The Billings Outpost has posted the next of my articles in the Science and Technology section.
Go on over and have a look at it... you know you want to :-)
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Big Brother is watching
Okay, so now we're pretty much screwed, methinks.
The 114-page wiretapping bill looks like it's going to be passed -- and when it is, private communications will be at the mercy of whatever twit happens to be in the Whitehouse:
Why are we allowing our own government to do to us the very same things that we used to slam the former Soviet Union used to do?
The 114-page wiretapping bill looks like it's going to be passed -- and when it is, private communications will be at the mercy of whatever twit happens to be in the Whitehouse:
- There doesn't seem to have been any kind of 'compromise' between the Whitehouse (and by extension, Republicans) and Dems; Dubya is getting pretty much anything and everything he wanted -- if not more.
- The bill doesn't add anything to the capabilities of the National Security Agency, CIA, or any of the other similar or related organizations. The NSA has always been able/willing to keep an eye on any communications that 'exited' the United States; all that's really changed is that now they can use a bigger vacuum cleaner to suck up all the data.
- Now the telecoms are given an advance blanket protection against being sued by the customers they're betraying -- all they have to do is tell a FISA court "The President said it was okay!", and they're off the hook.
- No guarantee (or even vague promise) that this law is the One True Way of dealing with the issue of surveillance, wiretapping, and the like -- after all, the FISA system was supposed to be the One True Way, until Dubya decided he didn't like it and went on to violate it (and, incidentally, the Constitution). So the next "We know what's best for you" government we get could scrap this abomination in favor of something even MORE intrusive.
- The law isn't even clear about who's supposed to be doing what, or what the limits are. One report on it declares
To be fair, wiretapping is so classified, and the language of the bill so opaque, that no one without a "top secret" clearance can say with any authority just how much surveillance the proposal will authorize the government to do. (The best assessment yet comes from former Justice Department official David Kris, who deems the legislation "so intricate" that it risks confusing even "the government officials who must apply it.")
Why are we allowing our own government to do to us the very same things that we used to slam the former Soviet Union used to do?
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Return of the DimTwitties
Some may recall that a few months ago, I had a little 'adventure' with the gits from the U.S. Census -- they wanted to know about me, and I didn't want to tell them. The dipstick that kept sending letters, informational brochures, and stopping by in the hope that I'd cooperate finally gave up -- or so I thought.
I've received Official Notification that they're finishing up whatever temporary 'So, how's life been treating you?' metric, and that they'll be visiting again.
Since I didn't tell them anything in the first place, I kinda figured somebody would have had sense enough to remove my address from their list: I mean, they told me the first go around was to set a 'reference' for a second visit that would see how things had changed over the past few months. When I didn't cooperate the first time, that should have pretty much put the kibosh on them coming back -- even if I answered their questions THIS time, they don't have any way of knowing what kind of change those answers represented.
On top of that kind of beaurocratic stupidity, the dipshit that I drew as my contact point decided to be a smart-ass by leaving a 'cute' comment on the paperwork he left on my door while I was out of my apartment. That, in and of itself, was enough to convince me to not only not answer their questions again, but to be rude (and possibly profane) when the jackass turns up again. I'll be making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that not only am I not going to answer any of their questions, but that I'm highly annoyed that they can't/won't take 'NO!' for an answer - and that even if I did answer, I'd respond with an outrageous lie to everything they asked.
Think they'll finally get the hint?
I've received Official Notification that they're finishing up whatever temporary 'So, how's life been treating you?' metric, and that they'll be visiting again.
Since I didn't tell them anything in the first place, I kinda figured somebody would have had sense enough to remove my address from their list: I mean, they told me the first go around was to set a 'reference' for a second visit that would see how things had changed over the past few months. When I didn't cooperate the first time, that should have pretty much put the kibosh on them coming back -- even if I answered their questions THIS time, they don't have any way of knowing what kind of change those answers represented.
