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So You Want to Work in These United States? June 2, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Politics , comments closed

Apparently there is just a tiny little price to pay … well, sort of.

Live Science reports:

Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company’s RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. He made the statement on national television on May 16.

Silverman was being interviewed on “Fox & Friends.” Responding to the Bush administration’s call to know “who is in our country and why they are here,” he proposed using VeriChip RFID implants to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities in the workplace. He added, “We have talked to many people in Washington about using it….”

The VeriChip is a very small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag about the size of a large grain of rice. It can be injected directly into the body; a special coating on the casing helps the VeriChip bond with living tissue and stay in place. A special RFID reader broadcasts a signal, and the antenna in the VeriChip draws power from the signal and sends its data. The VeriChip is a passive RFID tag; since it does not require a battery, it has a virtually unlimited life span. [Links remoded -- Editor.]

Well, I did say it was tiny and little … but let’s hear some more first:

RFID tags have long been used to identify animals in a variety of settings; livestock, laboratory animals and pets have been “chipped” for decades.

… on second thought, no comment.

Roundum Randup January 17, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Misc, Politics, Sci-Tech , comments closed

This is a roundup of interesting things from the past few days which I’ve had no time to fully comment upon.

This is a must-read from Andrew Dalton at Witch Doctor Repellent. He sheds much needed light on the leftist concept of “root cause”, or rather, their sneaky corruption of the actual concept of “root cause”:

[T]here is a whole array of words and phrases like this: not only root cause, but also diversity, sustainability, and proportional response. All of these terms have broad meanings in everyday English. But when used by a leftist, they are actually Trojan horses for a specific worldview.

“Root cause” wears the cloak of reason. After all, what rational person could be against finding the root cause of a problem? The problem is, “root cause” is usually a code word for something on a list of purported causes that have been pre-approved by leftists. Things not on that list, like human choices or philosophy, don’t count. Go ahead, just try saying that the root cause of bullying is a bully’s choice to use violence. Or that the root cause of Islamic terrorism is Islam. Both are correct, but the self-appointed experts in “root causes” will treat you as either a Neanderthal or a Hun if you say such a thing.

The Hat Tip for that goes to the Secular Foxhole.

This is a hilarious must-see. After much dancing around, Allah (that’s “God” for the English speaking) has finally accepted to pose for Robert Tracy at Illustrated Ideas. The result is an excellent piece of art, and a very fitting portrait for the Madman Upstairs.

Charles Krauthammer has a … well … not-so-nice review of Steven Spielberg’s Munich at the Washington Post. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but from the mere trailers that I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were right — here’s an excerpt:

It is an axiom of filmmaking that you can only care about a character you know. In “Munich,” the Israeli athletes are not only theatrical but historical extras, stick figures. Spielberg dutifully gives us their names — Spielberg’s List — and nothing more: no history, no context, no relationships, nothing. They are there to die.

The Palestinians who plan the massacre and are hunted down by Israel are given — with the concision of the gifted cinematic craftsman — texture, humanity, depth, history. The first Palestinian we meet is the erudite translator of poetry giving a public reading, then acting kindly toward an Italian shopkeeper — before he is shot in cold blood by Jews.

Then there is the elderly PLO member who dotes on his 7-year-old daughter before being blown to bits. Not one of these plotters is ever shown plotting Munich, or any other atrocity for that matter. They are shown in the full flower of their humanity, savagely extinguished by Jews.

But the most shocking Israeli brutality involves the Dutch prostitute — apolitical, beautiful, pathetic — shot to death, naked, of course, by the now half-crazed Israelis settlingprivate business. The Israeli way, I suppose.

Feel free to have a crack at the rest.

Gus Van Horn points to a very disturbing article from City Journal concerning the possible, and imminent overt loss of freedom of speech in this country, through the inclusion of alternative media [e.g.: blogs, talk radio, etc...] within the sphere of Campaign Finance Reform laws. Yes, I am speaking of censorship in worse form than it exists right now, including that institutionalized through the FCC. Gus Van Horn has his own excellent thoughts on the subject, as well. Excerpting either article here would do them rather little justice, so make sure you read them both in their entirety.

As an aside though, I’d like to note that this continuing loss of freedom in the intellectual realm is nothing but a consequence of the now almost-complete process of interpreting away the concept and principle of the sanctity of property rights from the Constitution. Without property rights, no rights can be practiced in reality at all — and if people think that they can have any social system other than capitalism and still keep their rights, they are (parahrasing their Father, Kant) about to be woken up from their dogmatic slumbers.

Amit Ghate has a great colum of the above name at Capitalism Magazine. It does a pretty good job at showing how far today’s politcians have strayed away from the actual meaning of the constitution and the kind of government established by the Founding Fathers of this great country. Specifically, the article is about the nowadays-too-common confusion (or is it deliberate?) between (1) a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic, and (2) the institution of the Right to Vote, instead of the Right to Life, as the fundamental human right.

Both misconceptions are actually only two sides of the same coin, and you can see the evidence all over the news: Free and high-voter-turnout elections in Iraq and Afghanistan are celebrated all over regardless of the outcome, because allegedly, these people have the right to govern themselves even if that means voting not only oneself, but others as well, into tyrannical theocracies. And if you have any doubt as to just how serious these people are, you should know that some of them think this alleged “right to vote” should be mandatory. Yes, a mandatory “right”! If this isn’t a blatant contradiction in terms, I wonder what on this earth could possibly ever be?!

If you’ve followed the news lately, you must have heard of the safe return of NASA’s Stardust Capsule — which had the mission of capturing comet samples from space, which in turn could probably tells us “where we came from.” Obviously these scientists are incredibly behind the times! For it is written:

In the begining there was nothing,
Then God came out of nothing,
And created everything
… out of nothing.

