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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

First of all, let us look at the word "erosion". This word describes a long, gradual process. In fact, the word, in its most common usage, describes a process that can take millions of years, and which sees very small changes over time. In addition, there is no reversal to erosion: the only thing that can negate erosion is a very sudden, often cataclysmic change. When it comes to civil liberties, I don’t see a total reversal in people’s rights every time a government agency violates them. However, I don’t see such violations as harmless, either. Instead, they are just a small step in a long process towards changing us to obedient drones.

The government, as well as private corporations, knows that most people would get used to anything. After an initial (usually adverse) reaction to a change, people will get accustomed to the new situation. One of the most wondrous things about the human mind is how fast we can forget the past… Thus, in order to abolish civil liberties, one must proceed in small, measured steps. For example, after a sudden crisis, which justifies temporary limits to privacy, one may pass a law, which would expire in a few years. Let’s call this law The Patriot Act. Thanks to human forgetfulness, by the time the law is set to expire, most people won’t remember how life was before the Patriot Act, and the lawmakers won’t have too much trouble extending it.

Then, another attack on privacy takes place. It’s very limited, focusing only on phone calls to and from countries that are known for harboring terrorists. A few people protest, but they are soon silenced by the quiet majority. After that, we can take it a step further, and monitor very limited information on all phone calls. Again, people protest, but soon they won’t care anymore. In fact, the fact that about half of the people already support this kind of monitoring suggests that the government is actually very slow at eroding people’s privacy rights; people can handle faster change.

What will be next? Probably random recording of phone calls. Or outlawing/limiting voice over IP, which so far is not monitored. Not that it matters; there have been direct VOIP solutions for two or more parties for over a decade; people who would like to remain undetected will always be able to do so. In addition, this erosion of privacy will allow private companies to jump on the bandwagon. We can see this already happening with the movie industry monitoring (and presumably opening) packages sent through FedEx. Again, a few people will complain, but soon this will be the standard mode of business.

In addition to the bulk of people, the silent majority, there will be three smaller groups. The first one consists of the supporters of civil liberties erosion. They are usually very loud. They are not inherently evil; they simply suffer from what is called escalation of commitment. They supported some of the early changes, such as the Patriot Act, and now they subconsciously feel they must support the recent changes, as a way to justify their past actions. The second group, as vocal but perceived as having less credibility thanks to being ignored by most media, will protest every change, without any tangible result. Unlike the first two, the third group will be quiet. Large companies will feel pressured by rules and regulations (such as the SEC rules) to keep their inner workings secret, and so they will switch to alternative modes of communication, such as the already mentioned VOIP for phone calls and file transfer instead of FedEx. These companies will always be on the forefront of adoption of technology that would circumvent government and private spying.
May 15, 2006 at 3:00 pm by Jozef

Land of the Hypocritical
James Hunter, in his lecture "To Change the World" talks about how cultural changes need the support of elites to become mainstream. Just like Jesus needed Emperor Constantin to spread Christianity and Martin Luther needed Frederick the Wise, almost every cultural change needs its inventor and its supporters. The inventor may be anybody (Hunter claims there have been only about two thousand of them throughout history), but the supporters must come from the elites.

We can observe one such change right now, as the Land of the Free is slowly transforming into the Land of the Hypocritical. As always, such a change begins with the elites, in this case all the way on the top. It doesn't matter whether hypocrisy becomes the official policy of the White house (hunt for leaked documents vs. intentional leaks) or the opposition, the sad truth is that this has become the norm.

Hypocrisy didn't remain in Washington D.C., though. Instead, it percolated down, to educators. Take, for example, the case of a North Kentucky University professor who destroyed a display of a group she didn't agree with. She claimed to have exercised her right to free speech by doing this. Or, as the new hypocrisy slogan goes, free speech means you can shut down others.

But why stop there? Cultural change is not complete until it invades the minds of our future politicians, business and community leaders, artists and workers: our students. Recently, Michelle Malkin has posted the contact information of several students who protested against military recruiting. This information was taken from the students' press release. In an effort to pressure Ms. Malkin to take the information down, the students have posted her personal information (previously not publicly available), including maps to her house on the internet. It seems the students have learned their teachers' lesson: fight fire with fire. Do exactly what you fight against; in this Land of Hypocrisy is may yield good results.
April 20, 2006 at 3:53 pm by Jozef

Katrina's blame game
Usually, I don't participate in blame games, and especially as they get old I tend to ignore them. Today, however, I came across an article where the author, a Michael Parenti blames free markets for the Katrina fiasco. This sounds like a pretty far-fetched thesis, and unfortunately the arguments aren't nowhere good enough to convince anybody. I've got the feeling that the author aimed the article at people who were already convinced and too blinded to see beyond the obvious lies he mentioned. Let me give you just a few examples:

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.

