Unum’s Blog

There are those who would have us believe that there are two types of political thought in this world, conservative and liberal. Black and white, very simple. However if you ask for a definition of either word you will get many different answers. To say that there is only two option on any topic is obviously an over simplification. Take for example public education. There are people who want to eliminate public education all together, there are those who believe we should significantly increase all teachers salaries, there are those who think we should allow vouchers and keep the pay the same, there are those who think the status quo is just fine.

I’m a big fan of the site Political Compass because it ranks people on a scale. Both an economic and a civil liberties scale. This helps people realize that things are as simple as they often think they are.

Speaking of graphs. Several years ago in a political science class the professor drew a graph. When I think about it now, it just seems so obvious, but at the time it was completely new to me.

I know his graph was different than mine, but I believe I am being faithful to the idea. What this graph suggests is that some government involvement is good for the economy, but that too much is bad. Think about the government protecting shipping, building roads, enforcing truth in advertising, and clean food. There are anarchist who would argue there should be no government, and there are communist who argue that the government should control everything. This graph is for everyone in the middle, which is most people.

The devil is in the details. You probably noticed that there’s no marks on the graph indicating what the “ideal” government involvement level is. That’s where the disagreement is, and you can have a disagreement about that on every single political topic.

I for one welcome those debates and think they are healthy for a democracy. The problem is too many people think the other side is full of either anarchist or communist that will push this country into economic destruction. So we fight and argue with each other over things that very few of us actually believe, because we have been convinced by people on our own side that everyone on the other side is an extremist and we are the moderates, and there are no other options.

The vast majority of careers require the usage of computers, but Utah students are not receiving the training they need to use computers to their fullest capacity. Most Utah high schools offer classes that provide important fundamental technical training, but these classes are not mandatory and are not taken advantage of by a majority of students.

The requirements for technical education set by the state curriculum board are too low for the needs of Utah’s industries, and most student graduating from Utah schools do not even meet these requirements.

I propose that the state mandate for technology education be changed to require a computers fundamentals class that would encompass an understanding of several core computing concepts. Examples of such core computing concepts would be: bits/bytes, file systems,file types, hardware/software, networks, logic. I am not proposing more students be required to take more technology classes, but that the requirement for which classes fulfil the current requirement should be changed.

Public Option Proposed Health Insurance organization which would be ran by a department of the federal government(or possible a non-profit)

Universal Health Care Everyone can see a doctor(and not just in an emergency).

Single Payer Health Care One organization(typically the government) sees that doctors are paid for treating people

No discrimination based on pre-existing condition Health Insurance companies must insure people, even if they are already seriously ill

Please use the above terms appropriately.

Digital data can be stored on different kinds of mediums. Most of you probably use a computer with a magnetic based hard drive. In this drive there are platters and needles. If you pull one apart it looks like a little record player. the platters spin just like a record player. That’s how you data is save and retrieved from the hard drive. The little needle can read the magnetic settings on the platter or flip the magnetic setting. Each little sector of the hard drive is called a bit. A group of eight is called a byte. A kilobyte is about a thousand bytes, and a megabyte is about a million(The exact value depends on who you ask, I’m not kidding).

Sometimes bad things happen to good hard drives. The motor that spins the platter might burn out. If the computer is moved while the hard disk is in use sometimes the needle will hit the platter and it will never completely work again(this happens all the time on laptops).

There are other types of storage but they all have their issues. If you don’t want to lose data. You need to back up. What this means is you need to store everything that matters to you on two separate devices. How often you do this depends on your usage. Just remember you are likely to lose anything you don’t have backed up.

If you have a few documents and pictures you can probably use a flash drive and just back up whenever you have a bunch of new photos. If you have digital videos that you have made you may want to get an external hard drive. These generally cost under $200 and often come with software that makes it so you can back up with the push of a button. You can burn to cd or dvd, but I have had bad experiences with rewritables and buying new ones all the time will eventually cost more than an external harddrive.

There are also online back up solutions like mozy,s3,Google mail,linode(only one of these is specificly for backups, but the others can used that way) . You can also buy a network attached storage device that you can easily back up to.

There are some other things that you may want to consider. One reason for backups is risk of theft(very high if you own a laptop). In that case backing up to to a flash drive that is your laptop carrying bag will not protect you. A fire(computers sometimes burst into flames on their own) could destroy everything in your house including back ups. For this reason business typically have what they call on off site back up. If your house burns down you’ll still have all your pictures this way.

