Things can get worse...

==  It can get lots worse than Trump ==

God's Plan for Mike Pence: This Atlantic article reminds us who and what is waiting on the wings, if Donald Trump leaves the scene - voluntarily or not. 

“Because God works in mysterious ways (or, at the very least, has a postmodern sense of humor), it was Donald J. Trump—gracer of Playboy covers, delighter of shock jocks, collector of mistresses—who descended from the mountaintop in the summer of 2016, GOP presidential nomination in hand, offering salvation to both Pence and the religious right. The question of whether they should wed themselves to such a man was not without its theological considerations. But after eight years of Barack Obama and a string of disorienting political defeats, conservative Christians were in retreat and out of options. So they placed their faith in Trump—and then, incredibly, he won.”

“Pence has so far showed absolute deference to the president—and as a result he has become one of the most influential figures in the White House, with a broad portfolio of responsibilities and an unprecedented level of autonomy. But for all his aw-shucks modesty, Pence is a man who believes heaven and Earth have conspired to place him a heartbeat—or an impeachment vote—away from the presidency.”

I have elsewhere explained why all this talk of Impeach Trump is positively loony. Trump is a known quantity who shoots himself in the foot, daily. Almost every grownup in the civil service, courts, military and intelligence services are alerted to the madness, if not horrified and ready to heroically throw themselves under a bus in order to cancel anything too crazy.

But read here what’s waiting in the wings. Picture the conservative-by-personality officers in the Army and FBI etc, overcome with relief when the soft-spoken Pence moves in, a relief he would exploit with pre-planned care. Replacing the Trump White House, which leaks like a sieve, would be an utterly disciplined and tight ship of Dominionists eager to end the world and bring on every horror described in the Book of Revelation. 

(They are quite open about wanting this... an end to all democracy, diversity, tolerance, ambition, competition, cooperation, endeavor... an end to all children... and an end to the United States of America, amid fire and hell for most of its citizens. This is what they openly avow that they seek. Ponder that. And ponder The Button.)

I go through a dozen reasons why this man would be ten times as dangerous as Trump. You Americans have fallen for so many confederate traps, already. When will you start being canny, assessing the situation calmly, and acting for the long term. Like a Grant. Like a Lincoln? 

== Can it get any more blatant? ==

Trump’s nominee to run the Census  is the author of a 2008 book titled “Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America.” The pick would break with the long-standing precedent of choosing a nonpolitical government official as deputy director of the U.S. Census Bureau. The job has typically been held by a career civil servant with a background in statistics. It does not require Senate confirmation, so Congress would have no power to block the hire.

Monsters and traitors.  Worse than that. Blatant confederates.

Your answer to mad uncles who cite the recent stock market rise as “the Trump Effect”: People who bought in at the inauguration of Obama in 2009 made a 300%+ killing. Maybe then this is just the historical trend that the economy of the first year of an administration is credited to the predecessor.

How long has he been an agent of – or at least a target for recruitment by – the Kremlin? Have a look how far back. Now combine that with the reasoning I lay forth here: that by far the favorite recruitment tactic of intelligence agencies is not bribery or ideology… but blackmail.

Values? Shall we try values? If we subtract outliers like Utah and Detroit & Chicago, name a metric of moral and healthy living that is not worse in Red America, from teen sex, STD and pregnancy rates to obesity, dropouts, divorce and domestic violence, gambling and so on. Name... one... exception.  Other than abortion which is a disagreement over fundamentals. 

Let’s dive in, according to this article:

“Last year, Bible-believing Louisiana had the highest murder rate in the country. Moore’s Alabama came in third. Prayer-drenched Mississippi had the sixth-worst. You’re much safer when surrounded by skeptics. 

"The irreligious state of Massachusetts had the fifth-lowest murder rate, with only 17 percent as many homicides per capita as Louisiana. Godless New Hampshire and Maine had the nation’s lowest murder rates.

