Erix Clix

On May 25, 2008, several news organizations reported that militant Islamic groups may be recruiting mentally disturbed or disabled people to carry out suicide bombings.

Today, November 24, 2008, a mentally disabled female’s bomb vest was triggered by remote in Iraq killing 5 people just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Despite biblical notions of demons and monsters and ’satanic combinations of numbers’…in case you’re still kept awake at night by those bedtime stories know there is a REAL EVIL out there. And it takes shape in the form of PEOPLE, humans preying on mentally disabled people to carry out their reign of terror.

I don’t believe in monsters in the biblical sense. But I do believe that monsters exist here on earth. They are people that do not value human life. This is the true evil of the world. Those that would senselessly destroy the lives of innocents. They don’t value their own lives let alone the lives of others.

And now, the pinnacle of their evil behavior…preying on mentally disturbed individuals to use as delivery drones for their mass murdering. Selecting people that are unable to defend themselves to deliver their reign of terror. Please tell me, in this day, in this age, how it gets more evil than this? They even have to trigger the explosives by remote due to the inability of the chosen ‘delivery victim’ to think for themselves.

My commentary is not intended to suggest a solution to this problem…just to focus on the REAL meaning of evil.

We here at ErixClix.com would like to congratulate America’s first African-American President.  With the world and the country in turmoil, Obama’s policies, his vision and his calm yet confident leadership style are just the shot-in-the-arm America needs.

Again, congratulations, and God Bless America for having the courage to do the right thing…it’s about time!

More posts to follow!

In Florida this week, Obama, referring to the John McCain’s views on the economy said, “Instead of common sense solutions, month after month, they’ve offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, and outdated ideology.” I want to focus on Obama’s mention of ‘willful ignorance’ because I believe that is more of a universal theme and is at the core of most of the issues we are facing today.

Willful ignorance has lead us to times of war, economic failure, and further dissolution of the middle class.

Willful ignorance put us in Iraq.  By ignoring the facts…no real evidence of WMDs, we ended up fighting an open-ended war with a society and culture simply not ready for democracy, losing $10 Billion a month just to fight that war and most importantly now killing over 4,000 American Soldiers.

Willful ignorance destroyed the economy and greatly reduced opportunities for success and independence among the middle class.  To say that Wall Street, banks and corporate executives thought their excessive greed would last forever is simply a joke.

And, yes, I also blame the consumer, running up credit cards without saving for the future and applying for loans they knew were a stretch.  Those were all conscious decisions, and a conscious, willful choice was made to ignore the obvious ramifications of those decisions.

The ignorance continues…

Watching McCain and Palin, with their empty rhetoric and pointless, directionless, anti-Obama attacks.  I believe even the most clueless among us are feeling what’s wrong with this picture.  So, to ignore this, is again ‘willful ignorance.’

It’s also willful ignorance that we don’t acknowledge the realities of Joe The Plumber.  1) He wasn’t a licensed plumber, 2) He owes back taxes, and 3) The Plumbing business he wants to buy makes well under the $250,000 tax bracket that Obama’s tax plan affects, so ‘Joe’, in reality, will pay less in taxes under Obama.

Why are the very citizens of our nation, who are the most negatively affected by the policies McCain represents give the most support to those people and their now failed policies?  And “Joe The Plumber” being fully aware that his business actually would NOT even qualify for a tax increase under Obama, yet continues this charade (his name isn’t even Joe, by the way) simply to support the other candidate, is quite a definitive example of willful ignorance.

Why?  Obama is different, and ‘Joe’ is afraid.  Most willful ignorance is fear based, and it’s tearing us apart.  I gotta say people, with a clear head, a fearless outlook on the future, whatever that future may bring, the decision now, more than ever should be a clear one to everyone, including ‘Joe.’

I will do the right thing on November 4th…you should too.

The probe into Sarah Palin’s actions trying to have her sister’s ex-husband fired showed that she, in fact, abused her power.

When does this end?

I have something simple to say here…mind you I love America and believe this is still the greatest country in the world for many reasons. But I must stress that it will require a real leap of faith to keep it that way by what we call ‘mainstream’ voters.

People, isn’t it interesting that this mudslinging is an issue now that McCain has dropped in the polls? Another broken promise.  McCain told us before that he won’t throw character judgements in this campaign.  Today, he’s broken that promise, as every other promise he’s made to his Arizona constituents for the past 20 years, his balanced policies and positions have dissolved away into the empty, rhetorical, nothingness that is the Bush Administration.

Please bear with my harsh words in the rest of this article, but things are absolutely ridiculous, while news organizations are trying to be so “even-handed” in their reporting that they aren’t telling how uneven the behavior of these candidates actually is!  McCain’s campaign is launching massive character attacks and spewing what are now confirmed lies, while Obama’s campaign simply has not been utilizing the same degree of underhanded tactics.

Now I must say:  Anyone subscribing to these ludicrous claims that Obama associates with terrorists should be aware that this is ignorant, misleading, rhetoric and if the majority of voters are buying this load of horse sh*t then the country deserves everything foul it gets by electing this kind of leadership.

Voting out of ignorance is the most dangerous thing.  If the choice between these candidates isn’t a clear one for most people now…then what will be the fate of a democratic nation that doesn’t intelligently research and fairly judge their candidates for public office?

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that a 1998 law protecting children from sexually explicit and other objectionable content is unconstitutional mentioning that it is “overly broad” and “vague.”  Thus striking down the law that since 1998 has not been enforced and looks like it is on its way to the Supreme Court.

While I do agree there should be some built-in protection that goes beyond the content providers simply self-policing, I strongly disagree with this law as it is written and I believe it was conceived prematurely in the history of the Internet, while the technology (web browsers and such) still had a lot of maturing to do to what it is today so the authors of this law could be as informed as possible.

