One of the most observable yet understudied socioeconomic changes in the US over the last century, has been the integration of a credit system whose sum value while virtual, has been forcibly bloated to equal that which was actual. It is a structure which has inflated the value of American currency, the appetite of the American consumer, and made less visible the need for mindful economic discipline — discpline in general.  It is a structure that popularized passive budgeting, over-spending, and the carrot-on-a-stick philosophy that comes from keeping up with the Jones’. More importantly and obviously more general, this is a structure that changed our society.

The change has created a set of conditions that poise the US for a dangerous and likely disastrous economic retraction — leaving us the same old questions we had when we set-out. And yet these conditions will give birth to newer, deeper questions about the future (and who we are). For while it is arguable that this explosion of virtual wealth may have incited some social mobility or led to some amount of social progression, I fear both those advances however great, have also been as equally virtual.

Certain ultimate questions take shape upon the horizon: What social or cultural changes will lead Americans to the discipline needed to excel with the changes ahead? And: Is this generation ready for a world where it must pick between dinner or a movie?

For years people have learned from hacking — its the most ancient human art. But, it seems the US has slid so far from its foundation, that now the sheer construction and presentation of information can within itself be considered in some way criminal.

A judge acting as thought-cop told 3 MIT students they were not to discuss their latest hack. Since the halt order, the availability of the information in the presentation has fluctuated. Decius makes mention of the evolving legal manifestation on Memestreams.

I believe information like this ought to be free, and so: a complete form of the content of the halted Defcon presentation is right here (in PDF format). Enjoy.

Below, the cover of The New Yorker this month, showing a candid shot of our President in the oval office, “chilling” with one of his better friends — capturing the President, a man at work.

God.  Religion.  And all those poor, witless dupes taken in — these are a few of my favorite things! I’m kidding. While I do despise organized religion, that does not automatically mean I have a problem faith. I make this clarification because people will likely assume I believe faith — along with religion — is useless. When the fact is, such a characterization could not be further from the truth.

Its important to make clear that, I’m not saying anything about faith when I talk about religion. That those are two entirely different things.  And though its somewhere in the really boring middle, that the Bible covers this particular topic.

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George Bush may well be the most thoughtless President in American history. Under his Administration, all of America has fallen apart. It is without any sort of reflection that he may well also put an end to this idea of American history, et al. At the G8 Summit, our President, the “leader of the free world”, whose known for sharp wit, powerful wielding of the English language, and infinite charm and savvy, went ahead and showed exactly how concerned he is about the environment; he joked about it. So, to all my friends out there who voted for Mr. Bush: thanks.

I want to tip my hat to you (in that now almost Daily-Show-famous, ‘drunken-presidential’ way) and say with all the sarcasm in my black little heart “Ahahahaha, Yes! Lets Wreck the Planet… So We Along With All Other Life Can Die A Horrifyingly Slow, Painful, Human-Engineered Death… Wheeee!!!!” Now, isn’t that something wonderful to laugh about?

Bush thought so; Goodbye, from the world’s biggest polluter!

I love to paint myself as a sober minded person, one that would not very easily fall in with the crowded world of conspiracy theories. Some people go on believing everything that they read. You shouldn’t (thats right, *evil grin* not even I). This idea begs the question, who can you believe? An interesting paradox presents itself though similarly here: Who’s watching the watchmen?  But first, the details…

Buying into this next idea isn’t joining the crazy club at all, no matter how many of those kinds of alarms this might immediately set off in your head. Give it a chance — I did, and was surprised. If you do, this will find you as far from that group as possible and in a world that makes a bit more sense, about why for so long, the Internet has been able to remain this “open” bastion of communication. Because none of this is a conspiracy theory, its not a theory at all, its a simple to understand fact. Infrastructure, especially something as revolutionary as the Internet, must be protected, in other words, watched.

For a long time now, the United States government has been monitoring Internet usage going directly against all constitutional forms protecting individual civil liberty. How would I know? Besides the video below, and the myriad trustworthy Americans who’ve worked in telecom I’ve known, and what I’ve heard from them for years, I too have had my own personal experience.

In the late 90s, a person representing the FBI offered me a job tracking hackers as part of a project at that time, I was told, was called Phoenix (a re-vision of Project: Sun Devil). Now, it is known publicly by the same name as at least one of the software tools that resulted from the current instance of the project, called Carnivore.

While the video shown below is aging, dated 03/02/2007, the latest on the FISA decision brought all this to the front of my mind, and caused me to want to re-highlight all of this, as well as my experience (if not for my own personal reflection, for your review). I mean, if its just a conspiracy theory and no one’s watching, why would telecommunication companies even require legislation providing immunity, right?

