Somebody's Watching Your Every Move

In his Friday and Saturday Blogs, The Curmudgeon at the Second Effort Blog wrote about the proposed VMT (vehicle miles traveled) Tax. This would replace the gasoline tax. Fortunately President Obama quashed this proposal made by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (I wonder why his parents didn’t name him Robin – I would have).

The Curmudgeon brings up some interesting ramifications involved with adopting a VMT Tax:
“The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.”

Now this is a real scary thought.

I have a good friend that lives in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. Some our mutual friends will say that he is extremely paranoid.

He says that the Government is gradually usurping our right to privacy.

Some years ago he bought a Cell Phone. The only time that he used it was when he went on his annual August fishing trip in the back woods of northern Minnesota (to keep in contact with his elderly parents). He’d buy minutes at the Walgreens. Then he saw a NCIS episode where they could track a person by his cell phone; even if it was not in use.

He now gives the phone to friends and asks them to keep it in their cars for several days. Then he takes it back and passes it to another. His friends humor him. He still uses it in Minnesota.

He will no longer buy a GM made car (for 30 years he only bought Buicks) because of the ONSTAR system. Even if you don’t subscribe to the service, he says that it’s there and can track your movements. He doesn't own a GPS for the same reason ("what kind of dummy cannot read a road map".)

Many years ago he said that the government was trying to turn us into a cashless society. Credit and Debit Cards could then be used to track our spending habits. Like my Dad did, he only uses cash for his purchases and has never had a credit card. He hopes that he dies before this happens.

Our mutual friends also say that he must have a cloaking or jamming device in his house; their Cell Phones only work 15 feet or more away from the building.

Perhaps we should all be getting a bit paranoid, as my friend is, about our rights to privacy.

The Beach Bum

A Possible Answer to Our Financial Woes

In November I wrote a Blog titled “A Possible Solution”.

I was attempting to be facetious when I wrote it. In fact, one of my labels was – Just for Laughs. It was about the bailouts and other possible solutions rather than giving our tax dollars to incompetent CEO’s and the irresponsible individuals that got us into our current financial crisis.

While catching up on my viewing of editorial cartoons this morning (on the Chicago Tribune online site), I ran across one from January 15th. I couldn’t stop laughing.

The author of the cartoon was Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Signe Wilkinson now part of the Washington Post Writers Group. She also does a daily comic strip named Family Tree which I read online. Following in the footsteps of another editorial cartoonist, David Wiley Miller (who signs his strip Non Seqiutur - Wiley), she signs both her editorial cartoons and daily strips - Signe.

Signe must have read my aforementioned Blog or at lease someone told her about it. I can dream, can’t I?

I snatched the following from the Chicago Tribune Website (Click on it to enlarge):



The Beach Bum

Mister Knows Most of It

The third love of my life (aka my wife) is currently here visiting her daughter and tormenting me. I guess that I was not a good boy last year and “that invisible man in the sky” has decided to punish me.

But I will admit that she does have her moments. The other day asked two questions about the Presidential Inauguration. Why was held in January, when the weather is so miserable in Washington D.C. and why Inauguration Day wasn’t a National Holiday (so that more people could attend or watch it on television).

Being a “Mister Knows Most of It”, like my friend Richard Feder, I gave a snappy reply. She bought my answers; they made sense, whether they were correct or incorrect. That’s the good part about being a “Mister Knows Most of It”, if you are right 75% of the time, people tend to believe you are right the other 25% when you don’t know Jack about the topic. The quicker you answer, the more believable you become.

In a telephone conversation with Mr. Feder (he’s right 75% of the time and answers quickly) last night we discussed the issue of the January Inauguration. We both knew that Inauguration Day had been in March and that it was changed to January in the Twentieth Century. Feder then tells me that it was change to lessen the transition time between Presidents. This made sense – so I bought his answer.

My next question was is why we hold our elections on the first Tuesday in November? He answered that it was because of the Farmers (at that time we were primarily an agrarian society). He also informed me that it isn’t always on the first Tuesday (if the first Tuesday falls on November first - All Saints Day – all of the farmers would be in Church rather that at the polls). Feder is usually 75% correct so I believed this without looking it up.

Here is my proposition. If after one year Barack Obama is doing a good job and has a high approval rating, we should change the dates of the General Election and Presidential Inauguration. I believe it will take a Constitutional Amendment to do so. We change Election Day to the first Tuesday in April and Inaugural Day to June 20th.

Why did I choose these dates?

First, it will remind the voters of their tax obligation and what the current President has done to relieve their burden. And the day before the Summer Solstice is usually a nice day.

The Beach Bum

Eavesdropping Can Be Enjoyable Work – At Times

This morning I had two dubious hits on my Blog titled “40 Years Ago”.

They both came from District of Columbia, Washington, United States. The first was from clayton.state.gov (U.S. Department Of State) and the second was from dhcp-1-138-220-201-195.worldbank.org (The World Bank Group). Both had no referring link, which usually means that someone has bookmarked your Blog.

The one from the State Department really intrigued me. I tried to think if anyone that I knew worked for the State Department and was slacking off at 0330 hours while working the graveyard shift. When I lived in Maryland, I knew a lot of Defense Department employees, but I could not think of anyone that worked at State.

This was driving me crazy (not a far drive). I was attempting to write a Blog about the Tampa Bay Rays going to the World Series; what a great game last night. I couldn’t really concentrate on what I was writing because U.S. Department of State was echoing through the canyons of my mind.

I therefore did a Google search on clayton.state.gov. It is a blanket IP for State Department employees, in particular, but not exclusive to, the Homeland Security Office. My Blog must have set off an alert in their SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) system, prompting some lower echelon employee to read it for possible seditious acts on my part.

Back 40 years ago, when I worked a SIGINT mission, we didn’t have high tech computers to tell us when something was of a suspicious nature. We use R-390 Radios and headsets, and searched for suspicious activity. Two of my Army buddies are now on VA disability for hearing loss.

The modern day SIGINT systems work like Google Bots. They look for key words and if several appear they alert a rear echelon employee to check it out. The difference between today and my day is that these employees are readers not listeners. If they are in the military, they will more than likely be getting VA benefits for blindness rather than deafness.

I’m probably one of the few people around that really don’t mind being spied upon. I have absolutely nothing to hide (unless you count masturbating in the shower); not from family, friends nor the Federal Government.

And to those of you who must read (not by choice) my Blog, I put enough twitch words in this one to light up the Panic Button. Sorry, but I’ll take readers any way that I can get them.

The Beach Bum