Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Security

nandemoari writes "As his administration continues to work on a stimulus plan that can save America's economy, Obama's latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States. The President recently addressed his 2010 budget, outlining funding plans that will grant the Department of Homeland Security $355 million to secure the nation's most essential computer systems. The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs."

Comments

Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

"The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs."

In other words, millions of your tax dollars will be spent paying glorified security guards to sit on P2p networks all day looking for copyright infringers and kiddy porn. As if the FBI needed any competition. What, did you think they were actually saving America from terrorists?

Re:Frist

[BigHungryJoe]

Here is my problem with the p2p babysitting -

what guidelines will they be using to determine what is child porn and what is not?

Some of the recent "child model" busts seem to be pushing the limit of what can be called "child porn". It's almost as if they're widening the definition of child porn so they'll have more people to bust.

Re:Frist

[Shakrai]

It's almost as if they're widening the definition of child porn so they'll have more people to bust.

Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust. The Man isn't out to get us. The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"

Re:Frist

[ShieldW0lf]

They're attempting to secure the economic systems and the critical infrastructure around that so they can maintain and increase the inequality between the rich and the poor without losing control of the citizenry.

We need a meltdown, and the only reason he's there is to prevent it.

Re:Frist

[Tuoqui]

In other words...

They're going to spend millions of dollars on some new routers and STILL leave critical systems connected to the internet or systems which can access critical systems leaving them vulnerable to cyber attack despite any increased security.

Like they say about corporate networks. Tough on the outside, gooey on the inside. That's exactly whats going to happen with this 'stimulus'

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call you cynical for that viewpoint, I'd call you naive.

Of course the "Man" is looking for more people to bust - law enforcement is a huge industry worth billions of dollars, and like all industries, it is seeking to grow itself. And in law enforcement, how do you grow your market and secure jobs? You create more criminals.

Re:Frist

[Zero__Kelvin]

The fact that this has been modded to +5 is prima facia evidence that Slashdot has gone way down hill. Simply googling National Cyber Security Division will show that they are behind US-CERT. While they are not to be confused with CERT, but they do have the same stated objectives. Computer Emergency Response Teams are the bedrock of Computer Security. They don't monitor Internet traffic, they identify security issues and offer solutions. Taking the recent Obama Helicopter P2P fiasco as an example, they would point out that running P2P without verifying the Sharing settings are not exposing your whole system is a Bad Thing(tm).

Re:Frist

[Ethanol-fueled]

Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust.

I disagree with that point.

They're obviously not catching a lot of terrorists so they need other numbers to justify their budget. They get their numbers by picking the low-hanging fruit after broadening the definition of "low-hanging" fruit, especially if it goes "across state lines", which almost all internet traffic does.

"The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"

True, and it's convenient for both law enforcement seeking bigger budgets and politicians seeking advancement. It's not convenient for your 16 year old son or daughter who has to register as a sex offender for life because they stored nekkid pics of themselves on their cell phone or computer.

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"

I thought the whole problem was caused by thinking about the children.

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, he's just doing what black men do best (asking for money), and what politicians do best (pissing it away).

Re:Frist

[Hojima]

Did any of you even read the summary? Does anyone here even know the jurisdiction of the department of homeland security? Just to clarify something for any of you presumptuous douche bags, this has to do with the Slashdot articles that you have read (assuming you've even looked at the title) that involve China and highly sensitive US data gone missing. This is to protect that data and any intrusion that could happen in the future. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing that anyone managed to get a hold of that data, and it better not happen on this president's watch.

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great, another "Clinton sold secrets to Red-China" conservative crackpot.

Re:Frist

[b4upoo]

There are already some pretty fair computer specialists working in this capacity for the government. Hiring a few more might actually help increase national security. Some civilian specialists are attached to the military or agencies such as NSA.

Re:Frist

[b4upoo]

America has gone crazy over the sex crimes issue.
              There is one city in Palm Beach County, Fl. that has restricted the areas in which sex offenders can live so severely that every offender in the city lives under the same bridge. That is the only spot that is more than 1500 ft. from a school in the entire city. But controlling where offenders live has not helped reduce sex crimes even by a fraction of one per cent.

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has always been filled with naive libertarians and idiotic conservatives. Nothing has changed. Many of the IT professionals and employees in the technology industry are nothing more than 21st century plumbers, carpenters and electricians - uneducated and ignorant about everything except their own field, which that might not even have a holistic perspective on.

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say. The whole point of child models is that they don't HAVE busts.

*hides*

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

First, the 'man' already has his stinking budget and he doesn't need to justify one penny of it. Gov't programs are not required to fill a need. As a matter of fact most big programs (not ginormous Social Security-type programs) last longer if they never generate any news of any kind.

Here's how it works. I have an idea for a program and I stick it into a bill. The program gets torn apart and stuck back together, amended and retracted and finally passed. Along with my program are now a set of goals. Notice I did not write 'needs', but 'goals'. Most of these goals consist of gathering data and filling out reports. Legislators will NEVER create a program if it must fill a need because if it FAILS to do so, they fail too. Instead, the program must meet a set of goals and these goals are evaluated on a periodical basis. "Is all of the paperwork there?" Check! "Do their accounts balance?" Check! "Can I make a headline cutting their budget?" Not if the program directors have been careful to keep their noses clean and heads down. In the end programs need only serve the purpose of legislators who created them and nothing more.

