.S. law-plex which people could sign up for. (Why you'd want to sign up for such a convoluted, compromise-based and corrupt law-plex is beyond me. The point is, however, that this is a very versatile system.) You could have the U.S., Canada, U.S.S.R., China, Japan, Botswana, all coexisting within this framework. Now, due to their law-plexes there would still be imposed limitations on the members of these groups and their interections with each other. The point is merely that anything is possible.

The only apparent complexity to this system is that certain things are more geographically based than others. We already touched upon that with the anti-homicide law earlier. Those people would want to avoid people who, for whatever reason, didn't want to agree to not kill their fellow humans. If a member of the "I won't kill my group-members" and a non-member meet, there is no law banning either from killing the either. It's fair game. That's a scary thought, and would be a strong motivating factor in people making compatible laws. But, in theory it could happen. So, widely divergent groups might want to avoid each other and not allow travel through their territory.

Territory is a complicated issue. What happens when people in the same territory don't want to have the same laws, but the laws are of the sort that imply isolation? Well, first off let's notice that we all live in areas nowadays where things aren't so bad that we have to leave. We live in a situation where we may win on our issues one year, lose the next. It is perpetual compromise. So, worste case scenario is that we could be forced to compromise if the benefits of living near each other outweigh the costs of relocation, etc. However, any law that didn't need to apply to everyone in an area wouldn't have to. And, any possible compromise could be worked out by those involved, instead of everyone having to suffer under the decision of either a council, a bureaucrat, or an uninformed tyranny of the majoriy. No, people would be free to make their own solutions and to make it work with whoever is willing to work with them. Solutions work to the benefit of everyone involved, so there a natural incentive for cooperation. Non-cooperation is naturally discouraged because it breeds hassle. And, if non-cooperation is necessary then non-cooperation is necessary and people can wall themselves off and live with it.

The beauty of this system, if you ask me, is that not only does it work with all governments, it really works with all cultures. This can scale all the way form industrialized america to the mbutu pygmies in africa. They would likely have a completely different set of laws, maybe none but social norms for amongst themselves and only laws for interacting with the outside world if necessary. Anything goes unless you've promised to do things a certain way. Will people always obey their promises? Certainly not. However, they'll likely obey them more than they do now where they don't get a choice in the matter.

I am going to leave this essay at this for now and await critique by others for the rest. I know I've left plenty out, but this is enough to get responses and discover the best course for expansion through peer review. Bon Soir mes amis (damn it, is ames ames or amis? oh well...)

2004-09-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

"Americans have too much personal freedom" -- Clinton

This is a scary quote I ran across just today. I think it speaks for itself.

From: bd474@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill McDonald)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Clinton: "Americans Have Too Much Freedom"
Date: 21 Apr 1994 15:30:02 GMT

Last night on MTV's "Enough is Enough" (a program dealing with
crime and violence in America), a student from George Washington
University asked our president about Singapore's system of
government, noting that the Singaporian system does not base itself
on the strong belief in individual civil rights as ours does. The
questioner observed that Singapore and countries like it boast
extraordinarily low crime rates. He asked "How do you account for that?
Is our system outdated? Does it need to be changed?"

THE PRESIDENT: Yes -- the young man, Michael Fay, in
Singapore. As you know, I have spoken out against his punishment for
two reasons. One is, it's not entirely clear that his confession
wasn't coerced from him. The second is that if he just were to serve
four months in prison for what he did, that would be quite severe,
but the caning may leave permanent scars, and some people who are
caned, in the way they're caned, they go into shock. I mean, it's
much more serious than it sounds. So, on the one hand, I don't
approve of this punishment, particularly in this case.

Now, having said that, a lot of the Asian societies that
are doing very well now have low crime rates and high economic growth
rates, partly because they have very coherent societies with strong
units where the unit is more important than the individual, whether
it's the family unit or the work unit or the community unit.

My own view is that you can go to the extreme in either
direction. And when we got organized as a country and we wrote a
fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a
radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed
that the Americans who had that freedom would used it responsibly.
That is, when we set up this country, abuse of people by government
was a big problem. So if you read the Constitution, it's rooted in
the desire to limit the ability of government's ability to mess with
you, because that was a huge problem. It can still be a huge
problem. But it assumed that people would basically be raised in
coherent families, in coherent communities, and they would work for
the common good, as well as for the individual welfare.