The city of New Orleans has an evacuation plan, which assumes the utilization of the city's busses. Instead of following the plan, however, roughly 550 of them remained parked and later flodded. It is not true that everybody was expected to leave the area by their own means.

The free market played a role in other ways. Bush’s agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector for the things they might need.

There is the federal budget, and the state budget. The federal budget is used for federal projects, financing federal institutions and pork barrel projects, while the state budgets should cover local project. At best, Louisiana representatives weren't too bright, at worst Louisiana spent the money for more useless projects. And anyway, why does the author wish that the Bush government was more involved in helping the needy, when he later professes his distrust of the government?

So he sliced $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. Plans to fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had to be shelved.

Louisiana Civil Corps is receiving an annual funding of $1.9 billion, more than any other state (California is second, with half a billion less). The corps wasted $748 million on building a useless canal lock, another $194 million for deepening a port that has been steadily losing traffic and deepening obscure canals, only to name them after the Congressmen who secured the money (such as the infamous J. Bennett Johnston Waterway).

In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands.

Hmmm... I didn't know that President Bush was in power since 1930, when the wholesale draining of wetlands started. However, I'm quite aware of the fact that prior to Katrina, the Bush administration has asked Louisiana to devise a plan for restoring some portion of the wetlands, at a $2 billion budget.

As for the rescue operation, the free-marketeers like to say that relief to the more unfortunate among us should be left to private charity.

Who was in charge of the rescue operation? Why so few helicopters and just a scattering of Coast Guard rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five hours to lift six people out of one hospital? When would the rescue operation gather some steam? Where were the feds? The state troopers? The National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the shelters and portable toilets? The medical supplies and water?

Ultimatelly, the governor of Louisiana. Because of new TSA rules. Ditto. Already did. Waiting for the governor to actually allow them into the state. Waiting for orders from the governor. Ditto. Flooded in New Orleans. Not in New Orleand, that's for certain; the emergency plans actually advised against using the Superdome as a shelter. At the shelters where the evacuees were supposed to go. The questions the author raised, as well as my answers, actually support the notion that free markets could do the job better. Because of conflicting authorities and governmental efficiencies, the rescue operation was botched, yet the author for some strange reason seems to want more of that.

I've never before heard of the Web site where the article was posted, neither about the author. As such, I will not pass a judgment on either. However, based on this single article, the author seems to be either confused, or having malicious intentions, which involve hundreds more dead, in order to advance is political agenda. That disgusts me. But what insults me is the fact that the author didn't bother to come up with arguments that would have at least a grain of truth in them, and instead tried to feed me childish lies. Shame on him.
September 25, 2005 at 5:13 am by Jozef

The power of reviews
Electronic Arts has anounced much lower than expected results for last year and reduced this year's outlook. This comes after a mixed year for the company, when on one hand it managed to lock out rivals from the NFL license, and on the other was forced to admit sweatshop-like practices in its development studios. However, neither was the reason for such disappointing numbers. According to EA's CEO Larry Probst, "while our new releases are performing reasonably well, they have not been able to offset a significant falloff in catalog sales".

Catalog sales are defined as games that have been around for at least a month, and here's where EA has hit a snag. In other words, a new release sells well, but once it gets older, the sales drop much more significantly than expected. Why is that? For the same reason why most movie blockbusters follow the same pattern: once the product is out for a short time, all marketing for that title stops. User reviews take over, and suddenly the game can't stand on its own. Potential buyers learn about the real qualities of the game, and the sales sing. As with movie titles, there are always exceptions where the title can stand on its own, but unfortunately for EA, the company relies too much on marketing and too little on pleasing the gaming crowd to have a high probability of releasing such a title.
March 22, 2005 at 4:19 pm by Jozef

The tyrany of the minority
According to recent news, 99.9% of all complaints to the FCC came from one source, the Parents Television Council. Let's do some math: aside of the wardrobe malfunction, this group accounts for one indecency complaint per 1.9 members. For the rest of the population, the number is one complaint per 555.9 people. In other words, a member of the PTC is 292.6 times as likely to file a complaint as a normal person. So who is this ultra-powerful group?

According to their Web site, it is a group of people who claims that its members can't live without television. They claim credit for "driving Howard Stern off the airwaves", even though they are trying very hard to get private channels, such as Cable TV under their control. This would inevitably send them up in arms again, as soon as Sirius Radio, the new home of Howard Stern, gains on popularity. They are also the people who would like to put a stop to the few remaining TV shows, such as The Drew Carey Show and Will and Grace. In other words, this 0.3% minority is trying to take away the fun I'm having. If they are so damn sure about their truth, they'd do much better if they started their own TV channel and promptly went bancrupt, as the rest of the population and half of their own members ignores them in favor of Alias and 24.
December 7, 2004 at 4:20 am by Jozef

The end of democracy in Sweden
Ake Green, a pastor in Sweden, spoke his mind. He said what he believed in, and for that he got sentenced for a month in prison. He paraphrased the Bible in his sermon, aimed against homosexuals. Unfortunately for him, anything that is said against the homosexuals is illegal in Sweden. Unfortunately to all of us, major European media ignored this story, as they did in other instances of governments violating people's freedom of speech.

Here's something for the Swedish lawmakers to think about: tolerance is about accepting those who you don't like. Forcing your beliefs upon others borders with fascism.
July 14, 2004 at 10:28 pm by Jozef

Notes on the Democratic primary
This comes from a total outsider. Having no right to vote in US elections, I like to sit back, relax and watch the carnage. As such, I'm not following the two big parties too closely; both are the same, with only one difference - the Democrats want to rule your wallet, and the Republicans your bedroom.

Anyway, I've been following the Democratic primary, in hopes that Howard Dean would pull in strong numbers (thus, "enjoying the carnage"). I noticed something new, though, which differentiates the two main political parties for me a little. It seems that the Democrats always gang up on the leader and try to push him back to their level. The Republicans, on the other hand, appear to have lots of strong personalities, which always find a way to get into agreement like civilized people. Thus, the Democrats strike me as monkeys in an experiment. Sorry, but that's not the kind of primates I'd like to see running the country.
January 22, 2004 at 8:45 pm by Jozef

New Shell TV commercial
There is this new commercial on TV about a woman fighting to save the environment, which would otherwise get damaged by oil drilling. When I first saw it, I was taken aback by its powerful message. Before it was over I already decided to send a check to the environmental organization responsible for the commercial. It was quite a shock to find out that the commercial was actually paid for by Shell. So no check from me, but kudos to the person who came up with the idea. This is how to do high-quality propaganda marketing.
November 12, 2003 at 2:04 am by Jozef

President's speech
"Terrorists have attacked the representatives of the civilized world."

President Bush has just uttered these fateful worlds, for which he'll be ripped apart by the liberal media. He said it in context that indicated that he considered Western Europe and North America to be the only civilized countries. While I tend to agree with this (to a degree), I suppose Maureen Down & Co. will have a field day tomorrow.
September 8, 2003 at 12:43 am by Jozef

Bringing you fair and balanced reports!
Welcome to my blog. I'll be bringing you fair and balanced reports from inside of my head. You see, I call this blog "a small and insignificant source". As such, I can't really offer you any good thoughts, only the fair ones. I also try to balance between my left and right brain hemispheres - sometimes posting something logical, other times something more artistic. Thus, my blog is both fair and balanced. That is, until FOX doesn't come with the ridiculous idea they they own a trademark on a random combination of three English words and sue me. After that, I'd have to decide whether to make good or stupid posts, and whether to stick to my logical side of my brain or to my artistic one. I'd be barred by a court order or a setllement to use both.
August 12, 2003 at 9:01 pm by Jozef

Pro-live and pro-choice
Ever wondered why "pro-lifers" seem to think that pro-choice is the same as pro-death? Because, given a choice, the pro-lifers would choose death. They instinctivelly need to be restricted by the law. Pro-choicers don't seem to have these problems. Given the choice, they are still overwhelmingly picking life over death.
August 5, 2003 at 5:39 pm by Jozef

Recent affirmative action decisions - a nice case study
One thing that has always baffled me was the dual description of certain political forces. For example, we call guerrillas that we support "freedom fighters", while those we oppose are "separatists". The two affirmative action decisions offer the same kind of rhetoric, and it is interesting to follow how different people portray them.

O'Reilly, for example described the three people who opposed the ruling against afirmative action as "radicals", while those who opposed the second ruling, in favor of affirmative action, as "conservatives".

New York Times, on the other hand, came with a headline "Justices Back Affirmative Action by 5 to 4". A smaller headline reads: "Angry Groups Seeking a Justice Against Affirmative Action".

Here you have two different media outlets reporting on the same thing. The right-winger O'Reilly calls those who are in favor of affirmative action "radicals" and those who oppose it "conservatives", while the left-wing New York Times pays a much closer attention to only one side of the decision and calls those who oppose affirmative action "angry groups". I personally haven't made up my mind yet whether the Supreme Court was right or wrong in its decisions. I know one thing, though: this is the perfect opportunity to check various news sources and see how they report on the story. You can then select the ones that report the way you like it. I know that neither FOX News nor New York Times have earned any trust from me...
June 24, 2003 at 2:48 pm by Jozef

Debunking the fast food myth
If I took everything mentioned in the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser by its face value, I'd become a communist. Since I never take anything for granted, that's not gonna happen, but the book was still very appalling. 90% of Americans eating fast food, the average person drinking a gallon of soda per week and other statistics just made no sense to a person who rarely drinks soda or goes to a fast food eatery. However, I need to give full credit to fast food and soda companies - they managed to create an unprecedented level of successful propaganda. They actually convinced the majority of Americans to eat their food, even though fast food takes longer to get, tastes worse and is more expensive than regular food. Let me show you a few examples:

• Fruit salad - Average time of preparation - 3-5 minutes, average cost $1.50-$2.
• Canned soup - Average time - 2-4 minutes, cost $0.69 (for cheapo Campbell's) to $2.50 (for a pretty good stuff.
• Sardine sandwich - Average time - 3-5 minutes, average cost - $2.50-$3.
• Omelette - Average time - 7-10 minutes, average cost - $2-$4.
• Grilled chicken on garlic with rice - Average time - 10-12 minutes, average cost - $4-5.
• A dinner at McDonald's - Average time - 10-20 minutes (includes driving), average cost - $5-$7.

This is not to say I never go to fast food places. Every now and then, I head out for a few days or weeks on a road trip. At those times, I tend to stop in fast food places for breakfast and lunch, while still sticking to dinners for diners. However, I cannot understand why would people who live in a place, presumably have their own kitchen and some free time, eat at fast food restaurants. It makes no sense to me, especially considering that the food is more expensive than home-prepared food, yet it's mainly poorer people who eat that crap...
March 24, 2003 at 5:52 pm by Jozef

Lesson of the day: Do your homework!
From the anals of Slashdot come two stories today. The first is about the IDSA. The Interactive Digital Software Association is an industry group, protecting the interests of its members - the majority of companies producing video games. That's not entirely true: the main purpose of the IDSA is to "level the playing field" - to make smaller video game publishers abide to rules set by larger ones, aimed at decreasing costs. In the past, this has meant less content, smaller packaging, etc... However, one of the goals of the IDSA is also protecting their members from computer piracy. Recently, they have sent a cease-and-desist letter to World of Spectrum, the largest repository of software and games for the ZX Spectrum platform, which has been dead for over a decade now. They accused the site of distributing games like Soldier of Fortune and Frogger, claiming (under penalty of prejury) that they represent the copyright owners. Turns out that there are several games of the same name, and those on the site are copyrighted by individuals or companies that are not members of the IDSA, and who gave the site the express permission to distribute these titles. Can you say "false representation"?

The next story is similar. The Business Software Alliance, created by Microsoft and a few others to protest their interests, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the owner of a server that offered free downloads of an Office package. Turns out that this package was Open Office for Mandrake Linux, not Microsoft Office. In addition to false representation, the BSA committed another faux pas - the so-called e-mail spoofing. To log on this particular type of servers (TFP), users usually need to supply their e-mail address. However, the BSA has falsified it's address, using guest@nowhere.com instead. This is not illegal. However, many BSA members frown upon this practice. Often, when you want to register their software or use the tech support section of their site, they require you to use your e-mail address, and warn you against using a false address "under penalty of prejury". Seems like the BSA needs to learn its lesson, and do its homework right. Right now, it's not the bully anymore, the BSA became the laughing stock among software professionals and enthusiasts.
February 28, 2003 at 4:03 pm by Jozef

Sony's anti-war message
Apparently, Sony has released a commercial with a strong anti-war message in Europe. They used footage from some of its Playstation 2 games, depicting scenes of people holstering their guns or stepping away from a fight. This commercial made me wondering: Did Sony actually authorize its commercial? If so, was the purpose of using people's opinions on war in order to sell more Playstation consoles? And isn't it a little strange, showing footage from violent games as a means to get an anti-war message across?
February 13, 2003 at 11:10 pm by Jozef

President Bush joins the anti-SUV movement!
President Bush had his big speech yesterday, and we can expect people taking small sniplets of that speech and twisting them to thei agendas in the next few days. I will follow suit.

One thing that surprised me about Mr. Bush's speech was the notion of fuel cell cars. Not that because it's unrealistic, but because it's about as far off as President Kennedy claiming he'd put a man on the Moon. In other words, Americans may achieve it, and when they do, it will be an incredible success. However, in addition, to environmental issues, Mr. Bush has also mentioned state security reasons for this bold move. This is what he had to say:

Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment. [. . .] A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water, not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free. Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

And here's today's lesson on how to do proper propaganda: attack people's vallets, not their consciousness. Instead of blaming SUV drivers for terrorism, show some real numbers and keep them real, so that nobody can dispute what you say. Those ads will still be controversial enough to get some free air time; in fact, this strategy has been very successfully used by Mr. Lomborg's The Sceptical Environmentalist. Here's what I would do:

Put some stock footage, with a voice over: "Every month, the average SUV driver spends $200 on gas. $60 of that money goes to countries supporting terrorism. Every year, the average SUV driver sends $720 to countries that support terrorism; enough money to train two plane hijackers or buy enough explosives to blow up five cars. By reducing your gas consumption by one third, you can prevent this to happen again. Please support President Bush and his plan to make our country independent on foreign oil, and switch to more gas efficient cars." Understandably, an ad like this would be aimed at the right wing. As for the numbers, I made them up, but surely there are statistics that have the right numbers.

However, most Americans don't care about politics. You may want to attack those more directly. Consider my example: I rent a room from my boss. We both take the same route to work, and we both rarely drive anywhere else. I spend $50 on gas per month on my 15-minute commute, he spends $120. He's got a gas-guzzler, I have a much more gas-efficient car. That's a $70 difference per month, or $840 per year. Now, not everybody spends only 15 minutes commuting, so let's say that the average savings for a person with an energy-efficient car are $2000. Let's get the propaganda rolling, and let's claim that President Bush encourages people to drive energy efficient cars. He never said that, but he did say that he wanted to put more money into the pockets of Americans. $2000 is more than the tax cut he proposes, thus it must be better. Once again, you put credibility (and lots of controversy => free press) by mentioning this, but the main point should still be the savings. You may want to mention how much people can buy for that kind of money, and such... And if you are ever drawn into a more serious discussion, just repeat the arguments of the administration why they want to do the tax cut; saving on gass works the same way. And since there are already statistics showing that people in SUVs are more accident-prone, you can debunk the safety myth, too.

If you are serious about your SUV campaign, you'd use these examples (or others) and build up a campaign around them. However, I find the anti-SUV ads of today too insulting to follow up on them. Some people should understand that those who their ads are aimed at are not dumb animals.
January 29, 2003 at 2:31 pm by Jozef

Exploiting riots in Oakland
Fact: The Raiders lost their Superbowl game.
Fact: Almost every time, riots in the losing town follow.
Fact: There were just such riots in Oakland last night.
Fiction: Indymedia already published an article, called the riots "Oakland Rebellion" and proclaiming them to be the beginning of a revolutionary movement against the US government.

The lesson learned: If you want to please your supporters, this is enough. However, if you want to attract more people to your cause, this kind of propaganda sucks. Instead, you are supposed to wait till the news became a little more stale, include a few hard-to-detect hoaxes, and then slowly mutate the whole story into your "rebellion" thesis. This attempt was so horrible that no self-respecting human being with a grain of common sense would ever trust the author again.
January 27, 2003 at 4:42 pm by Jozef