Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Military Officer's Oath and President Bush's "Spying" on Americans

When I entered the Air Force as an officer in 1983 I took this oath:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

This same oath is taken by all military officers while the enlisted one is slightly different. The interesting thing about this oath is the liberal media is crying "Spying on American's" by President Bush and their constant barage of their approach to Iraq as "we're not at war anymore, so let's draw down the troops so we can get back to normalcy here in America."

What the liberal media does is take the "hook, line, and sinker" of the minutia of civil liberties issues of spying on 30 potential terrorists in American, but fails to see that only 19 terrorists came into this country, that were not "home grown" in America, and murdered over 3000 Americans in 2001 in the World Trade Center. Home grown meaning that they are American citizens, just like John Walker Lindh who was found in Afganistan "fighting" the Americans. While Walker Lindh "repented" for his actions, what about others that may not be so remorseful or have full intent? What about those that are domestic enemies that use our systems to undermine our way of life? Can what happened in Britan on July 7th, 2005 happen to us?

Personally, I think it is very possible, so when President Bush only signs up spying on 30 out our total population of millions I don't think we're going down the tubes just yet. The real question is: will American's media get the message at all, or will they be the catalyst for more deaths in America?

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Proprietary Standards are just another "Tax" for governments

When you read this article about Open Office and Microsoft battling for the file format standards you get the distinct impression that anything that are not open standards are just another tax for governments impossed on the people.

Personally I'm not against proprietary standards and intellectual property, but when it comes to my Federal, State, and local governments using proprietary, closed standards it now costs me, a taxpayer, more money to access government documents. If I do not have the correct program to access government services I now have to purchase the correct one in order to get that acess I am now "being taxed" by my government. With open standards which everyone agrees upon the program that I now own will probably be converted to the new standard so as to not be left out of the competition for my hard earned cash.

Public and open standards rarely "tax" anyone, but proprietary ones do.