“Of the 10 least religious states, none is among the 10 most dangerous. Of the 10 most religious states, only Utah is among the 10 that are least hospitable to homicide.

“God-fearing places also don’t have a stellar record of upholding the family. The divorce rate is 50 percent higher in Alabama than in Massachusetts — which, by the way, was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. New Hampshire and Mississippi, at opposite ends of the religiosity spectrum, are virtually identical in the propensity for marital dissolution.”

Then this: President Trump retweeted, quoted and highly touted a right wing site called “Britain First”… that relished the attention. Then the group tried frantically to scrub tons of pro-Putin propaganda on their board lest anyone get the right idea about the links between "conservatives" and Kremlin.

== Are you SURE Halloween is over? ==

Here are scary items:

* Johns Hopkins psychologist John Gartner suggests an “80 percent chance” that Trump will push the nuclear button.

*Are you reassured, then, that the top U.S. nuclear commander told a security conference Saturday that he would not execute a nuclear launch ordered by President Trump if he considered the order to be “illegal?”

* Well, I have repeatedly said we depend utterly upon the sanity and maturity of the U.S. military Officer Corps… and the dems should be recruiting thousands of retired officers to run for every red-district office.

* Still, there is a way to safety that’s short of impeachment and more reliable than officers hinting they would disobey “illegal orders,” and it might even get passed by a Republican Congress. It is veto-proof and calming and entirely plausible. See it here.

* Conservative intellectuals have led the way in denouncing Donald Trump as not a "true conservative." And yes, a conclave of residually-same conservatives might yet gather to salvage something decent and American from the ashes of their movement. But this article - and the book The Reactionary Mind - attacks the very idea that Trump is anything but what he seems. A factotum of aristocracy and the far-right.

* And this article by a Christian minister asks: “Christians have traditionally rejected the worship of money, sex and power. Do we still?” A year into Trump's presidency, Christians are facing a spiritual quandary.

“Meanwhile, in the absence of a clearly-articulated foreign policy vision from the administration, The Economist—hardly a bastion of left-wing politics—has taken a stab at trying to characterize the Trump Doctrine. Their take: "America's foreign policy: embrace thugs, dictators and strongmen." They note the President's friendly relationship with Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and others, not to mention his disdain for refugees, immigrants, and the like. While the magazine is no fan of Barack Obama's foreign policy, he seems like Nixon or Talleyrand or Metternich next to Trump.”  www.electoral-vote.com

And yet, I have repeatedly told you that there is much hope to be found in the members of the United States Military Officer Corps. Now there’s this: “Sixteen of the nation’s top retired military commanders are urging Congress to pass gun control legislation, arguing that there are many steps that can be taken to curb gun deaths that do not violate the Second Amendment.”

 == Wikileaks and accountability ==

There are times when I’d rather not be right. Going back to the beginning, I have always had mixed feelings about WikiLeaks… approving of the general concept and trend toward transparency/accountability, while instinctively suspicious toward a rising aroma of hypocrisy and political bias favoring the stinkiest parts of our modern world. Do read this article! Now we know that:

“In Twitter direct messages during the last throes of the US election campaign, released over the past week, WikiLeaks, which US intelligence has deemed a tool of Russian intelligence, attempted to woo Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, with offers of secret collusion.”

“The radical libertarians and the autocrats are allied by virtue of sharing an enemy which is the mainstream, soft, establishment, liberal politics,” said Jamie Bartlett, the director of the centre for the analysis of social media at the Demos think tank. “Most early, hardline cryptographers who were part of this movement in the 1990s considered that democracy and liberty were not really compatible. Like most radical libertarians – as Assange was – the principal enemy was the soft democrats who were imposing the will of the majority on the minority and who didn’t really believe in genuine, absolute freedom.”

The Guardian article goes on to show an extensive network of “libertarians” whose collusion with the Kremlin, as well as other despotic or proto-feudal factions, has been getting ever more blatant and smelly.  Only… note my use of quotation marks around “libertarians”! Alas, this reporter - and almost every other smart observer - is falling for a longstanding trap. One with devastating consequences, in its cleverness.

