Deem This, You Crocodilian* Wench!

I saw someone anonymously comment on another blog a bunch of stuff, but I found this quip to be quite genius.

           "   ...Perhaps I'm confused here, but if they want to toss the rule book out the window, then they have no basis to turn to me and say, "Play by the rules.""

Indeed.

Madam Speaker, I deem you, and your crocodilian* cohorts, completely irrelevant henceforth.


*please note, this in no way references crazy talk about 'reptilians' or any other such nonsense of that particular scifi/conspiracy genre. I refer to her as a crocodile because, well, she looks a lot like a primal lizard, and I have no doubt she sounds and acts like one behind closed doors. Much like Stacy Keech's character in one Cheech and Chong movie, sans the mary jane. Furthermore, I will surmise that you probably can't read this, but if it so happens that you can, please feel free to do some photoshopping of Pelosi and send it to youtube marked "Reptilian Conspiracy Exposed!" or something of that nature. That stuff is hilarious!

Jeffersonian School of Government

Sorry I've been absent this week... it's been ratather hectic at work, and a guy who got hired with me put in his 2 weeks, so I'm preparing for a wicked time by myself. That's alright though... I live for this shit!

Anyhowl, I came across these quotes today, and I thought I'd pass them along.

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"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

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Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

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I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

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I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

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I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

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I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

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If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

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It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

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It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

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It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

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Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law” because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

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Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

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The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

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Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."

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Hope you liked it.. I did.

Hitler Was a Leftist

Quip/Quote:

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country." --Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler's Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, Second Edition (1973), Pg. 425-426. Translated by Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens. Introduced and with a new preface by H. R. Trevor-Roper. The original German papers were known as Bormann-Vermerke.

Another:

Nazi Weapons Act of 1938 (Translated to English)

• Classified guns for "sporting purposes".
• All citizens who wished to purchase firearms had to register with the Nazi officials and have a background check.
• Presumed German citizens were hostile and thereby exempted Nazis from the gun control law.
• Gave Nazis unrestricted power to decide what kinds of firearms could, or could not be owned by private persons.
• The types of ammunition that were legal were subject to control by bureaucrats.
• Juveniles under 18 years could not buy firearms and ammunition.

Go read the rest here. Very Interesting.

Kyoto Redux - Copenhagen Shenanegans

The Copenhagen Treaty is a Kyoto redux, to be sure. Here are some quips from the draft of the treaty:

The US and other Annex I non-ratifying parties should take on reduction targets
of a comparable nature and scale to Annex I parties that have ratified the Protocol as
well as be able to participate in the Kyoto Flexible Mechanisms, emissions trading
and be bound by the Kyoto compliance regime.

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All developed and newly industrialized countries should reduce their emissions,
as a group, by 23 % below 1990 levels in the 2013-2017 commitment period. This target
is consistent with an emissions reduction trajectory that yields a 40 % reduction
in emissions by 2020 and represents the annual average reduction for the commitment
period ( i.e. what the target in 2015 would be ).

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a ) T o assist in the development and implementation of a visionary long-term
plan for a low GHG emissions trajectory for each Party included in Annex B based
on the global carbon budget in 2050 and the interim targets for Parties
included in Annex B, as a group, in accordance with the provisions of Article 2 ;

b ) T o assist Parties in the identification and achievement of the timely
investments required for the economy-wide transformation needed to achieve
low carbon sustainable development in accordance with the provisions
of Article 2 ; and

c ) T o assist Parties in undertaking the necessary policies, measures and
actions to fulfill their support obligations in accordance with the provisions
of this Protocol.

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There. I'd advise at least a skim through the 78 page document before you set yourself on fire and dance through the streets screaming 'the world is ending!'

Again, you can get a copy here.

FBI Building new system

FBI building system that blows away fingerprinting

 

Quip:

 

TAMPA – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expanding beyond its traditional fingerprint-focused collection practices to develop a new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans, blended to create what's known as "multi-modal biometrics."