On top of that kind of beaurocratic stupidity, the dipshit that I drew as my contact point decided to be a smart-ass by leaving a 'cute' comment on the paperwork he left on my door while I was out of my apartment. That, in and of itself, was enough to convince me to not only not answer their questions again, but to be rude (and possibly profane) when the jackass turns up again. I'll be making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that not only am I not going to answer any of their questions, but that I'm highly annoyed that they can't/won't take 'NO!' for an answer - and that even if I did answer, I'd respond with an outrageous lie to everything they asked.
Think they'll finally get the hint?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Catitude
A few weeks ago, I finally broke down and got my owner, Elf, a cat tree - purely in 'self-defense'.
Of course, once it was assembled an put in place, Elf wasn't quite sure what to make of it; it actually took a week of me picking her up and petting her before easing her onto one of the shelves before she was willing to start climbing up on it herself.
Weird as Elf is, I wasn't all that sure that she'd have any interest in anything like that, or whether or not she'd ever actually use it. Consequently, I didn't buy anything too elaborate or expensive; the one I got is just a basic pole with 3 horizontal shelves equally spaced between the floor and ceiling. The shelves themselves aren't that big - but Elf seems to find them acceptable, even though she does overflow them a bit.
Still, it's a major improvement over the way that she used to prefer to find a spot to nap: jumping up onto my lap, then contriving to lay down on my chest or belly, and curling up -- despite the fact that I had to support her so that she didn't begin to slide off (and use her claws to hold herself in place):
Of course, once it was assembled an put in place, Elf wasn't quite sure what to make of it; it actually took a week of me picking her up and petting her before easing her onto one of the shelves before she was willing to start climbing up on it herself.
Weird as Elf is, I wasn't all that sure that she'd have any interest in anything like that, or whether or not she'd ever actually use it. Consequently, I didn't buy anything too elaborate or expensive; the one I got is just a basic pole with 3 horizontal shelves equally spaced between the floor and ceiling. The shelves themselves aren't that big - but Elf seems to find them acceptable, even though she does overflow them a bit.
Still, it's a major improvement over the way that she used to prefer to find a spot to nap: jumping up onto my lap, then contriving to lay down on my chest or belly, and curling up -- despite the fact that I had to support her so that she didn't begin to slide off (and use her claws to hold herself in place):
Indigestion
I think I may have discovered a new cause of indigestion in people.
The other night, as I was preparing my supper (a cheeseburger and some 'waffle' fries), I noticed that one of the fries was different than the others. That was when I realized that one cause of indigestion might be Food with an Attitude:
The other night, as I was preparing my supper (a cheeseburger and some 'waffle' fries), I noticed that one of the fries was different than the others. That was when I realized that one cause of indigestion might be Food with an Attitude:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Incomplete voting
That's the end result of my visit to my local polling place this morning.
There were a number of situations where I didn't like any of the choices offered to me on the ballot (most notably the Presidential contest), so I simply declined to vote for any of them. I did, however, cast votes for those offices where the options didn't make me want to hold my nose...
Thinking that the vote-counting machinery (we use fill-in-the-circle ballots) might puke, I carefully penciled in a brief note (in an unused area of the ballot) stating that the blank spots were deliberate.
This whole electoral college, delegates, superdelegates, and assorted flim-flamery undoubtedly made sense back when transportation and communications were slow and unreliable; but in these days of jet aircraft, radios, the Internet, and all the rest... I think it's time we re-thought the whole process with an eye toward updating it to more accurately represent the desires of the people actually casting the votes.
There were a number of situations where I didn't like any of the choices offered to me on the ballot (most notably the Presidential contest), so I simply declined to vote for any of them. I did, however, cast votes for those offices where the options didn't make me want to hold my nose...
Thinking that the vote-counting machinery (we use fill-in-the-circle ballots) might puke, I carefully penciled in a brief note (in an unused area of the ballot) stating that the blank spots were deliberate.
This whole electoral college, delegates, superdelegates, and assorted flim-flamery undoubtedly made sense back when transportation and communications were slow and unreliable; but in these days of jet aircraft, radios, the Internet, and all the rest... I think it's time we re-thought the whole process with an eye toward updating it to more accurately represent the desires of the people actually casting the votes.