Think it through. The nightmare of the right is that ten million Americans with libertarian, pro-market enterprise leanings will someday realize that there are no reasons to keep thinking of the Republican Party as “less-terrible” than Democrats.  

The standard narrative is that “liberals like personal freedom” and “conservatives fight for economic freedom.” And as long as the incantation of false equivalence can be maintained, the oligarchs know that most “libertarians” will remain prone to accepting Koch-Murdoch propaganda, hold their noses and vote GOP.

Never mind that in fact market economics are savagely repressed by almost every Republican priority or action, and every single active metric of US national health - especially entrepreneurship, small business, innovation and so - does better across the span of democratic administrations than republican ones. That’s every single such metric.   See: Do Outcomes Matter More than Rhetoric?

 Some libertarians are re-awakening to the fact that their founder - Adam Smith - emphasized the creative power of competition - and not the religious sanctity of property, which he denounced as the worst enemy (if too concentrated) of open-fair competition. Some libertarians have glanced at human history and 6000 years during which the destroyers of flat-fair-creative competition were oligarchs and owner-cheater lords, and not “government bureaucrats."

Yes, generalizations about libertarians come easily, with facile “obviousness.” But attacking them only drives them away from the light, back into Murdoch-Koch arms. 

Try parsing things more clearly. Libertarians who want both freedom and democracy - as well as a vibrant entrepreneurial economy - should be lured into conversation.  

Those who declare that “democracy and freedom are incompatible” are members of the ancient enemy of both, denounced by Smith. They are rushing to throw themselves at the feet of an oligarchy that has only changed a few symbols since King George. They don’t deserve the name “libertarian.” 

== From 9/11 to 11/9  ==

And finally a lesser but still worrisome sickness of the left: 

From 9/11 to 11/9 (the election of President Donald Trump): A short history of World War IV Philosopher Jean Baudrillard predicted this 15 years ago: The Western world is waging a long war — against itself.

The 9/11 - 11/9 palindrome is reminiscent of my own rumination that each century's theme becomes apparent about a decade and a half into it.

Back to the article: "Were the shocking attacks of September 2001 and the shocking election result of November 2016 — 9/11 and 11/9, the palindrome that defines our age — fluke occurrences amid the general upward trajectory of Western civilization? Or do they represent, as Baudrillard argued in the first instance, Western civilization’s innate yearning toward its own destruction?"

Goodie. I am reassured. The title sounded sensibly curious and I wondered... is this actual common sense coming from the postmodernist clique? Then I saw the crap about "Western civilization’s innate yearning toward its own destruction?" And I am reinforced in my hatred of these guys, despite even when they seem partly correct.

The "West" is more dynamic and modernist and creative than ever! The problem isn't hatred of "itself." The problem is that we are welded at the hip to a minority of fellow citizens who can only be called "confederate. About a third of these neighbors -- in the U.S. and Europe -- are congenitally terrified of modernity and our willingness to confidently confront change. In America, it is the very same "civil war" that goes back - in phases - to 1778.

These are different parties! The "West" is not so much self-hating as saddled with idiot cousins who are violently hostile to the enlightenment, to science, to all fact-using professions, and to the very thought of incremental progress.

We must not return their hate -- every time the Union defeated a fever of confederate madness, we moved to "charity for all and malice toward none." 

But this will entail first prying our cousins' hands from around our throats and the throat of the Republic. Postmodernist polysyllabic lefty flakes are no help at all.

How to regain trust in the NSA era: The IGUS Gambit

How might the Obama Administration best respond to wave after wave of "NSA revelations" that roil and cloud the political waters?