No friends, its not some far fetched circumstance at all unfortunately, or something hidden under a deep brow of secrets and codes. Essentially, the government has been doing this since it was possible, and since experts could tell there would be a mass exodus of our culture (but especially an explosion in media on) to the Internet. And because everyone was so busy eating up their new technological toy, no one bothered to notice. And if they had, like back in 03/2007, what could they do? Watch the video and ask yourself: Who’s watching the watchmen?

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=2930944

Summer, 2008. You can’t seem to buy a headline that doesn’t remind you that the price of gasoline is at a record high. Everyone is coming out of the wood-work talking Peak oil. Articles stapled to the same headlines fall back on the same, now tiring, discussion about rising demands, shrinking supplies, and the myriad speculative strategies playing out on the open energy market — they talk about anything except solving the problem. Thats because we’re not only at a peak in oil production (which generally drives all other production), we’re at a peak in our production of educated problem solvers. We’ve got a nation of pontificates (at times, myself included).

While Congress questions Big Oil hoping markets can police themselves (lasting it’s tie to capitalism), the opposite only seems obvious and true to consumers and the American people, leaving some of the best analysts wondering, “Is speculation or fundamentals driving the price of oil?” I prefer my question, is it Need or Greed? But, there should be no surprise so little has gotten done, Americans always worry first about who is to blame despite whats opportunities are lost in the meantime — thats the terrifying reality that landed us in Iraq: the need to blame. But, even as we grow nearer to what may amount to the largest energy crisis in American history (perhaps the history of all of our species), and America spirals downward, I realize I have a greater fear, one worse than expensive commodities: my fellow Americans.

Besides the pointless chatter surrounding oil that fills the media — which wastes more energy (in the form of oil, et al) than anything else given its return value — I hear a common notion threaded across the perspective of average Americans: Americans believe George W. Bush, our current President, did all this with a simple policy of “drill and veto.” But, and this is what scares me most, they also believe conversely, that when Bush leaves office these problems will go with him. They believe somehow through Bush’s ties to Big Oil, he was capable of masterminding this global economic shift at the most fundamental level: commodities pricing. Our President alone is not that powerful, thankfully. However, the American people are when they can be united.

So, my poor, undereducated Americans, so down-turned by bad policy, despite your instinct, please forget your dire need to blame. Realize that holding a belief that any such problems will vanish overnight is in fact a form of greed itself, and not need, and is an idea that is plain stupid. We as a society, must exercise the discipline we lacked prior to this, leading us here, in order to find the way out.

Beyond that, personally I feel, George W. Bush, our President, couldn’t mastermind a few elegant English statements in the form of complete English sentences given chair, desk, ink, pen and good reason to do so. And that my friends… is the problem with America, forget oil, we’re at Peak education.

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Peak education is the point in time when the maximum rate of distribution for global education, training, and knowledge is reached, after which the rate of that production and distribution enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, an education crisis may develop because the availability of conventional education, training and knowledge will drop and the population will rise, perhaps dramatically (Hubbert peak theory).

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/03/national/main3783425.shtml

President Bush on Monday will release a $3 trillion budget for 2009. Here is a look at some of its elements:

DEFICITS: The plan will claim deficits in the $400 billion range for this year and next. For the 2009 budget year covered by the Bush plan, deficits are likely to rise higher than Mr. Bush predicts after additional war costs are added in.

DEFENSE: The Pentagon would get a $35 billion increase to $515 billion for core programs, about 7 percent, with war costs additional. Another $21 billion would go to the Energy Department for nuclear weapons programs. A $70 billion “bridge fund” for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would give the next president time to consider options, with tens of billions of dollars more needed regardless of any strategy shift.

DOMESTIC APPROPRIATIONS: These would be essentially frozen at current levels, with most services being cut after inflation and population growth are factored in.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Overall, the budget for homeland security programs will increase by almost 11 percent, with a 19 percent increase for border security and immigration enforcement efforts, including new money to secure the border with Mexico.

MEDICARE AND MEDICAID: The programs will see almost $200 billion in cuts over the next five years, about three times the savings proposed last year but rejected by Congress. Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most health care providers for three years and from cutting payments to hospitals serving large numbers of the uninsured poor.

HEALTH: Health and Human Services Department funding would be cut by $2 billion, amounting to a 3 percent reduction. Funding for the National Institutes of Health would be frozen. The Food and Drug Administration would receive a 6 percent boost to $2.4 billion to ramp up food and drug safety efforts.

EDUCATION: Education programs would be frozen at $60 billion, with no increase to keep pace with inflation. Bush is pushing to restore $600 million lawmakers cut from Reading First, which serves low-income children. Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would rise about 3 percent. Special education would receive $11.3 billion, a $330 million increase.