Traffic Cameras to Scan For Insurance

There is a reason I put up so many posts about traffic cameras, they are the front lines of the coming privacy apocalypse. Moore’s Law dictates that processing power of computers doubles every year and a half on average. They do this by becoming smaller, more interconnected, and lower in energy consumption. This is in contrast with government, which gets bigger, more intrusive, and less efficient over time. In traffic cameras, the two meet. Government has found a source of revenue in crime, and a way to automate the process through private industry. The cameras pay for themselves fast enough to create their own explosive growth, and government expands to consume the new source of revenue. If crime drops off, government will seek to find or create more crimes in order to avoid revenue starvation. This started with red light cameras, and now according to the Chicago Sun Times, Chicago is considering trying to pay for their budget deficit by having traffic cameras scan every car on the road for current insurance and automatically send the owner of each a $500 ticket, regardless of whether they were driving.

This isn’t about cars or insurance, and it isn’t about my desire to get away with breaking traffic laws; I haven’t driven an automobile for over a decade. As Moore’s law kicks in, we will see surveillance become extremely cheap, and integrated into everything. Imagine you had your own personal thundercloud over your head that followed you around all day and zapped money out of your pocket every time you did anything not government approved. This isn’t some hypothetical slippery slope, this is the nearly inevitable path we are on. We can’t, and shouldn’t, stop the tech. If we don’t make it, someone else will. If we don’t make it, we don’t progress to the good it can bring. The Amish strategy of hiding their heads in the sand is a recipe for being conquered by those willing to use buttons. What we can do is make sure the government isn’t allowed to profit from its use.

There are several things people are doing to try and circumvent the cameras, from polarized licence plate covers that can only be viewed straight on, to clear reflective spray paint to blind the camera with the flash reflection, to GPS based traffic camera detectors.

I’m guessing the next step is LCD signs complete with advertising while you wait for your light to turn green.

Israel has Nukes

The Department of Defense has confirmed (pdf) what has long been known by most, but kept officially secret; Israel is a nuclear power. The report was cleared for release after Obama was elected, but before he took power. It  refers to “a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east.”

Israel is estimated to have several hundred nuclear warheads, placing it ahead of the UK, and likely with the third most warheads of any nation in the world. The purpose of these warheads is obvious. In the event of an organized arab attack, Israel would have the option of massive nuclear retaliation. I don’t think we can really say that this has ‘kept the peace’, but it certainly has kept Israel on  the map. I would like to stress that there is no such thing as a defensive weapon. If a nation were to have an impenetrable forcefield, it would allow them to put all of their other forces on offense without worry, which, come to think of it, seems to be not far from what has happened.

According to Wikipedia, “The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 was amended by the Symington Amendment (Section 669 of the FAA) in 1976. It banned U.S. economic, and military assistance, and export credits to countries that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections. “ This would seem to be a message from the U.S. to Israel that they are going to have to start following the rules if they want our continued support. This is no small matter, since Israel is in violation of quite a lot of U.N. resolutions, hides their arsenal from the IAEA, and has already been accused of using phosphorus and cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Fed Chief Ben Bernanke on 60 Minutes

It is unusual to see a Fed Chief do a network interview. He makes some interesting statements about inflation and the printing of money. He speaks calmly about the printing of money and thinks it is an important part of recovery. He seems to believe that when the economy turns the corner, he will simply contract the money supply and prevent inflation from increasing. I’ll be interested to see if this works. I get the feeling that inflation is going to be a whole lot easier to create than to prevent once the money is out of the bag.

Crusher vs. Cramer

Something constructive has come of the Santelli rant after all, albeit through a rather circuitous route. The above video is the meatier portion of the whole escapade thus far. After being taunted by NBC for just being a comedian, taking things out of context, and making funny faces, Jon Stewart had Cramer on his show and conducted the interview in a more serious and constructive manner than you will see any of the so-called journalists who leveled these accusations do themselves. Cramer was friendly and apologetic, so this must have been a hard thing to do to the man, but Stewart met any evasions with career crushing force. There have been responses from most of the major media and the White House.

CNN has a poll up that asks readers whether they see this interview as being a comic diversion or serious business. Comedy is winning 52-48. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what went down. A bit of background for those of you not well versed in investing; a short is when a broker sells you an investment they don’t own because they think it will go down. They intend to take your money, and when the stock goes down and you wish to sell, they just give you some of your money back and pocket the rest. Kind of like a Ponzi scheme, in the sense that if the stock market booms and everyone wants their money, we see a whole new scandal. This is legal. Some of what he was admitting to doing was not. Listen carefully to the clips Stewart plays, rewind if you have to, but make sure you understand what Cramer was admitting to. He isn’t a rogue bad apple. This is business as usual and whole system is full of rot. The government is rotten, the banks are rotten, as are the analysts, the brokers, the corporations, the media, and the investors. This isn’t something we can just make more rules against. This isn’t a failure of the free market. The people who make the rules are the same people breaking them. What we need is simple transparency. Jon Stewart has given us a taste.

Government Chia Eradication Efforts

I love a good conspiracy theory, and I have a few myself regarding red lights and government corruption. This guy, however, needs to check his tinfoil hat for lead content. I give him extra credit for delivery and follow through. His web design made me smile, and he even has T-Shirts!

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