Erm, ok, but then there's this:

The FBI, under the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005, is now allowed to collect reference-sample DNA material for biometrics analysis purposes at the time of booking, Grever said. "DNA has become a powerful and timely tool," said Grever, adding there are no "privacy or civil liberties issues beyond those associated with fingerprints."

I call shenanegans.
A fingerprint is a print of your finger.
Your DNA is a part of you, or, in a broader sense, all of you.
No privacy issues? You kiddin' me? And, what if you're booked, and found not guilty? Should your DNA be saved for 'reference', or tossed?

I'm not saying we shouldn't file criminals and such, but where do the lines between taking DNA from newborns, and taking them from criminals, intersect? It has to intersect at some point, and what bucket will it all ultimately be dumped in? Will I be getting a call in 10 years from a Pharma company because my DNA shows my family is prone to Heart Disease, so I need to be on X medication, ask my doctor?

Scary, sometimes, how you think the world might turn out. Sometimes I feel like such a Luddite.

Federal Police?

...I stumbled upon this picture

Homeland Security

Federal Protective Services

Police

....ok, 'the hell does that mean? I was not aware of a Federal Police Force (well, you know what I mean). Not the FBI, CIA, or other alpha units.

If anyone can enlighten me on this, I would be much obliged. :)

What'd I say about Czars yesterday?

Something to the ring of 'Kings, by historic definition, do not play nice...'

Now the headline

'Czar' wars pits White House against lawmakers

Remember, Kings have to conquer other kings before they control fiefdoms. The serfs sit on the sidelines waiting for the next king to take over.

Quip:

WASHINGTON - -- In a city where power is carefully hoarded and monitored, President Barack Obama has drawn complaints from Congress about his use of so-called czars, or officials he has appointed to coordinate environmental, health and other policy areas among various departments.

Lawmakers in both parties have sent letters to the White House challenging Obama's appointment of the czars, saying their appointment circumvents Congress's authority to confirm top executive branch officials and subject those officials to oversight hearings.

But when senators called a hearing on the legality of the czars, the panel of experts they convened did not support their cause.

Called together by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who had written to Obama asking for more information about the czars, the panel of five constitutional experts concluded that as long as the officials in question do not overstep their authority, there are no legal issues.

Who were these 'constitutional experts' and who's money are they taking? Follow the money, and Cui Bono?

There are more issues at stake, for example:

"The president's personal staff are independently responsible only to the president -- and in the end he is the only 'czar' that is," said Bradley Patterson, a presidential scholar. "And he is accountable to the American electorate."

Sure. I'll believe it when I see some actual accountability.

"Neither the purpose nor the effect of these new positions is to supplant or replace existing federal agencies or departments," Craig wrote.

I call shenanigans.  Things are about to heat up. You watch.

Chess... gotta love it. But, so many kings on the table you'd think it was checkers.

Czars by definition

1. also tsar or tzar   (zär, tsär) KEY   A male monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917.
2. A person having great power; an autocrat: "the square-jawed, ruddy complacency of Jack Farrell, the czar of the Fifteenth Street police station" (Ernest Hemingway).
3. Informal An appointed official having special powers to regulate or supervise an activity: a racetrack czar; an energy czar. 

ETYMOLOGY:
Russian tsar', from Old Russian tssar, emperor, king, from Old Church Slavonic tssar, from Gothic kaisar, from Greek, from Latin Caesar, emperor ; see caesar

OTHER FORMS:
czardom (Noun)
Usage Note:
The word czar can also be spelled tsar. Czar is the most common form in American usage and the one nearly always employed in the extended senses "any tyrant" or informally, "one in authority." But tsar is preferred by most scholars of Slavic studies as a more accurate transliteration of the Russian and is often found in scholarly writing with reference to one of the Russian emperors.

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Ok. I think the third one has been added kinda recently methinks, but you get the picture. I'm sure you've gone over it, but lets get down to Brass Tacks here.

First, reread the above definition, and then look at this list.

1. Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke
2. AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley
3. Auto recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery
4. Border Czar: Alan Bersin
5. California Water Czar: David J. Hayes
6. Car Czar: Ron Bloom
7. Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross
8. Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal
9. Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske
10. Economic Czar: Paul Volcker
11. Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Brower
12. Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois
13. Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis
14. Green Jobs Czar: Van Jones – Resigned
15. Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried
16. Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
17. Information Czar: Vivek Kundra
18. International Climate Czar: Todd Stern
19. Intelligence Czar: Dennis Blair
20. Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell
21. Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg
22. Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein
23. Science Czar: John Holdren
24. Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney
25. Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration
26. TARP Czar: Herb Allison
27. Terrorism Czar: John Brennan
28. Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra
29. Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.
30. Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter
31. WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore

Minus Jones, we now have 30 Kings. That's right, Kings, here in America. Answerable to the POTUS only. Now, it's my understanding that kings, by historic definition, do not play nice with their subjects. We're inferior, you see, since we are the unwashed masses.

Now, switch words with me.. instead of, say, Great Lakes Czar, say King of Great Lakes. Manipulate the language (hey, why not, they've been manipulating it for years). King of Domestic Violence. King of Terrorism. King of Health. King of Information.

The euphemism is not lost on me, nor the irony.

Funny things, words and language. We've been manipulating them for eons, yet when stuff slips through the cracks, it slips in a big way. I'm surprised no one has noticed it quite the way I have. Maybe they have, who knows, but no one is talking about it.

You use a word enough, and it looses its meaning, its substance. Sure, the meaning isn't really lost, but it becomes a shadow, a hologram of what it actually is. We take for granted the words that we use, and are used against us, as nothing more than that: words. But words are more powerful than most people realize, because memes and manipulations reach out to our sub-selves and touch lightly upon the things we think about. Do it over and over again, it becomes not a meme, but propaganda, skillfully and stealthily  implemented into your noggin to create thoughts you've never thought, and take actions you've never taken.

47%... Friggin Sweet.

This was in my headline roll, but I thought I'd take the time out of my day and actually post this all the way.

47% will pay no federal income tax

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Most people think they pay too much to Uncle Sam, but for some people it simply is not true.


In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.


Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks.


The ranks of those whose major federal tax burdens net out at zero -- or less -- is on the rise. The center's original 2009 estimate was 38%. That was before enactment in February of the $787 billion economic recovery package, which included a host of new or expanded tax breaks.


The issue doesn't get a lot of attention even as lawmakers debate how to pay for policy initiatives like health reform, whether to extend the Bush tax cuts and how to reduce the deficit.


The vast majority of households making up to $30,000 fall into the category, as do nearly half of all households making between $30,000 and $40,000.


As you move up the income scale the percentages drop.


Nearly 22% of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 end up with no federal income tax liability or negative liability as do 9% of households with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000.


Of course, income taxes don't tell the whole story. Workers are also subject to payroll taxes, which support Social Security and Medicare.


When considering federal income taxes in combination with payroll taxes, the percent of households with a net liability of zero or less is estimated to be 24% this year, according to the Tax Policy Center's estimates.
A key reason why there is a zero-liability group at all is because the U.S. tax system is progressive. Those who bring in more money pay more than those lower down the income scale to support government functions such as national defense and social safety nets like Medicaid for those in need. That progressivity can be dialed up or down.


"Some think it's too progressive. Some don't think it's progressive enough," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the center.


President Obama falls into the latter camp. He has proposed increasing the income tax burden on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000, while offering new measures to reduce the tax bite for most Americans making less.


One of Obama's proposals is to extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for everyone except high-income tax filers, which was the group that derived the most benefit from those cuts.


As a result, under Obama's budget, he would keep the ranks of the non-payers higher than they would otherwise be.

Why the tax-free matter

The question of who pays and who doesn't is not a trivial matter. But Washington policymakers are not dealing with it in an explicit way.

And that's a problem, given the country's fiscal outlook.

If asked to vote up or down on whether they are comfortable with such a large group of voters contributing no federal income tax or payroll tax revenue, the majority may well decide it is appropriate given the means of the households involved. Or they may decide that it's not.


