It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

A US Court of Appeals ruled that the health care mandate specified in the Obamacare legislation was unconstitutional. This makes one appellate court which has ruled the legislation valid, one which has ruled it [partially] invalid, and two which are still pending; all of which are a waste of time, of course, since eventually the Supreme Court will obviously need to consider and rule on it, making all the other deliberations and rulings a colossal waste of time, money, effort, and attention. I could take issue with the procedure, I suppose, and complain about how absurd the process is which takes years to resolve anything, and serves no valid societal purpose aside from enriching lawyers (which has questionable social value). I could also of course address just how ridiculously overreaching the government's position is: that everyone indirectly affect inner-state commerce by their existence, and thus the government is entitled to dictate every part of their life. There's cer...

I work in the computer security industry (more or less). I recently had the occasion to attend the Black Hat and DEFCON conferences, both of which focus on computer security (more or less, with different perspectives). When I got back, I came across this article , which references one of the conferences and points out an ongoing problem in the US: there are not enough skilled computer security experts going to work for (and/or continuing to work for) the US government, specifically in the area of cyber-defense. This is a rather large problem, but presents a rather interesting quandary for the US government. One of the side-themes of a few of the talks at DEFCON was that if you really wanted to hack things, you needed to be based outside the US, for a number of reasons. First, and probably the most obvious, is that the US has some of the harshest penalties for computer crimes in the world, and just the accusation of such can ruin your life. You don't have to look hard to find num...

File this story under the category of "it would be funny, if it wasn't the people making the laws where I live". Apparently, two Democrats in the California legislature are at odds about releasing financial information about office budgets and spending projections. The complaining assemblyman asserts that his budget was cut as a retaliatory measure for voting against the caucus on the budget bill. The speaker of the assembly counters that he has budgetary problems because he consistently over-spends, rather than the arbitrary adjustments which he doesn't deny making. Wait, though; it's gets more ridiculous. The assemblyman who got his budget allocation slashed in retaliation for having the audacity to try to represent the people (instead of the political establishment), along with various media organizations, requested the budget information, under a free-information request. This was denied, by the rules branch controlled by the speaker, under the grounds that i...

So apparently, over the weekend, the leaders of both major political parties finally reached a "compromise" to raise the debt ceiling. To call it a compromise is disingenuous, though; essentially, both parties caved to the administration demand for a blank check through 2012, then added enough smoke and mirrors and other bullshit to try to deflect criticism that it's just another blank check. Honestly, I'm more upset about the clearly bogus rhetoric about having a serious discussion or fixing any of the real problems than the fact that our government ended up doing neither: if you were going to capitulate and write the check in the end, why create all the drama and uncertainly leading up to it? Let's look at some of the facts for the "compromise", just to be clear: - $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling limit - No spending cuts of any significance during this term of Congress; all spending cuts are non-binding to next term of Congress and easily r...

I've been listening, as most of the people in America who are at all cognizant of the political happenings in the country, to the partisan debate about raising the debt ceiling. I have voiced my own thoughts and opinions, of course, but this post isn't going to be able what I think should or should not be done, nor is it going to address any particular statement. Rather, I'd like to criticize the approach to "resolving" the problem taken by both sides. I realize that typically I find myself more angry with Democrats than Republicans, however in this instance, I think the approach coming out of both sides stinks. First, let me address the Republicans. It's true that the country had a huge spending problem, and your party would seem poised to capitalize on the growing realization of such among the slow-witted populace, and the rising sentiment that something needs to be done to stop the slow bleeding to death. You started out well, opposing the increase without ...

Obama recently told Congress that, with respect to making a deal to raise the debt ceiling, they needed to suck it up, "rip the bandaid off" , and deal with making the hard choices which were beneficial for the country in the long run. Personally, I tend to agree with the sentiment, even as I take issue with the specifics: although I'm not at all convinced that writing another blank check we can't possibly afford to the spend-happy democrats is either "right" or "necessary", it does seem to me that it would be the job of Congress, and the President, to do what's best for the country overall, rather than what's most politically expedient and popular at the time. However, to see if Obama is serious about the sentiment, and is not just using it in this case to push his political agenda (and the title might have some foreshadowing as to which it is), it's important to look at some other instances where Obama and/or his party in Congress had...

Obama infuriates me; this is probably not a surprise to regular readers here. However, in this case it's not his policies, his socialist ideology, or his dictatorial approach which is currently most aggravating. The thing which is currently bugging me is his approach to the debt ceiling debate, and the complacency of the main stream media not calling him out on it. Now granted, it's a good strategy, and as a shrewd political move I can find no particular fault. Essentially, what he has done is frame the discussion as one where raising the debt ceiling is an inevitability, a fundamental job of Congress, and everything else is partisan politics. From the beginning of his involvement, there was no mention of the "right" or "wrong" of spending without limit, or any mention of deficit reduction, or taxes, or anything else; it was just "this obviously must be done", and nothing else. Only later did he introduce the other issues into the rhetoric, but bei...