Data can usually be recovered from damaged drives, but you are looking at thousands of dollars. People don’t like doing backups because it takes time and the risk is believed to be so low, but the risk is higher than you think. Back up what you want.

Those of you who know me, know I’m addicted to the cable station USA(Darn you Natalie!). They recently introduced a new show called White Collar. In this show a white collar criminal is working with an FBI agent to help catch other white collar criminals. The criminal begins helping the agent with his personal life, such as reminding him of his anniversary. In an attempt to figure out what he should do for his wife for their anniversary the agent(using provisions from THE USA PATRIOT ACT) requests many records pertaining to his wife(such as credit card records).

You may be think, that’s just television. No, it’s a television show writing real life into their show. NSA analysts routinely read their wives/girlfriends emails. Why wouldn’t they? No one is telling them they can’t. NSA analysts are also listening to your calls back home to your wife when you are out of the country. Don’t worry, if your conversation is interesting enough they will share it with everyone they work with.

The thing that baffles me the most, is that no one is mentioning Watergate. Will a sitting US President use the power of his office to allow him access to his opponents campaign. We know that he will, he has done it before. I wouldn’t trust anyone not do it, especially when we have made it so easy. Oversight needs to be introduced into this process. We need to protected from this destruction of our privacy, in the name of patriotism.

I am a graduate from the public school system. I feel the public system served me well. I learned how to eat healthy, how to cook, even how to fix a small motor. I also learned how to drive, how to be civically active, how to program a computer, and how to stay healthy.

Though currently I have come to a point in my life where I feel my public education has failed me. You see, I have at times discussed future plans with the woman I was dating. One of the things we discussed was how many children we each wanted. Each woman I discussed this with indicated an intent to use some form of family planning. I’ve yet to be in a serious enough relationship to discuss what that form would be, but I have realized I am in no way prepared to have that discussion. My public education has failed me.

In a 2002 study by the federal government 98 percent of women reported using contraception during their reproductive years. 98% are using birth control, yet we failing to discuss this in most health classes in Utah. This is just silly, and bizarre that we will avoid this one subject that effects 98% of our population. There are constant advances in this field, teachers are required to keep up to date, parents are not. Doctors are strained for time with patients, and in school classes are more efficient and effective then expecting people to go to outside source.

Teach this in public school classes, teach it now.

There are two article I wish to share today. The first is from the Wall Street Journal. I obviously have some very different political views from those who run the Wall Street Journal. How ever when it comes to civil liberties I find we often share some similar concerns. So it caught my eye when I saw a link to an article on the WSJ about how I could be committing three felonies a day.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

It’s largely about technology related laws and about how fast the technology is changing and how poorly our elected representatives understand it, so we end up with really bad vague laws. Frequently people do things that are legal, but certain people in law enforcement think those things should be illegal. So law enforcement officials will just hunt through the vague laws and find one that is generally not enforced but use that law to punish people for a complete different LEGAL act. You should read the article for yourself, it’s pretty good.

An example of what I’m talking about can be found in the case of Aaron Swartz(as a side note I spoke with him on the phone once, I was applying for a job that he was quitting, I didn’t get it ). Many court documents are public, you can go down to the court office and pick them up for a minimal fee(to offset copying expenses). Then came the digitial age the records are now stored digitally. The fee has been kept in place. They charge several cents a page. Some people have created a repository to publicly share documents that they have paid for from the courts. This is completely legal. The courts decided to let some law library’s have access to the server for free on a trial basis. Aaron Swartz decided to visit the law library with a program that would automatically download documents and push them to an other server. He then made those documents publicly available with out a fee. So soon the FBI was gathering everything they could on him. Looking for a crime they could charge him with. They never did charge him. You can read a more detailed account here:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/swartz-fbi

These article are primarily about this being done in the technology sector, but it is happening elsewhere. There are lots of vague general unenforced laws. If we aren’t going to enforce the law, lets eliminate it.

Has the FBI placed you under surveillance for trying to help people out? Maybe for something you said? Maybe one of your friends did something legal they didn’t like? They are now watching to find a vague crime you committed.

I went and saw Michael Moore’s new movie. Capitalism: A love story.

