"That the value of a telecommunications 
network is proportional to the square of 
the number of connected users of the system (n2)."
   - Metcalfe's Law

A Facebook entity known as "Revolution News Network" posted this extremely thought-provoking article, which I personally believe every US citizen ought to be reading and commiting to memory. I also believe every US citizen ought to take to heart the very real possibility that until we demand accountability from our government and our representatives, down to the penny, we can't expect anything to change.

There is a very simple, and we think overlooked, reason why the abominations of SOPA and PIPA have appeared like cancerous growths in the House and Senate, and it has more to do than just censoring the internet. It goes deeper than that. It hits a nerve. The very idea of a bottom-up, people driven internet clashes violently with the ideological and political worldview that surveillance should only exist in one direction: From the top down. 

You see we've overlooked what it really means in terms of discomfort and career risk to those who normally bask and benefit from the art of statecraft. You see, the ordinary, unwashed masses - that would be you and me - are in possession of one of the most powerful forces the earth has ever seen. 

And you have learned to use it in a way that is indeed alarming. 

Ordinary people, with little or no political knowledge or even education, are using it to keep their elected employees under surveillance 24 hours a day seven days a week - like real hiring managers should. 

You see, you're all figuring out that your computer desk at home is now headquarters - it's now the head office - and your acting like the boss, and these employees don't like it one bit. 

You're calling them out for having a business on the side. For taking long lunches with your competitors. For using the company car and copy machine for their personal use without telling you. For improper conduct that would violate any employee ethics manual. For noticing that they exempt themselves from it, but not you, the boss. 

In other words you are finally (as the founders intended, and would be ecstatic to see) holding your elected Federal and State employees accountable beyond their wildest imagination. 

You're watching "the help" like any good supervisor, manager or owner would and THEY DON'T LIKE IT. 

Why? You're tirelessly performing hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual performance reviews. You are writing them letters of praise or reprimand. You are sending them the equivalent of performance improvement plans ("improve or remove" coaching letters). You are expressing your anger or disappointment for lying to you during presentations (i.e., debates on the floor of the House or Senate, during interviews with the press, or during campaign speeches) since you're able to compare a report they delivered a year ago, or a month ago to one they gave today. And even post a clip of them lying that they cannot deny or hide from. You're catching them lying on or padding their expense reports or catching them investing or accepting rewards or favors where it's a conflict of interest to you personally as the real CEO of this country. 

You have harnessed a resource at your fingertips - Google alone processes 24 petabytes of data alone per day - that you can use to micromanage them, in a way that they prefer to use instead to micro-manage you. 

In other words, you are doing things that they prefer to DO TO YOU INSTEAD, AND TO YOU ONLY, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. 

SOPA and PIPA have been introduced (along with other abominable legislation of late) to keep you and the Constitution of the United States from activating at a level that they will never be able to suppress unless they act now. A tipping point in what they believe is the wrong direction is at hand. A tipping point that could restore the Republic to its original Constitutional form and end a 100 year reign of the kleptocracy. 

You and your use of the internet have inadvertently leveraged an 18th century Constitution, a Bill of Rights, the Privileges and Immunities clause, and powers reserved to the States or the people themselves, and raised them all to an unprecedented, almost astronomical power. 

You have accidentally taken the rights and powers in these old parchment documents all to a level several orders of magnitude above the most basic objections against the divine rights of kings and despots that were so eloquently expressed, even in the Declaration of Independence, to a dizzying height never thought possible by the Founders. 

You have arranged yourselves in direct competition to them, into virtual Senates, virtual Houses of Representatives, virtual Judiciaries, and virtual Inspectors General's, all in a manner that redefines what consent of the governed will mean from now on. You can all now deliberate every decision, every move, every dollar, every law, beyond the mere vehicle of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. 

You have arranged yourselves into a neural net, or brain of the actual Republic, as originally intended. but never foreseen. 

And it is from that height, that the internet has allowed the US Constitution and you as the owner to, almost without being fully aware of it, to decimate the worldview -the philosophy of empire - that to this day would prefer that the nuisance of the cult of liberty vanish from the face of the earth along with its insufferable US Constitution once and for all. You have it on the run. 

