Politics in a nutshell

Immigration: The US should abandon the quota system, and instead accept anyone who is literate (in english or their native language), speaks at least 200 words of english, and free of a felony conviction. The last item can be overlooked in the case of political prisoners or if the crime is not a felony in the US. The US immigration service should be scrapped and remade, and much of it should be turned over to several private companies that will compete with each other.
Greater immigration will help alleviate the social security crises, because immigrants will bolster the workforce and help correct US demographics, which are the cause of the impending crises. The immigration service is horribly inefficient and often insulting; it should help immigrants become Americans, not degrade them while they struggle through the process.

Social Security: my immigration plan solves a significant portion of the social security issue, but it will prove unsuitable for the extreme-long-run of 55+ years. The retirement age should be raised to 72 by the year 2009, and to 75 by 2015. It may be raised to 80 in 2020 or 2025, but that depends on longevity, the medical system, and the ability of the US economy to employ so many elderly. Social security tax should be lowered, and half of it should be converted into private savings. Currently, the company and employee pay equally into social security. In the new system, the employer and employee should still pay equally into the private account, but the employee can add personal contributions, which the government will match 50% of until the government adds $1000 per year. For example, company and employee each pay $2000 total into social security; $1000 to the government plan and $1000 into the private plan. Employee decides to add an extra $1000 of his personal money into his private plan, and so government will also add $500 into that same plan. But, if the man puts an additional $4000 into his private plan, the government will only add $1000, because it has reached its contribution limit. This limit is in place to prevent the excessively rich from draining government, but should be set high enough to encourage citizens to want to save some money.

Welfare and similar systems: state lotteries should be curtailed. A good way to do this is to place a $2 million limit on 'jackpot' winnings. This should reduce the irrational drive to buy lottery tickets, which proved to be a slightly better retirement plan than Enron stock. Also, expand overtime pay and benefits for those who work but do not currently qualify. And, here's an idea to ponder: government-funded job training, optional for the unemployed, those living near or below the poverty level, and those earning close to minimum wage. Raise minimum wage to $6.50 an hour by the first quarter of 2006, then to $8 per hour by the end of 2008.

School system: vouchers and free, optional after-school and summer classes for those who want to learn more or with nothing else to do. I took a college class in javascript after freshman year in such a free, optional program, and I see no reason that others cannot do similar. I jovially recommend such opportunities for those who are interested, a similar looking program can be found here. Those are not remedial classes, they count for college credit and extremely worthwhile. Evolution should be taught in all public schools, and creationism/intelligent design can be an elective if the school provides it. Ever wonder why liberals are often opposed to local control of schools? Some localities will turn school into a 24/7 Praise God orgy if they have the chance.
Additionally, give parents a small tax deduction if their children do well in school; maybe up to $500. This can count as a rebate if the parents do not pay $500 or more in tax. With any luck, the problem of parents taking no interest in their children's education should be solved.


Consider the major issues of this year nutshelled.

Chess Nazi goes to Iceland

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Well, not nazi exactly, just anti-semetic.

New Icelandic citizen Bobby Fischer is volatile, uncompromising and defiantly eccentric. He should fit right in.

Tiny, wind-lashed Iceland has long drawn artists, loners and dreamers attracted by its remoteness, empty spaces and otherworldly, lava-strewn landscape - the very conditions that kept most migrants away and helped forge the proud, independent Icelandic character.

"What was it Buzz Aldrin said about the moon? 'Magnificent desolation' - that's Iceland," said Jose Tirado, a U.S.-born Buddhist priest who has lived near Reykjavik for four years. "Iceland affords the natural inspiration to spend as much time as you like in your head, formulating ideas."

As a result, he said, "Everybody here has a guitar or a poem, some artwork or a play."

Chess icon Fischer, who spent nine months in Japanese detention fighting extradition to the United States, was granted citizenship last week by the country that was the site of his greatest triumph - a 1972 world championship victory in Reykjavik over Cold War rival Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

Chicago-born, Brooklyn-bred Fischer, wanted in the United States for playing a 1992 rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions, arrived in Iceland on Thursday. The next day, he told journalists: "I was crazy to leave."

He may be right. If any country is willing to overlook Fischer's erratic behavior and often extreme pronouncements, it's Iceland.
...
Large-scale immigration is a relatively new phenomenon for a country where almost everyone is descended from 9th-century Viking settlers.

The number of foreign-born residents has doubled in the past decade, but is still only 10,000 people, just more than 3 percent of the population. There are Portuguese construction workers building a major dam in the east of the country, Poles working in northern fish factories and Thai cleaners in Reykjavik's hotels, as well as a smattering of young Europeans and North Americans attracted by the country's coziness, strong social safety net and high standard of living.

