It's the end of the world as we know it
and I feel fine

What's playing in your head?

Obligatory political addendum: No matter who you vote for, exercise your right to vote.

Today I post three articles that relate to global warming. They are posted with no "alternate" explanations because I don't have to.

The Warming of Greenland

Scientists Warn of Diminished Earth Studies From Space

Federal Way schools restrict Gore film

The beauty of science is that even if a consensus is not immediate, it will be built slowly over time as evidence is accumulated. The scientific community knows that global warming is occuring. There are visual observations that confirm it. It's hard to ignore the equivalent of "three times the volume of all the glaciers in the Alps” melting.

The issue is policy wonks that interfere with the scientific community. The human impact on warming isn't really disputed, but we don't know for sure how much an impact we are making. So, scientists need tools to monitor the situation. These tools create better models which lead to better predictions. Take away the tools.... Any surprise that funding is being cut Earth Studies? And yes, I am ignoring the active suppression of publicly funded studies that support global warming. Put together and it is a damning picture.

Worst of all are the people that buy into the "science is broken" controversy, that is being pushed by ultra-conservative political groups. So, they'll protest movies like Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Apparently if a movie depicts America in a bad light, or it does not confirm a fundamentalist's view of the world, then the movie shouldn't be shown in a public school.

Having an open debate is a good thing, an important thing. It is impossible, however, to have such a debate when political forces are attempting to influence the discussion.

Talk Radio has long striven to be controversial. Its basic tenant is controversy, like sex, sells; facts do not. After all, these days "facts" need to be extremely slanted to "balance" what the "liberal" media supposedly feeds us. As a result, I avoid such material and gather facts on my own to make up my own mind.

What is described in this story is appalling. Hate speech is a murky legal issue, but using corporate lawyers to shut someone up, someone that is well within the law, is unforgivable.

None of this is surprising. It's become the norm over the past few years. It has become the norm because enough people haven't spoken up against it. Spocko has the right approach: companies that support this behavior should be worried about their image. Appeal to their corporate good-sense and something might change.

If Disney is indirectly supporting this and allowing their lawyers to intimidate free-speech, then maybe a boycott of Disney is in order.

You know, there is a similarity between the MPAA and some organized religions: they rule through fear. But this statement shows they are evil too:

"The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,'" Goldberg said.

Obviously illegal downloading is so dangerous that to combat it the MPAA needs to use any means necessary, including fraud.

A few sites have reported that the IRS is thinking about taxing virtual revenues.

I've been mulling this over, and while it isn't the stupidest idea ever, it's pretty damn stupid. Here are some reasons why:

1. Many MMOs expressly forbid currency trading so what exactly would the IRS tax?
2. It's doubtful that the IRS could force the game creators to allow virtual taxation. Legislation would be required. This would harm the MMO market and reduce the potential revenue that could be gained.
3. Even if game creators voluntarily supported the idea, the IRS would have a difficult time converting the virtual money to real money. Currency traders might punish the virtual currencies, again reducing the potential revenue that could be gained.
4. Technically, the IRS already taxes virtual money that is converted to real cash (in the US).
5. By treating virtual currency the same as real currency, the IRS would "legitimize" lawsuits for virtual infractions.

It is a really odd situation.

It also makes me wonder why the IRS is looking at such a weird taxation scheme such as this. Huge deficit anyone?

In the London Review of Books, there is a long, but excellent essay + review of Francis Fukuyama's new book America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy.

Fukuyama was one of the vocal neo-cons promoting the invasion of Iraq soon after 9/11. The book is interesting because "as Fukuyama now admits, the Iraq war has ‘unleashed a maelstrom’, inflaming the anti-American extremism it was ostensibly launched to quell." One of the neo-cons admitting he was wrong? That's surprising in it's own right.

Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, the essay is well worth reading. It's well reasoned and gives substantial background to the events of the past 5 years. I'll definitely need to read this book.

There is a lot going on in the US right now. It's understandable. The elections are less than a month away.

After the 2000 elections, a call was put out to computerize voting machines. And while companies such as Diebold have heeded that call, they've decided to go the route of "security through obscurity"; a tactic that often fails with horrendous results.

Ask yourself, would you want to trust an election that couldn't be audited? Would you trust voting machines that even the tech experts say are unreliable?

This is a big issue in tech circles, but in the main media, you'll hear almost nothing about it. And, it isn't even limited to the US.

Take the current debacle in the Netherlands:

[A] just-published report describes in great detail how 'anyone, when given brief access to the devices at any time before the election, can gain complete and virtually undetectable control over the election results.' As a funny bonus, responding to an earlier challenge by the manufacturer, the researchers reflashed a voting machine to play chess.

No mention was made about making the machines playing thermo-nuclear war.

It's too late now to change the machines, but something needs to be done to deal with this problem.

I don't know what possesses politicians to set aside money for a victory party when the "war" is definitely not over.

There must be something in the water in Washington. But such is the way of election year politics.

I normally try to avoid politics here, unless they touch on tech issues that I feel are important, but the past week has been crazy.

It was bad enough last week when the US senate passed S. 3930, otherwise known as the torture and permanent detainment bill. The bill is scary enough in the immediate future without even considering the consequences, such as you reap what you sow.

As if the constitutional problems with that bill weren't bad enough, now there is The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679:

"This says, and I paraphrase, that while the constitution is the basis of American democracy, and applies to all citizens, you should get a break if you violate it to force your religion on someone."

But wait! There's more!! Can you believe a ban on internet gambling has been passed? Yep. It was snuck through by attaching it to a port security bill.

Things just keep getting worse.

An astroturf campaign, for those that don't know, is a fake grassroots effort to sway public or political opinion in one direction. ABC News is finally writing about this horrible misuse of public trust.

Why is it horrible? Because these campaigns undermine "trusted" communication between the public and the government.

You might argue that the YouTube parody discussed in the ABC News article doesn't apply, but it does. The purpose of this parody is to undermine and ridicule Al Gore so that his arguments in An Inconvenient Truth carry less weight. Certain companies and organizations do not want CO2 labelled as a pollutant, so "discrediting" such a vocal opponent becomes important. And it has worked before with Al Gore.

Not that we should trust anything on the Internet, nor even on the news, but do we have to become so skeptical of everything? If politicians can't trust letters from constituents, how can the public really be heard? The public already has a small voice. It seems to get smaller with each passing day.

PR firms, in my opinion, bear a large burden of guilt for this problem. They aren't doing anything illegal, but they are misrepresenting themselves. There is a definite lack of ethics there.