Category — General

Homeland Security, Blacklists and Your Bank. Did you know that your bank can blacklist you in the name of homeland security? Financial institutions can close accounts and cancel credit cards with little explanation. Not surprisingly, complaints are beginning to stream in. [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

——-

in a capital oriented society, this is like removing the rights of citizenship, much like Athens did when they expropriated people.

WTF at WSIS. Wong Choon Mei writing for Reuters: A fight over the role of governments in managing the Internet is brewing as policymakers prepare for a U.N.-backed summit on the network's future, said an official at the body governing Internet domain names. [Lextext]

——-

well it is a bit strange that given the international nature of the internet, that the u.s. commerce department still has oversight…. it is time for an itu like body to take over.

Open magazine has a nice article today on the World Summit on the Information Society and the political intrigues around the proposition of encouraging open source at the international level, likewise this morning I was reading some materials from the Visions of the Information Society conferences from the ITU, which are interesting.

if you aren't aware, this is the first time, i'm told, that corporations and their lobbyists have been included in the category of 'civil society' for a world summit. It is interesting to see that the usual suspects are 'running with scissors' again, and look like they will be the bully and get their way either in wsis or by other legal means, the WTO is suggested, and as we've already seen the usual suspects have put a hold on discussing open source solutions in other venues.

more on tompaine, but here are some:
$87b Is More Than The Combined Total Of All State Budget Deficits In The United States

The Bush administration proposed absolutely zero funds to help states deal with these deficits, despite the fact that their tax cuts drove down state revenues. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

$87b Is More Than Double The Total Amount The Government Spends On Homeland Security

The U.S. spends about $36 billion on homeland security. Yet, Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) wrote “America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs” for homeland security without a funding increase. [Source: Council on Foreign Relations]

$87b Is 7 Times What The Government Spends On Title I For Low-Income Schools

President Bush proposed a budget of just $12 billion for Title I, leaving a $6.2 billion hole in what he promised to spend on Title I in his No Child Left Behind Bill. [Source: House Appropriations Committee]

$87b Is 87 Times The Amount The Federal Government Spends On After School Programs

President Bush proposed a budget that reduces the $1 billion for after-school programs to $600 million — cutting off about 475,000 children from the program. [Souce: House Appropriations Committee]

$87b Is More Than 10 Times What The Government Spends On All Environmental Protection

The Bush administration requested just $7.6 billion for the entire Environmental Protection Agency. This included a 32 percent cut to water quality grants, a 6 percent reduction in enforcement staff, and a 50 percent cut to land acquisition and conservation. [Source: Natural Resources Defense Council]

in short, it is not much in the grand scheme of things if you are a capitalist who will be hired after the presidency to 'consult' for several million a year….

people have been looking on the bright side of economic recovery for a few months now, but i'm still doom and gloom, why? because i see the personal debt load that people carry, it's ruinous, this story from yahoo illustrates the point.

Licensing Internet users?. Wired News picked up this provocative thinkpiece from the Associated Press (no author credited): “A virus ,pfouls your computer and you haplessly pass it on. Advertising software loads stealthily on your machine. Your password gets stolen because of your negligence…. [InternetPolicy.net]

——

here's a little question, knowing what you know about the internet, would you pass a user licensing program? or not? it is a hard question really, or it should be and if you don't think it is, i would lay odds that very few people who think they know how, actually know how to use and access the net in a way that like the highways, keep it safe for others. why is this? fundamentally the net is structured so that there is a technological elite that retains that knowledge above the level of the user….

i have books, food, and a flashlight, I'm set! but other people have somewhat different needs, so check to make sure your ok, cause wunderground said that it will affect the burg to some extent.

well i don't know if this is really worst posting, but it is a first, i just made the most popular of the day listing for radio userland, my referrers look fairly normal except for a few extra hits do to misspelled research article. which is strangely popular, and i don't know why, but thanks for reading.

“Academic Freedom Bill of Rights”. The fury of the ex-smoker towards smokers is matched only by the fury of the ex-New Leftist towards anyone to… [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates]

—–

well, this Academic Freedom Bill of Rights looks a lot like a removal of rights of academic freedom, sure it seems fine and good on the outside but really it is more of an excision of judgement and knowledge from those that should be allowed to put forth that knowledge and judgement. The point of education is for students to learn, and if all they are learning is their media/state-sponsored opinions which is certainly what they seem to want to learn instead of having those beliefs challenged and contested by others with different beliefs, then it seems that the the academic rights that this establishes is not the right to freedom but the right to oppression.

What labor shortage?. Experts at Wharton find that conventional wisdom about the impact of a smaller baby bust and an aging population of boomers is misleading–if not outright wrong. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

We will not have a labor shortage. Productivity increases make it more likely that high unemployment may continue for some time until employers realize that making people work 80 hours a week to maintain that productivity is harmful. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

——-

Given the lack of mass consciousness and the focus on the individual, this is an obvious situation, people don't know to collectively bargan or to stop exploiting themselves for their own benefit, that really benefits to a much greater way the people they work for. Professionalization of the work force is one aspect of it, another is the systematic underpayment of jobs so it requires some people to work overtime. oh i could go on and on, but this is a really big problem/issue that needs to be brought to the attention of those people who have been trained to think strategically instead of communally about their own position in the labor pool. I've recently been reading Ulrich Beck's work on this.