Well, I know I’ll take a lot of flak for this (by those who don’t ignore me outright), but I feel so compelled to talk about this that I can’t avoid playing the unfavorable role. Do pardon the Chicken Little feel. Remember though, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t watching me. ;)

I’m reading a book called “The World Is Flat: A Brief History Of The 21st Century”, and it’s utterly terrifying.

While I can see why the author named it so, a more suited title would be along the lines of, “America’s Screwed: Here’s Why”. Again, it’s obvious that he couldn’t name his book that — hence the less “in your face” approach.

First and foremost, everyone reading this must read this book. Go buy it in the bookstore, order it online, buy the audiobook from the iTunes Music Store, whatever. Just get it. It’s absolutely crucial that our little group of influence — and ideally the entire blogsphere — starts waking up to the certain facts regarding the state of our country.

Anyway, without going into too much detail, America is falling.

I’ve been saying this for years now, but I haven’t had any solid information with which to bring form to my thoughts. I’ve always sort of been bent on internal social issues that are poised to tear at our cohesion, but the problem is in fact much more serious than that.

In short, America is quickly becoming a country full of mouthbreathing imbeciles. Our education system has completely failed and nobody is paying attention. Of particular interest is our science and engineering talent pool; we are simply not producing any significant number of quality graduates in these fields. More importantly, our competitors are.

China and India are becoming the tech leaders in the world and it’s all happening right under our noses. It’s all about culture, really. In our country it’s not “cool” to be smart. In those countries it’s the way to be cool. In China, for example, Bill Gates gets swarmed everywhere he goes; he’s a legend. People want to see him; people want to hear him speak. He’s their Brittney Spears.

In America, Brittney Spears is our Brittney Spears. We’re pathetic.

Anyway, the problems revolve around PC, standards, education, and the lack of vision on the part of our leaders. We aren’t thinking as if we’re in a competition with the rest of the world. Our politicians are fighting for their next terms, not for the long-term health of our country. China is doing the opposite, as is India.

How To Fix It

So anyway, I have a solution. It’s one that will never happen, but I like to offer solutions when I bitch like this. Here’s the gist of it:

1. Rebuild education in this country. Set new national standards that are at or above China and India. Double teacher pay. Start a new tax just to pay for this; I’ll be the first to offer part of my check for it; it’s worth it.

2. Start a national campaign of competition with the world. Make it a priority to become smarter and more academic for children. Take the focus away from athletics and entertainment. The focus needs to be science and creativity.

3. Destroy PC. Nothing is more damaging than telling people “he’s not stupid — he just thinks in a different way.” Bullshit. Being stupid due to a lack of initiative and focus should be shunned and ridiculed. Celebrate the intelligent; don’t reward the stupid. Only once we are able to cross this line will we be prepared to move forward. This doesn’t mean regress into a time of intolerance, it just means shed the stupidity.

Anyway, I’m too flustered to continue. Email me or leave a comment if you have any thoughts…

Two collections of words that should never exist within 5 feet of each other:

1. Dr. Martens
2. Made in Thailand

For anyone who grew up during the eighties (or who likes that music), I strongly recommend taking a look at Avenged Sevenfold.

I had heard a couple of their songs before, but I somehow missed the genius the fist time around. Do partake — they roxor.

It seems Daniel Robbins, the founder of Gentoo, has accepted a position with Microsoft. He’ll be working in the “platform strategy” department.

Here’s to hoping he can do some good.

There is a new EFF-sponsored project called Tor that allows participants to bounce their communications all over a distributed, quasi-anonymous network.

I love what this does for privacy, but I can’t help but be sickened by the fact that those who would do us harm will likely be among the early adopters. Unfortunately, this very fact will be used by the authorities to attack it — which is wrong.

This is a very difficult issue for me — coming from a Military background and being in security. I want desperately to be able to hunt and destroy terrorists, but at the same time I truly believe that anything that attacks our core liberties during this process is even more sinister than that which we are trying to eradicate.

It’s a difficult balance, to be sure. I can only hope that someone with some sense is taking part in these discussions at the upper levels, and that they actually have the ability to effect policy. I suppose I should fire off some correspondence to my representatives on the issue as well. Action and participation are key here.

So, /. has an article talking about geeks becoming more popular with women. There is all sorts of speculation about this reason or that reason for this phenomenon, and one particularly interesting example was Tiger Woods and the Sweedish supermodel.

Well, my question is simple — aren’t we forgetting the issue of money? I mean, really. Surely the fact that geeks tend to have solid, high-paying careers could have something to do with it.

As much as I’d like to believe it, I find it hard to accept that women have suddenly had a major turn around that has them liking nice, creative guys rather than dominant a-holes.

The cultural shifts that took place in the 90’s are just not strong enough to overpower genetics — once again pointing to the money, i.e. the ability to provide, as the main player in this game.

/. has an article up about a look at how Microsoft handles security patches. I like what one person wrote about it because it captures what my thoughts are as to why they’d release such a piece.

“…it’s a pretty interesting look at how they handle the information flow and patch testing and why it takes so darn long to release an IE update.”

That to me is blatant PR at best — an apologia at worst.

The new version of Technorati is in beta and available for checking out, for anyone interested. I think it’s a major UI improvement.

For anyone not privy, Technorati is a search tool that focuses solely on weblogs. If you get a chance, stop by and check it out.

I’ve written and posted an Nmap primer for anyone interested. As I mention in the piece itself, it’s not a comprehensive guide — it’s more of a…well, a primer.

Daniel’s Nmap Primer

As you may have noticed (or not, if you pull my content via RSS), I’ve implemented Google’s AdSense on the site.

For anyone not familiar with this, it’s the technology that puts those “not so annoying” text-based ads on various sites that you see. My implementation has them right below my top-most post on the blog.

Anyway, let me know how you guys think they look. Do they annoy you? Does it detract from the site design? Or are they well-integrated?

I’m looking forward to the cash flow, by the way. According to my current calculations (based on traffic to the site) I should get a check for roughly $1.37 by May of 2006.