Ironically, almost none of Edward Snowden's leaks -- or those of Julian Assange -- revealed anything that was illegal per se. What they have done is stir a too-long delayed argument over what should be legal!  Specifically, the Patriot Act and the ratchet effect on surveillance that always happens when a country enters a state of panic. The post-9/11 alarm is finally fading and -- (barring some new, panic-inducing event) -- elements of the Patriot Act and pervasive surveillance are now up for public debate.

See page 206* of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom? (1997) -- where this cycle of terrorism and increased government surveillance was predicted in precise -- and rather creepy -- detail.

 Elsewhere, I recently dissected and appraised the forty-two suggested reforms that a commission presented to President Obama, many of which he has instituted or sent to Congress. Here I want to focus on one important, trust-building measure that would make a huge difference.

= Meeting the needs of the Public and the PPC =

As expected, most of the current argument is about the wrong side of the issue -- mewling plaints calling to prevent society's elites (like the NSA or Google) from seeing -- an effort that is fated to be futile, condemned to absurdity by Moore's Law.

But at last there is talk also of doing what will work -- improving the degree to which the citizenry can supervise and have confidence that government remains essentially a servant of the people.

The main sticking point is over the need that members of the Professional Protector Caste (PPC) have for tactical secrecy, or the ability to conceal their operations from villains and adversaries.   This need is very strong, but so is that of citizens to feel assured that secrecy remains only tactical, short-term and pragmatic, never an excuse for permanent avoidance of accountability.

I have over the years offered several innovations that might achieve a win-win -- securing both tactical shadows for the PPC to be effective, while ensuring accountability that at least partially reassures the public. Foremost among these proposals would be to create the Office of Inspector General of the United States (IGUS).

IGUS could be established with a one-page law that simply transfers all of the inspectors general in every agency and department to an independent service under a figure of noted rectitude, whose staff might then perform their functions without the inherent conflict of interest that stymies so many IGs. IGUS members would be trained in both confidentiality and prim skepticism on the taxpayers' behalf, allowing PPC agencies to continue tactically secret investigations, but always with the peoples' delegated gaze over their shoulders.

A POLITICAL WIN-WIN: 
Without question, proposing and establishing IGUS would be an agile jiu-jitsu move on the part of the Obama Administration. It would simultaneously say:

"We understand that public confidence is shaken and this move should help to restore it while preventing the worst and most perniciously chronic abuses… while at the same time allowing our skilled public protectors to continue doing their important jobs. It is also the quickest way to do this, requiring the fewest changes in law."

Will this satisfy everybody? Of course not… nor should it! Indeed, I do not consider IGUS to be enough. I have several more proposals that would work in parallel with IGUS, so that in-sum we all can truly be sure that our watch dogs remain loyal (if fierce) dogs, and never wolves.

Nevertheless, establishing an Office of the Inspector General of the United States would be a good start. And it would allow the Administration to be seen acting vigorously, in a forward, pro-active direction that BOTH enhances public trust and allows our agencies to do their jobs.

My IGUS proposal was written in greater detail as one of two dozen "Suggestions for the Incoming Obama Administration" way back in 2008. Alas, not one of them got to anyone's ear. C'est la vie.

Still, you can read about it here: Free the Inspectors General!

== Political Miscellany ==

Lying with Data: Fox viewers in the family? Show them this chart that appeared on their news” network and ask if they can explain why almost no American scientists are republican, anymore.  See this appraisal, also: The Statisticians at Fox News use classic and novel graphical techniques to lead with data. 

*Page 206 of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom?

Politics Redux: Blue New Hampshire, Transparency and the latest episode of WikiLeaks Mania

First a note to Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.  There's a point that your surrogates ought to be making - (with SuperPac deniability for you, of course!) Remind folks that New Hampshire is a Blue State. About as blue as they come. And hence, if the hybrid-type republicans of the Granite State prefer Mitt Romney... what does that say about him?  Redmeat for red South Carolina.

Oh, but now on to things I actually know something about...

