coal in your stocking

There seems to be quite a bit of trafficking in back-handed compliments lately. The US Federal Communications Commission is floating a bill ostensibly promoting net-neutrality but is really a wolf in sheep's clothing, since its language gives the bureaucracy a substantial foothold in pushing regulations and standards. Aside from making muffling dissenters and broadcasters less bothersome for government censors, facilitating internet taxation, and requiring a license to tweet mirroring the government's own information assurance and non-refutability model, setting policy, like the creeping scourge of US monetary policy, extra-territorially. The internet is borderless and lawless but leverage can still be exercised, and such indirect and diverted influence is the only really the only arsenal that the crippled dollar can afford. The untold billions that America has underwritten through the International Monetary Fund, despite the yielding value of the currency and threats of inflation, to bolster the European Union is more shaky scaffolding, increasing dependence on the continued shared economical delusion. If the IMF conducted itself more becomingly in First World nations, as opposed to opportunistic and predatory ventures, why should Ireland have put up so much resistance to easy credit? Maybe there are not nascent military dictatorships to prop-up in Dublin or desalinization plants to push, but there are certainly chances to pout over failures to act in alignment with free-market traders, cooperation over environmental protection, policy cheerleading and centralized blacklisting, or the world-internet police. Let us hope that some key players have a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future this year.

life in mono or arsenic and old lace

Though sometimes the space agency indulges the media with rampant speculation and Christmas morning excitement and anticipation, and though no evidence of extraterrestrial life was proffered, NASA's press conference did manage to deliver some outstanding news that redefines not only the way we look at life on earth but also in the search for alien life and prime stellar real estate. Bacteria in the alkaline incubator, Lake Mono in California, have evolved the ability to substitute toxic arsenic for phosphorus, heretofore considered one of the elements essential for basic biological chemistry, along with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. This discovery makes novelty and resourcefulness of life less familiar and less self-centered and opens up great avenues for exploration, dispelling some old assumptions that could hinder the search with blinders and overly selective criteria. NASA's research is a pleasant surprise, following on the heels of an astronomical false tenet disabused earlier this week, that rewarded us with countless more stars in the sky.

heat miser

Most US federal workers are handsomely compensated as it is, mostly for keeping-up-appearances. Part of the out-of-date and out-of-touch rationale, historically for around two percent annually, awarded at the beginning of the year, was as a retention bonus to compensate for the difference between public- and private-sector salaries, ad infinitum--which does not make much sense because there are few real corollaries.

Following the example of US state and local governments, the federal government has decided to freeze the pay of its civilian workforce, with notable exceptions, in a cosmetic gesture of solidarity to unbalanced budgets and as a concession to a divided legislature. While not arguing for another entitlement or casting aspersions towards civil servants that have been furloughed or had their salaries cut, this is squandered political capital, since nominal fiscal savings will go unnoticed as will any cross-party appeasement, and the only segment of the population that will take notice will do so in a negative way, because a few will suffer privately by diminishing their spending power by two percent or so (not to mention a proportional two percent into 401K plans, retirement accounts, income tax, etc. although most of that is just a shell game too) in exchange for only negligible public benefit. Efficiency and trimming expenses where quality and morale is not compromised is a virtue but feckless actions are disgruntling.

who carried on his shoulder a siamese cat

Diplomacy is not duplicitous and is nothing if not transparent and truthful--thought not espousing or pretending that all the details are baldly set forth for debate. Personally, I am not sorry at all for America's spillage of information and opinions that was never meant to be cast out in the open, since America readily and gleefully reserves the right to monitor any and all habits, activities and communication of any one, and with no cause.

These revelations, however, will bring about no reform, an attitude adjustment or even more caution about what one commits to email. Although such empty concepts as information-security or private-email are oxymorons, and such a daisy-chain is amazingly tough and long-lived, I believe rather than giving government officials cause to question seepage, whether it is necessary to disseminate data scattershot and indiscriminately, reward staff with super-secret clearances, or horde and encourage all and sundry to contribute to the glut of data. Any piece of covert or private knowledge is only protected by a herd-mentality--the private doings of most are not the focus of a tenacious investigation and carry little to no public interest, and while the medical histories of anyone could be plucked out of the ætherher, usually the government, press and businesses are overwhelmed with too rich a selection of low-hanging fruit. Instead of taking this leak as a point of departure, to evaluate attitudes or disposition of digitizing communications--of which, emails are not final testimony and should be never taken as such, regardless of password integrity and security obstacles--cooperation and exchange will only wither away. Turf-battles have already resulted in a lot of damaging resistance to share valuable insights, ending in missed opportunities and catastrophe. Keeping tabs on every anonymous member of the horde across all disciplines created this mentality and this blossoming mess. Diplomacy serves to promote collaboration, and it is ironic that the revealed state of the US ambassadors will yield tighter controls and tightfistedness.