Re:Frist

[tjonnyc999]

Quote related.

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against--then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it.

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone?

But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers--and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

• Once you understand that everything we do, Mr. Anonymous, we do to Protect The Children, you'll be much easier to deal with.

Re:Frist

[Hurricane78]

That would remind me of how Stalin always found new groups of people to send to the gulags, by widening the definition of [insert random word meaning what we nowadays call "terrorists"].
He had to, because people in the gulags were "consumed". They died so quick that the government could not get new people quick enough.

But what would be the reason here?

Re:Frist

[couchslug]

"what guidelines will they be using to determine what is child porn and what is not?"

Sophisticated TLAR (That Looks About Right) age guesstimation technigues and IOA (Inspecting Official Arousal) metrics will ensure fair and unbiased content review.

Re:Frist

[MadMidnightBomber]

The DHS did not exist under Clinton. Nice try, cluebie.

Lots, gigs, of data was siphoned off US servers in the last few years. Hypothesised by some as Chinese attacks, although a lot of compromised servers exist in China and could have been used to bounce off.

e.g. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/china-accused-of-stealing-american-technology/2007/11/16/1194766968231.html

Re:Frist

[sumdumass]

Actually, I think he was talking about Charlie Tree and the bags of Chinese campaign money floating around and the data secretes being stolen at the los alamos labs that lead China turned out to have.

Re:Frist

[sumdumass]

I think the point of that restriction was to bully them into moving to another city. It's not necessarily about stopping sex crimes as much as stopping them near you.

Re:Frist

[painehope]

And that, my friend, is exactly what is wrong with the way politicians think.

"If I can move the sex offenders somewhere else, then I'll look good and it's someone else's problem! Yeah!"

Simple solution that I've been advocating for years :
1) Change the age of consent to 14 or 15 for anyone under the age of 18. I mean, come on - I can't speak for most /.er's, but I had already lost count of the number of chicks I'd been with by the time I was 18 (I can still count "significant relationships" on my fingers, but I have no clue how many women I've slept with in my life). And, yes, some of them we took pictures (hey, my crowd was a pack of kinky little bastards...pictures, whips, handcuffs, threesomes, razors, etc.). So I guess that would technically make me a "sex offender", even though I have an incredible amount of respect for women and children, and hate real sex offenders. It used to be (at least in Texas) that as long as there wasn't more than 2 years age difference, it was legal under 18. If one party is over 18, then parental consent is required (two friends of mine, one 19 and the other 17, required a legal consent document so I know the old laws well).
2) Require strict proof in "date rape" cases. I've seen both sides of it - beat the shit out of a guy who was a good friend because he took advantage of a girl at a party (she was damn near comatose and got caught taking her clothes off), but also had the same finger pointed at me (chick spent all day teasing myself and a group of my friends - we were packing and moving my friend's mother's apartment, and she would sit around fingering herself and talking about how she couldn't wait until we were done working so she could fuck us all; things went as planned in the then-empty apartment, then I got a call from a female friend that I was close with the next day hysterically crying and saying "how could you do that?"...turned out the bitch had second thoughts, knew people would find out, so she "confided" in this chick that we'd forced her to have sex with us; the funny part was that a few of the guys didn't want anything to do with her, I only copped a BJ, so she only actually had intercourse with 2 or 3 guys - but I lost a damn good friend over it, because the girl she "confided" in never talked to any of us again). I don't see why a guy should be labeled as a rapist because some chick had second thoughts, or was too wasted to think clearly. On the other hand, I loathe guys who take advantage of women, feed them drugs just to fuck them (yeah, I party hard and so do a lot of people I know, but it's one thing to be trashed and do your thing - it's another to intentionally feed some girl pills or whatever until she's so out of it that she doesn't know if she's getting laid or laid out on the couch), and similar behavior.
3) For actual, verifiable rapes (forced or "date"), public hanging. Plain and simple. No tolerance for that shit. And by verification, I mean witnesses, evidence (like if a woman has a gun held to her head is raped in a private place by some fucking sicko who's smart enough to use lubrication, then finding the gun might be the only proof available besides DNA), DNA, medical examination, etc. Place a certain weight to each variable (for example - it's possible to have DNA evidence and rough sex without rape, just ask anyone who has spent 2 days high on meth and fucking non-stop), and if the evidence weight sum passes a certain watermark, it's verifiable.
4) For anyone who abuses a child (I don't care if you're 14 or 40, if you fuck a 10 year-old, you're a sick fuck), public execution by torture. I'd be happy to volunteer a couple of days a month to the cause. Oh, and that includes anyone who possesses child pornography as well (of course, have it verified by independent, non-biased computer forensics experts so it's proven that the user wasn't just p0wned).

That solves the problem right there. No false convictions (hell, I remember my ex-wife freaking out when we checke

Re:Frist

[sumdumass]

nd that, my friend, is exactly what is wrong with the way politicians think.

Yep, I would agree.