What's happened in America today is, too many people
live in areas where there's no family structure, no community
structure, and no work structure. And so there's a lot of
irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much
personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to
move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last
weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have
weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer
in their communities. So that's my answer to you. We can have --the
more personal freedom a society has, the more personal
responsibility a society needs, and the more strength you need out of
your institutions -- family, community and work.

====

Right, TOO MUCH personal freedom. Thank you daddy Bill, we need your guidance and protection to show us what we can and cannot do. Sheesh, at first when I read this I assumed the president being quoted was Bush (Although it was a it too eloquent for that...) but no, it's Clinton!

2004-09-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Using MacJournal for Blog Publishing

Just a quick blurb here, for any other mac bloggers out there, MacJournal is a fairly well-built program which handles your blogging needs and also any personal journals. It isn't explicitly designed for blogging, but supports uploading entries to livejournal or blogger-type blogs. Plus, it's free! Worth a shot.

2004-09-10T02:04:00.000-07:00

Update

Well, I haven't done anything on my research for awhile, largely because I've been away from my computer. I was with a friend in washington, where my computer was staying, when I started my blog, but I then went "home" and now, finally, I have my own place again!
So, now I should be up and blogging again, and I even have expansion plans. I know, it's not too hard to expand beyond what I currently have, so that means expansion is good. I'm looking forward to it! Oh, and I need a job, so if you have work, drop me a line :O

2004-09-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

UpdateWell, I haven't done anything on my research for awhile, largely because I've been away from my computer. I was with a friend in washington, where my computer was staying, when I started my blog, but I then went "home" and now, finally, I have my own place again!
So, now I should be up and blogging again, and I even have expansion plans. I know, it's not too hard to expand beyond what I currently have, so that means expansion is good. I'm looking forward to it! Oh, and I need a job, so if you have work, drop me a line :O

Well, doesn't this just make you feel safe?

2004-05-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

Heard of the Matrix? No, not THAT Matrix. This is the Multistate Anti-TeRroism Information Exchange. What can it do? Well, for one thing it has all of our drivers license info and pictures. (A good terrorist certainly wouldn't drive without a license. That's, that's, illegal!)Peruse this a little. So far it's just an experimental project and only includes a few states. Give it time.

Iraq: Taming the Wild, Wild, Middle East

2004-05-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I heard one of Bush's speaches. In it he mentioned how it was americas duty to give the whole world freedom. After a little digging I found a transcript of a speech containing words along these lines. I'm not sure that it was the speech I heard him give, but it seems he's been using these words a lot. Here is an excerpt from the speech.

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. (Applause.)

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)

The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind. (Applause.)

Working for the spread of freedom can be hard. Yet, America has accomplished hard tasks before. Our nation is strong; we're strong of heart. And we're not alone. Freedom is finding allies in every country; freedom finds allies in every culture. And as we meet the terror and violence of the world, we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom. -- Whitehouse.gov
(Emphasis mine)

The first thing that struck out was Bush not limiting his discussion to the Middle East, but including the whole world.

we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.

So, are we gonna go on a mission to oust every nation we deem "unfree"? Call me paranoid, but this sounds like a nice justification for world conquest. Sure, we wouldn't be taking on the western nation, at least not anytime soon, but for the unstable and unfree third world and communist nations, sure, they'd be the first places to conquer in the name of freedom. I'm sure they'd feel real free once we'd forced them to follow western ways and killed all the "insurgents" who opposed our will.

The next thing that came to my mind was the old phrase "Manifest Destiny". To refresh your memory, "Manifest Destiny" was a term invented in 1845 to explain and justify the western expansion of the U.S. against all who would oppose it, including indigenous people, and other nation's claims such as Mexico.

Manifest Destiny -- a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States -- revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans.

The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of non-European origin. -- pbs.org

You know, that matches up pretty well with what Bush is saying now. This time around, however, our "Manifest Destiny" is to spread the "boundary of freedom" to the entire world, and those incapable of self-government are the radical, militant islamics who don't want us to conquer their country. If someone doesn't want us to rule their country they obviously don't want freedom because we are the home of freedom and we spread freedom. So, if you're against us, you're against freedom, and you're oppressing your people (regardless of whether you ARE the people or not!).

So, will the islamic arabs of the middle east go the way of the Native Americans, trampled underfoot of the U.S. military, one tribe at a time? You tell me. Will our descendants look back at us and wonder how we could be so cold and complacent in yet another conquest of indigenous people for our own interest? That is up to history to decide.

Gay Marriage

2004-05-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

This, I believe, will be my first opinion piece that isn't just a rehash. Goody. Anyway, I find it peculiar that such a stink comes about gay marriage, but the obvious source of the trouble is so rarely discussed. I have seen it properly described on an internet message board once, but that was it.

What we have is an institution, marriage, that was originally religious. It became so ubiquitous in our western culture that it also was recognized by the state in ways such as tax benefits, survivor benefits, inheritance, and other legal things. Then the government became the "legal" source of marriage. We all know the line "and now by the power vested in me by [insert government] I pronounce you man and wife". Well, some churches agree with gay marriage, and some do not. As marriage now has two elements, the original being religious, the other legal, we have conflict. Some churches want to allow marriages, but CAN'T because it's come under the jurisdiction of the government. Other churches are against the idea and don't want the state cheapening their sacred institution by granting it to a blasphemous, unnatural union (in their view).

The problem is that by concentrating the power to grant marriage in the state, religion loses the ability to make calls on what was its own decision in the first place.

The logical solution is to get the government out of the business of defining religious institutions. The government can continue to grant some sort of legal classification for inheritance, tax, and other purposes. This institution shouldn't be restricted to anyone. These could be "Civil Unions". "Marriage" would be granted by a church. Any church. It would have no legal repurcussions. It would be treated like all other religious rituals such as baptism and communion. People would be married for religious reasons, to make a public declaration of their intent to be united before God, or whatever importance they hold for it. Some would just do it because it's "What you do" like so many people do now. Fine.

Churches approving of gay marriage would perform marriages to gay couples. The disapproving churches could frown and moan in disgust, as they do at homosexuality in general, but their institution wouldn't be corrupted, because they wouldn't see those marriages as legitimate, just as they don't see homosexual love as legitimate, but they don't see it as corrupting their love.

Homosexuals don't want licenses from disapproving churches, either. They won't be banging down the doors of disapproving churches to get them to perform marriages. No, they'll get married at their church.

Any remedy to the situation besides dividing the legal and religious/social elements of marriage will result in more trouble. How long will it be, if gay marriages are simply declared okay, before churches will HAVE to issue marriage "licenses" or face discrimination charges? That is ridiculous. We can't expect everyone to agree, and we can't have the state determining church doctrine. The only reasonable solution is to get the state out of the morality business.

Nick Berg

2004-05-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

The execution of Nick Berg is tragic. I found it odd when I first heard about it, and my first thought was, "I wonder what the whole story is...". The guy is randomly picked up, but he was also detained by the military? He's over there on his own volunteering? My first thought was that perhaps he's CIA or some other intel officer. No evidence to support that has emerged, however. Is he involved with terrorists? Who knows. There are claims to that effect, but they're weak at best. However, his father and his suspected link were targeted by a website as a result of their signing an anti-war petition. Was he targeted for his father and associate? Who knows.

Then there's the timing. The timing couldn't be better, for the Bush Administration.

I read about the claims that the video is fake. Is it? I watched it, and must say I never, ever want to watch it again. It is certainly possible that it's fake. It wouldn't even have been hard to fake with the lousy quality. That, however, doesn't mean that it is fake. I also did find that the hands of the Terrorists looked awful white, and the one on the right was standing at parade rest, just like a good US Soldier. He even rocked forward and back from ball to heel just like everyone in the military has learned to do. And yes, they look awful stout, compared to most of the pictures of "insugents" in the strees. Fake? I dunno.

Then there's the comments about how the film was shot after the body was found. Now that would be weird, now wouldn't it. Nothing is clear, but should we really expect it to be? These are my thoughts on the matter.

Iraqi Civilian Casualties and a Soldier's Trauma

2004-05-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

A former marine who has been recently discharged, honorably, conducts this interview about his experiences in the initial invasion of Iraq and why he decided he didn't want anything to do with it.

Illuminating Presidential quotes

2004-05-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

This article contains many fascinating quotes. For example:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, in a final sense, [is] a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
– Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

A GOOD Lawyer? Impossible!

2004-05-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

This lawyer stands up for justice and fights for right, not what's legal. My kind of guy. These articles are worth reading.

Many Links to 911 articles

2004-04-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternativeculture.com/news/altnews.htm

This is what I'm afraid of...