"It was clean, peaceful, isolated - just what I wanted," said Paul F. Nikolov, an American journalist who moved here six years ago. "Not at all like Baltimore."
...
The bill granting Fischer citizenship passed through Iceland's parliament in just 12 minutes. But for most others, it's not easy to become an Icelander.

Those who get a residence permit - usually conditional on a job offer - must wait seven years before they can apply for citizenship, a process that involves multiple forms, character references and often extensive medical tests.

The article is more about Iceland than Fischer, and perhaps rightfully so. It is exactly right about Icelandic culture; very isolated, and more cerebral and old-fashioned (for lack of better term) than most in most western countries. In many respects, the nation is incredible. For example, it has a 2.46% unemployment rate, the second lowest in Europe (just behind Liechtenstein), and is has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, due in large part to a low tax rate which is actually approaching a flat tax. It also tied for 1st place in the 2002 Reporters Without Borders media freedom index. Until the 70's, Iceland had only one television station, and it stopped all broadcasting for several months of the year. Thursdays were television-free until the late 70's.
The Icelandic language is also a pain in the ass, in large part because the few people of Iceland were just about isolated from the 9th century until the 20th century. With so few people, spoken language had little ability to develop in the way that larger languages did. Literature has a different history, but I don't know it as well.
Iceland is producing some surprisingly good computer games. A notable one is Eve Online, which you can get a free one-week subscription of, but you probably have to give credit card information for. After that week, it's about $14 per month. The game has a monthly charge because it's entirely online, and both bandwidth and servers cost money, and the programmers constantly improve it. The music, in my opinion, sucks, but that can be replaced with any other music you have on your computer. Graphics are beautiful, and the company finally got the plotline right: just give the players a way to develop it, or ignore it, if they wish.
Never tell an Icelander that their music is horrible, because they simply don't seem to understand that their music could not sound good. Icelanders may also be justified in any environmentalist positions, even some rather extreme ones, given that they don't really have much pristine environment of their own. After all, most of their island was formed by volcanic eruptions, and magma doesn't support much plant life.

Now, about Bobby Fischer. One of the best chess players to ever live, no question. Incredibly energetic, original, and brilliant on the chess board. He developed Fischer Random Chess, in which the pieces (king, queen, bishop, knight, and rook) are arranged randomly, in protest of the predictable opening moves of most chess games (you can find volumes on chess opening theory) and in favor of originality. Fischer is notoriously hard to find – few, if any, reporters have been able to track him down in the last decade – and has a short temper. In one Japanese chess club that Fischer visited, he saw a painting of one of his games, and offered to sign it. He was furious when the painting was replaced by a Harry Potter poster. He has done several interviews on Icelandic and Japanese radio, as well as in a few other countries. He has his own website, but I won't link to it, because it destroys the image of a chess genius. I really wish that guy would see a psychologist and get a few pills, as he seems to be very paranoid. He'd also need something to forget large swaths of his past, which are less-than-enviable. If Fischer were nice to people, he would be far better off and not be put in jail for months at a time. When he was wrongly arrested for a bank robbery, he was held for several months, and charged with destruction of a mattress. I believe I am right to guess that he was held for months in response to his horrid behavior.

Well, Iceland, enjoy your newfound crazy, and I hope he doesn't destroy your culture of tolerance and freedom. If anyone wants to start a Medicate Bobby Fischer fund, I'll be overjoyed to link and try to get my parents to donate a bit – I don't have the credit cards.

Universal legal jargon to avoid FEC fury

Copy and paste to your blog as needed:

End User License Agreement: I, a visitor of this website (hereby known as "blog") acknowledge that this blog, in compliance with FEC regulations, is not (a) open to the public, and (b) does not support any candidate and/or his/her affiliated party, political belief(s), religion, or ideology. Further, I acknowledge that this blog has received no support, financial or otherwise, from any politician, political candidate and/or his campaign, Political Action Committee, Non-Governmental Organization, 501(C)3, political party, or any other form of organization required to report to the Federal Election Commission.
I further acknowledge that I am not a member of the general public and that this blog is not a form of communication, and thus said blog is not subject to the limitations on "public communication" (Thick Stack Of Papers That Ellen Weintraub Spilled Breakfast And Coffee On, page 27, just below the maple syrup stain). Anyone whom I email any document, post, image, or thought originating from this blog is not legally a person, and thus is not counted in FEC regulations which limit transmission of the same, or substantively similar, document(s) to 500 or more individuals within a 30-day period (Papers Used By Ellen Weintraub To Clean The Aforementioned Spill Of Coffee And Breakfast, page 9, two lines under the Scotch Tape that repaired said document). Futhermore, I acknowledge that I am neither a person nor an individual and thus excluded from the allotted 500 individuals who can view this website, which I provided a password to enter because this website is not open to the public even though I have no clear memory of providing said password, over a 30-day period.
I further recognize that this blog does not actually exist, and thus does not appear on a "host" site regardless of whether or not that host is paid, and is actually a figment of my imagination, and thus any supposed authors of this blog and/or its content are also fictional characters and, therefore, not liable for any content on this blog. Any content on this blog, even if it clearly relates to politics, does not relate to politics in any way.