1) Change the age of consent to 14 or 15 for anyone under the age of 18. I mean, come on - I can't speak for most /.er's, but I had already lost count of the number of chicks I'd been with by the time I was 18 (I can still count "significant relationships" on my fingers, but I have no clue how many women I've slept with in my life). And, yes, some of them we took pictures (hey, my crowd was a pack of kinky little bastards...pictures, whips, handcuffs, threesomes, razors, etc.). So I guess that would technically make me a "sex offender", even though I have an incredible amount of respect for women and children, and hate real sex offenders. It used to be (at least in Texas) that as long as there wasn't more than 2 years age difference, it was legal under 18. If one party is over 18, then parental consent is required (two friends of mine, one 19 and the other 17, required a legal consent document so I know the old laws well).

I believe almost every state has a 4 year allowance if under 18 and over 13 or 14. If you were within 4 years of age, you wouldn't have been hit with anything. Taking pictures can be a federal offense though, I don't know if you would have to register or not if convicted.

Most registered sex offenders are either rapist, actual molesters, or whatever else caused them to be registered. Even if they didn't do what they were convicted for, they were charged with more then screwing someone in the same class that turned out to be more then 2 years apart in age.

For your second point, That happens and sometimes that's the excuse someone who didn't know when to stop makes. It's unfortunate when someone is wrongly convicted. I'm not agreeing with it or against it other then acknowledging it's presence and I wouldn't make it any harder for someone who was date raped to accuse the person of it.

3) For actual, verifiable rapes (forced or "date"), public hanging. Plain and simple. No tolerance for that shit. And by verification, I mean witnesses, evidence (like if a woman has a gun held to her head is raped in a private place by some fucking sicko who's smart enough to use lubrication, then finding the gun might be the only proof available besides DNA), DNA, medical examination, etc. Place a certain weight to each variable (for example - it's possible to have DNA evidence and rough sex without rape, just ask anyone who has spent 2 days high on meth and fucking non-stop), and if the evidence weight sum passes a certain watermark, it's verifiable.

So instead of making the move to supervised communities, you would just kill them. What would you do with the other sexual offenders who didn't rape anyone?

4) For anyone who abuses a child (I don't care if you're 14 or 40, if you fuck a 10 year-old, you're a sick fuck), public execution by torture. I'd be happy to volunteer a couple of days a month to the cause. Oh, and that includes anyone who possesses child pornography as well (of course, have it verified by independent, non-biased computer forensics experts so it's proven that the user wasn't just p0wned).

Most people have the same sentiment for children under 14 and 16. Why is your Ideal of 10 any better then their. One of the reasons for this is that the anterior frontal lobe which is responsible for cognitive reasoning isn't fully developed unti around age 21. In some people, it may be sooner or later but that is an average they have concluded a long time ago.

What that means is that someone over 21 has a clear mental advantage over someone under 21 with that advantage shrinking the closer to the same age they become. This is also why most states have consent laws that make under 13 rape, and between 13 and 16 statutory rape if one party is more then 3 or 4 y

Re:Frist

[painehope]

Well, to be honest, I wasn't aware that most states had a 3-4 year allowance now. I was speaking from my experience when I was a minor in Texas, and I honestly haven't kept up with the laws (as I don't have anything to do with anyone significantly younger than me; I learned my lesson from twice dating a 21 year-old, and found that these women were way too immature...I expected them to be similar to where I was at 21, and was sadly disappointed).

As far as rape and child molestation (the things that I consider sex crimes, as they involve actual physical violation of someone's person...I don't think that a flasher is a big menace, and definitely not someone who urinates in public; if the latter were the case, I could be considered one, as if I'm drunk and there's no bathroom around, I'll piss anywhere), hell yes I support killing them. If a woman or child that I knew had that done to them while I knew them, there wouldn't even be a trial. Just one missing sick fuck. Almost any other crime can be justified to one extent or another, depending upon the situation, but those two crimes there can be no sane excuse for . Period.

As far as "mental advantages", it depends upon the person. Like I said above, when I was somewhat younger, I dated/was involved with (one after another) two 21 year-old women. In each case, I was disappointed by their lack of anything resembling maturity. On the other hand, I and former partners were able to practice safe sex and have relatively stable relationships when we were as young as 13. What gives there? Sure, some of the emotional maturity wasn't there, but I can tell from experience that it isn't there with most people anyways (my ex-wife was 9 years older than me, and she was less mature than chicks I was with as a teenager).

Oh, and "under-age porn"? It's called child pornography. Public execution by torture. There's no excuse for consensual possession of child pornography. Any discerning individual can tell the difference between someone in their later teen's or early twenties and someone who is underage (note that I also proposed lowering the age of consent). For example, when I was about 20 (give or take a few years), I would download porn from P2P networks (or the equivalent before P2P), and often search for strings such as "young" (because I didn't like seeing a bunch of women in their 30's with sagging fake tits and pussies you can park a semi in). I didn't download anything that suggested that it might contain child pornography, and if I accidentally got something that did contain images that were obviously questionable, I would immediately use the "shred" utility to wipe the file from my HDD.

So you did have a point about the "sex crimes" I overlooked, like indecent exposure or urinating in public. But it really didn't cross my mind to think of those. But I think the rest of what I said was pretty much spot-on. I tend to go from personal experience rather than looking at cases in which I have no personal knowledge of, for the simple fact that I know for a fact what my personal experience has taught me.