== The Return of WikiLeaks ==

Last month, WikiLeaks launched its latest campaign, releasing nearly three hundred documents that reveal the extent of sophisticated surveillance technology that has been used by both oppressive rulers and Western democracies -- devices that enable governments or law enforcement agencies to track and monitor individuals via their cell phones, e-mail, and Internet browsing histories.

This is clearly the sort of transparency that - while it may short-term inconvenience some western governments - could help the secular trend toward an open world that (in turn) fosters and strengthens enlightenment nations and people.  In other words, embrace this! The answer to most modern problems may boil down, time and again, to a more aware citizenry.

Heck, shouldn't earlier phases of the WikiLeaks affair have taught the US government a valuable lesson? Answer me this riddle. What was the biggest overall effect of Julian Assange's leak of 250,000 State Dept cables? Who benefited most?

It was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, getting exactly what she needed, when she needed it!  Scores of those leaked memos revealed US diplomats candidly despising Ben Ali and Mubarak and other Arab dictators they were forced to deal with. These revelations - secret, and hence credibly sincere - showed US envoys and apparatchiks expressing profound sympathy for oppressed people and holding their noses, forced by unpalatable circumstance to dicker with tyrants. Revealed precisely when the Arab Spring was brewing, those cables could not have been better timed to show youth in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and so on that "at worst America isn't our enemy... and maybe they're more with us than we thought."

A bizarre assertion? Well, did anybody notice the near- total lack of anti-American themes during the Arab Spring?  It may not have been Assange's intent... but that felicitous outcome was the exact thing that he wrought, and maybe our leaders should ponder the lucky break.

More important. They should contemplate the value of this overall, secular trend toward a generally more open world. Light can only - occasionally - inconvenience us.  For villainous regimes, it is lethal.

=== And while we’re on transparency...  ===

A Missouri judge ruled the FBI does not need a warrant to secretly attach a GPS unit to a suspect's car and track his public movements for two months.

My reaction?  Let me surprise you. Mr Transparency is yawning. This simply replicates what would happen if the FBI tracked the fellow with a classic "tail." He was publicly  visible the whole time.  If a tail was okay, then why not save us money?  Yes, yes, this may lead to "them" knowing where we are all the time?  So?  That's coming.  Protest it? Protest the sunset. Both are inevitable.

What matters to me is looking back. And I mean looking back hard. Watch the watchmen. Supervise them intensely, then let them do their jobs. Let’s pick our fights and make them count.  Sousveillance!

=== And why transparency won’t be enough ===

Members of the House and Senate regularly buy and sell stocks even while considering major bills that will affect those companies. Yet there have been no insider trading cases brought against Congress members. Nor is it likely, for Congress makes its own rules – and those rules are silent on insider trading. “They have legislated themselves as untouchable as a political class,” writes Peter Schweizer, who has documented the money made by Congress members, in his book, Throw Them All Out. (This despite the promise, in Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract With America to make Congress fully accountable.)

Both parties are guilty of dubious trades that anticipated the effect of changing government policy--buying or unloading stock just before changes took place.  Alas, Schweizer's prescription - to "throw them all out" - won't happen because of another self-serving strategy by the politician-caste.  Gerrymandering.

Look, I favor some politicians over others, naturally.  The party that’s less disciplined, more diverse and willing to negotiate strikes me as better than one that is the most tightly disciplined and dogmatic political force - and the most fiercely anti-science - in American history, controlled by a media empire owned by unfriendly foreigners.

Nevertheless... at another level, we the people have to recognize that we are being preyed upon by the entire political caste.  Money has to be taken out of politics.  Transparency must be augmented, exponentiated.

And we must start with Gerrymandering!  An ugly, scheming job security program that has radicalized most members of Congress into raving partisan lunatics. Take a look at this outrageous example, as redistricting in Texas comes before the Supreme Court.

Only here’s the thing. A mass public rebellion against gerrymandering is already underway!  The practice has lately been banned by referendum in a number of states, most recently and powerfully in California -- a blue state whose largely democratic voting population nevertheless voted to end democrat-leaning gerrymandering.  (If only all states had such vibrantly patriotic citizens.) See my article on Gerrymandering.

