Dont Look at me…

The blog at maddox.xmission.com is an interesting read.   While I can fully appreciate his frustration and anger at the world for being so lazy, I’d like to bring him back to reality a bit.   His anger at people (like me) who took part in the recent online protesting of SOPA/PIPA seems a little misguided.   But I hope to clarify that statement in a moment.

First let me say this.   He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.   His method for boycotting was sound, and his passion for change is to be admired.   It’s his ideology that was flawed.   He complained about people doing the bare minimum in their lives to bring about change.   And I can’t disagree with him, it’s true.   He complained about those of us who changed our Facebook icons, and preached the good word, for no other purpose than making a few more people aware of an issue.   And hopefully we made a difference.   I get it, I do.   We do so little to bring about honest change, and he’s right to call us out on it.

But here is where his argument breaks down.   Reality.   The reality of it is this.   Short of our government lining people up and shooting them in the streets in mass, he’s never going to have the support he needs to have meaningful change.   Quite frankly, nothing short of a full on revolution is going to see true and permanent change.   Americans have been groomed to live a sedimentary lifestyle, in every way, including politically.   We’ve resigned ourselves to a life of convenience and comfort.   The corporate run governing in our everyday lives sees to our trivial needs and makes sure we’re tucked-in nicely every night.  With that level of babysitting, people lack the necessary motivation to storm the gates and exercise their rights of free speech, public gathering, and to bear arms.   This I believe was in fact the point he was making.   And although I commend him on his list of corporations to boycott, which I will participate in, I fear that, that too will be ineffectual due to the same reasons listed above.

So, my point is, you can hate me for changing my picture on facebook, or showing up for an occupy rally.   You can be mad, and call me out, and tell me that I’m only half-assing it.    And you can tell me that even though SOPA may be put down this round, that I’m never going to make a difference…   That’s fine.   But take note.   I’m doing something.   I’m taking part.    As small as it is, I’m taking part.   I’m not sitting on my ass watching everything collapse around me.   And I’m not waiting for the shit to hit the fan, so I can finally raise an army and burn the whole fucking place to the ground (as nice as that would be).    Getting something out of the general public is far better than getting nothing.   And if I’ve made even the smallest infinitesimal difference in stopping SOPA, then I’ll continue to do so for the next time it comes around and for every other bullshit bill the drops in.

So I applaud your convictions Maddox, but dare I say, that changing my Facebook profile picture may have the same or if not more effect than the proposed boycotts you’ve planned.   Because in theory the boycott would be an awesome show of power, but in reality, it will fall quite short of the mark.  Frustrating?  Yes.   But true.

When time comes for a true revolution, I’ll pick up arms and fight right next to you.   For now, leave us to do what we can, and hope that we can still bring about some form of change.   And if you feel so inclined, why not change your own profile picture.  If only just to show a shred of support.

Well it’s December, and as usual that means our legislators are trying to cram a bunch of unwanted laws down our throats before the Christmas break.   Unfortunately that includes the annual NDAA (the National Defense Authorization Act).  And not unlike every other year, this one has its hidden agendas buried deep within its ever changing structure.   The problem is…   Sec. 1031.

   Section 1031 is by far one of the worst pieces ever to be added to the NDAA.   It quite literally gives the military (or FEMA where applicable) the ability to attack, capture, and detain, anyone in the world.   Here’s the kicker.   They can do this right here in the U.S.!  They can walk up to your house, kick your door in, march you and anyone in your family right out the front door, throw you in a van, and nobody will ever see you again.   According to Sec. 1031, they can do all this without:  A. A court order.  B. Reading you your rights.  C. Informing you of the charges against you.  D. Notifying anyone of your whereabouts.   E. Any kind of accountability.

   Not only can they violate the illegal search and seizure laws, but they can detain you INDEFINITELY!!!   No due process, no lawyer, not even so much as a phone call.  You’re completely and quite effectively SCREWED.  Your rights…  Gone!

   Quick fact, then a question.  Both the house and senate wrote Indefinite Detention additives to the NDAA.  That’s two separate bills (versions of the NDAA), both calling for the same thing.  Why?