Also note that I advocated a much higher degree of substantial evidence. There's a lot of "date rape" cases out there that were based on nothing other than the accuser's word. While I don't know the personal truth of those incidents, I can tell you for a fact that if I had a male friend and a female friend, both of whom I had equal respect and trust for (whether those factors were equally high or low), and the woman told me that the man had raped her, I'd want to see the bruises or hear some other evidence before I believed her. Because I've seen too much shady shit (from both genders) to place much stock in someone's word. It's far too easy for someone to get loaded (which is their own choice, and they need to take responsibility for), fuck someone, and then not want to take responsibility for it later on (for whatever reasons - I've heard everything from "well, I was upset and drunk, he should have known better" - yeah, whatever...if two people are drunk and fooling around, how is the guy supposed to "know better" - to convoluted bullshit that basically amounted to not wanting be perceived as a "slut").

In other news, "The People's Cube"...

[tcopeland]

...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System. "Only 30% chance of crashing!"

Re:In other news, "The People's Cube"...

[Anonymous Coward]

One Big Ass Mistake, America.

Operation: Teabag Obama

Send Obama two tea bags. Mail two unused tea bags to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on April 15th and tea bag the Marxist Wealth Redistributor!


OBAMA SUCKS

Re:In other news, "The People's Cube"...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System. "Only 30% chance of crashing!""

It is obviously another Mojave experiment ;-)

Is this I or G?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Consider that C is shrinking, so in order to balance Y, G must be increased. However, one side effect of G is that such spending becomes a longterm part of the equation. However, if we consider the G to be at least in part I in this case, we can see that there will be positive feedback due to the return on I.

I'd even go so far as to say that the entire stimulus is a massive increase in I masquerading as an increase in G. If this is true, then we may be out of the woods in just a few years.

Re:Is this I or G?

[Vectronic]

I, dunno what u talkin bout G.

Re:Is this I or G?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may come as a surprise to you, but there are, in fact, more ideas than there are letters. And if you didn't just read your high school economics book, the meanings of these letters won't be clear.

Re:Is this I or G?

[bondjamesbond]

AIG, otoh, is getting billions more. There is no balance.

Re:Is this I or G?

[DriedClexler]

Well, thanks, BadAnalogyGuy, for demonstrating exactly what's wrong with mainstream macroeconomic thought these days.

In case anyone didn't understand all that, he's referring to the infamous "GDP equation" that "gross domestic product", a poor attempt at capturing the total value of goods and services produced in an economy each year, is equal to:

Consumption (C) + Investment (I) + Government purchases (G) + net imports (X - M)

I don't know what he's using to mean Y, but I think he's referring to the rewrite of the equation that puts it as:

C + I + X - M - Y = GDP - (G + B)

where Y is net private savings and B is net government borrowing. That's how they derive the misleading identity that "net private savings equals government borrowing".

I used to see GDP as "imperfect, but a good appoximation of economic health, once you understand its limitations". Now I see mainstream macroeconomics taking its imperfections and amplifying them to the point of bad policy. They're so concerned about getting government-recorded spending to show up that they completely ignore whether that spending is actually producing anything of value. If people wisely move, in some area, to a more efficient "bartering of services", such as a babysitting co-op, that shows up as a sharp drop in consumption and thus GDP, yet has made everyone involved much better off. Add up imperfections like these, and you get a bunch of economics advocating the zombification of the economy by propping up obsolete businesses and business models, forever delaying meaningful recovery.

Re:Is this I or G?

[im_thatoneguy]

Co-ops are largely untaxable. Why would we want to record that sort of financial exchange? ;)

Re:Is this I or G?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it every time I write F you see K?

Facts on Cyber Security:

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaius Baltar is a Java programmer.

Good.

[slimjim8094]

Aside from the obvious benefit of security (see the earlier story re: idiots sharing blueprints on p2p), this will also help stimulate the economy.

I'm no huge fan of Obama, especially with the RIAA lawyers and the wiretapping thing, but spending money is the right idea here. The government is the only entity who can spend money here, so they need to spend it. That's Keynesian economic theory, and it's probably the best theory we have (at least, it's been tested).

The idea is: save money when the market's good, like Clinton managed. Then spend it when the market's bad.

The idea is, any spending is good. Including that grass at the Capitol. And spending it on us nerds helps the tech. industry across the board.

Re:Good.

[Ogive17]

If it creates a bunch of jobs, then it's good. if it's just throwing money at the problem, then it's bad. The spending bill should be separate from the stimulus bill, and that's what the Republicans have been griping about. There's a lot of money going to programs that need the money, but should not be on the stimulus plan.

Re:Good.

[Straif]

The government is a very inefficient way to create jobs and most jobs it creates are temporary at best. At worst they can create an artifical job market that when the projects are completed, leads to higher unemployment as people are now trained for jobs that no longer exist.

Buying your way out of a recession, as many, if not most, ecomomist have come forward and said, at best leads to a temporary bump but will more than likely lead to an extended downturn in the economy. Spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave is no way to stimulate the economy; it's just a way to ensure a huge debt load.

That's not to say the government shouldn't play a huge role in the recovery, but they should be background players, creating oppourtunities for small businesses to grow (lower taxes on small/independant business, job grants, etc...).

