E-mail postage, just cashing in on Spam

AOL and Yahoo have got to have some nerve, claiming that this will stop spam!
Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

This is just a way to cash in on e-mail traffic. The spammers will work around this in a week, and will end up billing invalid accounts or valid ones incorrectly. There is nothing in an e-mail packet that can’t be spoofed. Including any ‘accounting’ that might be required.

Given the fact that e-mail has never been a ‘Guaranteed’ protocol in the TCP/IP stack. How would AOL or Yahoo indemnify e-mail? They couldn’t, so they are selling vapor. They could only ensure email delivery within their own systems, and even that would be questionable.

This is more of what the telco’s are already trying to do by having everyone pay double for what they have already paid for. Paying double for bandwidth, pay double for e-mail.

Another Rip-off scam by big business.

Empire Building better than ‘isolationism’

During The State of the Union George Bush declared:

“In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline,” he said. “The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership, so the United States of America will continue to lead.”

Read here, that the U.S. will continue to Empire Build the American way. And that minding your own business is now called ‘Isolationism’.

More here

Freedom of the Press is an expensive asset

Sometimes an asset can be a very expensive. But the Danes should be proud of the comments by their Prime Minister here Danes face growing Muslim storm

“The Danish government cannot apologise on behalf of a Danish newspaper. It does not work like that… and we have explained that to the Arab countries. Independent media are not edited by the government,”

Defending the freedom of the press can be a hard thing to do, but a correct one. All things in context, the Danes are free to do what they have elected by their own laws to allow. And extreme reactions to the sovereignty of a nation should not be violated by any nation, or religion.

The Truth in the Press.

A very good read at We Hold These Facts about the Washington Post and the Abramoff story.

But what is really at the heart, is Freedom of the Press and Corporate ownership of the ‘Truth’. We can only thank the freedom of the Blogsphere that does not let corporate and political ‘Spin’ destroy the Truth.

And like this gentleman, I hope that they will rise above the corporate corruption of the Truth. And defend a true Freedom of the Press in the form of honest reporting.

Torture and domestic Spying, the really big picture.

I have been reading some of the Right-Wing Blogs, and they either don’t get it, or they do and believe that anything that will protect them from the great terrorist boggy man is Ok by them.

Don’t they ever get the point, Domestic spying is illegal. The Bush Administration know this. They also know that any evidence acquired in this method can never be used in an American Court of Law. It would be thrown out for being illegally obtained, this is why the FISA courts began denying so many of the taps requested by this Administration.

If they can not use this information to bring criminals and terrorist to trial, what good is it?

It’s being used to snatch people in the U.S., and other countries, for the other illegal act they are promoting, Rendition, a pretty word for Kidnapping and Torture.

Hasn’t anyone else figured this out yet?

Bush and Chaney had no intention of ‘bringing terrorist to justice’ they are too busy establishing a Rein of Terror of their own.

Impeach Bush, Chaney and the rest of this corrupt and Illegal government.

Update: FBI Sought Data on Thousands in ’05

Updated again: The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans

Any more arguments?

Osama Bin Laden as counterpoint

Isn’t it so very interesting that everything in the speech from Bin Laden acts as a counterpoint to George Bush. At a time when Bush’s popularity is at it’s lowest.

Osama opens his mouth, and fill George’s hand with trumps.

I may have to add another layer to my tinfoil hat.

Update: looks like I’m not the only one who thought that the reappearance of Osama was ‘convenient’ Duke Professor Skeptical of bin Laden Tape

Al Gore and Wingnut Bloggers

I didn’t even have to know that Al Gore had made a great speech, or to know what he said. All I had to do was look at all the Flak that the Right Wing (GOP supported) Blogsphere was putting into the internet about it.

I could only find one link Al Gore: Bush must be probed

And wouldn’t you know, none of the Mass Media seem to have taken any notice that he even gave a speech.

So much for “Fair and Balanced” coverage of the news.

Conservative’s and The Fear of Change

I have been in some ‘discussions’ with the other side of the political fence. And the first impressions I have received in many of these cases is, one of fear. Having read Why I Am Not a Conservative I quote:

Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change…

…It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing.

It’s no wonder that often the ‘banter’ from the Right so often results in name calling. Much like a child who either does not get his way, or the way is not of his choosing, and is then resisting without being able to give an alternative.

The child in the conservative is unable to cope with change. And the faster the change the more the resistance to change.

We live at Internet speeds, information on so many subjects smacking us in the face all the time. Things like religion being confronted by Science, Politics and truth. Mass Media, and Blogs. All constitute changes that draw fire from the conservatives.

There was a great program on RTE about Petrol Dollars and Petrol Euros and the real reason for the invasion of Iraq. ‘The continuation of American Dominance through the perpetuation of the Petrol Dollar as the foundation of the American Economy.’ Change, creates Fear, fear of what might happen to the U.S. economy which is founded almost entirely on the non renewable resource of oil.

And just like the child, the conservative, who can not offer up an alternative (like alternative energy) the conservatives resist, like a child, clutching onto the bitter end of a dropped stick of candy. Unable to see another new piece to suck on. The conservatives will never see another source of economic stability other than Oil.

So rather than accept change, a change that will come anyway, they would rather kill thousands, rob and pillage billions from others to hold on to their savior, God of Oil.

There will be Petrol Euros, and Evolution is a fact. If we could put all the conservatives into a padded cell until the changes that will happen, do. We are stuck educating the conservatives with the truth. Baby spoons anyone?

Whither we like them or not, such changes are going to happen. Unless we are open-minded enough, meaning liberal enough, to discover alternatives to these changes. we will cease to continue on this planet.

The future will happen without us, if it has to.