   Why do certain people feel this is a MUST have in the new NDAA?  Who stands to gain from this?   This was written in secret, and shuffled into the NDAA in a relatively short matter of time.  The ink was still wet, as they say.   With both the house and the senate secret committees writing identical pieces of legislation, it seems all too unlikely that this is some bizarre anomaly.   Looks more like somebody wanted to hedge their bets. Whoever it was spent some serious cash getting this into play, and I want to know why.  They even took enough time to shoot down an amendment to Sec.1031 (S. Amdt. 1125) which called for clarification of who could be indefinitely detained.  No, somebody is determined to see this through.   But who?   And why?

   The who and why is something we’ll need to research further.   We have some names, but we’ll need to link them up to the appropriate cash cows to figure out why.   Politics is business, and we’ll need to see who stands to make out big in the Detention industry.  There are Four people responsible for taking the two bills and combining them into one, before it goes on the house floor.  They are: Sen. John McCain (R),  Sen. Carl Levin (D),   HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R), Adam Smith (D).    Smith is the only one not involved in the writing of the original detention additives, and is the only one to come out publicly against the bills.    The other three however, authored the originals, and have been pushing them hard.  So they seem like the absolute best place to start.   Find who is pulling their strings, and you’ll have your answers.

Good luck to all of us.  We’re going to need it.

Click the link if you want to help stop these criminals.

In the interest of fairness, I have to disclose that I am a Google stock holder, and as such would like to see Google do well.  With that being said, Here is why I think Google having a browser is such a bad idea.

I like Chrome, it’s a great browser.  It’s fast, it seems secure and stable, it has all the bells and whistles with still being a fairly light application.

So what’s the problem you ask?  In a nutshell, Google having a browser is very similar to a Content provider owning and controlling  an ISP (think Universal-Comcast).   Now, I know this seems like a stretch, but bare with me for a moment, and let me explain.  Perhaps they’ve snuk something in on us while we were sleeping?

I began to notice Mozilla’s Firefox browser start acting really buggy.   It would crash every day when left on one of my Google services, like G+, Gmail, or iGoogle.   I run the three major browsers, Chrome, Firefox, and IE, all day long for design testing at work.  I know, I know, Opera should be in the mix, and even has an emulator that mimics multiple browsers, but I’ve found it to be a little off at times.  Either way, I use each of them consistently,

This made me start to wonder.  Could Google be sabotaging… errr ahh… creatively optimizing  it’s services to run more smoothly with Chrome, than with other competing browsers?

It makes sense to me.   Google has been coming off some pretty hard failures lately.   They just announced the death of WAVE (which I thought was ahead of it’s time, yet too complicated to use), and they continue to struggle with the launch of Google+ (too little, too late).   They need Chrome to pan out.   The product is good, so I’m not sure why they felt the need to sabotage their competition.   (Excuse me…  IF, that is even what they are doing.   Let me make it clear, I have nothing to base this on.   It is purely hypothetical.   I’m simply posing the question.)   But, IF that was what they were doing it would in fact give them a leg up.

I can’t say this is illegal, IF that is what they were doing.  They would have every right to “optimize” their services toward their own products.   But I can’t help wondering if there is some sort of legal precedents set for purposely causing malfunction to normal web traffic via online service or server communications based on browser platform?

The reason I find this so interesting is that it seems very close to arguments we/I have against content providers owning ISP’s.   In the way that content providers would throttle competing content via their ISP, so too could Google throttle competing browsers search results, mail loading, or even viewing any content that passed through any of their services.   And that’s not even considering the possibility of them writing malicious code or bugs that would cause the competing browser to simply lock up.  I know when it first started happening, my first thought was, “Oh, great!  Well maybe I’ll just use Chrome.   It’ll probably work better anyway…”   After all, wouldn’t that be the idea?   I mean, anyone using Firefox certainly isn’t going to switch over to IE when Firefox gets buggy.   No, they’ll just cross over to Chrome.

I mean what would happen if Google simply came out and said, “We’re no longer making Gmail, or Google search available to Firefox users.   Instead, may we suggest Chrome.”   I mean, clearly that would be PR suicide, but assuming that the general public wouldn’t care…  wouldn’t that kill Firefox?

So I ask you, isn’t it in the realm of possibility that Google could be covertly sabotaging it’s competition?   Who knows?