And as for Keynesian economic theory. It was Keynes himself who suggested that Hoover's tax increases (much the same as Obama's proposed corporate and income tax increase) actually signifigantly lengthened the depression.

Re:Good.

[A. B3ttik]

Contrary to popular opinion, "creating Jobs" is not always good and is not always entirely different from "throwing money at the problem." "Creating Jobs" only helps when the jobs are useful and produce something else of value.

I don't know anything about how cost effective the Hoover Dam or various bridges and public works projects have been in the past, but assuming that they _were_ cost effective, these are examples where "Creating Jobs" is a good thing that stimulates the economy in a good way, because it not only gives people money to spend, but it adds overall value to the system. The Hoover Dam added irrigation, water supply, and power, while bridges add lower transportation costs.

On the other hand, paying someone to sit like a night watchmen on P2P Networks or paying someone to replace the White House Carpet or repaint the ceilings doesn't really help anyone because nothing of value is being created. You're just shuffling money around, and its really no different economy-wise than just _giving away_ the money. People are going to spend it either way.

This isn't to say I don't support re-carpeting or re-painting the White House if it needs it, I am merely saying that the catch-phrase "creating jobs" doesn't do the system any good unless the jobs are worth doing.

Re:Good.

[Lumpy]

Why is everyone believing that "creating" a bunch of temporary jobs is good?

They are just throwing money around with hopes that it will do something. It wont. If it creates 30,000 jobs that last for 1 year it's simply going to cause a secondary aftershock in the economy.

Spend the money to create permanent real solutions instead of this, "OMG!OMG! hurry spend money! HURRY!" thing they are doing now

I personally wished they would have not even voted on the damn thing until May and took the time to make it right. They rush this crap and then it always ends up a half assed cluster fornication that does nothing for anyone but a bunch of in people that helped pen the damned thing.

Plus the Republicans are as bad as the Dems on this, both sides have thrown in bullshit riders on the bill to turn it into a money-grab for pet interests. I so wish the president had line item veto so he could strike off all the crap that rides on things like this.

Create a real IT-CERT system that has real experts not some useless CIO or CTO and let them advise the country on IT needs. Kind of like the Surgeon General. But an IT-General that actually has degrees and active knowledge in IT and CS.

Re:Good.

[triffid_98]

You mean like the trolls at the airport with the impressive looking Homeland Security badges?

Contrary to popular opinion, "creating Jobs" is not always good and is not always entirely different from "throwing money at the problem." "Creating Jobs" only helps when the jobs are useful and produce something else of value.

Re:Good.

[rts008]

Excellent post!

There is no long term benefit to 'creating jobs' that are not able to be self-sustaining(or readily transferable to another project) in a reasonable time frame.
As you said:

Contrary to popular opinion, "creating Jobs" is not always good and is not always entirely different from "throwing money at the problem." "Creating Jobs" only helps when the jobs are useful and produce something else of value.

I know I don't have all of the answers, but some specifics are not too difficult to grasp.

Re:Good.

[korbin_dallas]

Um, so do you REALLY think that Obama and ilk DON'T KNOW THAT???

Of course they know that. What better way to solidify power and wealth that to continue the problem? The stimulus bill was the perfect way to embed cool stuff like Electronic Medical Records (which was the real goal) the enable more government. Not to mention gaining 36% of Citibank.

Problem is this however, IF you let the economic pain go on too long, people are liable to start screaming for your beheading on public TV. Ukraine today is on the verge of major riots, they want ALL of their government and banks exiled.

Thialand wants the same thing last week. They had the best quote of the week: "This government is full of robbers!"

So in 18 months they will reimplement Reaganomics (and call it something else, Pelosiomics?).

Re:Good.

[vertinox]

And as for Keynesian economic theory. It was Keynes himself who suggested that Hoover's tax increases (much the same as Obama's proposed corporate and income tax increase) actually signifigantly lengthened the depression.

Of course taxes increased the length of the depression, because taxes cause deflation by taking money out of the supply.

However, simply cutting taxes would not have fixed the depression.

The problem was a lack of credit and liquidity in order to make people do something with their money. If you had money during the 1930's, chances are you are sitting on it on your mattress or someplace other than a bank.

If it is doing that, instead of being in a bank, it can't be used to give out a loan by the bank and the economy does not move.

Secondly, even if you are willing to put your money in a bank (after they instituted FDIC guarantees), you may be in the large percentage of Americans who did not have an income.

So without government spending there was really no one willing to pay people in which they in turned put it in a bank or put it directly back into the economy with goods and services purchased.

So, the depression was and primarily caused by the collapse of credit and faith in banking which we are seeing now.

The only way to counteract is sadly, inflation. Like it or not, the money supply has to be increased and people have to be forced not so save their money. Sounds strange, but if everyone did sit on their money and not do anything with it, then no one would do anything for each other.

The end goal of capitalism is to have people do and make things for others This is a two way street and someone has to spend money. If people and businesses aren't, then only government spending will resolve it.

I don't like the idea either, but the current system is too far gone to socialism that you can't simply implement a laissez faire at this point because the system currently requires government intervention or would face a complete meltdown.

The GDP of the USA is currently about 40% government spending so you can just say "tonight we stop government spending!" or we would face tantamount revolution and failure of our economy.