And there you have the real reason for SOPA, PIPA, and the NDAA provisions and other laws that the House and the Senate have had the temerity to introduce while simultaneously flouting these words written by giants that will forever tower over them and cast long shadows over their dealings... 

"Congress shall make no law....." 

STOP SOPA. STOP PIPA. HOLD ONTO THE INTERNET TIGHTLY AND DON'T LET GO.

It's not about SOPA and PIPA, it's about holding onto what our nation values as precious.

Excuse me. I'm about to exercise my rights as a free citizen.
R.B.

“There are risks and costs to a program of 
action, but they are far less than the long-range 
risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
   - USA President John F. Kennedy

I hate what's going on in this country, and a dramatic example of the worst aspects of what I hate showed up in today's news digest. Last night, outspoken author, political activist and feminist Naomi Wolf was arrested and led away from a small protest on the sidewalk in front of the HuffingtonPost building in New York City, apparently for no good, legal reason. Watch the video of this disgraceful exchange. After you do, come back.

Wolf has been vocal in her support of the OccupyWallStreet movement (now evolving into OccupyAmerica), and she has repeatedly cautioned protesters to remain calm, to remain peaceful, and to remain commited to their cause, which she and millions of others in their heart of hearts know to be a just one. In the video, it's pretty clear that Wolf is respectful, is peaceful, never raises her voice, and is doing nothing more than standing in a place a white-shirted police officer doesn't want her to be. The whole exchange takes less than two minutes, and in the end, she's led away by a blue-shirted law enforcement officer. Wolf was taken to the 7th precinct lockup, and released not long after being arrested, with the "disorderly conduct" charges being amended to "resisting a lawful order." The order was not lawful, as in the USA I know, citizens may stand on a public sidewalk, and protesters have a right to peacefully assemble to express their grievances.

Since this event, however, I've started wondering about the "white shirts." Who are they? Some news sources report that they're police supervisors, and that the color of the uniform shirt indicates their senior authority and superior judgment. Last week, we saw Officer Anthony Bologna move through a crowd of OWS protesters to pepper spray the eyes of young women who had been "kettled" by police on the sidewalk, and then vanish back into the crowd as the women dropped to their knees, blinded and screaming. This constitutes senior authority and superior judgment?

On Wednesday, Wolf spoke with the Guardian about, among other things, the "white shirts."

"Then, a huge group of men in white shirts, who seem to be affiliated to the New York police department, but who are not self-evidently so – bigger and fitter than the rank-and-file blue-shirted officers – came in droves. About 30 or 40 of these men appeared.
"They got a megaphone – which the protesters are told is illegal – and they started shouting that we were illegally disrupting an event and we should disperse." 

Wolf said she "calmly" disputed the order with one of the officers in white shirts, who are more senior than those in blue shirts. "By this time I was surrounded by them. One of them asked me if I was going to get out of his way. I didn't think consciously that I couldn't step away, but I froze. My conscience froze me."

Wolf has warned the protesters of OWS to be on the lookout for agents provocateur--people who infiltrate groups for the purpose of stirring up trouble. Is it possible that because the hoped-for violence hasn't erupted, the "white shirts" have taken on that role, spoiling for the spark to what will result in pain, bloodshed, and excessive use of force?

If you are part of the Occupy protests, my advice is to instead of waiting until you see the whites of their eyes, pay attention to the color of the shirt. Brown or white, the message and intent of those shirts bodes ill for your liberties and freedom.

I usually end my posts with a snarky "Excuse me, but..." statement that sums everything up. I don't feel so snarky today. I'm distressed by what is going on, and I'm feeling the need to head into Boston.

Or maybe Concord or Lexington, where patriots of the past knew when and how to fight for freedom.
How about you?

R.B.

