Capuchado! Come on In!

Latest News

The Corporate Pledge of Allegiance Robert Reich hits this one on the head. Corporations within the USA need to become responsible to this country and support it, not undermine it.

The Wall Street Occupiers and the Democratic Party This is an excellent discussion of how and why the Democratic Party has abandoned populist support for middle and poverty class Americans. Robert Reich has an excellent understanding of our current economic and political crisis.

The Truth About the American Economy Read this! A beautifully clear explanation of our post WWII history to the present. Shows how our coping mechanisms have now failed, compared to how prosperous we were as a nation in the past.

Safety on the Cheap I really applaud Robert Reich's understanding that corporations are and should be strictly concerned with making profits. But he also points out that government regulation is meant to curb this excessive profit taking when safety becomes a problem.

Why Obama Isn’t Fighting the Budget Battle This story really puts the truth out about unemployment, despite the title, what I found most disturbing was this quote:
"By early 1996, it was roaring — creating 434,000 new jobs in February alone. ... even if job growth were to match the extraordinary pace of the late 1990s, year after year, the unemployment rate wouldn’t fall below 6 percent until 2016."
Shocking, isn't it!

Empire at the End of Decadence Disturbing, but the truth.

World's first hard X-ray free-electron laser images intact viruses I believe that some major technological advances are going to start happening once we perfect some of these imaging techniques. A lot of medical problems will get much easier to solve once we have clear details of offending molecules in viruses and bacteria.

Explosive death for MRSA A new antibody has been discovered that kills all strains of MRSA (Multiple Drug Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus). If this can be turned into a vaccine, we will finally eliminate a horrible cause of deadly infections, both in hospitals and at home. Did you know that many "spider bites" are actually small MRSA infections? So you may have had many MRSA infections but thought they were insect bites.

Just Asking I choose freedom and liberty every time. Even if it means danger or death. Freedom and Liberty come at the price of danger and risk, both in the past AND in the present. It is not sufficient that those before us risked it all, we must continue to pay the price of blood every day if we want to keep these freedoms.

The High Cost of Citizen Badwill The first line of the story says it all: Cities which have been jacking up parking tickets and other fees may not realise the future cost of the badwill they are creating.

Jobless millions signal death of the American dream for many I certainly understand how bad things are. I am a typical American now. I have lost my home, my business and I have no credit. Things may someday get better, but I think that improvement will require decades, not months. The great American Empire is now falling, as have fallen so many other empires in history: Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Rome, etc. I do not believe that things will ever return to our past glory.

Does NDM-1 herald the end of the antibiotic era? This is pretty scary stuff. If we lose the use of antibiotics, we are all going to start to suffer horribly like people did not all that long ago. While traveling through Mexico this month, I saw that antibiotics are now no longer available without a Doctor's prescription. Finally. But it may be already too late that so many countries have abused antibiotics.

Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time Interesting article. Perhaps this is the answer to why a a theory-of-everything has so far failed to come about. I have thought for a while now, that perhaps there is a fundamental flaw in our approach to physics. Of course, this may not be the answer.

Thoughtful Advice from One of My Favorite Thinkers Good advice for all of us suffering from the economic collapse in the US. All too many people don't follow these suggestions and lose everything.

Slouching Toward a Double Dip or a Lousy Recovery at Best This is right on the money. Pay close attention to the part about how if we had skipped the bank bailouts and allowed a full collapse, then we might have finally gotten some real change. Yesterday was July 4th, celebrating the actions that created the United States of America. With all these years of critically bad policies, how many more July 4th's before the American empire falls?

Brazilian banker's crypto baffles FBI - 18 months of failure The operating system I use considers security to be priority number one. OpenBSD - Cryptography. Here is a case when someone correctly uses security protocols with the result of successfully hiding his private data.

Schrödinger's kit: Tools that are in two places at once Hopefully, some experiments like these will finally start to bring some significant progress in physics.

"Organic" pesticides aren't necessarily "green" pesticides This is a really big problem in dealing with environmental issues. Often, but not always, synthetic chemicals can be tailored to be less harmful than natural compounds. For example, the contaminant in "Agent Orange", Dioxin, was so deadly not because of being so artificial, but because it was so very very close to something natural.

Mystery glitch? Blame it on the sun Interesting. I had no idea space storms could cause some of these other problems.

Liar, liar: Why deception is our way of life While I agree that the article carries the facts correctly, I have to admit that I am at a loss at why people fear the truth so much. Perhaps it is from my own rather unusual childhood, but I see little value or practicality in pretending that things are good when they are bad. I am constantly trying to fix my problems and actively seek out why I have them.

Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart I have suspected something like this for years. When I eat a little high fat food, I feel satisfied and eat less. When I eat high carbohydrate foods, especially like cookies and candy bars, I crave more. I usually do not feel at all satisfied, even when so full I am bloated.