Honestly I think it was the best documentary I’ve ever seen by him(I haven’t seen Roger and Me, yet). He starts off with an interview about some big shot banker who talks about what a failure democracy is and how capitalism is the one true system of government, or something like that. He then shows a letter from Citibank to its big investors where they claim that the US government is a plutocracy. Even thought the forms are Democratic in process it’s a Plutocracy because most people aren’t involved enough in the Democracy for it to matter.

He then goes on to attack the TARP Bill, President Reagan, deregulation, foreclosures, etc. All issues I think need to be addressed. I’m not a pure free market guy. I’m O.K. with the government passing laws saying I shouldn’t be able to do stupid things(like take out loans that I can pay for). I’m O.K. with the government protecting me from myself. He show cased a couple of groups that stood up against the banks. It was non-violent civil disobedience. Which in my last post you will see I support in many cases, but I don’t think that’s a long term solution, and I wonder if that’s the point he is trying to make.

He does talk a little about voting, and that is why I titled this “The Talking Heads” too many of them allow their biases to prevent them from really addressing the issue. Moore handled Obama with kid gloves, when he shouldn’t have. In fact he even puts Obama up has having inspired people to participate in civil disobedience. In all of his negative statements about Obama he avoids mentioning him by name. Moore states that the TARP bill passed because “presidential hopefuls” forced it through. He also talks Geither being appointed because he would say what was wanted by the powers that be, but no reference to Obama being the one that appointed him.

I think if he had gone after Obama it would made this piece stronger, and harder to toss it aside as a partisan attack. Though Moore does make a good argument about those who worship capitalism over all else(including God and Democracy).

I really admire those who have brought about change through peaceful resistance to laws they opposed. It’s difficult to make the right choice in the face of oppression and even violence. Those who fought for civil rights for blacks risked their very lives. Much violence was used by those opposing civil rights for black, and while many blacks resorted to violence in response, many did not and that is a very high road to take indeed.

In recent affairs as well as affairs in the past(American-Philippine war) there have been those who have committed unjustness in the name of the United States. I remember hearing Senator McCain say something to the effect of “If we resort to the same tactics of them, what ground do we have to stand on”. I agree with the sentiment of that statement. If we seek to claim the moral high ground, we need to take the higher road. We need to be able to forgive trespasses and not seek revenge, but seek that our rights be secured.

So to those who have sought only for their rights and not for revenge, in the face of violent opposition, I applaud you for your moral strength.

In my many conversations with conservatives the topic of hate crime legislation has often come up. I have found that there is a common misunderstanding. Many people think that hate crime legislation adds penalties for attacking a specific classes of people, or that hate crime legislation limits speech about certain classes of people. It does not do either of these things. Most hate crime legislation adds a penalty to existing crimes when your intent in committing the crime was to intimidate a specified class of people.

First it is important to understand that ones intent is a is used to determine many classes of crime. For example, the difference between man slaughter and murder. In both cases someone was killed, but in one case you meant to kill someone, in the other case you accidentally killed someone. Intent and circumstance are frequently taken into account in sentencing for a crime.

Now the misunderstanding. If I beat up someone who is a minority. Let’s say the person is Latino and I am white. That does not mean I will be prosecuted for hate crime legislation. If I attacked him because he was flirting with my girlfriend, that’s just plain old assault. Nothing special.

On the other hand if I’m walking through a Latino neighbourhood and I’m attacked, beat up and physically dragged out of the neighbourhood and told not to come back because they don’t want no gringos around, that is a hate crime, because I was attacked because of my ethnicity.

You don’t have to be a minority in order to be the victim of a hate crime. You have to be able to show that the crime was intended to intimidate you and others belonging to a group in one of the specified categories(race, religion,etc).

People think these crimes should have enhanced penalties because the crimes are targeted at a larger group. Not to over use an already over used work, but these crimes are an act of terrorism. They are meant to not only hurt the individual victim but to send a message of fear to an entire community. To scare them. To prevent them from being able to live a normal life and express their beliefs.

With that explanation some may wonder why there are specified categories, this is done to prevent fears by some that the law will be overly applied, though personally I find the categories unnecessary.

The text of Utah’s bill can be found here:
http://www.le.state.ut.us/~2006/bills/hbillint/hb0090s04.htm

After reading it I see an important part of it, is an individual right to not be intimidated for those reason, but none the less your intent has to be to intimidate the person for belonging to group with in those categories. The person does not need to be a minority. That bill does not include any categories, they may be specified elsewhere.