I further acknowledge that this blog did not in any way influence or modify my views regarding any politician and/or his campaign, political party, nor did it influence or modify my political belief, religion, ideology, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, marriage status, mental and/or physical problems. This blog did not encourage or discourage me from donating any amount of money to any cause or modify any such donation.

This blog did not and never will make me fat, and I will not hold it responsible for the extra airplane ticket that I may or may not have purchased to accommodate my weightyness.


DISCLAIMER:This blog uses 100% recycled electrons. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.


In response to some excellent posts here (includes a link to a pdf draft of regulations), here, here, and here.

Sign a petition here.

Us-European relatins are now 'pleasing'

I need one of those terrorism color-charts for US-European relations. If I had one, it would be halfway between green and yellow, and sliding toward the green. Yellow would be "enjoyable", green would be "giddy", and some goldish color at the extreme happy end would be "ecstatic".
article 1
article 2
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NY Times article
It looks like the NY Times article is actually from Der Speigel, a major German newspaper. I have seen some beautiful, insightful articles from that, but such articles are not the standard. Similarly, I have seen some journalistic works of art written by NY Times reporters, but those are a (fortunately common) exception.

In short: Canada "welcomes" the nomination; Germany promises not to oppose it.

What is going on here:
Wolfowitz has several qualities that bolster his nomination. First, he is very bright, and will likely be a good administrator. Second, he doesn't have connections to extreme environmental or "go to war with China to save Tibet, but get out of Iraq!" groups – this is good because these groups have a habit of forcing the world bank to consider how to best protect the weevil population near a dam project and other such pointless minutia.

Further, the world bank has decayed into inefficiency over the last several years, and much of its $15-20 billion budget is squandered.

Europe hasn't exactly favored Wolfowitz,

The EU's executive European Commission said people should avoid being biased against Wolfowitz and instead judge him on his actions once in office as World Bank chief.

Rather, they seem to accept his potential, agree with what he may do, want to work closer with the US, and don't think this is worth the political capital that would be spent arguing.
Wolfowitz isn't capable of making the World Bank run worse, but he is capable of changing it's purpose and instilling a neoconservative bias in the institution. Europe may know that, if Wolfowitz changes the Bank enough for Europe to dislike it, the Bank can be replaced. American and European views on economic development seem to have clarified recently, and it turns out that they are quite similar. Wolfowitz will stand against corrupt and dicatatorial governments, which actually makes him more European in his actions, because his only weapons and gifts are financial. Even if Wolfowitz has an American, neoconservative agenda, he can only exercise it in a very European way.
The desire to work closer with the US existed for years, but Europe couldn't publicize it until recently (The US and USSR wanted to work closer together, but that wasn't really possible, just to cite an example of how this can happen); Condi's and Bush's visits to Europe seemed to have helped considerably, as has US moderation on the Iran issue; North Korea has its own special circumstances and both the US and Europe agree it must be approached quite differently than Iran. The US has proposed the World Bank presidents by tradition, so Europe would expend considerable energy and capital just challenging a US nomination. A replacement might not be difficult to find (perhaps Alan Greenspan could fill the job; he'd be a great candidate), but a European replacement would be difficult to put in office and have difficulty making his position seem legitimate.

Forget separation of church and state, get the media out of the courts!

That title probably says it all, but I'm in the mood to write more.

I want to kill Michael Jackson, even though I think he's innocent – he's the type of crazy that allows him to sleep (and actually just sleep) in beds with children and not see how it is wrong –, I am overjoyed Scott Peterson will get the death penalty, and hope that the Georgia court-killer gets thrown out of a moving cop car and run over by rush hour traffic (all of it).
Murder trials no longer serve to administer justice; they are a public spectacle. Next, the executions will be public. It won't be the electric chair or needle, either; the news network will jointly build a coliseum and have murderer-gladiators reenact infamous murders. Think I'm joking? When was the last time you watched Fear Factor?
American reality TV isn't the least of it, either, the Japanese really have the torture, cruelty, humiliation, and starvation thing down (article). What's next, Extreme Makeover: Forced Sex Change Edition?

The point is, media has to stop interfering with the law and courts, and stop torturing – literally, torturing – people to get higher ratings. How can anyone complain about some Guantanamo Bay discomforts while they rejoiced when people starved in episodes of Survivor? I want the US to build some new courts specially designed to keep the media out and unknowing. If the media can't get pictures or clips of the celebrity, the story will vanish.