Either way, that decision should inform the debate about the many costly policies and deficit-reduction strategies that lawmakers will be grappling with for years to come.

"As the number [of nonpayers] becomes larger, we have to question whether we'll make good decisions about how to allocate resources," economist George Zodrow, a professor at Rice University. "Most people don't understand how skewed the tax distribution is."


Experts say that to pay for all the things on the country's growing tab, the money can't just come from a shrunken pool of taxpayers.


"Over the long run, you'll have to have a broader base," Zodrow said



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Friggin' Sweet. Redistribution of Wealth has begun, I'd wager.

Google Government Cloud. Is this Good news or Bad?

Here's the link.

Google in 2010 will launch a government cloud that will include Gmail, Google Docs and other software products Google hosts on its servers and provisions to consumers and businesses as a service. Google made the announcement in concert with the launch of the Apps.gov Web store, unveiled by Federal CIO Vivek Kundra at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Google, which is seeking broader adoption of its Google Apps collaboration applications, said Sept. 15 it plans to create a dedicated cloud computing system for the U.S. government in 2010.

The government cloud will include the Web services in Google Apps, a suite that comprises Gmail, Google Docs and other SAAS (software as a service) products Google hosts on its servers. Google offers these applications as an alternative to collaboration applications such as Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus Sametime.

The government cloud will constitute a "dedicated parallel environment" to Google's commercial Google Apps cloud for consumers and enterprises, Matt Glotzbach, director of product management for Google Enterprise, told eWEEK in an interview.

Data created in this cloud by federal, state and local government agencies will be hosted on separate servers within existing Google data centers in the United States. Storing such data on separate servers makes sense, given all of the sensitive information the government generates.
Resource Library:

A Pragmatic and Effective Approach to Cloud Computing -- Real Benefits From the
Seeding the Clouds: Key Infrastructure Elements of Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing Infrastructure and the Need for a Service Delivery Platform
IBM Perspective on Cloud Computing

Google made the government cloud announcement in concert with the launch of the Apps.gov Web store, which Federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled at NASA's Ames Research Center Sept. 15. Apps.gov is an online storefront through which federal agencies can search for and buy cloud-based IT services from providers such as Google.

Kundra is well-acquainted with Google Apps. As the CTO for the District of Columbia, Kundra in June 2008 inked a contract worth $500,000 a year to give 38,000 government employees Google Apps as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Kundra discussed the switch to Google Apps in this September 2008 video.

With this kind of support and Kundra's promotion to commanding the nation's federal IT systems, it's no surprise that Google is tailoring a government cloud system.

"The goal is to meet the unique requirements and policies that the government has," Glotzbach said. "That being said, it will still be cloud computing in its truest form—a multitenant cloud."

Google aims to target the 300 million U.S. government users creating and sharing information on 10,000 IT systems. That is a fat market for Google, or any enterprise software maker, to target.

Glotzbach said city government employees for the district are heavily using Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheet and presentation purposes, as well as the Google Sites wiki application and Google video for businesses. Some of these users are using Gmail; some are also still using Microsoft Outlook.

Details about Google Apps adoption on the federal level are murkier, given the sensitivity inherent in anything with that classification. Glotzbach said more than a dozen agencies are in various stages of pilot and rollout for Google Apps, but declined to specify which agencies were using what.

Meanwhile, Google isn't the only company cheering on Apps.gov, as Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels blogged about the Apps.gov launch and counted "the federal government among our customers."

Techmeme has more stories on the government cloud and the Apps.gov store here. Google Sept. 15 also launched a Google public-sector Website to help local, state and federal government officials reach out to citizens.

Ok, one thing struck me as hilarious:

Google aims to target the 300 million U.S. government users creating and sharing information on 10,000 IT systems. That is a fat market for Google, or any enterprise software maker, to target.

According to this we're only at 307 million... Apparently we're ALL Government employees. Sweet, I'm retiring early.


Kidding aside, this strikes me as a bold move, considering everything on a network as vast as that has a potential backdoor.

Hackers, get to it.