KickIdle.com Blog

Cryptome.org is a site dedicated to getting information into the public eye. The publisher, John Young, does a remarkable job of identifying and collecting tidbits of information that don’t see the light of day through traditional media outlets. Here’s a pretty good example of that…

J’ACCUSE: BUSH’S DEATH SQUADS
By Wayne Madsen
31 January 2002
Today, The Washington Post ran the fifth segment in its series on what transpired within the Bush Cabinet in the aftermath of September 11. Of particular interest is what CIA Director George Tenent brought to the table at Camp David last September 15. According to the article by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, when Tenent produced a Top Secret “Worldwide Attack Matrix” that specified targets in 80 countries around the world, he sought unprecedented authority to simply assassinate foreign terrorists directly or though allied intelligence services. The CIA even prepared a “Memorandum of Notification” which would allow the agency to have virtual carte blanche to conduct political assasinations abroad. This Memorandum trumped previous mechanisms by which the President would authorize intelligence actions (but not assassinations) through individual Presidential Findings. The fail safe mechanisms established under the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton were simply erased at the urging of Tenent. In light of these revelations, what was authorized by the President may have led to the assassinations of a umber of human rights and ethnic leaders not connected in any way with Al Qaeda but did represent bothersome roadblocks to a number of U.S. military and corporate interests.
…..

Cryptome.org’s stated editorial policy is “Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security and intelligence — open, secret and classified documents — but not limited to those.” An incredibly interesting archive of government and private documents.

The Rotten.com Decrepit Snow Sculpture Awards are in. Here’s a cute little snow doggie. Check out the rest, if you dare. It’s not called Rotten for nothing you know (Motto: Pure Evil Since 1996). So, in case you can’t get the drift: some, er, most of the site is for mature audiences only.

Oh no! What have I done!!! Well, it would appear the cost of e-mailing the Libertarian Samizdata team is a link from their site. Welcome all Samizdata readers (a group of which I am a definite member). The favor will, of course, be returned as soon as I can get home and update my template.
And if you haven’t read Libertarian Samizdata, you don’t know what you’re missing. Get over there!

It’s really kind of amazing. Almost half of the hits I get are automated attack worms looking for Microsoft IIS vulnerabilities.

So, anyway, pension reform is a big topic now that Enron has gone belly-up. Bush is talking about reform to the 401(k) regulations that would allow people to diversify themselves out of owning their company’s stock more quickly than current regulations. This seems like a sound idea, but as with anything in America, there’s someone willing to dispute it. J. Michael Keeling, President of the ESOP Association, and David Wray, president of the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America, both come out against modifying the 401(k) in the above article on MSN.

“We are fearful we’re heading down a road where you put your money in and three months later you can take it out,” said J. Michael Keeling, president of the ESOP Association, an advocate for employee ownership.
An ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) is a defined contribution retirement plan in which assets are invested primarily or exclusively in the securities of the sponsoring employer. Examples of better-known ESOPs are the airline UAL Corp. and consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co.
But there are also hundreds of small companies that do not have publicly traded shares, but do use the ESOP structure to provide for employee ownership.
David Wray, president of the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America, worries that some of the changes being discussed could place small companies in dire straits. If required to allow employees to diversify, these small ESOPs would need bank loans or financing from venture capitalists to fill the void.
“Some of these little companies will go out of business if you do this,” he said in an interview Friday.

Now, this probably sounds like a pretty reasonable set of arguments. How can I disagree with helping small business, especially at a time when our economy is looking fairly shitty? It’s because I realize that trying to help and actually helping can be different things. Economic meddling is the same thing that has kept Argentina on the verge of collapse for decades, remember?
If you will pause to recall, the US is supposed to be based on a government “for the people”. I’m not sure when that changed to “for the corporations”, but I think it has. My personal philosphy doesn’t fall squarely into a neat little box, but I do have some pretty strong libertarian tendencies. To me, there’s two major issues at stake in this debate. Protecting the interests of business, in this case, the access to large pools of capital from employee retirement funds. And secondly, protecting the ability of an individual to develop and execute a sound strategy for funding his own retirement.
What Mr. Keeling and Mr. Wray are really saying is “giving people this flexibility might hurt businesses”. But not giving people this flexibility makes it harder for them to effectively provide for themselves during retirement. If these changes mean we stream-line the economy by ridding it of non-viable businesses more quickly while reducing the dependence of retired persons on government aid, I’m all for it. As to the businesses that get shutdown due to these new competitive pressures, I can only say “good riddance”. Efficiency is what capitalism’s all about, remember?

I hate it when Blogger loses my template. Grrrr…

I almost creamed a deer coming back to work from Wendy’s. I had french fries, until they flew all over my passenger seat during the braking/swerving/cursing. sigh That’s the closest I’ve come to an animal related accident in a while.

Like most sane people, I wouldn’t trust a politician further than I could throw him. This article about the New Orleans mayorial race is pretty generic (underdogs take primary, etc.), but it’s still worth the read just for this paragraph:

Irons, 48, had been the only major aspirant before the third-term referendum. But she was hurt by Pennington’s candidacy, and the revelation that a brother described in campaign ads as a victim of “violence in the streets” actually died in a shootout with police after a robbery.

I want to know what spin-meister decided to make that part of the campaign.

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