Forget separation of church and state, get the media out of the courts!

That title probably says it all, but I'm in the mood to write more.

I want to kill Michael Jackson, even though I think he's innocent – he's the type of crazy that allows him to sleep (and actually just sleep) in beds with children and not see how it is wrong –, I am overjoyed Scott Peterson will get the death penalty, and hope that the Georgia court-killer gets thrown out of a moving cop car and run over by rush hour traffic (all of it).
Murder trials no longer serve to administer justice; they are a public spectacle. Next, the executions will be public. It won't be the electric chair or needle, either; the news network will jointly build a coliseum and have murderer-gladiators reenact infamous murders. Think I'm joking? When was the last time you watched Fear Factor?
American reality TV isn't the least of it, either, the Japanese really have the torture, cruelty, humiliation, and starvation thing down (article). What's next, Extreme Makeover: Forced Sex Change Edition?

The point is, media has to stop interfering with the law and courts, and stop torturing – literally, torturing – people to get higher ratings. How can anyone complain about some Guantanamo Bay discomforts while they rejoiced when people starved in episodes of Survivor? I want the US to build some new courts specially designed to keep the media out and unknowing. If the media can't get pictures or clips of the celebrity, the story will vanish.

Forget separation of church and state, get the media out of the courts!

That title probably says it all, but I'm in the mood to write more.

I want to kill Michael Jackson, even though I think he's innocent – he's the type of crazy that allows him to sleep (and actually just sleep) in beds with children and not see how it is wrong –, I am overjoyed Scott Peterson will get the death penalty, and hope that the Georgia court-killer gets thrown out of a moving cop car and run over by rush hour traffic (all of it).
Murder trials no longer serve to administer justice; they are a public spectacle. Next, the executions will be public. It won't be the electric chair or needle, either; the news network will jointly build a coliseum and have murderer-gladiators reenact infamous murders. Think I'm joking? When was the last time you watched Fear Factor?
American reality TV isn't the least of it, either, the Japanese really have the torture, cruelty, humiliation, and starvation thing down (article). What's next, Extreme Makeover: Forced Sex Change Edition?

The point is, media has to stop interfering with the law and courts, and stop torturing – literally, torturing – people to get higher ratings. How can anyone complain about some Guantanamo Bay discomforts while they rejoiced when people starved in episodes of Survivor? I want the US to build some new courts specially designed to keep the media out and unknowing. If the media can't get pictures or clips of the celebrity, the story will vanish.

Senate opens ANWR to oil drilling

article
OK, the senate didn't authorize drilling entirely, it just put drilling into next years budget. The budget cannot be filibustered; filibusters were the main method of preventing ANWR from opening.
Let me give you my stupid quote of the day:

"We won't see this oil for 10 years. It will have minimal impact," argued Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a co-sponsor of the amendment that would have stripped the arctic refuge provision from the budget document.

First off, this "ten years" thing is a blatant lie. We won't reach peak production until around ten years from now, but we will be using ANWR oil by 2007. Second, Mrs. Chucklewit doesn't know of something called "long term planning". Aparently, she subscribes to a "if it won't do anything tomorrow, it won't do anything at all. Never." Philosophy. Mrs. Nickelbrain, I am willing to argue, cares about little more than getting elected and her popularity; after all, a good leader plans for the next generation, a self-centered politician plans for the next election.
You know how much gas prices have gone up. At this rate, in a decade, you have a good chance of paying as much for a full tank as you did for the car (well, maybe not that much, but humanity will need a lot more oil than we're currently producing). According to some of the people cited in the article, the US should commit to more drilling in the Gulf; this sounds incredibly odd, because this same party kept telling me that the gulf was empty, more drilling would cause environmental armageddon, and the oil companies in the gulf are minions of satan.

We shouldn't protect the polar bears in Alaska, either – though I didn't know Alaska had polar bears. Polar bears are the only mammal known to hunt humans, and they are quite capable of doing so. If environmentalists want to protect polar bears, they should do so at their own peril. I don't want these green nuts to force companies to hand-feed these animals, then bitch when arms get bitten off.

For me, this announcement is almost a national holiday, and not the pathetic "self mutilation awareness day"-type. I can't wait to buy some Halliburton stock!

We all win when the middle is properly served

An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, here, warrants a response. This post is something of an open letter/opinion piece in response.

