Bay Area Candidates for 2010

Senate

Chuck DeVore

Congress

John Dennis (R): Congressional District 8
Elizabeth Emken (R): Congressional District 11
Greg Conlon (R): Congressional District 12
Forest Baker (R): Congressional District 13
Don Barich (R): Congressional District 15
Kevin Gordon (R): Congressional District 15
Edward Gonzales (L): Congressional District 16



Governor

Ken Miller (R)

State Assembly

Jeff Wald: State Assembly District 20
Robert Chandler: State Assembly District 24

San Jose City Council

Pete Constant: San Jose City Council District 1

He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.

The famous psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, "He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail".

Thus, our legislatures and regulatory bodies, because they only have the ability to write laws, seem to think that laws can solve every problem. Too often, they overlook another physician's mandate, "First do no harm". Too often, in their desire to help they end up causing harm.

I was meditating on this fact during this past week as I helped defend our corporate computer systems from damage caused by the law that changed the start and stop times for Daily Savings Time. For some marginal good, that law has placed many computer systems around the world at risk and caused thousands of hours to be spent defending against the damage this "minor change" could cause.

I really wish the Senate, Congress and all regulatory agencies looked a lot more carefully at the cost of the laws and regulations they develop. No matter how GOOD the purpose is behind a law or regulation, the primary mandate should always be, "First do no harm".

Annuities used as come-on
If you receive a post card from the Annuity Service Insurance Center to discuss annuities, don't bother to call them. All they are doing is setting you up for a sales call by a local insurance broker, who paid $60 for the privilege of meeting you...

See: Annuities used as come-on [sfgate.com]

From a slashdot discussion on "Game Addiction" came this comment.


" What the hell is wrong with our society? I don't believe that such a thing exists as being addicted to non-narcotics (such as games, sex, your friends, a good book). I think that's just called enjoying life!.

For example: Would we have called Leonardo Da Vinci addicted to science because he spent long 20 hour days cutting up cadavers or studying mechanics?

Would we have called Einstein a hopeless physics junkie?

It's called having a passion. Doing what you love. What's so bad about it?

In this work-obsessed culture we live in, if you aren't working and doing something THE MAN tells you to do, you must be doing something wrong. You don't see clinics popping up for people that work at overtime at McDonalds because they can't pay their bills -- we find it absolutely OK to not see your family most of the week because your job makes you work from 8 till 8, but when a person comes home and wants to spend 3-4 hours doing something they want to do you have people thinking its some sort of a disease.

I don't get it. Where are the priorities? I really am an advocate of being a professional idler and trying to get out of wage slavery. What's so bad about playing a game for 40 hours a week (something you choose to do, and enjoy)? Compare that to working which is something you HAVE to do or else you get evicted by some property owning assholes and end up living on the streets and going crazy!"

Let's put some limits on Corporations for once

Corporations are considered to be equivalent to real human beings to support some financial fictions. However, recent laws seem to ignore the fact that they are not "real people". For one thing, they don't die. People die. Corporations want their rights protected until they die... as in forever. People need their freedom while still alive.

How about placing some limits on Corporate freedoms for once?

Microsoft Office documents suddenly stopped being "safe to open"

Microsoft Office suite contains five memory corruption vulnerabilities in Excel program and another buffer overflow in processing "routing slips". A malicious Excel file or an Office file can exploit these vulnerabilities to execute arbitrary code on a client system using vulnerable Office versions. The specially crafted Excel/Office documents can be posted on a web server, file server, P2P share or attached to an email.

See: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-012.mspx

DMCA Subpoena Provision Still Endangers Privacy

By: Derek Slater


News.com reports that American Airlines has subpoenaed Google and YouTube, demanding the name of someone who posted an airline training video online. This is yet another abuse of DMCA 512(h), which allows copyright holders to unmask an Internet user's identity based on a mere allegation of infringement without any due process.



Read more at eff.com