So rather than argue "no at every turn" you must suggest that we encourage a gradual change during a time of non-crisis.

Re:Good.

[vertinox]

I would like to add...

"Capitalism is a polite way of getting people to do things voluntarily without forcing them."

Without the "getting to do things" part, then capitalism is a big as failure as communism.

Re:Good.

[jcnnghm]

Plus the Republicans are as bad as the Dems on this, both sides have thrown in bullshit riders on the bill to turn it into a money-grab for pet interests.

Only 3 RINO Republicans in the entire congress voted for this. Not a single house Republican had anything to do with it. The house minority leader threw the bill and criticized the congress for not having even taken the time to read the damn thing.

This bill is as partisan as it gets. The Republicans had practically nothing to do with this mess, and opposed it every step of the way. You can't sit back and say that the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats, when only three even voted for it.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is a very inefficient way to create jobs and most jobs it creates are temporary at best.

You mean like the temporary government jobs that both of my parents held from the day they graduated from college until the day they retired? I suppose since they weren't employed for *eternity*, that it technically was temporary.

Or maybe it was my aunt and uncle who were both temporarily employed by the Post Office... for 30 years.

Yup. Government never made anything but a temporary job.

You shouldn't listen to Michael Steele. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Apparently neither do you.

Re:Good.

[tsm_sf]

The Republicans had practically nothing to do with this mess

Aside from, you know, creating it.

Re:Good.

[jcnnghm]

The Republicans mandated that the GSEs make bad loans so poor minorities could end up in houses they couldn't afford?

Re:Good.

[b4upoo]

There were many jobs created during the WPA era that don't make sense at first glance. But they saved America money. People without money don't lay down and die. They may grab a gun or grab a purse. Jails cost money. Hospitals cost money as well when the public health suffers because individuals suffer health declines from lack of medical care, nutrition or housing.
              Considering only the tax payers money it may be the best of all plans to find some task that provides a pay check to people rather than paying for the aftermath of poverty.

Re:Good.

[LoverOfJoy]

Obviously there are government jobs that stick around. He's talking about the government jobs that are created by a supposedly one time stimulus package. Unless Obama plans to have more stimulus bills or increase the budget permanently, the newly created jobs by a single boost aren't going to stick around (particularly if it's in the government sector, as they tend to not find funding from other sources).

Re:Good.

[Straif]

I never said they've never made anything but temperory jobs but jobs created under this type of make-work bill are almost by definition temporary. Either that or the government grows to a point of unsustainability (which it pretty much already has).

Anyone with an iota of common sense, thus excluding you apparently, would understand that since the government essentially only creates income through taxation, it cannot create a sustainable system in which the only people it's taxing are in fact it's own employees. Every person working directly for the government is a drain on the tax system, unless you are taxing that employee at 100%, so therefore increasing the size of government, beyond essential services, is a net loss for the system as a whole.

Even people indirectly employed by these type of projects, in the end, can cause more problems than solutions. If you go with Obama's assumption that massive spending on infrastruture improvements will stimulate the economy you just need to look 3 years down the road when these projects come to a close to ask yourself what will all these new tradespeople do now? By creating an artificial demand the government creates a ticking timebomb in the market place that either comes to a dramatic end at some point in the future (unless you happen to get a job on the Big Dig) or the government is forced to continually come up with more make-work projects to keep the market artifically high, thus creating unecessary expenditures. It's the same type of interference that helped creating the housing bubble.

The best thing the government can do is get out of the way of small to medium size business who have a much better track record at creating full time employment. And no, that does not exclude the concept of moving some projects ahead of schedule to help generate a few extra dollars in the economy, but it does mean that those types of projects still have to be well timed to prevent an artifical boom and that reliance on those projects to save the economy is foolhardy, at best.

Re:Good.

[brkello]

What you say makes sense but really isn't the whole issue. The real problem is that consumers aren't consuming because they are worried about losing their job and not having more work (or just worried because the markets are so uncertain). If a bunch of jobs are created that really don't offer any value, that may not actually matter. All it needs to do is give people a little more confidence so they start spending and investing again. Once that happens, there will be more demand for things that people are spending on thus creating more jobs...which makes people feel more comfortable spending...which creates more jobs, etc. So really, it may not matter what the heck these jobs are...it just needs to make people comfortable enough to spend again. Jobs with no value will eventually go away. Obviously, better to create jobs with value...but if a few are created that are questionable, who really cares as long as it helps consumers gain some confidence.

Re:Good.

[sumdumass]

Confidence can be gained in other ways too. Having an unemployment insurance program and maybe a rental or mortgage assistance program can create confidence.

Take Japan for instance, they recently went through an economic crisis. The first wave, Japan hired every unemployed person capable and willing to work to do nothing but dig ditches and fill them back in. The economy rebounded and as soon as half of those people went back to regular jobs, the economy collapsed again, this time much worse. Japan changed their tactics and instead of digging ditches, they invested in infrastructure, development, and research. While this didn't give anyone jobs immediately, it provided a sound base for the economy to rebound which it did.