In the opinion of this junior in a private highschool, the main faults of the education system deal with quixotic subjects that should either vanish or drastically change, scheduling of the school day and year, lack of real-life applications of the subjects taught in school, and inabilities to focus on a specific group of students in a school.
I firmly believe that the human mind is shaped and developed by the person who uses it, rather than by genetics – give or take some rare circumstances. Additionally, science and common sense indicate that the most important stages of development occur at a young age. For example, the portion of the brain believed responsible for the learning and use of languages is most active in pre-teens, probably because children of such ages constantly learn new words and refine their grammar. This is why Hispanic immigrants often fail to learn english, but their children may become fluent in as little as 6 months. Thus, for schools to be successful, they must focus on mental development in kindergarten and elementary school. This means that schools should drop two subjects: spelling and geography. Spelling is progressively less relevant in the age of computers, and much of the real knowledge (knowledge which can be applied to other things) can be learned through life in general. There are few reasons to keep spelling as a year-long class that persists through all of elementary school, as proper spelling depends on an understanding of a language, rather than memorization. Geography is very similar – no person needs to memorize the exact location and capital of every state in the US, and no one in their right mind will memorize every nation in Africa. The class depends memorization, and does little in the long run.
Schoolday schedules are designed to accommodate parents, and the schoolyear follows the requirements of the 19th century. For biological reasons (mainly the chemical which, among other things, makes eyelids feel heavy and prevents sleep during the day), school should start at or after 9:15 AM. That aforementioned chemical causes children to stay up later and wake later than adults, so it is detrimental for the schoolday to start before or at the same time as the workday, because children are less capable of learning when their biology prefers to sleep. Additionally, the schoolday should be longer to allow more work to be done at school, and away from the distractions which plague homework. Homework should not be eliminated, but it also should not be a continuation of a class which ran out of time. The purpose of homework is to practice a concept in order to clarify and solidify understanding, not to glare at new topics that the teacher has to explain and re-assign later. The two-month break between schoolyears allows most students to forget everything and enjoy laziness, and thus should be eliminated. Many one- or two-week breaks throughout the year have proven far more efficient. The only benefits of summer vacations are the possibilities of summer jobs, remedial classes for underachievers, and additional or college classes for those who excel. Jobs and classes can easily be converted into, and often are, after-school activities. I, for example, held a job at a distribution company from a week before Christmas until shortly before exams at the end of the school year; I decided to leave the job and not work over the summer because I despised my co-workers. Shortly after I left, the company developed a turnover rate comparable to that of an insomniac attempting to go to bed early. Only one of my five co-workers did actual, commendable work.
Most students who look for jobs end up with no-skill, entry level positions that do not teach the importance or applications of education. At my job, I learned an inefficient method of organizing merchandise and to stay on my toes whenever I heard the electric cart (some co-workers had a habit of driving quickly and recklessly). I would rather hold a position in which I can learn a trade but get paid nearly nothing than work somewhere with decent pay, demotivation, and no prospects. Few such jobs exist; however, computer programming shows promise, as many good programmers are self-taught teenagers. One of the reasons blogs are so prevalent is that highschool and college students are eager to exercise their minds freely, an ability they rarely find a job for.
Many low-performing schools have significant numbers of Hispanic students who have yet to learn english, but those students sit in classes where the teacher speaks english. The only thing the Hispanic student can possibly learn, unless he or she has an exceptional math teacher who can explain through diagrams, is ADD. Schools with many students who only speak Spanish should either develop classes taught in Spanish or put those students in an english class that will occupy most of the school day, and in which some of the other subjects can be taught to prevent the students from falling far behind. Attempts to teach the same class in two separate languages, or to incorporate an interpreter in the class, usually fail because more time is spent translating than actually teaching. Additionally, the average student should not be in the same classes as those who perform extremely well, for the reasons stated in your article. Often, politics prevents the separation of students based on their abilities and needs, because many voters will blindly follow rhetoric decrying segregation and proclaiming the equality of every student. Politics have already introduced extreme political correctness to textbooks – to the extent that owls are left out of some biology books because one Indian tribe believes owls are evil.

Humanity's Little Quirks

Has anyone else noticed that humans are incredibly averse to touching each other? Western culture has desensitized people to shaking hands, but that's about it. Other than that, the only people who actually come into physical contact are young kids or adults in a serious relationship.
Haven't the slightest idea what I'm saying, or why I'm saying it? When was the last time you saw anyone on a street give the half-hug/shoulder-hug thing to someone they didn't know? If that ever happens, there are only two explanations: the hugger is retarded, or the hugger is trying to steal from the hugged. Does that seem odd to anyone else?

Can anyone explain, or even hypothesize, why humans try to avoid touching each other?
I know this is nothing like my typical post, but I have wondered this for a while, and can't find a satisfactory explanation.

