Posted by JohnnyREB1977 on 05/08/10

I read an interesting article last night at the Wall Street Journal entitled Battling the Cyber Warmongers. The article begins by describing the cyberattack simulation which was broadcast on CNN and the major players involved:

A recent simulation of a devastating cyberattack on America was crying for a Bruce Willis lead: A series of mysterious attacks-probably sanctioned by China but traced to servers in the Russian city of Irkutsk-crippled much of the national infrastructure, including air traffic, financial markets and even basic email. If this was not bad enough, an unrelated electricity outage took down whatever remained of the already unplugged East Coast.

The simulation-funded by a number of major players in network security, organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, and broadcast on CNN on a Saturday night-had an unexpected twist. The American government appeared incompetent, indecisive and confused (past government officials, including former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, were recruited to play this glamorous role on TV). "The U.S. is unprepared for cyberwar," the simulation's organizers grimly concluded.

The past few months have been packed with cyber-jingoism from former and current national security officials. Richard Clarke, a former cybersecurity adviser to two administrations, says in his new book that "cyberwar has already begun." Testifying in Congress in February, Mike McConnell, former head of the National Security Agency, argued that "if we went to war today in a cyberwar, we would lose." Speaking in late April, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta said that "the next Pearl Harbor is likely to be a cyberattacking going after our grid."

The article continues by discussing the corporatist connections between our government and the contractors who benefit from the so-called "cyberwarmongering":

Given the previous history of excessively tight connections between our government and many of its contractors, it's quite possible that the over-dramatized rhetoric of those cheerleading the cyberwar has helped to add at least a few billion dollars to this price tag. Mr. McConnell's current employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has just landed $34 million in cyber security contracts with the Air Force. In addition to writing books on the subject, Richard Clarke is a partner in a security firm, Good Harbor Consulting.

"The point we have made about cyberwar is that the U.S. has created a large and expensive cyberwar command, as have other nations. Thus, the government thinks cyberwar is possible no matter what the naysayers think," says Mr. Clarke in an email. Mr. Clarke says 90% of his firm's revenue in 2009 and 2010 to date comes from consulting unrelated to cybersecurity, and none of the proposals from his book would financially benefit Good Harbor. In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton says of Mr. McConnell: "As director of national intelligence he delivered the same messages of concern about the vulnerability of our cyber-infrastructure to President George W. Bush and presidential candidate Barack Obama...As a longstanding intelligence professional, McConnell has an awareness across the full spectrum of classification,and sees it as his duty in public service to foster the right kind of discussion so the nation's leadership can debate and mitigate the risks."

and then compares what is happening now to what happened during the Cold War:

Steven Walt, a professor of international politics at Harvard, believes that the nascent debate about cyberwar presents "a classical opportunity for threat inflation." Mr Walt points to the resemblance between our current deliberations about online security and the debate about nuclear arms during the Cold War. Back then, those working in weapons labs and the military tended to hold more alarmist views than many academic experts, arguably because the livelihoods of university professors did not depend on having to hype up the need for arms racing.

Markus Ranum, a veteran of the network security industry and a noted critic of the cyber war hype, points to another similarity with the Cold War. Today's hype, he says, leads us to believe that "we need to develop an offensive capability in order to defend against an attack that isn't coming-it's the old 'bomber gap' all over again: a flimsy excuse to militarize."

Finally, the article ends on what I consider a common sense note:

What we do not want to do is turn "weapons of mass disruption"-as Barack Obama dubbed cyberattacks in 2009-into weapons of mass distraction, diverting national attention from more burning problems while promoting extremely costly solutions.

For example, a re-engineering of the Internet to make it easier to trace the location of cyberattackers, as some have called for, would surely be expensive, impractical and extremely harmful to privacy. If today's attacks are mostly anonymous, tomorrow they would be performed using hijacked and fully authenticated computers of old ladies.

What is worse, any major re-engineering of the Internet could derail other ambitious initiatives of the U.S. government, especially its efforts to promote Internet freedom. Urging China and Iran to keep their hands off the Internet would work only if Washington sticks to its own advice; otherwise, we are trading in hype.

In reality, we don't need to develop a new set of fancy all-powerful weaponry to secure cyberspace. In most cases the threats are the same as they were 20 years ago; we still need to patch security flaws, update anti-virus databases and ban suspicious users from our sites. It's human nature, not the Internet, that we need to conquer and re-engineer to feel more secure. But it's through rational deliberation, not fear-mongering, that we can devise policies that will accomplish this.

Posted by JohnnyREB1977 on 02/16/10
Last updated 02/17/10

Read this. Maybe they should look into corporatism and corrupt governments (which they do mention, almost as an afterthought) before blaming Free Trade.

Free Trade, Loss of Support Systems Crippling Food Production in Africa

Potential solutions, the researchers concluded, include more diversity of local crops, appropriate tariff barriers to give local producers a reasonable chance, subsidies where appropriate, and the credit systems, road networks, and local mills necessary to process local crops and get them to local markets.

