Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds. John Perry Barlow

A little known provision of the No Child Left Behind law Passed in 2002 allows U.S. Military recruiters access to records of high school student from the age of 16 up. If the schools don’t comply they risk the loss of their federal funding. They also allow recruiters to actively recrute on high school grounds.

The Pentagon has started a new program that employs a private marketing firm called BeNow Inc. to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits. They include information from the Social Security Administration including Social Security numbers. They also include information on race and such.

The last thing these types of companies care about is your privacy. They as a matter of fact make their money by finding out everything they can about you so they can sell better targeting data to their clients.

They also collect data from commercial data brokers and driver’s license records and other sources.

You can withhold your child’s school records by making a request. Not so the other sources. Of course you have to know about it first.

The Pentagon has a system to remove your child’s information. What you do is give them the information on your child, or yours if you are over 18. They put this into another data base file that will be compared to the ones held by BeNow Inc. If a match is found they do not delete the information but merely mark it as not to be used.

Soon some bright boy will hack the company systems, and will be in position of Millions of data base entries on young people including Social security numbers and addresses and birth dates. Much more than is needed to steal identities.

I am not to keen on them going into high schools either. When I was a kid they could only come to school for something like a carrier day and only give a speech to a voluntary audience. They now know everything there is to know about you and can target you inside and out of school.

I am not opposed to the military. I enlisted in The Air Force in 1975 and stayed in for almost 17 years until I couldn’t take the cuts and political games after the first gulf war was over and they started giving most of the military budget to the defense contractors and more and more jobs were transferred to the National Guard.

This little rant has a purpose. My son came home from school yesterday and seemed a little strange. He took a pen out of his pocket and said he had a new pen. He then told me he got this Cross style pen from an Army recruiter along with a bunch of  information.

I told him what I had learned from personnel experience. My own and correcting the misconceptions the recruits that worked under me over the years had.

Rule Number One Recruiters will say anything to get another enlistment. They work one on one with no one to hear what they tell you. Rule Number One Point One,  If it isn’t in writing it is a lie.

Oh, the other reason for this rant? My son is 14 and has been in high school for about 3 weeks. :)

I have nothing against Pat Robertson being born again, but did he have to come back as himself?
    -R.P.J. Day


The Christian Coalition is going down the tubes according to a story from thesetate.com.

Pat Robertson left the organization in 2002, but it has been going down hill for some time before that.

They are getting smaller and smaller and broker and broker, but claim they will come back.

Funny Pat seems to be doing fine. He still has his interests in African Diamond mines and his dictator partners there.

Of course every time he opens his mouth he embarrasses everyone who has ever used his influence.

It’s not all good news though. The base has been taken over by organizations such as Focus on the Family and the family Research Council. Christian conservative groups credited with a major role in the reelection of GWB in 2004. The Christian Coalition was barely an afterthought.

Do you notice the trend of successful ultra religious political action groups to drop the Christian label and replacing it with the feel good word family?

That’s a strong point of the conservatives, non threatening labels. : )

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.
George Canning


Well what do you know? It turns out that Japan and Germany won the war after all. The huge majority of the money owed by the United States for the overextension of our budget has been covered by our former enemies. They are the major lenders covering our deficits.

The unemployment rate is low. I never trust this statement. When I left the Air Force in 1992 I came back to my home county that had an unemployment rate just after the first Gulf War of 18%. Of course that didn’t count the people who had their unemployment benefits expire and were no longer counted. People who work for minimum wage and part time are not counted even though they are starving.

I hear that crime is down. Maybe so, but my experience is that people who can’t afford insurance to cover theft don’t report crimes of property. First you have to let the police into your world. Second most cops will tell you that there is not much chance of solving the crime and recovering your property. So REPORTED crime is down.

The federal government is in charge of tracking inflation. They have, starting in the Reagan era, changed the economic indicators used to track inflation. They have also delayed reports and done total rewrites to make things look better for themselves.

Point in fact the personal savings rate in America went to a negative 0.6% in the month of July. I think that means that for every $100.00 of savings in this country $160.00 is owed to the credit companies, who are not beholden to any country.
It was last this bad just before the great depression.

Like they say, you can make the statistics fit any “fact” you want to promote.

Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.
-- John Heisman


I don’t watch collage football much not since Air Force was undefeated and got classed second to one of the big state collages when the state schools only loss was to Air Force.

The ranking seems to be based more on money than ability.

I could be full of crap, but I think it’s even worse now. Seems like too much money and influence to be trusted.