'Iranian' passengers block plane at Brussels airport

article

Several dozen passengers refused to disembark from a German airliner when it arrived in Brussels in what appeared to be a protest against the European Union's conciliatory policies towards Iran, officials and reports said

In short, these passengers gave authorities a 20-page list of political demands, and are in chats with police forces, whom are trying to coax the Iranians off the airplane.
I actually support this protest; even though it's a protest (us republicans are supposed to despise all protestors, I know), and even though it involves airplanes. These protestors seem peaceful, and it's difficult to disagree with their cause.
Unfortuanetly, I can't highlight any of that story to copy-and-paste, so I think I'll have to end this post and be content that you know the basis of this event. The importance shouldn't be difficult to understand.

Italy demands US punish troops

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Italy's foreign minister has demanded the US "identify and punish" those responsible for the death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq.
Gianfranco Fini said the US and Italy had different versions of what happened to Nicola Calipari, who died under US fire while escorting a freed hostage.

The US says shots were fired because the vehicle was speeding and did not heed troops' warnings for it to stop.

But Mr Fini said the car was travelling at no more than 40km per hour.

Calipari had also made "all the necessary contacts" with US and Italian officials about the hostage's release and the journey to the airport, he added.

First off the "freed" hostage is Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for a communist newspaper (Il Manifesto, I believe). Sgrena openly hates US troops. Second, Sgrena wasn't really freed, the Italian government paid a hefty ransom for her (the general belief is several million US dollars).
First off, it should be fairly obvious which side of the story is more accurate. Between an America and American-army hater who works for a communist paper and was bought out of terrorist custody, and American troops who avoid civilian casualties whenever possible (if anyone ever tries to claim that the US either purposely kills civilians or doesn't care, remind them that killing civilians devastates military morale), I'm going to side with my troops. It's certainly possible, maybe even likely, that one of their more important facts is wrong, but the majority of what our troops say should be more accurate than not, and far more accurate than what Sgrena claims.

Second, NEVER buy a hostage, unless they happen to be your family, or if that hostage knows something, which the terrorists don't (like the location of toxins or a nuke) that would make the hostage a lot more valuable. Whenever you buy a hostage, you give the terrorists at least enough money to capture two more people, preferably your own people, because the terrorists know that you will pay. If you ever refuse to pay for a hostage, that hostage (possibly several) will be brutally murdered, and a tape of that murder will be circulated through the international media. Once the terrorists prove they are willing to murder, the price of each hostage will increase several fold, and the paying nation cannot afford to watch more hostages get slaughtered, so the terrorists inevitably get their money.
So, when someone is taken hostage, you probability shouldn't pay for that hostage. After all, it's merely a question of who dies and when; either that hostage soon, or some other hostage (possibly many, and probably some of your own troops as well) in the future, and after you've given money to those terrorists. If you refuse to pay for hostages, terrorists won't take hostages unless they intend to kill them, which they would do anyway even if the terrorists did get money – terrorists are not known for their honesty, of course.
The last US hostage was a GI Joe. Yes, the toy; and his own gun was being pointed at his head because terrorists can't find many GI Joe-size AK-47s. The hostage was obviously a toy because of facial features and because it wore a deep green uniform, probably a darker green than what US troops wore in Vietnam. In case you didn't notice, US troops in Iraq wear desert camouflage, which is sand-colored. I believe that GI Joe's with desert camouflage are being sold, but apparently terrorists couldn't find any in the children's section of Martyr R Us. Quite obvious how unprofitable, risky, and dangerous it is to find American hostages, isn't it?

John Ratbrain (I mean McCain) and Foulghoul (I mean Feingold) want internet to suffer from Election Finance Reform failure

John Ratbrain (I mean McCain) and Foulghoul (I mean Feingold) want internet to suffer from Election Finance Reform failure

Yes, McCrackhead and his just-as-dumb compadre want to extend the McCain-Feingold bill to censor websites, especially blogs and, probably, mainstream news websites like CNN.com or NYTimes.com. Here is a Captain's Quarters article for your reading pleasure.
In short, it may be illegal to: link to a campaign website; support a candidate in a way that causes or encourages other to make donations to that candidate; and republish any campaign literature in the form of a private mailing list or by posting it on a blog. And that's just for starters. It may also be illegal to: mention any political candidate or party on a blog, or over the internet as a whole; encourage participation in politics by asking readers to vote or by mentioning politics at all because that would remind readers that they can vote in the US; reference any other news material that mentions politics; acknowledge the existence of politics in the US, or elsewhere; use innuendo to discus a candidate, or phrases that can be interpreted as innuendo (for example, "I have to go to the bathroom" is not allowed, because it means the same thing as "I have to go to the john", a blatant, obvious, and unforgivable endorsement of John Kerry). In short, it will be illegal to blog. A ban of speaking in public will soon follow. And, just to cover all bases, McCain will also ban the following: telepathy, hand signals (including sign language, disabilities are not excuses to break the "no opinions" law), flag signals, morse code through any medium, waving "hello" or "goodbye", winking, nodding, breathing in a way that can display exasperation or any other state of mankind, falling onto or through anything, throwing darts at a board that does not allow the same number of points no matter where the dart lands, playing pool (unless all the balls are unmarked), playing any sport where different uniforms or player numbers are used, or making any gesture which implies a need of assistance (such as grabbing your throat and turning blue, which is obviously intended to make fun of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal). Because baseball will be banned, and there will be no more bases that McCain can claim to cover, he will just execute everyone capable of independent thought, because they will have opinions which can be expressed – opinions that can help or hurt some political campaign.

