My Quiet Life

Last update, I swear.

Check this out:

This is a graph of spam rejected by our mail filters because the sending host did not resolve. Notice that it has flatlined today. Take the peak values minus the current flatline and you get the amount of spam being allowed through, thanks to Verisign. Those values are messages per minute. Thank you, Verisign.

Check it out: t-shirts.

Just say NO to 64.94.110.11

Verisign has pissed off the entire internet. Again.

Verisign is a company that purchased Network Solutions, a company that was vested with the authority to control the .COM and .NET top level domains (TLDs). Verisign has a history of thoroughly deceptive and unethical business practices.

Now they’ve taken it to a new level. They have registered a wildcard (*) domain for .COM and .NET, meaning that any unregistered .com or .net domain will now resolve to 64.94.110.11 (sitefinder.verisign.com). This allows them to present a “domain not found” page of their own, conveniently allowing you to register it. That is, it’s a giant advertising ploy.

Why is this such a big deal?

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I was reading about the legislation proposing re-instating the draft that was announced back in January. As a 24-year-old very draftable male, this is of particular interest to me. (Okay, maybe the urticaria would exempt me)

Today, Hollings and Rangel distributed a “Dear Colleague” letter to their counterparts in the Senate and House, respectively, seeking their co-sponsorship.

“Both of us believe that, as Americans, we all share the many benefits of living in this country. But if we are preparing for war against an enemy who wishes to ‘threaten our society,’ as the President says, then it makes sense that all who benefit from our society must share in the burden of defending it,” they stated in the joint letter.

The message that this proposal is meant to send is pretty clear: if you want an American empire, your daughters and sons are going to have to fight and die for it. As our military finds itself stretched increasingly thin, this is particularly relevant today.

If it were up to me, I’d propose legislation with a message that’s even more to the point: Let’s make our draft means-tested. There was a time, during the expansion of the Roman empire, that the military was conscripted from the capite censi — those with enough property holdings to be considered for service in the Roman Legion. Our military is also voluntary, but it’s hardly the owners of our wealth that volunteer to defend it. The wealthiest 1% of our nation holds 40% of the assets. Let’s create a lottery in which a weight is applied based on your family’s percentage take on the assets of the nation. This weight will influence your chance of selection and your average tour of duty. How many chickenhawks would we have calling for war when their sons and daughters are first in line for the infantry? That’s what I thought.

I just read Michael Moore’s open letter to Gen. Wesley Clark, who I am liking more and more every day. The candicacy of a general with no political experience to speak of can always be a huge question mark, but his speaking ability and his stances on the issues are very impressive. See Clark on Real Time with Bill Maher (mpeg or realvideo) for an entertaining interview, and a rather spurious rant on the word “liberal” that I found particularly stirring.

The excitement this man tends to generate is not unjustified. This is a guy that could beat George W. Bush. It says something about the state of GWB’s popularity that a real contender generates this much publicity — and he has not even declared himself a candidate yet. It’s no wonder the prospect of a Dean - Clark teamup is so tantalizing. They would be hard to beat.

Personally, I think a Clark/Dean ticket would be the best option. Why? Clark’s biggest influence will be in reigning in the undecideds votes, and the moderate/centrist/conservative democrat votes. This influence will be best magnified by a presidential candidate. Dean’s biggest influence is his hard-earned, loyal grassroots following. I don’t think Dean’s following would go anywhere if he was in the VP slot on a ticket, but I do think that Clark’s influence would be muted as VP.

170 of 171 precincts have reported, and the Tennessean has already called it:

* Winner

This is good news for Nashville.

Rich Hailey is dissin on my man-crush, Paul Krugman.

We’ll start with an easy target, Mr. Paul Krugman, who was featured on Fresh Air today. Mr. Krugman continually took President Bush’s administration to task for using bad math to back up their budget. In one part, he states that his first awareness of the inconsistency of the Bush Plan was during the campaign, when Bush proposed privitizing a portion of the Social Security program. According to Mr. Jrugman, Bush proposed allowing workers to put about 1/6 of their Social Security contribution into a private account, rather than in the general fund. The problem with that, according to him, is that current revenues are used to pay current recipients, and by taking out 1/6th of the total contributions, there wouldn’t be enough money left to pay the current recipients. He also claimed that Bush never answered questions about how the government planned to make up the difference.

Oddly enough, he had answered his own question about 30 seconds before, when he announced that the Social Security collections were running about 25% over disbursements. In other words, allowing people to keep control of 1/6th of their contribution would have reduced revenue for the general fund by 16.7%, meaning that collections would still exceed disbursement by 8.3%

For a guy who complains about Bush’s math abilities, he seems to have some glaring weaknesses himself. Must be that liberal blind spot. Interestingly enough, during the campaign, Bush did say, on more than one occasion, that the privatization funds would come out of the surplus collections. I guess Mr. Krugman played hooky that day.

You know, if you’re going to question the math of someone with a resume as impressive as Paul Krugman’s is, you’d better be right. But, I’m not convinced Rich paid all that much attention to what Krugman was saying:

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Just a reminder that tomorrow is the election date for the run-off election that I mentioned earlier.

Do your civic duty and vote. My picks are David Briley and Adam Dread. If Larry Schmittou gets elected I am officially quitting this city forever.

Wow. The Pixies are touring in April. From Pitchfork Media:

I would have thought Frank Black would be way too fat to play guitar by now.

I know I’m only a year late, here, but I just recently saw Bowling for Columbine for the first time, about a week ago.

It completely and utterly defied my expectations.
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