That is from Part I, Chapter I of the Grand Infallible Book of Eternal Truth (or simply “G.I.B.E.T”, as it is popularly known) — which was written about 6 millenia ago. Where have these scientists been living all this time? Don’t they know that all True Knowledge resides within the Book, and only within the Book? Or are they just not aware of the Existence of the Book? I wonder what Reverend Pat is going to say about this … people tryin’ to disprove the Infallibility of the Book an’ all…

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What You Might Not Know About the Privacy You Do Not Have January 10, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Politics, Sci-Tech , comments closed

Recently, I learned of a new breed of rather very dangerous individuals: they call themselves “information brokers”, and they are a product of the popularity of the internet. And just in case you’re wondering what kind of information it is that these people “broker”, well, it is pretty simple: your phone records … that is, for a very modest fee these people promise to delivery to you accurate and current calling records of anyone in North America — all of it in as little as a single hour.

You can get a first hand experience by visiting the following sites: LocateCell.com and BestPeopleSearch.com. The former offers both land line and cellphone trace, and the latter a plethora more. And just to give you an idea about just how good these people are [at what they do], LocateCell recently sold the Canadian Privacy Minister’s phone records to a Newspaper which used it to illustrate the gravity of the issue.

Keep in mind that this is not merely information that can be accessed by your spouse who suspects you of infidelity [though I suppose that would be deserved, if in fact you are an "infidel"], it is available to such people as stalkers and other sorts of criminals as well.

But that is not all: just recently, the Chicago Police Department was warning its officers (especially those who are undercover) of the dangers this could put them in.

Via the Chicago SunTimes:

The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts.

Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official.

[...]

“Officers should be aware of this information when giving out their personal cell phone numbers to the general public,” the [PD] said. “Undercover officers should also be aware of this information if they occasionally call personal numbers such as home or the office, from their [undercover] ones.”

It gets better:

To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent’s cell phone and received the list within three hours …

[...]

“Not only in Chicago, but nationwide, the FBI notified its field offices of this potential threat to the security of our agents, and especially our undercover agents,” [Frank Bochte, a sopkesman for the FBI in Chicago] said. “We need to educate our personnel about the dangers posed by individuals using this site and others like it. We are stressing that they should be careful in their cellular use.”

As to how these “info brokers” get to your records, their method of choice [when they don't have someone on the inside who sells it to them] is called “pretexting” — which essentially consists of pretending to be you, and duping your average customer service agent into giving away your information. ‘Nuff Said.

On to the second privacy issue of the day. This one is particularly interesting: did you know that there is a federal law dictating what kind of showerhead you must have in your bathroom, and by extension, what kind of shower you must take? Yep, it’s not just the Jesus-Freaks and your bedroom, it’s the Eco-Freaks and your bathroom as well.

The Seattle P-I reports:

When Al Dietemann ran across some Internet ads for shower heads promising experiences akin to tropical waterfalls, he went online and ordered some.

Then he sent them to a lab for testing.

The city of Seattle announced [recently] that it will seek sanctions against manufacturers of water-guzzling shower heads, armed with lab results showing that the products tested far exceeded the federal “maximum water flow rate requirement” standard.

“The people of Seattle have a very strong environmental ethic, and I think most people would be appalled at others who are wasting energy or water,” said Dietemann, water conservation lead for Seattle Public Utilities.

Dietemann had received complaints from local plumbers and developers about body spa and waterfall-type shower heads not conforming to code.

“This has the potential to significantly undermine all our efforts to encourage and achieve water conservation,” Dietemann said. “It’s a leak in the dike we want to plug.”

“[A] leak in the dike we want to plug.” Isn’t that a humorous thing for a bureaucrat to say. I believe it is. As to the people who “would be appalled [yes, appalled!] by people who are wasting energy or water”, I say cry me a river. Are they not paying for the water and energy they are supposedly “wasting”? But unfortunately we don’t have a true free market in water distribution, but the point here is to show how such alleged “waste” problems are, if they arise at all, solved by that “unknown ideal” called capitalism.

Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute wrote one of its better articles on this subject today. You should have a look at it — if only for the humor.

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A Mistaken Way of Advocating ‘Individual Rights’ December 12, 2005

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Politics , comments closed

DELAND, Fla., December 8, 2005—Stetson University has announced that parody, “derogatory” or “demeaning” comments, and even jokes from The Tonight Show are out of bounds for its students. Stetson’s chilling declarations came after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) protested the private Florida university’s censorship of a student magazine.

Well, so much for Individual Rights when those who claim to fight for them apparently have no clue that the words “private” and “censorship” are mutually exclusive.

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Economists ‘Discover’ that Artificial Restrictions on Supply Lead to High Prices December 12, 2005

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Economics, Politics , comments closed

From the Washington Times, via FEE:

Escalating prices that have made houses unaffordable for many people in Washington are mostly the result of homeowners using political and regulatory means to block construction of new housing, economic studies show.

[...]

The remarkable run of record housing sales and prices since 1998 has become a major puzzle and topic among economists. The high prices have put homeownership out of reach for many young people and low-income households hoping to break into the market.

Economists increasingly are concluding that the shortage of affordable housing in Washington and other major U.S. cities on the East and West coasts is a result more of man-made restrictions on development than high construction costs or other market forces.

Well, stop the presses, ladies and gentlemen! “A major puzzle and topic among economists” has been solved … if only this groundbreaking discovery weren’t at least three centuries behind the times! It’s almost sad really: that most contemporary econmists are still in the process of catching up to Adam Smith. It’s good to hear however that Capitalism isn’t being falsely blamed for once.

You should read the whole article. It might surpise you the things people are ready to do in order to actualize and protect their petty aesthetic visions — if only they spent half that effort defending their individual rights …

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