The Solution

I propose a combination of voluntary and legally enforcable controls from both ends.  Action on the part of the content providers as well as security controls built-in to web browsers.

I will start with the voluntary.  Currently, there actually is a content rating system on the Internet (hidden HTML tags in web pages).  However, very few web sites and content providers use it as it is purely voluntary and there are no repercussions for not rating your content.  I believe this part should remain voluntary.  As it is completely impractical to monitor millions of web pages.  Utilizing these hidden “ratings” tags, pages will be rated by their own creators.  The creators will have motivation to accurately rate their content, read on.

So how do we protect the viewer?  This is where the law steps in…  Require web browsers to provide parental controls (with REAL security) locking and unlocking certain ratings for their young web surfers.  Any UNRATED pages will simply be blocked so the unsuspecting web browser cannot stumble onto an inappropriate site simply because that site hasn’t rated their pages yet.  This mechanism is not unlike the “V-chip” law that requires televisions to acknowledge ratings of broadcasts.  This may block much of the Internet at first, but the protection is there. (Currently, child content protection software for computers actually does block most of the Internet, unfortunately, it also blocks valuable, legitimate content mistakenly as well.)

If a “clean” site wants to be sure all browsers can view it, they MUST rate their site’s pages, hence the motivation.  Requiring web browsers to recognize content ratings will encourage any legitimate organization to rate their pages.  Almost “overnight” most of the valuable web will be rated as it takes relatively minimal effort to add these tags.

A “certified” web browser would be one that meets specific requirements.  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari web browser constitute nearly 100% of all web browsers used (especially those used by children) and those organizations would find it in their best interest to get this certification.  It wouldn’t be required certification, but parents would at least have a choice in web browsers and know that, with certification, real protection is there.

What about inaccurate content ratings that can fool the browser into showing inappropriate content?

Yes, this is a risk and it is also the part of the cost of having truly Free Speech.  But there is a solution for this as well…a realistic one.

Utilizing a fraud reporting system (similar to SPAM ‘blacklist’ services) browsers can “double-check” a site’s credibility with the reporting organization (it can do this real time).  So, as soon as a viewer sees incorrectly rated material, they can report it.  With enough reports, the browsers will see that a “G” rated site, for example, isn’t really G rated and blocks it from the viewer as needed.  Further, the domain can be threatened to be locked for presenting incorrectly rated pages after a number of reported violations. (This may also be written into the new law so the new rating system requirements have “teeth” as it were).  Again, the law would not require ratings, just that the ratings, when used, are accurate.

So, it’s mostly still a voluntary system.  As it should be.  However, the law is simply providing a realistic mechanism so that we may more easily protect our children while still leaving our precious First Amendment intact.

So the U.S. Government actually has the technology now to know precisely when, in the future, a major Middle Eastern cultural paradigm will shift? Amazing!  I should file this article under “Technology” instead of “Politics”. I’m so excited to hear this now since this political party has been proven to be so right about so many things resulting in the virtually unstoppable upward momentum our country has achieved in the last nearly 8 years.

Ok. Done with the sarcasm. Only one point here:  Where the hell does he get off saying such a thing? Doesn’t making such a prematurely certain statement of assured success guarantee us failure? Has everyone forgotten “Mission Accomplished” already?

I don’t want to do another 4 years of this.  How about you?

Property values dropping, inflation, our dollar increasingly less valuable and fuel costs rising. You know what’s happening all around you.  And unless you’re earning in the top 1%, you’re feeling it.  How much more can our great country withstand?  Rome finally did fall, but only when the Romans started believing that it never could.

Recently, I saw an interview with Barack Obama on a popular Cable News Network.  The interviewer confronted the Democratic Presidential candidate with a video clip of a Republican candidate (who has since dropped out of the race).  The Republican ex-candidate reiterated a concern that Obama’s experience in foreign affairs and government is limited.  He has no proven track record.  The former candidate continued with the assertion that the office of the President of the United States is not a an “Internship” position, and that voters should not elect someone that will be gaining their only experience while in office.

Let’s get something straight…as American voters, have we been looking at the candidates’ track records before we decide to back them?  Are we really looking at their histories?  Are we truly making our decisions on past performance and experience?

If we have been, then as a Human Resources department, attempting to qualify the best candidate for a high-level position, we should be fired! Our current, sitting President actually did have one of the most disappointing resumes compared to any of the candidates (Republican or Democrat) that he was running against.  Not so much a lack of experience but what truly is a succession of failed companies and leadership endeavors.  And this information was quite apparent long before half of us elected to hire him for the job.

Why didn’t we look so closely at this candidate’s experience here?  I’m not giving credence to the commentor’s political rhetoric, but the issue behind the remark is a legitimate one.

Surely, if we had based our votes on past performance there would have been no contest in 2000.  Why are were we so bad at hiring the right person for such an important position?  I think it’s simple…

Since the birth of Democracy, most of us have primarily chosen our leaders based on ideals we share with a candidate, not based on raw experience…let alone their overall intelligence or common sense. Religious beliefs and a no-nonsense outlook on world views are all good qualities from which to choose a leader. But aren’t intelligence, common-sense and ability to manage expectations also important for the world’s most powerful leader?

Our current President, although a ‘nice guy,’ just ran our country for nearly 8 years exactly the way his resume told us he would.  There are no surprises here.  At least, you certainly had the fore-knowledge.

So, I ask one thing of you this November:  Take a Leap of Faith.  Try not to be consumed by prejudices, fears, and labels and choose your next president on based on his ideals.  The same way you elected our current President except this time you’re going to READ HIS RESUME!  He may be on the other side of ‘your fence’ this time…but you may actually like what you see.