(Alas, not a single red state has joined the rebellion.)
Well, maybe it’s gathering momentum! A nationwide insurrection against this abuse by the political caste! In 28 other states, lawsuits have been filed against this foul practice.  A racket imposed by politicians against their natural enemy.  Voters.
Now... if only the Court were on our side...

=== Some Political Miscellany ===

* OWS Fights Back Against Police Surveillance by Launching "Occucopter" Citizen Drone. In response to constant police surveillance, violence, and arrests, Occupy Wall Street protesters and legal observers have been turning their cameras back on the police. I am no lefty or radical. Sometimes the cops are right. But this right to look back must be absolute and inviolable. Mr. Transparent Society is radical about this!

* Techies are now figuring out how to attach sensors and cameras directly to insects and powering the devices off the creatures' own movements.  Similar to the "mosquito cams" that I spoke of in The Transparent Society (1997), these will tilt the balance of power toward whoever has the best ability to see... including ability to detect mosquito-cams!  Our only hope in such a world is NOT to ban the things - that cannot conceivably work.  But to make sure we all have them.  And hence that we can catch the peeping toms.

* Three GOP candidates stand above the others, when it comes to intellect, having interesting things to say, and departing (in spots) from pure, Know-Nothing trog-populism. Let's dismiss John Huntsman. He actually wants calm, moderate, pragmatic negotiation - in other words, his chances of getting the Republican nomination stand between nil and hopeless.

The other two? I've praised Gingrich as 1/3 fascinating/smart... if 2/3 crazy. Now see Ron Paul at his libertarian best!  If only his crazy-ratios weren't the same as Newt's.  Well-well, these are the three I’d at least buy a beer and expect, during the conversation, to hear some interesting (if at least half jibbering loopy) things.

* Obama on Mars! White House Denies CIA teleported Obama to Mars!

*  This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory!

* Is the US Private Sector dying?  Because the “accountants are in charge”?

== And finally - the most important quotation you can cite this year ==

"There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of publick happiness."
- President George Washington, State of the Union address, 1/8/1790

Science and technology were responsible for half of US economic growth since 1945. Those who are demonizing science... and disparaging every other knowledge profession... are at-best fools and at-worst the genuine enemies of hope for the republic. Or for human civilization.  Don't take it from me.  Take it from George Washington.

Nobel for Wikileaks? Transparency and Society Stories... etc

First off... drop in at YouTube for my latest offering... reading aloud a popular passage from my novel Earth. “First came a supernova, dazzling the universe in brief, spendthrift glory, before ebbing into twisty, multi-spectral clouds of new-forged atoms. Swirling eddies spiraled until one of them ignited – a newborn star. The virgin sun wore whirling skirts of dust and electricity. Gas and rocks and bits of this and that fell iinto those pleats, gathering in dim lumps…planets…One tiny worldlet circled at a middle distance…”

A Nobel Prize for Wikileaks?

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may soon have a new accolade to add to his resume -- "Nobel Prize winner." Reuters reports that a Norwegian parliamentarian has nominated WikiLeaks for what is arguably the world's most prestigious prize. "By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize," said spokesman Snorre Valen."

Hm, well, for starters, it is Wikileaks and the principles of transparency that are actually nominated, not Assange. Heck, since the ideas were heavily promulgated by me in EARTH (1989) and in The Transparent Society (1997) ain't I just as responsible? ;-) Seriously, as you'll learn when I start posting my major analysis of the WikiLeaks Affair, I find Assange individually arrogant. His particular priorities and statements range from cogent to borderline crazy...

...but you cannot always choose your heroes or self-appointed paladins of transparency. Indeed, Assange has "done good" with his leaks in ways that no one would ever have imagined, certainly not him! Most surprisingly, his leaks have had the overall effect of vastly enhancing the credibility and reputation of the United States Government around the world, at a time when it was badly needed - a result that was almost-certainly diametrically opposite to his intent.