Electoral dysfunction: Why democracy is always unfair Wow, I had never heard about these mathematical paradoxes that leave every voting system flawed. And there turns out to be no way to get it right!

Toxic asphalt sludge is home to hardy microbes This is even more suggestive that life could be present off-world. Life is being found in so many environments that were previously seen as impossible for life to survive in, yet life thrives in these places!

LHC research programme gets underway I can't wait to see what this new level of research into physics teaches us. Sometimes basic research seems far away from practical applications. If this teaches us that present theories are right, or even better, teaches us they are wrong, we may indeed see some real world applications.

Loricifera Multi-cellular animal that lives without using oxygen. Not unicellular, multi-cellular. Can we say animal life on a planet without any oxygen?

Counterintuitive Cure: A Nanovaccine That Stops Autoimmune Disease by Boosting the Immune System My Mom has Crohn's disease and I know so many people who have diabetes.

Duncan Blasts "Useless" Air Marshal Service Flying on airplanes has become such a hassle and so inconvenient that I have no interest in flying at all. Once you leave the US, buses are comfortable and almost luxurious. Within the US, if your destination is lucky enough to be on a train route, riding the train is a pleasant way to travel. Good food and no stress.

Break Up The Banks and also Greenspan, Summers, and Why the Economy Is So Out of Whack Both of these are a must read. I personally see no hope for the USA. Economic and political will are totally and hopelessly out-of-whack!

Thinking on the Envelope: Finding a Medical "Silver Bullet" to Disable Many of the World's Deadliest Viruses I don't know if this is "It" or not, but something like this is going to come along. Medical science is very close to really start conquering many diseases. I tell everyone the same thing: If you can just live another 20-30 years more, they will be able to fix your problem!

90 percent of Windows 7 flaws fixed by removing admin rights Wow isn't this wonderful! If you just cripple the system, most, but not all security breaches are prevented. That sounds as helpful as designing electrical outlets that only electrocute you 10% of the time! Cool, huh!

The weirdest terrorism threat? Funny, but real. We are never ever going to stop a determined terrorist.

The office sure looks safe with Wheezy and Dozy on the door Finally a breath of reality intrudes! I feel so safe when those security guards make me put the teeny-tiny pocket knife I have and my cell phone in a locker. I guess I could use the tooth pick my knife has to break the supporting columns and use my cell phone to give everyone cancer!

Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief It is amazing that anyone so skilled yet so open mouthed is only caught with the greatest of personal effort off the clock by police.

I think the following issues are critically important. Please read the following articles and try to understand how your security may be being breached through what are considered by most to be trusted authorities. Law Enforcement Appliance Subverts SSL A good quote from this article is: “The basic point is that in the status quo there is no double check and no accountability,” Schoen said. “So if Certificate Authorities are doing things that they shouldn’t, no one would know, no one would observe it. We think at the very least there needs to be a double check.” Also noted within is the fact that foreign powers are issuing false certificates that allow for national and commercial espionage. On a separate, but related issue Your health, tax, and search data siphoned Software-as-a-service springs SSL leak Quoted from this article: "Our research shows that surprisingly detailed sensitive user data can be reliably inferred from the web traffic of a number of high-profile, top-of-the-line web applications" offered by Google, Yahoo, and Bing as well as the leading online providers of tax, health and investments services, which the researchers didn't name. So yet another method for obtaining our data, even though encrypted, is available. This seems even more worrying than the first article.

The Bomb for Beginners A DIY Guide to Going Nuclear Laugh or Cry? Both?

Stomach Cells Happier with Dark Roast Coffee Dark roasting apparently creates a chemical which reduces the acid production that coffee causes. I don't really like the taste of dark roast coffee as much, but if this is true, I think I will be changing to a dark roast.

More Than a Four-Letter Word Wow! This is a clearly excellent report from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense, Global Strategic Trends - Out to 2040 (link to the actual report itself, a PDF). This is a must read.

What's fair? Societal structures, not human nature, teach us I have heard a lot of stuff like this before, but I had never heard anything about how our particular societies change this.

Breaking the Growth Habit: An Q and A with Bill McKibben This is exactly what must happen. We have lived for a few centuries thinking that growth followed by more growth is the only answer. Stability and durability are what we must now embrace. Sadly, the comments I saw about this all said this guy is nuts. As John Conner said in a Terminator movie "There's no hope for us, is there?"

LedgerSMB releases version 1.2.21, which has several moderate fixes, none are security related. More details.

Statistical Color If only major media would tell us the truth. Our economic reality is far worse than most people think.

The Enforcement Tax I am the only one noticing how we are being brutally taxed by our "protectors"? Sadly, the police are no longer there to protect us but to tax us. Say hello to Officer Tax Collector!