"When you choose the lesser of two evils, 
always remember that it is still an evil."
   - Max Lerner, political commentator

I'm sick to death of hearing and reading comments from people who offer up the "lesser of two evils" as justification for whatever lame, misguided action they've taken or are about to take. Take the TSA apologists (please, take them), for example, who say that although the current agency staffing levels are outrageously high and expensive, that although travelers are being traumatized and brutalized simply because they want to go from point A to point B on commercial air carriers, that the delays and lines are getting worse and longer, and that although time and again, statistical and actual evidence suggests proves that those in charge of the agency know perfectly well everything the TSA does, from its tin-badged, flashy uniforms to the "gate-rape or grope," is pure security theater, the inconveniences are "worth it," because the TSA is the lesser of two evils. The other evil, presumably, is the lurking terrorist who plans to blast every US commercial airliner out of the sky, and most especially, the one with you on it.

How about all the people who are now engaged in spirited, if rancorous, discussions about whether the Democrats or the Republicans should be in charge? I listen to otherwise rational men and women assert that they're going to vote against a candidate, even if the opposing candidate is a known scoundrel and reprobate, because the bad guy is the lesser of two evils. Apparently, it never occurs to anyone that swinging back and forth along a pendulum path still tethers you to the crooked system from which it depends.

This week, Apple visionary Steve Jobs died. His mantra was, "Think different." If you want change, you have to not only think different, but act upon the thinking. Accepting the lesser of two evils results from a belief that we're stuck with a Morton's Fork, in which there is actually no choice at all, as no matter what you choose will yield an equally awful result. While I do agree that voting for a Democrat or a Republican will likely yield equally bad results, I suggest to you that there are indeed alternatives, if you look for them.

If you must choose, never, ever choose evil. You don't "throw away" your vote--you're taking a stand against a bad status quo, and you're encouraging others to do the same. Try it. Talk about it. Own the courage of your own convictions. At the very least, you'll sleep better at night.

Excuse me. I need to go see what positive changes I can make in the world today.

R.B.

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe  
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,  
    'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
       - John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn

Independent thinking requires full consciousness and mindfulness of what we choose to accept or refuse. Part of what makes that independent thinking so difficult is that the people who want to control us make it very easy to remain somnambulent. Watching Fox news isn't the problem; it's that there's no effort to watch anything else. The truth in a large society is always arrived at through the process of triangulation -- truth is a convergence of facts, logic and actions that lead to inescapable conclusions.

A. Conan Doyle said it best through the voice of his Sherlock Holmes character: "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

A close second is a quote by Timothy Leary: "To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."

Finally, my buddy George Orwell said, "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

And that, my friends, is triangulation. The truth is in the above three statements.

Excuse me. I'm off to find my magnifying glass. The truth is waiting.

R.B.

Our environmental problems originate in the 
hubris of imagining ourselves as the central 
nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not 
the brain, we are a cancer on nature.
     - Dave Foreman

My spouse is a retired nuclear physicist. We've been watching the tragedy in Japan unfold for a week now, and he's horrified by what's going on. This morning, I heard him typing at his desk, and an hour later, an article by Daniel Holz from the "Cosmic Variance" blog on Discover Magazine's website appeared in my inbox.

The author has presented the information in a way that non-physicists can understand -- nuclear power, and the mechanics of fission and meltdown explained in laymen's terms.

Now that I understand what's really been happening, I'm horrified, too. Misery loves company. As much as I hate sending readers away, I encourage you to read the article, "Don't Lose Your Cool," in its entirety. Here's an excerpt:

This is by far the most dire situation on the planet at the moment. It has the world’s attention. We’ve had almost a week. Why can’t we just fix it? There are a number of serious complications. First, there’s the issue of radiation. People are unable to walk up to most of the buildings and see what’s going on, lest they get immediate and severe radiation poisoning. There are remote sensors and cameras, but fundamentally everyone is guessing as to what’s happening inside. Even if we knew exactly how things looked, it’s still a major engineering feat to get the appropriate amount of water running through these highly complex systems to do the cooling. There have been explosions, there are stuck valves, there are broken pumps, there are ongoing fires. The world’s resources are focused on this problem. Millions of lives potentially depend upon the outcome. And, thus far, progress has been haphazard and halting, despite heroic efforts on the part of the Japanese crew. The engineering challenges may simply be too great.

Excuse me. I'm off to find a Shinto shrine where I can offer up prayers for those who died, and those who will die, due to our human arrogance and stupidity.

R.B.