An Open Letter
3. June 2008
Sen. John Tester
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2604
Sir:
A bit of research I did for a blog post on the size of government revealed that there is a higher number of federal employees, as a function of total U.S. population, now than ever before in the history of the United States. Using numbers from official Government documents, I learned that back in 1946 there was a Federal employee for every 51 citizens; as of 1999, that number had changed to a Federal employee for ever 21 people.
Naturally enough, that simple bit of information prompted me to ask myself “Are we getting twice as much help from the government as we were back then?” Immediately following that was the question “How do I tell?”
Those two small, simple questions started me on a small personal quest for knowledge that has lasted the better part of a month, and involved no small amount of effort – to no avail.
Instead, what I have discovered is that it is virtually impossible to tell (except at the most cursory level) just how much of what any particular government agency or department is doing, at what cost, for anything but brief periods of time. By way of illustration, let me use the Department of Veterans Affairs:
While there is some small amount of information available courtesy of such sites as ExpectMore.gov, USAspending.gov, and even the OMB, there is still a noteworthy lack of accountability demonstrated or expressed by government agencies and offices. Again, to use the VA as an example:
Considering how much the government has grown in the last 60 years, I think it would also be worthwhile to start asking the various agencies to justify some of what they do: on the ExpectMore.gov website, they have a page (actually, FIVE pages) of the least-effective programs in the Federal bureaucracy; by their calculation, twenty-eight percent of Federal programs are inefficient or not demonstrating the desired results.
Senator, you were elected to office on the premise that you were just a 'regular guy' that wanted to try to get Washington straightened out. Have you become ensnared by the system you went there to fix? Now that you're IN Washington, has your opinion of government inefficiency and waste changed from how you felt on your farm?
I shall look forward to receiving your response to this letter; particularly whether that response is of the generic 'canned' variety, or includes actual facts and details.
Sincerely,
David K. Merriman
Sen. John Tester
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2604
Sir:
A bit of research I did for a blog post on the size of government revealed that there is a higher number of federal employees, as a function of total U.S. population, now than ever before in the history of the United States. Using numbers from official Government documents, I learned that back in 1946 there was a Federal employee for every 51 citizens; as of 1999, that number had changed to a Federal employee for ever 21 people.
Naturally enough, that simple bit of information prompted me to ask myself “Are we getting twice as much help from the government as we were back then?” Immediately following that was the question “How do I tell?”
Those two small, simple questions started me on a small personal quest for knowledge that has lasted the better part of a month, and involved no small amount of effort – to no avail.
Instead, what I have discovered is that it is virtually impossible to tell (except at the most cursory level) just how much of what any particular government agency or department is doing, at what cost, for anything but brief periods of time. By way of illustration, let me use the Department of Veterans Affairs:
- Over the course of 7 years, the VA changed the formatting of its budget reports no less than 3 times, making it nigh impossible to do any kind of comparison.
- There is no indication that the VA has ever undergone any kind of outside audit of its operations. Its budget is reviewed and certified by an outside accounting agency, but the basis of those numbers is less than obvious.
- It is considerably less than straightforward to determine the (relative) efficiency of the VA from its budget. Only gross accounting of the numbers of people assisted is provided, with virtually no added detail available.
- The little bit of self-analysis the VA does of its operations reveals that the VA isn't even meeting its own self-assigned goals.
While there is some small amount of information available courtesy of such sites as ExpectMore.gov, USAspending.gov, and even the OMB, there is still a noteworthy lack of accountability demonstrated or expressed by government agencies and offices. Again, to use the VA as an example:
- How many veterans are receiving medical care? What is the cost of that care, both in terms of personnel and drugs? How much of the budget is spent on medical professionals, versus desk jockeys?
- How many veterans are receiving educational assistance? How much are these veterans receiving in direct disbursement, versus how much is being spent on administration?
- How does the VA decide what facilities go where? Is there a VA medical facility of X square feet and Y people for every Z veterans?
- What other government agencies and entities does the VA routinely deal with? Are those interactions as streamlined and efficient as possible?
- How does the VA decide what services to provide in a particular area, versus contracting them out? (e.g. Who decides that it's acceptable for a veteran to travel 200+ miles [Billings to Ft. Harrison; 6 hours travel time plus $140 travel expenses] for an eye exam, versus paying $50-75 to a local optician?)