Another issue, they said, was an "urban bias" in government assistance programs, where the few support systems in place were far more oriented to the needs of city dwellers than their rural counterparts.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2010) - Despite good intentions, the push to privatize government functions and insistence upon "free trade" that is too often unfair has caused declining food production, increased poverty and a hunger crisis for millions of people in many African nations, researchers conclude in a new study.

Market reforms that began in the mid-1980s and were supposed to aid economic growth have actually backfired in some of the poorest nations in the world, and just in recent years led to multiple food riots, scientists report Feb 15 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Many of these reforms were designed to make countries more efficient, and seen as a solution to failing schools, hospitals and other infrastructure," said Laurence Becker, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University. "But they sometimes eliminated critical support systems for poor farmers who had no car, no land security, made $1 a day and had their life savings of $600 hidden under a mattress.

"These people were then asked to compete with some of the most efficient agricultural systems in the world, and they simply couldn't do it," Becker said. "With tariff barriers removed, less expensive imported food flooded into countries, some of which at one point were nearly self-sufficient in agriculture. Many people quit farming and abandoned systems that had worked in their cultures for centuries."

These forces have undercut food production for 25 years, the researchers concluded. They came to a head in early 2008 when the price of rice -- a staple in several African nations -- doubled in one year for consumers who spent much of their income solely on food. Food riots, political and economic disruption ensued.

The study was done by researchers from OSU, the University of California at Los Angeles and Macalester College. It was based on household and market surveys and national production data.

There are no simple or obvious solutions, Becker said, but developed nations and organizations such as the World Bank or International Monetary Fund need to better recognize that approaches which can be effective in more advanced economies don't readily translate to less developed nations.

"We don't suggest that all local producers, such as small farmers, live in some false economy that's cut off from the rest of the world," Becker said.

"But at the same time, we have to understand these are often people with little formal education, no extension systems or bank accounts, often no cars or roads," he said. "They can farm land and provide both food and jobs in their countries, but sometimes they need a little help, in forms that will work for them. Some good seeds, good advice, a little fertilizer, a local market for their products."

Many people in African nations, Becker said, farm local land communally, as they have been doing for generations, without title to it or expensive equipment -- and have developed systems that may not be advanced, but are functional. They are often not prepared to compete with multinational corporations or sophisticated trade systems. The loss of local agricultural production puts them at the mercy of sudden spikes in food costs around the world. And some of the farmers they compete with in the U.S., East Asia and other nations receive crop supports or subsidies of various types, while they are told they must embrace completely free trade with no assistance.

"A truly free market does not exist in this world," Becker said. "We don't have one, but we tell hungry people in Africa that they are supposed to."

This research examined problems in Gambia and Cote d'Ivoire in Western Africa, where problems of this nature have been severe in recent years. It also looked at conditions in Mali, which by contrast has been better able to sustain local food production -- because of better roads, a location that makes imported rice more expensive, a cultural commitment to local products and other factors.

Historically corrupt governments continue to be a problem, the researchers said.

"In many African nations people think of the government as looters, not as helpers or protectors of rights," Becker said. "But despite that, we have to achieve a better balance in governments providing some minimal supports to help local agriculture survive."

An emphasis that began in the 1980s on wider responsibilities for the private sector, the report said, worked to an extent so long as prices for food imports, especially rice, remained cheap. But it steadily caused higher unemployment and an erosion in local food production, which in 2007-08 exploded in a global food crisis, street riots and violence. The sophisticated techniques and cash-crop emphasis of the "Green Revolution" may have caused more harm than help in many locations, the study concluded.

Posted by JohnnyREB1977 on 11/16/08
Last updated 11/18/08

As I was getting up this morning an idea came to me. I am a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and our organization has something called the Sam Davis Youth Camp. The Camp's purpose is to get young people ages 12-20 together every summer to educate them about the true history of the South and not the victor's history that we get in our classrooms. There are two camps a year, and the past camp was co-ed.

Well, the idea I came up with is this: Let's get the Campaign for Liberty to begin Liberty Camps, starting with one every summer and then growing from there. The camp would discuss United States history, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc. As time goes on we could add two camps every summer. If successful, we could then go to having one or two camps per region (one in New England, the South, Midwest, Northwest, etc.). The program would then change to education of our young people about their region's history in relation to U.S. history. Ideally, I would like to see a Liberty Camp in every State every summer which would adapt to telling the State's history in relation to regional and U.S. history and would also educate the youth about their State Constitutions as well as the U.S. Constitution.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Posted 11/18/08 Andrew Sica Woodbury, CT

This is a good idea. We need to get to the kids ASAP, because they get the pro-government indoctrination on a daily basis in school.

Posted 11/18/08 JohnnyREB1977 Claxton, GA

Thanks Andrew. Fadestyle mentioned on Tim's blog the idea of also having a ski resort trip. What do you think about that? Perhaps one camp in the summer and one in the winter or both in the summer, just having one in colder climates? I've been thinking about this some more and another addition to the education that would be great would be the addition of speakers at these camps. Consider if Lew Rockwell or Ron Paul or Tom DiLorenzo were to participate. They'd have to keep their lectures simple, but having such luminaries at the camp would give it an added boost, I think. The SCV camps do the same thing.