In any event, a Nobel for this KIND of activity would be a very important statement of support for the general movement toward world transparency. If the symbol for this movement must be Julian Assange, then so be it.

(Stay tuned, I will soon offer a suggestion that combines an old sci fi idea from Earth with WikiLeaks transparency and events in Egypt, offering a way to both benefit the people of that country and start the whole world down a road that is radically better and more hopeful than ever.)


=== TERRORISM

The Physics of Terror : Mathematicians and physics look for patterns in terrorist campaigns and frequency that might allow prediction of future threats. Terror events follow a power law, similar to earthquakes: more frequent attacks result in fewer deaths, while infrequent, large events kill the most people.

Debunking Theories of a Terrorist Power Grab. A power-system expert at Penn State recently refuted theories that our power infrastructure is highly vulnerable to terrorist attack.


=== PRIVACY & SECURITY

Are your apps spying on you? Your smartphone contains a wealth of personal data about you: your current location, contacts, phone numbers, age, gender, buying habits.  A survey by the WSJ found that 56 out of 101 popular smartphone apps regularly transmitted such personal info without the user’s knowledge or consent, often to tracking companies. As "Mr. Transparency" do I shrug this off? Not! Privacy must change. Not vanish!

Here are some privacy icons that tell you how sites use your personal data -- designed by Aza Rashkin for Mozilla.

Five Cyberthreats to watch for in 2011.

In Wired Magazine: 2010: The year the internet went to war.

President Obama is calling for an online privacy bill of rights -- to protect consumers and shield personal data from tracking. At this point, it would be voluntary, with sanctions from the FTC. Under discussion: a 'do-not-track' option, similar to the do-not-call list to block telemarketers.

Computers that See You and Keep Watch over You describes how facial recognition software is being used in prisons, hospitals, law enforcement, and the workplace. It is also used to sample audience reactions, as well in the front against terrorism.

Ten Ways a digital Big Brother can be good for you, by John D. Sutter, CNN. "These days, Big Brother doesn't need to do much snooping. We just tell him what we're up to." Yet, there are ways that this omniscience has improved our lives: health monitors, disaster response, traffic maps, smart city grids, environmental sensors, monitoring earthquakes...


=== SOCIETY

Facing a crisis in drug abuse, Portugal decriminalized possession of all illicit drugs in 2000, focusing on treating instead of punishing drug addicts. The results: an increase in the number of people who tried drugs -- but drug abuse declined, especially among youth. More drug addicts are in treatment. Police now focus on high-level drug traffickers; there’s been an increase in drugs seized. Read the experiment.

This issue shows that different regions have different blind manias. Europeans seem far more ready than Americans to accept calm, modernist, rationalist revisions of old ways. Revising stupid-awful drug prohibition is one of these. If Portugal gains a good track record with this, and other Eurostates follow, the statistics might get so overwhelming that California can follow. (Europeans have their own manias - e.g. that the universe owes them half a lifespan of pure leisure, and that honorable work - potentially one of the greatest parts of human existence - is an inherently evil thing.)

Do artificial beings deserve human rights? by Mike Treder, director of IEET To what degree will we anthropomorphize orbits and artificial intelligence?

Do you distinguish pronunciations for pin vs. pen, cot vs. caught, father vs. bother? How about Bach’s, box & balks? Even after the homogenizing influences of radio, TV, the internet, and the increased mobility of the last few decades, regional distinctions persist across America. This site has a fascinating wealth of information on American dialects, with maps and audio samples of regional speech patterns.

To aid the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, an adviser to the Postal Regulatory Commission has proposed adding sensor arrays to postal trucks, to turn the fleet into a widespread data collecting operation -- collecting real-time data on weather, pollutants, gaps in internet coverage, poor road conditions, as well as detecting chemical or biological threats.