2004-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Is it all a lie? I found it all convenient the first time around, and now more and more people are bringing it up, too. This story does a good job of summing it all up.

An Introduction

2004-04-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

What is the truth? What is the best role of government for this ever-changing world? The questions and topics that I raise in this here blog all tie in to government in some way or another. The purpose of the blog is to track my thinking on the subject as well as interesting finds, etc. However, first it is necessary to bring all of you readers up to speed on where I am already.
As I've said, I am interested only in things relating to government. This includes such mundane things as my position on homosexual marriage, abortion, the death penalty, and gun control as well as foreign policy, human and civil rights, propaganda, movements, and revolution. I may talk about anything from right wing to left wing to libertarian to anarchist to fascist (which is either left wing or right wing, depending on who you ask, and neither if you ask the libertarians...). As such I intend to outline the main challenges in this pursuit of mine, the pursuit to discover what really should be done, and pointoutt why I believe what I believe on those issues that I've made my mind up on.
First off, who can we trust? There are more political, special interest, and other interest groups out there than you'll ever have time to study. You can find a group devoted to pretty much anything. If you think you have a new idea, just start runting around online and you'll likely find something similar already exists. I learned that recently with the egalitarian-libertarians and the geo-libertarians. Many groups that we think we know something about have been largely slandered and are not what we suspect, as I learned in researching anarchists through the synonym social libertarians. If you haven't picked it up yet, yes, I have a fair amount of interest in libertarians, but not the standard American political party brew. That party has been heavily criticized for pandering to corporate interests and traditional notions of property rights. Many criticisms seem reasonable to me, although the Libertarians may have a few economics lessons to teach us all, nonetheless. The thing that I notice, however, is that with enough digging I can find lies and exaggerations from most groups. A topic near and dear to me is gun control. Gun control advocates (or "anti-gunners" as the NRA calls them. Opposing groups rarely use the same terms.) fight vehemently to rid our streets of guns for the safety of us all, or so they claim. They spout out statistics that gun violence is higher wherever guns are plentiful and legal, but with greater regulation, gun violence decreases. Second Amendment advocates claim that concealed carry permits reduce violent crime. After a little digging it seemed to me that neither group ever quoted the same measure. One used "gun violence" the other "violent crime", or "armed assault", or "rape". I couldn't actually find a situation where they gave the same statistic with different results. They simply were pointing out different numbers. Of course they do pick apart each other's studies, but the point is that largely this all about which measure you choose to look at. So that there's no questions, I'll admit right now that I agree heavily with the Second Amendment crowd, and my reasons don't have anything to do with crime statistics. My reason for bringing this up, however, is because I have seen gun control advocates lie and twist things about, I've read papers from them where they outline their plans to incrimentally ban all weapons, and I have lost all trust in what they say. (Don't take this to mean I do trust anyone else. I'll get to that.) All their words aim towards their goal. It matters not whether what they say is true. I worked or a PIRG group for awhile and witnessed first hand the willingness to lie and distort for the cause. This is perceived by the members as being done out of necessity. Also, our leaders in the group refused to admit that things were lies even though all of us worker bees knew full well that they were.This of course just an example of the age old debate over whether or not the ends justify the means. Many believe that they do. In fact, I believe that both of the "big two" parties operate on that principle. Many of you likely agree with me already on that point, but if any of you don't, well, just stay tuned. I'm sure I'll post enough stuff that eventually you'll find something that proves it to you. So, in the end, I don't believe that anything that is easily heard in this country from politicians is free of propaganda of one sort or another.
So, basically, I don't even watch the news much anymore. I seek information elsewhere. Can the smaller groups be trusted? Sadly, in a word, no. That isn't to say that none of them are trustworthy, but experience guides me to first assume lies, and only begin to believe after enough testing. How can I tell if a group is telling the truth? Well, that is in some ways easier than you might imagine. I follow a fairly simple strategy that I call "triangulation". Triangulation is the practice of taking multiple measurements of a location from different locations and using the different measurements to reach a precise measurement. (In a very simplistic, non-technical, incomplete, and somewhat inaccurate nutshell.) My method reminds me of triangulation. I begin reading the views and tenats of a group. I steep myself in their lore until, after reading from a few different sources, from that group, I know all the basics. I read from multiple sources in that group so that I get an understanding of the basic ideas shared by the group, the variety within the group, the amount of infighting, etc. Then I find other groups that I know or suspect this initial group disagrees with and I begin reading their views and tenats, and their critiques of my initial group, if they exist. I look particularly for discussions of things near and dear to the initial group, but sometimes what's more useful are things that are tangential to both groups. That is because if an issue is not terribly important to either group, it is less likely to be slanted. The most central issues tend to get the most muddied. Anyway, I look at a few different groups and they all describe an issue the same way, as contributing the same benefits or problems, then I feel I have a good idea of how it actually is. However, if everyone disagrees about how it works then I need to dig deeper. Economics is full of differences. One groups thinks value comes from the market, one from invested labor. One group thinks that markets can be trusted and work best when left alone. Trouble arises when governments interfere and favor certain sectors. Others disagree and claim that government regulation is necessary to prevent exploitation. Which is true? Not sure.
Another thing that I pay attention to is the reasonableness of the arguments that a group puts forward. If they tend to use mud-slinging tactics, attacks, and other bad argument techniques then I am less likely to believe them, and it throws them into suspect.
I've considered myself open minded for a long time. However, recently I've become way open minded. I'm nearly, but not quite, as open-minded as good old Fox Mulder. This is because of some eye-opening events, which I won't go into right now, and research, which is the topic of this blog.
Another topic I wish to introduce here is the guiding questions of this blog. I am starting from a position of distrust. I don't trust information sources unless they've been tested. Once tested through triangulation you still can't be certain of them, but I can at least get rid of a certain amount of error. Then, before I really accept it I'll have to do more research, which I can't begin to outline. However, I don't simply wish to be a research agent. I wish also to act. Talk is great, but it doesn't get anything done. Actions are necessary. But how can I act without knowing what to do? Where is the true problem? Doing the wrong thing can cause more harm than good.
My solution to that quandry is simply instinct and caution. I will not do things that seem too potentially damaging. I will seek doing things that seem obviously right, whether or not their the most helpful thing and regardless of whether they're actually the root. Until I find the root, I can at least patch up the symptoms a little. So, certain things are out of the question including: propaganda, militant or revolutionary acts, participating in work for the government, aiding militants or revolutionaries achieve militant or revolutionary acts, aiding the government. Certain acts are obviously acceptable including: humanitarian aid, free speech advocacy, human rights advocacy, accountability in government, uncovering lies/propaganda, cleaning up the environment. These are just examples, of course, but I think they roughly demonstrate what I mean.
Thank you for reading, and I apologize for the haphazard organization. My research is just beginning and the randomness of my posts and writings is a reflection of the chaos in my life and, more so, the chaos in this early research. I hope for it to improve with time.