Once McCain has killed us all for expressing our political opinions, the world will be a happy, non-partisan place, and everyone will have fluffy white puppies that are housebroken from birth – not that they'd actually take a dump, as that would be akin to speaking about John McCain. The puppies that do need to act as nature intended will be shot. Puppy cloning will become the world's largest industry, as the average puppy will live for less than a day.

I think I've exaggerated enough, and I sent an email to McCain yesterday. Your turn; we really need to drill this in. Maybe, if we're incredibly lucky, the US government will realize that the internet will ignore any government regulation – just look at spyware and spam. The government should go after the corporations that fund spyware; the spyware companies will fall as a result, and there will be no replacements.

And, if McCain's already-failed reform gets extended, blogs will be hosted from the Netherlands or Canada; they won't disappear, "not like this" (From the first Matrix, when the traitor inside Morpheus's ship is disconnecting everyone, but is killed before he can get Neo and Trinity). The quote applies well.

Companies that are ruining the internet

Today I have a very special post. I will document companies that are acting like greedy, bratty children on the internet – either to limit legitimate freedom of speech of another or to take the domain name of another.
(update note: changed post title, the post has nothing to do with Powerline, I just happened to click "blog this" when at powerline to copy-and-paste my own post from MS word, and forgot to change the title)

The basic rules:
1: People who snatch a domain name after it expires because the current domain name holder neglected to renew payment are SOBs, especially if they attempt to replicate the previous site for commercial (money-making) reasons, make a site very similar to the previous site for commercial reasons, or sell it back to the original owner. Those who take a domain name and replace it with a hate site ("X company is Satan, go firebomb it"-type content) or with content that the average viewer of the website did not intend to see, mainly porn.
2: people who send cease-and-desist letters to longtime holders of a domain name, and those holders actually use the domain name – the page has content and is upgraded as often as the nature of the content dictates (technology websites should update frequently, history websites can go years without change and still be "recent"). Pages that haven't changed for 3 years because some content marks the page as 'used' do not count as protected in my book.
3: lawyers who don't follow up on a cease-and-desist claim, especially claims loaded with threatening content and sly attempts to make the domain name holder to respond in a way that would harm their claim, are almost certainly smut who should have their legal licenses investigated.
4: people who use a domain name relevant to the content of the website or to the reason for its creation have a right to that domain name, even if it is similar to the name of any well-known company or association, as long as the website does not attempt to mimic, defame, or harm the company or association.

Might I add, I want to credit the Internet Archive, www.archive.org for preserving websites. It is an unexpectedly useful resource, as many sued websites are forced to remove their content, and the Archive stores many different copies of the website, so content can be researched often on a month-by-month basis. Additionally, the Archive preserves invaluable websites that are taken down for other reasons, such as the owner no longer having interest in preserving the website or paying for its badnwidth and domain name (websites like villainsupply.com If you look this up on the archive, press control-a to highlight everything on the page, because the text is white and the archive didn't preserve the black background, so the text is invisible otherwise).

And now, I present the SOBs and their victims:

Case 1;
Bastard mega-corp: Nissan Motor Company
Victim: Nissan Computer company
Info: Mr. Nissan (computer company owner) has some information here, on an archived copy of his website. Mr. Nissan has used his name for various businesses for twenty years, when the car company was known as Datsun, and created the website for his computer company in 1994. The Nissan car company has filed a petition for the US Supreme Court and seeks $10 million in "damages"
Other information sources: 60-seconds Quote from this guy:

If Uzi were in the car business it would remind me of the famous Howard Johnson's case. The national restaurant chain wanted a certain Mr. Howard Johnson to close down his small town restaurant in Ohio. Having nothing to do with the giant, Mr. Johnson had named is restaurant with his own, legal, name some years before. The supreme court ruled that indeed Mr. Johnson from Ohio did in fact have legal rights to the name and ruled in his favor. However, he was restricted to using the name in Ohio only. Not a big deal.