Considering how much the government has grown in the last 60 years, I think it would also be worthwhile to start asking the various agencies to justify some of what they do: on the ExpectMore.gov website, they have a page (actually, FIVE pages) of the least-effective programs in the Federal bureaucracy; by their calculation, twenty-eight percent of Federal programs are inefficient or not demonstrating the desired results.
Senator, you were elected to office on the premise that you were just a 'regular guy' that wanted to try to get Washington straightened out. Have you become ensnared by the system you went there to fix? Now that you're IN Washington, has your opinion of government inefficiency and waste changed from how you felt on your farm?
I shall look forward to receiving your response to this letter; particularly whether that response is of the generic 'canned' variety, or includes actual facts and details.
Sincerely,
David K. Merriman
Friday, May 30, 2008
I am (in)famous
I recently made a brief submission to a local weekly newspaper, the Outpost.
My article -- for the Science and Technology section, a monthly feature -- was accepted, and published in yesterdays edition.
Go on over and have a look at the mischief I got into, see what passes for news here in Billings, and help boost their online viewage numbers :-)
My article -- for the Science and Technology section, a monthly feature -- was accepted, and published in yesterdays edition.
Go on over and have a look at the mischief I got into, see what passes for news here in Billings, and help boost their online viewage numbers :-)
Why women live longer than men
If you put a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the rat race ... you're a male chauvinist. If you stay home and do the housework ... you're a pansy.
If you work too hard ... there's never any time for her. If you don't work enough ... you're a good-for-nothing bum.
If she has a boring repetitive job with low pay ... this is exploitation. If you have a boring repetitive job with low pay ... you should get off your lazy behind and find something better.
If you get a promotion ahead of her ... that is favoritism. If she gets a job ahead of you ... its equal opportunity.
If you mention how nice she looks ... its sexual harassment. If you keep quiet . .. its male indifference.
If you cry ... you're a wimp. If you don't ... you're an insensitive bastard.
If you make a decision without consulting her ... you're a chauvinist. If she makes a decision without consulting you ... she's a liberated woman.
If you ask her to do something she doesn't enjoy ... that's domination. If SHE asks you ... it's a favor.
If you appreciate the female form and frilly underwear ... you're a pervert. If you don't ...you're gay.
If you like a woman to shave her legs and keep in shape ... you're sexist. If you don't ... you're unromantic.
If you try to keep yourself in shape .. you're vain. If you don't ... you're a slob.
If you buy her flowers .. you're after something. If you don't ... you're not thoughtful.
If you're proud of your achievements ... you're full of yourself. If you don't ... you're not ambitious.
If she has a headache ... she's tired. If you have a headache .. you don't love her anymore.
If you want it too often ... you're oversexed. If you don't ... there must be someone else.
Any questions?
If you work too hard ... there's never any time for her. If you don't work enough ... you're a good-for-nothing bum.
If she has a boring repetitive job with low pay ... this is exploitation. If you have a boring repetitive job with low pay ... you should get off your lazy behind and find something better.
If you get a promotion ahead of her ... that is favoritism. If she gets a job ahead of you ... its equal opportunity.
If you mention how nice she looks ... its sexual harassment. If you keep quiet . .. its male indifference.
If you cry ... you're a wimp. If you don't ... you're an insensitive bastard.
If you make a decision without consulting her ... you're a chauvinist. If she makes a decision without consulting you ... she's a liberated woman.
If you ask her to do something she doesn't enjoy ... that's domination. If SHE asks you ... it's a favor.
If you appreciate the female form and frilly underwear ... you're a pervert. If you don't ...you're gay.
If you like a woman to shave her legs and keep in shape ... you're sexist. If you don't ... you're unromantic.
If you try to keep yourself in shape .. you're vain. If you don't ... you're a slob.
If you buy her flowers .. you're after something. If you don't ... you're not thoughtful.
If you're proud of your achievements ... you're full of yourself. If you don't ... you're not ambitious.
If she has a headache ... she's tired. If you have a headache .. you don't love her anymore.
If you want it too often ... you're oversexed. If you don't ... there must be someone else.
Any questions?
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