Still Texas did beat OSU in their first ever meeting.

The Buckeye fate seems to have been sealed by a fumble in the last minute or so, their only turnover. Still it was a great game and if I hadn’t been watching NASCARI might have seen more of the game.
I'm not a NASCAR regular either.
See how Bloging is making me a renascence man?
Well at least more plugged in.

We should encourage the people who are charged with protecting us and making our lives better to spend a little time reading Blogs and not listening to the pollsters and their handlers who have their own agenda.

Then again if bodies floating down the streets in New Orleans and people who are now being held in shelters where if they leave they are not allowed back don’t make an impression, what will?

Maybe if we took the contracts away from their friends, and stopped buying their products that would get their attention.

Then again, they are pretty dense.

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us. Dan Quayle

I know I have used the same quote again, and a Dan Quayle quote at that, but it fits to well to only be used once.

I am astounded at the blindness of the people who are looked at as leaders in this country. Sorry I was trying to not blog about the Katrina clusterfuck until people stop dieing, but I’m weak.

Sen. Santorum Suggests penalties for some who don’t evacuate.
Duh! I know that if I was asked to evacuate my home I would be hard pressed to find a place to go and a way to get there, and I don’t think of myself as poor.

President Bush seemed really concerned about Senator Lott’s house while people were dieing in New Orleans and the outlying parishes.

While Bush was touring the damage and hugging people Friday tons of food and water for St. Bernard Parish and Algiers Point sat and waited for the air traffic ban to be lifted after the President went home.

Home.
I wonder what the people who are scattered across at least 10 states feel about being away from home. A big adventure if you know where your family is and have someplace to go.
Then again, if you are lost or trying to find any of your family, not to mention friends and coworkers, and are being shuffled from one shelter to another you might not feel to secure.

Barbara Bush says, “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”Then she added ”What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know were underprivileged anyway, so this-this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

I am a typical male with an inflated opinion of myself. Compounded I might add by the positive reinforcement I get from my wife, but even I don’t fall for the inept spin that is going on now.

Well I am breaking my own rule right now. Never blog about politics sober and awake.

Night all work in 11 hours. 

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us. Dan Quayle


     I have read and heard people referring to the Katrina tragedy as Bush’s Waterloo. I think the current situation in Iraq is.

     Certain religious extremists have called hurricane Katrina the wrath of God. Now fundamentalist Christians and the Al Qaeda have something in common.

     On the other hand there have been a lot of pledges of aid from other countries. Even Venezuela who’s leader is on Pat Robertson’s hit list. Nice to know that people remember the help we provide to others in need.

     I now read that the Republican leadership is worried that the failures of the last week will derail Bush’s second term agenda and the Republican agenda for years beyond that. They may be right but it’s not where our leaders should be focusing their attention.

     
     Factoid: The area devastated by Katrina is roughly the size of Great Brittan.

     Help in whatever way you can.

     Night all! :0

You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper. Robert Alton Harris

William Rehnquist is dead.

     I’m ashamed to say that my first thought when I saw the headline was, “Oh crap, Bush gets to nominate another one.

     Then I read the article that had obviously been prepared in advance, (a real sign that you are somebody.) and started to think with my head instead of my prejudices.

     Chief Justice Rehnquist was appointed by Nixon and elevated to the Chief  Justice post by Reagan, which makes him a true conservative.

I will say again that I am not a Democrat, liberal or a Republican, conservative.
I think Political parties are akin to the old political machines that have run parts of this country.

I don’t have much to complain about when I look at Rehnquist’s stand on most things. He consistently voted to reduce federal government power and increase the power of the state government.
Without going into it in more depth what I want to say is that he may have been a conservative, but he was a real one as opposed to what passes for one today. He did a tremendous amount of good for this country and will be missed.

RIP Chief Justice Rehnquist. 1924-2005.

Air America Public Voicemail
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Air America Radio's Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina.
Here's how it works:
Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn't work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message.
You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know.
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Obviously, for this to work, people need to know about it so please forward the number to as many people as you can. You can find out more about Katrina and the affected areas at www.airamericaradio.com.
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Also, if you’re looking for a way to help personally, MoveOn.org Civic Action, formerly known as MoveOn.org, launched a new web site yesterday, http://hurricanehousing.org/ asking its 3.3 million members and the public to post any available housing for the thousands of people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. The organization will directly connect evacuees with volunteer hosts, and also provide the housing information to the Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).