Late-night thoughts

2004-04-12T00:13:00.000-07:00

There is so much information out there. There are so many conflicting reports, views, analyses; it's never-ending. How can I figure out where the truth lies? As a good friend of mine has recently realized, you can't PROVE anything. This is true. And, this is true not only in the argumentatively sense, in that we often can't prove something to someone else (usually because we don't like to listen...), but also in the sense that if we're honest with ourselves we realize we're never FULLY convinced of anything ourselves. The best we can hope for is pretty sure.
I suppose I'd be better with that if it weren't for the fact that the stakes are so high. So what? Do I just give up and enjoy life? Sorry, there is too much blatant misery for me to do that. I want to help. But then the endless questions and arguments begin: The problem is caused by this, no that. That solution just exacerbates the problem; this is the root of the problem. People are imperfect and things are as good as they can possibly be. (No, I don't actually consider THAT one.) What's a guy to do?
Well, maybe by leaving a trail of my research I can help spark interest or lead other people to answers they seek. Heck, maybe I'll get really lucky and someone with some answers will find me as a result. Either way, it's nice to feel like I'm making progress, even if it's only in the form of a blog. Until next time.

2004-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

In an interesting story we learn that the FBI may have been a bit hasty in naming the terrorists who committed the attack on the the WTC. You won't hear this story on tv.

2004-04-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting read on the conspiracy front. Now, if you're like me, you realize that all that "conspiracy" stuff is not so fanciful afterall. In fact, it's inevitable. Here's a jumping point for some recent questionable circumstances...

2004-04-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Wow, my first real blog. It's so easy to use! I think I'll put this to good use. Stay tuned for lots of interesting thoughts, news links, and whatever cool stuff I turn up. I hope to challenge and interest, as well as surprise with little know atrocities and such. TTYL.

Me