Tidying my pile of miscellaneous items to share:

I gave an interview to "The Eerie Times" - a sci fi fan site - mostly about my career as a science fiction author.

Renowned author Robert Sawyer offers an interesting essay about how scientists and Sci Fi witers take both similar and very different approaches to dealing with a future that contains plenty of opportunities and dangers.

Telomerase-based rejuvenation? Or a great way to ignite a storm of tumors?

Did I show you this one yet? More than half of the predictions are right on!

Recently leaked: the original draft of the script for _The Empire Strikes Back_ by Leigh Brackett ... Quite different from what finally made it to the screen. It seems the credit for this being by far the best SW film falls unto Kasden, not Brackett, after all. In any event, this shows one of my pet peeves. There must be (literally) more than 10,000 scripts kept locked up by various producers and studios, some of them no-doubt trash... but others which may be genuine gems of writing. Why can we not at least read them as literature?

When you cut past all the excuses and rationalizations, it really boils down to “embarrassment insurance”... Suppose one in a hundred revealed but never filmed scripts gain a following and praise from critics, perhaps even letters urging that the screenplay be released for somebody to film. How does the studio benefit? Well, sure, in one percent of THOSE cases, they might get spurred into actually resurrecting a once-dead jewel and benefit enormously! But meanwhile, the ghosts of many past mistakes would be let loose, and even a glorious resurrection would result in recriminations. “What idiot squelched this in the first place!”

No, it is beyond unjustifiable - and a travesty-betrayal of the purpose of "intellectual property" - for them to be locked away forever. But what do you expect, given that Hollywood had become so cowardly that the rare non-sequel is trumpeted automatically as “brave,” what would you expect?

Gates, on the seductive lure of idiotic cynicism (a disease that infests both the left and the right). As John Stuart Mill said in 1828, in a quote from the book that I especially enjoyed: "I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage."

The most concise scientific paper ever.

Have a look at my friend Lou Aronica’s new crossover fantasy novel BLUE.

I was badgered recently to offer up my forecast for December 21, 2012! All right, here goes! On THAT VERY DAY the sun will appear to undergo REVERSAL in its path across the sky! Not the east-west rising-setting, but in its north-south travels! On that particular day - as foretold by ancient astronomers and many of today's top scientists (though they aren't talking about it!), the sun will (to the astonishment of many!) stop appearing to move ever farther south, each day at noon.

From that day forward, and for a period that I predict will last six whole months, each noon will see the sun passing through a point farther north than on the previous day! Arcing ever-higher in the sky of the northern hemisphere, this change of course will bring with it massive waves of weather change all across that hemisphere, causing ice and snow fields to melt and water to come flooding down mountains and valleys to the sea! Moreover, sometimes unbidden or unwanted by man, green growths will start infesting almost every outdoor surface! Insects will appear, individually and even in swarms, accompanied by flocks of noisy birds! In some locales, there will be frogs, or beasts, intermittent periods of darkness, and even outbreaks of vermin! Politicians and cable news folk will proclaim reasons to panic!

And thus winter will finish turning into spring... and spring into.... SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whereupon, on June 21, 2013... just in the nick of time... I predict the Earth will be saved when (to the surprise of many) the Sun's ever-rising noontime passage will reverse. And yes I am daring to be specific and exact in my prophecy! And from that day forth - for a time I am willing to calculate for you - its lifegiving force will seem to ebb away toward the very bottom of the world.


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Cool! the Bureau of labor statistics lets you calculate in a shot what an amount was worth at any point in the period since 1913.

Tyler Cowan’s new book: The Great Stagnation seems to cover some of the same territory (much more deeply!) as my graphic novel about industrial decline:TINKERERS

See a thought provoking parallel between Egypt in 2011 and tragic Turkey in 1911.

Variant movie listings in TV Guide: It's a Wonderful Life: "An accused criminal's descent into madness is interrupted by a visitor from a distant star, who brings about an episode of mass hysteria after a visit to a hellish parallel universe."