Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Tuesday is Super!

Super Tuesday it is. Who's going to take home the vote? Paul? Obama? Anyone else that doesn't matter? We shall see who Diebold decides will win. On another alarming note, beginning in March Americans traveling abroad will be required to have 2 legal documents to travel in/out of the country. (1) a passport, and (2) a "cleared" message from the DHS authorizing the airline to allow the specific person to board the specific flight or ship.

For what little it's worth, the DHS followed its notice of the new procedures and document requirements for land border crossings with the announcement of the details of a new "passport card". Their idea was, apparently, to assuage the intense and widespread criticism of the new document requirements for land border crossings by promising to offer a cheaper alternative to a passport, "real soon now". But passport cards won't begin to be available until after the new procedures for USA-Canada/Mexico land border crossings take effect. As I had expected , the passport card will contain a "vicinity" RFID chip, i.e. a chip that can be read at longer range than the "proximity" chip in "RFID passports. The DHS admits that each passport card will respond to any query by sending back a unique chip ID number -- apparently in the clear. So if you want a cheaper alternative to an (RFID) passport, it will have a much longer-range identity broadcasting mechanism. And as with RFID passports, there's nothing in the new rules to restrict private and commercial tracking of passport cards by their unique chip numbers, or secret commercial aggregation, use, and sale of those tracking logs.

Sounds awesome. I’m traveling to the UK and Europe in mid-March. I'll let you know how this new DHS permission thing goes. apparently what it seems they are trying to do is move everyone from an original passport to an RFID passport. The only way to move people from point A to point B is to make a new ridiculous law, then implement an easier way to get the law across to appear as a positive in the public's eye. A RFID chip in your passport would enable the govt to track you wherever you go, without the written 'permission' with a RFID chip in it.

Pretty soon, it will be mandatory to get a RFID chip implanted in you for 'safety' tracking and to store all your personal information (SS#, CC#, insurance) basically everything that identifies you as you. And can all be erased in the blink of an eye, without any form of physical identification. Fun times ahead!



Starting this month, US citizens will require DHS permission to return home from abroad. [politics] (hasbrouck.org)

Super Tuesday Guide to Green Voting [environment] (thedailygreen.com)

The Case for Barack Obama: 12 Reasons to Support the Senator from Illinois [politics] (2parse.com)

Don't screw up, Democrats, Barack Obama is your man [politics] (timesonline.co.uk)

Clinton Won't Commit to Protect Constitution (Obama and Paul do). (thenation.com)

One day, there will be a woman worth electing to the White House. But not this one. [politics] (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

Hillary Proposes a Bailout of the Mortgage Mess ... Guess Who Her Top Contributors Are? [politics] (opensecrets.org)

Hillary Clinton Is the Biggest Recipient of Lobbyist Donations [politics] (whazgoinon.wordpress.com)

Soldiers love Ron and Barack, and lobbyists love Sen. Hillary Clinton [politics] (blogs.abcnews.com)

The uneducated, poor terrorists with all of their sophisticated weaponry like the AK-47 is such a threat we need a massive database of biometrics; Are american so dumb as to accept this bullsh*t? [politics] (cnn.com)

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien Duke It Out To Decides Who Created Mike Huckabee (One Of The Funniest Things I've Seen This Year) (nbc.com)

If you'd told me at the start of this presidential primary that I'd take off work for the campaign of a pro-life republican from Texas, I'd have probably jump kicked you in the chest. [politics] (huffingtonpost.com)

"Thirty years of the same two families in the White House is enough. It's time to change the guard." [politics] (theseminal.com)

How bush was greeted in KC [Pics] [politics] (democraticunderground.com)

Bush's Budget: $688 Billion For War [politics] (worldwide-sawdust.com)

Bush Proposes Budget With $400B Deficit (cbsnews.com)

If Iran Were America (And We Were Iran): A Timeline - (1953-2007) [politics] (lewrockwell.com)

How plastic we've become - - bisphenol A (BPA) exhibits potent hormone-like activity in human cells. [science] (sciencenews.org)

You would think all this plastic could be recycled into fuel profitably, could it be a floating oil well? [environment] (news.com.au)

An interesting catalog of human extinction scenerios [science] (nickbostrom.com)

Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them - New York Times [science] (nytimes.com)

Binghamton, NY Council Votes to Impeach Bush/Cheney [politics] (impeachforpeace.org)

Last-minute maintennance on Diebold machines opens door to fraud (opednews.com)

Did life begin on ice? “Cold conditions make much more sense, chemically, than warm conditions.” [science] (discovermagazine.com)

Scientists are finding clues about why water is so utterly weird [science] (sciencenews.org)

"Made in China" now has a different meaning for me (warning graphic links) (chinaview.wordpress.com)

No comments: