Nabber.org
Thursday, June 11, 2009 - JavaOne
Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. Taken June 1-5, 2009.
Friday, April 10, 2009 - FairTax Response from Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA)
Category: Public Policy, Economics, Law
In January, I wrote a letter to my
Representative, Susan Davis, in support of the FairTax and asking her to co-sponsor
H.R.
25. I received her response
today. While I was not expecting her to become a co-sponsor, or
even support the H.R. 25 (FairTax), I am amazed at her
response.
First, she defends the current tax system of
over 70,000 pages and counting. Apparently her most important
concerns are NOT its complexity or even how some of our
presidential appointees are either not smart enough to understand
the current system or are cheating it. First and foremost, she
cites the need to 1) eliminate the marriage penalty and 2) increase
the child tax credit. Yes, because these are the biggest problems
with our tax code?
Secondly, she and her staff have apparently not read H.R. 25 and
are in serious need of education on the FairTax. She claims that
under a national sales tax "the vast majority of the tax burden
would fall on the poor." Normally this statement is true, but NOT
as implemented in H.R. 25. The FairTax calls for a prebate which
means that anyone at the poverty level pays exactly $0, that is
ZERO DOLLARS in federal taxes. This actually ends up being less
taxes than what a person at the poverty level pays today,
considering that the 7.65% payroll tax
rate will be repealed as part of H.R.25.
She also claims that this would "make our goods and services
prohibitively expensive" to sell in other countries. This is just
plain false. The FairTax is charged at the point of sale to the
consumer. Any good shipped overseas would be sold completely free
of US taxes, allowing us to become an exporting powerhouse.
Please contact Susan Davis' office using one of the methods below
and straighten them out about the FairTax:
Congressional
Website
U.S. House of Representatives
1526 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2040
Fax: (202) 225-2948
4305 University Avenue
Suite 515
San Diego, CA 92105
Phone: (619) 280-5353
Fax: (619) 280-5311
[UPDATE 04-13-2009] I also forgot to include the repeal of any
income taxes at the poverty level. That could be another 10% or so
more in taxes under the current system as compared to the FairTax.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - US Treasury: National Debt Hits $11 Million Millions Today
Category: Public Policy
According to the US Treasury, today the national debt hit $11
trillion for the first time in history. That is over $36,000
per person. Or 190 times Bill Gate's net worth, the richest man in
the world. It averages to about $1,500 overspent every single
second since this nation was founded in 1776. You can get
even more details about how this math comes out in real time on my
US National
Debt Counter website. Ever wonder how many "bridges to nowhere"
$11 trillion can buy?
So why the goofy headline of $11 million millions? I don't think
the public really understands how much a trillion of anything is.
Downloaded a trillion songs lately? How long is a trillion seconds?
(about 32,000 years) Now how about a million seconds? 12 days. Much
easier to comprehend. Now take that million and square it. And if
that isn't enough for you, multiply that by 11. That's the national
debt. Its really, really, really big.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - TSA Non-compliant with Congressional Mandate
Category: Public Policy, Law
In response to a Freedom Of
Information Act (FOIA) request for documentation regarding the
Information
(Data) Quality Act, the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) stated that it doesn't even have the required administrative
guidelines on how to implement such a policy. This is in violation
of both the law passed by Congress and Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) mandate.
Many, if not most federal agencies have such a policy publicly
available on their websites, whereas TSA does not have one at all.
And as for the report that is supposed to go to OMB every year?
They haven't created one of those, ever.
Public Law
106-554, Section 515, passed in December of 2000, states that
Executive Branch Agencies shall:
(A) issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality,
objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including
statistical information) disseminated by the agency, by not later
than 1 year after the date of issuance of the guidelines...
(B) establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons
to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and
disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the
guidelines...
(C) report periodically to the Director--(i) the number and nature
of complaints received by the agency regarding the accuracy of
information disseminated by the agency; and (ii) how such
complaints were handled by the agency.
As far as I can determine, TSA has never done any of these.
And an interesting note for anyone that has not tried submitting a
FOIA request before, I received a letter postmarked on December 22
letting me know that my email was received on December 15. I
sent the email the night of December 9. First, that means it took
them nearly one week to acknowledge that they received my
email. Note that this did not include processing of any kind
besides giving me a tracking number. Second, this means it took
them an entire week to get the letter from the FOIA office and into
the mail. The entire process, from start to finish, took nearly two
months, just to tell me that they did not actually have any records
for me. I can't imagine how long an actual document would
take to get out of them.
[UPDATE 02-22-2009] OMB
Guidelines require that each agency publish their Information
Quality Guidelines on their website and also a notice in the
Federal Register.
Sunday, February 8, 2009 - Mail Encryption Check
Mail Encryption Check is a free tool to check the TLS encryption status for a domain. You can also view a list of common domains.
Saturday, January 24, 2009 - New Red Light Cameras in San Diego
Category: Public Policy, Hardware, Privacy
Since November, the city of San Diego has activated 7
red light cameras. The city's website also has descriptions of
which directions are being targeted. Intersections include:
10th Avenue at "A" Street
10th Avenue at "F" Street
Aero Drive at Murphy Canyon Road
Camino Del Rio North at Mission Center Road
Camino De La Reina / Camino Del Rio North at Qualcomm Way
Clairemont Mesa Boulevard at Convoy Street
Cleveland Avenue at Washington Street
Del Mar Heights Road at El Camino Real
Grape Street at North Harbor Drive
Mira Mesa Boulevard at Scranton Road
Mission Bay Drive at Garnet Avenue
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - US Government Digitally Signs .gov TLD
Category: Public Policy, Software, Security
Using my own DNS Check
tool I noticed that the .gov is now signed using DNSSEC. This
means that the government has actually met its schedule on this
one. But there are a few issues:
1. Who actually signs it? NIST? DHS? Some other agency? This is
important for answering #2.
2. How do we validate this key? How do we know this isn't a
hacker's key? The agency that maintains the key should distribute a
hash of the public key so that we know its the real deal.
I'm hoping in the near future all of this information will come
out, but until it does, .gov isn't really any better off than it
was before.
UPDATE [2-18-2009]: Apparently GSA
is responsible for .gov and DNSSEC. It is
still considered in experimental stages and keys may change,
therefore no final key information is available for validation
yet.
UPDATE [3-1-2009]: GSA has posted the .gov public key on their
website.
Monday, January 5, 2009 - Tom Leykis Complaints to the FCC
Category: Public Policy
Saturday, April 19, 2008 - SeaWorld
SeaWorld, San Diego, CA. Taken April 19, 2008.
Friday, April 18, 2008 - San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo, San Diego, CA. Taken April 18, 2008.