And Saint Petersburg Times, which cites Nissan Motor's badgering of Mr. Nissan for a price, in order to help them in court. Mr. Nissan stated "You know what? $15-million! Now do you understand that I don't want to sell?"
How it should have been resolved: Nissan car company should have given Mr. Nissan $50,000 and the domain name nissancomputers.com (the car company would buy it for Mr. Nissan). Plus, perhaps, a free or extremely-discounted car. The drawn-out legal battle has cost Mr. Nissan upwards of $1 million, possibly around or above $2 million.

My ruling: Nissan Motors gives $3.5 million to Mr. Nissan and ceases all lawsuits, and covers any outstanding legal bills. Mr. Nissan keeps a permanent advertisement on the front page of his website (it can be a movie, perhaps 250X250 pixels, but not that annoying semi-popup type that will move around the page and in front of content), and a small note on the top of every page identifying the website as not that of Nissan Motors, and providing a link to Nissan Motors. Mr. Nissan can sell his website to Nissan motor company if he wishes, and doing so would be considered no violation of the agreement.


Case 2;
Bastard evil-corp: Seattle Financial Group
Victim: One Stop Real Estate
Info: One Stop Real Estate acquired the domain Seattle-mortgage-loans, which is an accurate description of what the company does. The "one stop" claim comes from the fact that in this family business, the husband is a mortgage broker while the wife is a real estate agent. One day, Seattle Mortgage sent a cease & Desist letter to One Stop Real Estate, claiming that the term "Seattle mortgage" is trademarked. To the best of my knowledge, Seattle Financial Group doesn't have an enforceable trademark on "Seattle mortgage" because the term is quite generic (like "kleenex" or "cola", but those terms are generic due to common use, not because they are associated with something other than a company). Fortunately for the little guy, it looks like he will be able to get a good lawyer(s) who have gone up against the larger firm before, and who specialize in internet trademark cases.

My ruling: the lawyer for Seattle Financial Group runs head-first into a wall. A hard wall, and fast. Then, each Seattle Financial Group and its law firm pay $10,000 to each One Stop Real Estate and the law firm that represents it. One Stop Real Estate's legal representative sends a fruit basket to the Seattle Financial Group's lawyer, who is in the hospital to recover from head injuries.


More to come, once I have time to write it. And, if you're wondering about the current court cases on display in the news circus: for 10 commandments, allow on public property where the monument has some relevance. Thus, the commandments are allowed in and around courts, libraries, ect, and just about anywhere in cities where religion played a particularly strong role in that city's history. Size of monuments should be limited logically; no 200-foot-tall "jesus loves you!" signs. The only people who would actually want such a sign are arrogant, have a superiority complex, and take satisfaction from shoving their religion in someone else's face. Sadly, there was one idiot who bought a 50-foot neon sign to display some passage from the bible. I hope that a similar sign saying "Allah akbar" ("God Is great", I think) is put on one side, and "There is no god" is put on the other side. Not sure where the Star of David would fit, but that problem could be worked out later.

With these 10 commandment cases, I have to think back to the Texas sodomy case, and how retarded the people on the "anti-sodomy" side look. During the case, I believe the nation was split, probably around 70/30, in favor of legalizing sodomy, but that is a horrible guess and I have nothing to support it. Today, I expect 87% to 93% of the US public to fall on the "legalize sodomy" side. Arguments based purely on a few lines from the bible don't hold up well after a few months, much less 2 years.

On the child death penalty ruling, I think the court made a bad decision. The reasons given (international opinion and national opinion are what set off alarms) A good article is here. Everything said in the article is logical, and I agree with it; but, I have some concern about endorsing something at 1 AM when I had 3 hours of sleep the night before.
The best point in the article comes at the end,

The "living document" faction doesn't want to go through the constitutional process (of amending the constitution). It would rather have judges legislate from the bench. That's why it's so important for President Bush to nominate judges who aren't so tempted — and for the administration to go all out to win their approval.

Few people will point out that both political parties want to have judges legislating from the bench, as long as that legislation is in their favor. I first noticed this when I read Cincinnati's (perhaps it was for all of Ohio, I don't really know) anti-gay marriage bill, which actually required judges to interpret the intentions of legislatures who made the law. More specifically, the bill not only outlawed gay marriage, it declared that any law made with the intent of providing the equivalent of marriage for homosexuals was unconstitutional. The word "intend", or maybe it was "intending", was actually in the bill in a context very similar to the above. So, the judges have to guess at the intention of the lawmakers, because a bill passed by those against judges 'following the intention of the lawmakers, rather than the strict word of the law'. How many people here have read the Constitution? I'll argue that it's impossible to follow the Constitution based strictly on its text; the text is over 200 years old, and grammar has changed so much that it takes several readings to understand. The intention of the framers of the constitution must be interpreted to find out what the framers actually mean, because the Constitution doesn't provide much compensation for the evolution of languages.