Roosevelt's jobs programs, some were needed, some was wasted spending, but most had little to no effect other then keeping people occupied so they wouldn't resort to rebellion or crime. What cleaned up the economy was actually world war two. Many European countries were buying supplied from the US which created meaningful jobs before we even though of sending troops to fight. This also had the benefit of helping the US when it joined the war because the ancillary enterprise necessary for a war was pretty much already in place at a time where we didn't keep a large standing army or invest in it's development. The war had the biggest effects on the economy when it took hundred of thousands of the most productive people and shipped them off to die.

We sent or employed in the military service something on the order of 16 million people to war or to protect our borders. With a population of 130.8 million (1939), that's roughly 12 percent of the people removed from the workforce. There was around 17.5% unemployment at the time and the defense effort needed to employ most of those people to support the wars. In 1934, the height of the depression, the unemployment rate was 21.7% on average reaching 25% at one point in the year. In 1938, it was 19%, in 1940, it was down to 14.6%. You can see the drop with the defense spending bill passed in 1939, but now here is a real reduction in numbers, 1942, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7%, in 1944, it was down to 1.2%. I stayed below 5% until 1954 where it peaked at 5.5% for another 2 years before jumping to 6.8%.

Here is the list of biannual rates I was using. It's clear that the war pulled us out of the depression and it seems to have been used to attempt to control unemployment and economic prosperity a couple of times since then.

It matters what these jobs are. They have to provide a value in the process or at least train people to create a value. Otherwise, it all falls back on their faces as soon as that government dependency is removed.

Obama's Excellent Bankruptcy Plan, +4, Helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

is to continue the expenditure of U.S. federal dollars on military
fiascos.

Good luck in the Gulag.

Yours In Communism,
Kilgore Trout

Here's an idea...

[sunking2]

How about stimulating jobs that actually produce something that others might want? Oh wait, we don't do that anymore so the best we can do is deficit spend and divy out the money to a bunch of service industries. Might as well just allocate $500 million for the waitresses and valets parking stimulus.

Re:Here's an idea...

[tcopeland]

> How about stimulating jobs that actually produce something that others might want?

Fool! You've got it all wrong! I refer you to Iowahawk's Memo to America's Irresponsible Tea Party Whiners: STFU. A sample:

The most ludicrous aspect of these protesters is their utter lack of understanding that the mortgage bailout benefits everyone - even them. Let me explain to these unpatriotic whiners how the economy works: The money that government is now wisely investing in our mortgage system will free up billions of extra dollars in spending by Americans like me, which will directly create jobs. For you economic illiterates, this is what experts call the "multiplier effect."

For example, now that my mortgage worries are over, I was able to afford the down payment on a sweet new jet ski, directly creating jobs at Coralville Kawasaki. I also purchased a few items from my friend and local small business entrepreneur Randy Hansgard. Randy used that money to make high tech capital improvements in his business, like new grow-lights and an Ohaus 3-beam electronic scale. After I wrecked the jet ski, this created jobs at the Coralville Kawasaki service department. I also splurged by sending Linda a thoughtful Jenny Craig gift certificate with my partial January mortgage payment, because she's really been packing on the pounds lately.

See how it works? Now, go pay more taxes!

Re:Here's an idea...

[sunking2]

Oh, now I see! What we really need and just about everyone would support is the Jenny Craig stimulus! We could lump it under "beach beautifcation" or something.

Re:Here's an idea...

[clickety6]

the Jenny Craig stimulus!

Well, I heard Obama was all for trimming the pork !

Re:Here's an idea...

[sunking2]

I think he was refering to his wife's ass though.

Re:Here's an idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahaha! Fantastic link. I'm especially amused at how all the True Believers on Slashdot have modded you "Insightful" because they don't realize they're being mocked. A choice quote from the article that'll ensure this comment stays at 0:

That's why I have a message for you America-hating, bailout-protesting morons: put down the tea, and have a nice steaming hot cup of STFU. Instead of whining about your past mortgage paying mistakes [that is, paying your mortgage -ed], start focusing on the future. Because let's face it - another bailout gravy train is coming down the tracks and tickets are limited. Continuing your same irresponsible behavior only creates a moral hazard, endangers the recovery, and screws up a good thing for the rest of us in the job creation sector.

And speaking of morals, let's all remember the moral of "The Ant and the Grasshopper." That frugal food-saving ant can bitch all he wants about the lazy grasshopper. But it won't matter when summer's over and the grasshopper plague comes to town.

What needs funding?

[kaaona]

I'm curious to know what critical cyber security projects or activities are "shovel ready" and awaiting funding...

Re:What needs funding?

[Hordeking]

I'm curious to know what critical cyber security projects or activities are "shovel ready" and awaiting funding...

Hopefully, "shovel-ready" means those projects are ready to be dead and buried, for a change.

Hot damn! What *else* can we all get for FREE!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, what were we all thinking!

We could have had all this FREE STUFF years ago!

HERE'S TO HOPE AND CHANGE!!!!!

The mission, the people...

[GPLDAN]

Obama's campaign was approached in the fall of 2008 by the NSA, to let him and Axelrod know that either the Chinese or the Russians hacked his campaign systems.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5105027.ece

So, he knows what he's up against. If you run any sort of port knocker or ssh logging at a target IP range, you know that near round the clock brute forcing is going on by Chinese networks. They now are distributing the problem into botnets to prevent being blackholed, but they continue at it.

