Lumpy's Corner

Well now that the CAN SPAM act has been effect for a full seven months my inbox seems to be full of more garbage than ever before. I think it is an appropriate time to thrust a blunt, rusty infection laced spear into the soft belly of legitimate HTML publishers everywhere for SPAMERS now have legal rights. In an effort to combat SPAM, the US Government has, in fact, legalized it. This really is wrong and really bugs me. The few who don't give others any respect what they put in our in boxes are ruining it for those who actually put what we want into it and the government gave them "legal" grounds to do it.

This is why I switched over to RSS. (You can read up a bit on that here .) It seems that this is the way those of us who desire content and not trash are going to have to do. I am simply tired of my inbox being full of garbage. I also use spam assassin and some really heavy filtering.

It seems like the volumes of SPAM in my inbox have actually gotten worse this year. I think we can thank CAN SPAM for that. The act actually stands for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing". This is a classic example of our elected representatives pretend to do good and, in fact, offer, a weak solution intended to appease the masses on a political issue while at the same time appeasing the industries which lobby best. The reality is they only made things worse. The acronym %quot;CAN" SPAM is a better name that what the initials stand for.

With the new law went into effect the first of the year 2004, seven full months of my opening my inbox have convinced me that the law has made matters worse. My inboxes, at least those that I left "unprotected", are flooded. Worse yet, it seems like the more often I opt out of one spam service the more new spam services hit me.

I was reading the EFF newsletter and I learned that the Department of Homeland Security plans to place transmitters (via a mini-PC chip) on passports as an anti-terrorism measure. For about the lifespan of a quark, I though how novel. Reality, however, soon set in and shattered my naivety to bits. Nonetheless, I am confident that everyone involved had the best intentions. I am more confident that it is very risky and hazardous.

The brilliance of this plan was to transmit information, such as name, relevant ID numbers and nationality. This would allow tracking of every passport holder. This would give the US government the information on your location when you, the terrorist who gave legit information, traveling with a legally obtained passport despite the public announcement that each one is now a beacon, commit your heinous crime against America. (Even more amazing, as we shall soon see, other nations should easily be able to do so as well.)

A few days ago I ran across an interesting item in one of my many feeds. I even commented about it on the author's blog and wrote a post about it of my own. It was a short piece about Googling Tiananmen. Kill Ugly Radio then posted a comment on my site. I thought that this was a good example of how we have freedoms that the Chinese don't. We have a country where we can openly exchange ideas... or do we?

Although I feel that his views are, politically, different than mine, I did gain a sense of satisfaction because of the exchange that can occur. Unfortunately, reality does not let such things last long...

Seems that T-shirts are making the news these days. Apparently two people were ejected from The State of the Union Address. It seems that T-shirts are considered "a protest". You can read several different versions of the story. Take your pick: Michael Moore's Site, an Associated Press article or KWTX of Texas. You can even read Cindy's own telling of her arrest. I have commented before that history is often written by the victor and reality lies between the lines. What do we have here?

The Latest IP Crime: "Box-Wrap" Patent Infringement. Copyfight: the politics of IP

I was just dealing with my backlog of feeds and happened on this post. I could understanding voiding your warrenty but a crime? What if Tuperware found I used their cake storage container for storeing my markes and pens? This is law to the ridiculous.

I found this over at digg. This video pokes fun at Apple and the President.

This is just great. More data lost by Buckeye State. The total of all these mishaps is no over 1 million. I wonder if the new slogan should be "Ohio, the State where everyone knows who you are!"

There are more stories about my home state over at the blog linked to above. It is pretty sad.