Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Election Time in The U.S.

Friday, October 20th, 2006

In just two weeks time, people will gather around their local polling place to cast a vote on new laws and politicians.  I’ll be honest with you, it’s kind of a scary time for me.  People have ideas and priorities that seem so crazy to me that I worry about them.

This election has plenty to worry about.  California seems to have a bunch of new proposition that, as I read through the information, seems absolutely insane.  Just the first five propositions on the ballot propose $37.28B dollars in debt to be paid over 30 years.  With interest, the state will end up paying about $37B in interest also.  This means $2.48B in repayment every year.  I don’t understand why we would want to incur even more debt when the state is already in financial difficulty.  Why don’t they try doing what most people do when their income doesn’t match their expenses?  Why don’t they try and cut unnecessary costs?  I certainly wouldn’t want to increase my debt.

Another thing that I find interesting is that people are almost always willing to vote yes to increase property taxes.  I think people who vote yes to this are not property owners and they think that property taxes don’t affect them.  People don’t realize that their landlords will increase rent to cover the property tax.

Another proposition that I find interesting is Prop 87.  The idea is to increase the tax charged to oil companies on oil drilled in California to make them “pay their fair share.”  Of course, the backers of this proposition neglect to mention that they already pay state income tax.  They then have the audacity to claim that it will be illegal for the oil company to pass this cost on to the consumer.  Either the politicians who dreamed this up think that their law is more powerful than economic law, or they are just plain stupid.  We all know that corporations exist to make money, and they will do everything they can to cut costs and avoid taxes.  They will find a way to pass the cost off to consumers.

I think that these politicians really are stupid enough to believe that they’ve found a way to overcome the law of economics.  Either that, or they are just plain stupid, and think that the voters are even more stupid.

So are the voters of California as stupid as those politicians and special interests think we are?  For our sake, I hope not.

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

OLPC to help NSIT?

Sunday, July 30th, 2006

There has been a lot of talk lately about the One Laptop per Child program.  On paper it sounds good.  Every child will be able to learn how to use a computer in such countries as Argentina, India, and Nigeria.

Some people think it’s a great program.  I think it’s, more or less, a nice idea on paper but not very practical.  I think that starving children would end up selling their laptops for money.  I think corrupt officials will misappropriate them.  I think they will get stolen from the children.  I also think that Nigeria shouldn’t be allowed to receive them.

There has been a large number of Nigerians who have tarnished the country’s image for a long time.  Corruption abounds there.  Their national football league allows for referees to take bribes.  They are also the home of the Nigerian 419 scam.  Why the rest of the world hasn’t screamed to have them severed from the Internet is beyond my comprehension.  As Nigeria’s image tarnishes, their economy will worsen.  If it weren’t for their oil, I expect they would have been cut off from the rest of the world years ago.

As companies avoid doing business with Nigeria due to the corruption, the people will become more dishonest. 

I am positive that a lot of people participate in such scams to try and feed their families.  But they are only making the situation worse for their children.  Children who will have to become more dishonest than their parents to survive.

Now the lovely OLPC program is set to ship over 1 million laptops to Nigeria.  People argue that the scammers already have better equipment, but I bet most NSIT (Nigerian Scammers in Traning) could use the helping hand!

By cutting off Nigeria from the global economy, many people will starve.  But if we give economic and humanitarian aid to Nigeria, the government will use it to suit their own needs and not the needs of the people.

So what do we do with Nigeria?  I don’t think there is any right solution.  Nothing we do will work until we can get rid of the culture of corruption.  Until we do so, I don’t think we should let them have access to scam the rest of the World from the comfort of their local Internet cafe.

Posted in Politics, Technology | No Comments »

RFID is great!

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Just ask your favorite State Department worker.  In fact, it is so great, they are going to start putting them in passports by the end of next month (http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/13/pf/rfid_passports/index.htm).  Coming soon to an airport near you, you can just waive your passport in front of their reader and they will have all your information.  Sounds great right? Saves you that pesky 2 seconds it takes for the person at the desk to actually open your passport up.  After a mere 43,200 passport scans, you will have saved an entire day of your life!  Kind of makes me want to take up international travel again.

 But seriously.  This is the stupidest idea ever.  Do the people at the State department not read the news?  The Dutch government tried the same thing just one year ago.  Their encryption was cracked in something like two weeks.  Not only that, but people with readers could obtain a person’s passport information as it was scanned at immigration from something on the order of 50 feet away.  The Dutch government corrected that problem by putting (I believe) Gaussian cages around the passport readers.  But, what’s to stop someone from energizing your RFID chip as you walk through the door to their business or something? 

The encryption the State Department intends to use will get broken someday.  Then your RFID passport could be a liability.  They claim the purpose of the chip is to cut down on human error but a human is reviewing the information on a computer screen instead of a passport.  Are they less likely to make an error looking at a computer screen? I doubt it.

Posted in Politics, Rants and Raves, Technology | No Comments »