All the Shuttle Missions in 8 Minutes

End of the Shuttle Era

I remember making a space shuttle cockpit simulator out of tinker toys back in the early '80s after watching the first launch of Columbia. Now, with little fanfare, the shuttle program is over. After over 30 years, there will be no more shuttles or shuttle launches. I'm kind of sad about that.

There were a LOT of shuttle missions. Even with the gaps after the tragic accidents in '86 and '02, the shuttle program managed to fly more than 4 times a year for a total of 35 more missions than the intended 100.

However, the shuttle program was never really that great. A lot of science was done on those missions, but was it done efficiently? Imagine all the science that could have been done in those 30 years if we had chosen a cheaper launch vehicle which was less complicated and could be reconfigured to be even more cost effective.

What's next? The government has a shuttle-looking craft that it can launch for long duration flights, but there have been no indications that it is manned. And it wouldn't be for science, or at least not the the kind of science that benefits everyone.

For the first time in half a century, America has no way to send men into space. That is depressing.

But there is hope.

The hope is private industry. There are currently several ventures attempting manned space flight. Some have reached the boundary of space. Soon, no doubt, we will see private citizens going into space, simply for the thrill.

'Virtual Alabama': Anyone with .edu or .gov Email to have Spying Authority

A new post on Selma Intelligencer by this author details a few of the problems with Alabama's Department of Homeland Security's 'Virtual Alabama' program.

Albama's Department of Homeland Security has an application that allows anyone with a .gov or .edu email address to use the privacy-invading tools the government has implemented to spy on anyone virtually anywhere in the State of Alabama. The 3 minute propaganda video on their website tries to explain how the live video feeds are used for 'keeping our community safer', yet details how the EPA is using Virtual Alabama 'extinsively' to watch what you're doing in your yard (2:40), and that it is used for economic development and other non-safety issues (2:05). This program is clearly being used to spy on the citizens of Alabama.

As troubling as it may be that any government employee with an .edu or .gov email can get the software, that's not the main issue. The ruggedness of the screening process for obtaining an account is unknown. The issue is the privacy of Alabama's citizens, which has been ignored. Even if the screening process to be granted an account is extremely stringent, the ability of users to use this data in a malicious way is far too great.

Political opponents can use this to gain a god-like advantage by tracking every move of their opponents and critics without having to leave a computer. The system has been implemented with cameras in both Selma City Schools (January 2010), and Dallas County Schools (June 2010). This creates a risk for children, as well.

Bottom line: The cameras shouldn't be there in the first place. The realtime surveillance of innocent citizens is the kind of thing you'd expect from a tyrant, not from a free State in the United States of America. This program, even according to it's own promotional video, does very little towards it's professed goal of 'keeping our community safer', and goes a very long way to destroying the very rights that make our State and Country great.

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Alabama's DHS logo looks like it could have been designed by WWII Germany. Using the Alabama Flag's St. Andrew's cross as the background of a sun circle cross with a DHS shield in the center looks more than a little Nazi-esque. The National Socialists would be MORE than proud to have gotten their hands on technology like this.

Hacking the Vote

This documentary exposes some of the vote manipulation in elections:



"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
-Joseph Stalin

In any competition where one side loses a close decision, that side tends to cry foul. The winning side, of course, denies any wrongdoing even if they know there may have been an unfair advantage. In 2000 and 2004, obvious irregularities occurred with the recording of votes in the Presidential election.

I voted for George Bush in 2000 and dismissed these irregularities as sour grapes by the liberals. We didn't raise the alarm because the error was in our favor, and our side won. What we didn't realize is that EVERYONE lost because NO ONE knows if their vote was even counted. It's as though the left-right fascade being blown up our noses by the corporate 'journalists' has blinded us to the fact that our votes no longer count.

In Dallas County, where I vote, we use the optical scan method. At 40 minutes into this video, John Kerry concedes the 2004 election even though obvious optical scan manipulation had occurred. In the past few elections, I've voted for a few independent or 3rd party candidates. The Secretary of State's website 'certified' count always indicates that my vote must've been one of very few cast for 3rd parties and independents. Yet, when I ask around, I find dozens who voted for someone other than the 2 party system. I can't help but wonder how many of my votes were uncounted or changed.

Why did Kerry concede in 2004? At the time, I didn't care. Although I voted for Michael Badnarik, I still felt Bush was a better choice than Kerry due to the fact that I've always been Republican and a conservative. My team didn't win, but at least the team I didn't like lost. That was the extent of my logic, just as it had been when I voted for Bush in 2000. Although I had no respect for Kerry, I actually thought he had done the right thing by quitting, to avoid another 2000 Gore recount fiasco. Hindsight being 20/20, I now question the motivation for Kerry's concession.

The methods of hacking the vote are so simple a kid could do it. The code changes required could be done by a beginner. After all, we're not talking about a complex program, all we're talking about is counting. Basically, the programs they use are just simple calculators with variable functions. The database that allows direct manipulation of the data is ridiculous!

If they are going to manipulate the election, anyway, why vote? Because YOUR VOTE COUNTS. Your opinion is what will rule the country. It may not have been counted in the past, but, with enough people getting angry, this trend will come to an end.

SpyCounterspy

It's been 10 years since the Valentine's Day 'outing' of US intelligence agencies by a guy named Lee Adams. A search for 'Lee Adams' today only pulls up the website of some musicians. I don't know what happened to this guy, or even if he really exsisted, but I remember his website from the late '90s. It was a seeming expose' of US government surveillance and espionage techniques. Some already knew these tactics, while, to others, it seemed pretty far-fetched. I was kind of in the middle.

For example, one-time pads, or OTP, are a fairly well-known method of passing private information. Anyone with knowledge of the numbers stations of the cold war recognizes the format. On the other hand, his descripton of techniques used by 'wheel artists' for vehicle surveillance was an eye-opener, and I wondered if our government would really waste that kind of manpower on the average dissenter.

Anyway, it was a cool website to me, back then, as I was younger and the cloak-and-dagger element appealed to me. I have no idea if any of those techniques are employed, anymore, nor do I really care. I don't have any reason to worry about that kind of stuff, right?

Dumped by Townhall?

For those of you who've noticed my Tonewah's Politics blog on Townhall.com isn't coming up, I wish I could tell you why. For the last few days, I've been attempting to access it, to no avail. I've been able to log into Townhall, but my blog just won't appear.

I haven't been notified by Townhall, or anyone for that matter, of any terms of service violations, and am unaware of anything I've published that could be considered such. I haven't been informed by anyone why my blog on Townhall is no longer accessable. I won't go as far as to accuse Townhall of censorship, but it IS curious.

(as of 6am, Friday morning, the blog is back up at Townhall)

'The Mother of all Demos'

This is where it all started... HyperText, video conferencing, the mouse... (HyperText is the ht in http://; hypertext transfer protocol) The date on the video is incorrect. This actually took place in the late '60s. This would've been mind-blowing to people in the pre-WWW era. It would've blown MY mind before the '90s.