Posted 11/18/08 JohnnyREB1977 Claxton, GA

Just got a message from fadestyle and he sent this link for a possible ski resort: http://www.skiliberty.com/lmr/index.aspx Get this. It's the Liberty Mountain Resort! Perfect!

Posted 11/19/08 JohnnyREB1977 Claxton, GA

I hate to hog the discussion, but I got to thinking this morning and realized I didn't mention something yesterday. Whatever we do, whether it's just summer camps or summer camps and ski camps, we need to make sure that the places we use are handicap accessible for those students (and possibly instructors) who are "disabled". Doors should be about 36 inches wide, walls need to be wide enough that chairs don't scrape them - I hate when that happens - and restrooms should be accessible with safety bars on the walls for those who can maneuver out of their chairs. Bathing facilities need to either roll-in showers or those chairs you can put into tubs/showers (it all depends on the individual's level of ability really - having both would be ideal). As for the camps themselves, we have got to have counselors trained to take care of young people who are disabled.

Posted 11/19/08 JohnnyREB1977 Claxton, GA

"we need to get some kind of opting feature going here so we can get the blogs back up on the main page again. all it takes is one person to take self responsibility and throw it out the window in order to ruin it for everyone. just think if this blog was on the main page where thousands of people could see it." I agree, fadetyle. I'd love to see this blog and Tim's on the main page, as well as several others I've read through lately. Before we get too hung up on the place where we'll have these camps I think we need to work on the concept some more. Should the camp be summer long or just week long? The SCV has two week-long camps and that's probably best, at first, just because of the cost factor. Will it be co-educational or not? If it is, how strict should we be concerning fraternization? Again, using the SCV as an example, they'll send you home even if you hold hands. That may be a bit extreme. What kinds of programs do we need to have? Lecture style with questions and answers at the end or a debate forum? Or both? What other kinds?

Posted by JohnnyREB1977 on 02/03/11
Last updated 02/03/11

The Wall Street Journal just posted a blurb on their site concerning the economic impact of shutting down Internet and cell phone services in Egypt. According to the site:

The Egyptian government's blocking of Internet and other communications services for five days is likely to have cost the country about $90 million, according to preliminary estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The interruption of Internet and telecommunications accounts for about 3% to 4% of the Egyptian economy, the Paris-based OECD said. It warned that the long-term impact of the interruption could be greater because large, international companies might be reluctant to provide services in Egypt. The government of President Hosni Mubarak shut off Internet and cell phone communications in an attempt to quell an uprising of anti-government protesters. The shut down lasted for five days before service began to be restored Wednesday and Thursday.

Emphasis mine.

The Egyptian government cost the country $90 million dollars to stifle dissent. This is something we should all check into. How much does it cost a government to censor a book, television show or movie? How much will it cost this country to block the Internet should the government deem it necessary? Many people who may not see the importance of this attack on liberty from the standpoint of liberty may very well be incensed if they hear that there is also a negative monetary consequence to the action.

Posted by JohnnyREB1977 on 10/31/10

The scary actual U.S. government debt
NEIL REYNOLDS | Columnist profile | E-mail
OTTAWA- From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 per cent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion - 840 per cent of current GDP. "Let's get real," Prof. Kotlikoff says. "The U.S. is bankrupt."

Writing in the September issue of Finance and Development, a journal of the International Monetary Fund, Prof. Kotlikoff says the IMF itself has quietly confirmed that the U.S. is in terrible fiscal trouble - far worse than the Washington-based lender of last resort has previously acknowledged. "The U.S. fiscal gap is huge," the IMF asserted in a June report. "Closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 per cent of U.S. GDP."

This sum is equal to all current U.S. federal taxes combined. The consequences of the IMF's fiscal fix, a doubling of federal taxes in perpetuity, would be appalling - and possibly worse than appalling. 

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Read more here

Posted 11/01/10 Willij4lib Monroe, WA

I read an article yesterday that stated it was actually 60 trillion which indicates to me the inconsistency of numbers is because no one really knows. Because of all the secrecy we can be assured it is higher than 13.5 trillion which by this number is insane. But if we are truly in this much debt, who has it all. This is an enormous amounts of wealth and there are not that many hiding that much wealth so who really has it. These numbers do not reflect what is being said about the debt to China, so who owns the rest of the debt, who barrowed it, for what reason and how will they be holding us liable since the money is not there because productivity is way down. Who are these holding this much secrecy we are not allowed to know? It sounds like a syndicate of corruption to me, who then are all the players and who then is in bed with these criminals? I am pretty sure there are several of us sure of this answer but in fear of speaking out do to the ruthlessness of a syndication.

Posted 11/02/10 afterburn13 Overland Park, KS

I believe this isn't just money already borrowed, but also includes already promised moneys into the future, social security, medicare, obligations to international groups such as the UN and NATO and so on. Also, the sources of debt would include not just foreign central banks, but really goofy accounting tricks that can be done within our own Fed, the IMF, and the World Bank, as well as other international financial institutions. Basically anybody capable of printing money or brokering international deals.