All animals are created equal,
but some animals are more equal 
than others.
   - George Orwell, Animal Farm

Sometimes the story just has to reach you in pictures. Since my page design doesn't allow the full display I've provided you with a link to another page where the image does properly appear.

I promise, it's worthwhile to click the link:

"TSA Gone Wild"

The whole, horrible history of our collective insanity when it comes to the quest for security.

Excuse me. I have to go burn my bras. They don't protect me from the TSA.

R.B.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks 
were striking thirteen.
   - George Orwell, 1984

Two days ago, I received an email invitation from President Bill Clinton asking me for a donation of $5 or more to help pay off his wife's campaign debt. To sweeten the deal, Mr. Clinton said that for as little as a $5 contribution, I'd be entered in a drawing to win a free trip to New York City to spend the day with Mr. Clinton. He wrote, "I know you share my pride in Hillary's achievements, and I know how much your continued support means to her. That's why I want to offer you this special opportunity."

After I got over the shock of being asked to repay a rich woman's debt when I've been unable to find work for more than a year and am quickly running out of cash to repay my own debts, I sat down and wrote a reply, which I sent to Mrs. Clinton at the State Department.

Thank you, but no thank you. I won't be traveling anywhere in the near-term, and I won't be handing over $5 as a sign of approval for a person who apparently has less control over affairs of State and diplomatic protocol than the Department of Homeland Security. 

I'm very upset about what is going on with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the TSA enforcement of ridiculous regulations this week against a member of India's diplomatic corps. This, coming less than a month after Mrs. Clinton joked about how she'd avoid the TSA pat-down if she could ("I mean, who wouldn't?"). The answer is obvious -- the TSA needs to be dismantled. Immediately. The DHS needs to be scaled back dramatically, and the focus for solving the problems of terrorist activity against our nation needs to move from being reactive to proactive, and from treating symptoms to treating root causes (believe it or not, exploding planes and buildings, or men wearing explosive materials in their shoes and underwear are symptoms, not causes). The goal of our activity should be to address the root causes, and stop this insane "Spy vs. Spy" escalation. 

We're training our entire country to be mistrustful of the person next door -- and frankly, that's a country in which I don't want to live. I was on the MBTA heading into Boston yesterday, and read an advertising placard. It said, "If you want to understand God, you must first strive to understand men." The ad went on to speak about the importance of communication, compassion, and treating others with simple human dignity. I was jarred when I read the sponsor -- the Islamic Society of Boston. So, I now live in a country where my government treats its citizens as enemies, and the people the government wants me to believe are my enemies greet me with friendship? There is something very, very disturbing and wrong about this. 

Manhandling diplomats who are here as the eyes, ears, and mouths of their sovereign nations speaks volumes about the USA's inability to control what is rapidly approaching a police state mentality in this country. That ignorant, ill-advised single bad act on the part of a TSA employee has done much to make the USA even more hated in the world than it already is, and possibly set the stage for retaliation against US citizens who travel abroad for either work or pleasure. It would not surprise me to learn that on Madame Secretary's next trip to India (or a sympathetic nation), she's greeted by blue-gloved people who take her away from her entourage for the purpose of strip-searching her. 

If Mr. Clinton and Secretary Clinton are serious about providing leadership to this country, then I suggest they worry less about fundraising, and more about protecting the U.S. Constitution, its amendments, and the Declaration of Independence, all of which contain the principles upon which this country was founded. The last I checked, what is contained in those founding documents is meant to exist for all citizens, at all times -- and not be checked away when I travel by public transportation. 

I still believe in those founding principles, and I intend to do whatever I can to protect them, until I can do nothing more. Do you, and will you? Until I have an answer, don't expect money or votes from me. 

Sincerely yours,
R.B.
U.S. Citizen

I know my letter's probably headed for the circular file, but I don't care. I believe that President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and every person who lays eyes on the letter on its way to the trash needs to understand that I feel deeply about what has happened to my country, and what is going on right now. I believe in protecting my civil liberties and rights, and those of my fellow citizens. We're all in this together.

That's what compassion and simple human dignity are all about.

Apparently these things are in extremely short supply up on Capitol Hill.

Excuse me. I have to get back to my job search. Nobody's sending me unearned money to pay my debts.

R.B.