Obama has Janet Napolitano to run this group. They will work with US-CERT, but their mandate should be defense, not offense. They could start by approaching the US Tier-1 providers and saying, in essence, we want to use tools from companies like Arbor Networks and others that track botnets to isolate better signatures and reject them at the national perimeter, sort of an IDP at the edge of major networks.

The NSA probably has access to all domestic US websites encryption keys, at least the ones that come from Verisign. So, inspect all encrypted traffic headed back to Chinese networks, on any port. If you can't decrypt it, consider it hostile. Shunt it.

I may get modded down as flamebait, probably by Chinese slashdot readers - but the fact is, we are at war with the Chinese.

Re:The mission, the people...

[micronicos]

A1 - you got there while I was still dithering how to say it. I could add some personal worries like how HUAWEI software's in every darn internet cellphone dongle in the UK (and it's really good too).

Re:The mission, the people...

[scubamage]

War in the conventional sense is the incorrect term. New cold war is more like it - and sadly this time we are completely out-gunned. The US has spent so much time dumbing down its educational system, ignoring math and sciences in lieu of budget increases to school sports, and completely ignoring the fact that college loans are the second leading cause of bankruptcy in the US (and you can't escape them through bankruptcy!). An educated populace is the only thing we could use to win a technical cold war. And we ain't got it.

Re:The mission, the people...

[dkleinsc]

And we're definitely not just throwing money down a black hole: among other things, this sort of project could easily lead to some improvements to SELinux.

Re:The mission, the people...

[Dayze!Confused]

I wouldn't really like that very much, seeing how I live in Taiwan currently, and although Taiwan is its own country our great new Secretary of State refuses to admit it to the Chinese.

I still work for a US company and use a vpn to communicate back and forth. I am sure there are also plenty of US workers in China that do the same. If I can't use my vpn then I can't do my work.

Why should the government be able to look at everything that I do, I thought that there was the right to privacy, or do we not believe in extending that to others. Many have quoted the words of Franklin concerning those willing to give up rights for security; I think we may also do well to remember the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as thou wouldst have them do unto you."

Re:The mission, the people...

[GPLDAN]

Well, I'd personally like to thank the British.

It's been YOUR journalists who reported that the US Government knows the Chinese have an action plan. In the article published in the UK Times

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2409865.ece

they go into the details that the Chinese have an action plan to cyberattack a US naval fleet systems.

Thank god you chaps still have a free press over there, and I thank my stars for the Guardian every day.

Re:The mission, the people...

[FiloEleven]

...which just goes to show you exactly why horrible ideas like bailouts & stimulus can survive. "Well, as long as I might get a slice..."

Re:The mission, the people...

[steelfood]

Well, there's this huge body of technologically-inclined people in China and India... oh wait...

Re:The mission, the people...

[GPLDAN]

Note that I didn't say they could "look at it". I said they should be able to decrypt it.

The government has the ability to perform warrantless wiretapping and they use voice recognition software on the entirety of every major US carrier's cellphone network. Don't be naive.

A control channel is a control channel. The Chinese are looking to place rootkits in powerplants, water treatment facilities, etc. These places don't have the sophistication necessary to IDP their systems against well constructed keystroke loggers. The risk mandates finding these control channels, and cleaning up the US infrastructure and defending it. Your privacy is entirely a secondary matter, and has been for a long long long time.

Re:The mission, the people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post reads like a crappy cyperpunk novel. "Shunt it"?

Re:The mission, the people...

[cdrguru]

Problem with education is that it isn't really the system's fault. Since the Apollo program ended in the 70s it hasn't been "cool" to try to do well in school, be motivated towards science and math, etc. The education system has for the most part recognized this and is trying to stay relevent to the current generation. Too bad, really.

You see, in their striving for "relevence" they pretty much accepted the idea that the education system is a waste of time for most of the people in it. OK, not every child is going to go on to a PhD in math. But what they have done is decided that if they push too hard the kids will drop out at 12 instead of 16. And there is no support from the parents, who now have grown up with a system with minimal requirements.

So do the schools start down a path of stricter requirements and just locking the kids into such a program? Hard to do with the culture frowns on intellectual achievement and decides it is OK if most people opt out of "brain work". China has a culture of high intellectual expectations among the middle class and parents strongly discipline children so they understand what is expected of them. Are Chinese teenagers as much "fun" as American teenagers? I doubt it. So it goes.

Re:The mission, the people...

[sdguero]

We (Americans) may not be formally educated but I would argue we are freer thinkers when compared to our counterparts in the east. Thankfully, we stress individualism very early on. And for the most part, we speak english natively. ;)

IMO, engineering and software development requires at least decent english comprehension and a mind that is free from cultural constraints that limit creativity. More oppressive government (China, Russia) and/or culture (China, India) generally limits the amount of new ideas generated. I've worked with talented Indian and Chinese software developers that could not hold a candle to talented American/European developers when it came to new ideas, simply because they didnt' think far enough outside the box. Those cultures may produce people that are, on average, much better at certain things than Americans, but IMO software development is not one of them.

I also don't see the east catching up to us completely since the major frameworks that they must use are based on our ideas and therefore our values. The fact that and most high level programming languages are based in US English is also helps keep us in the driver's seat.

Re:The mission, the people...

[Atario]

Well, we can't have an educated populace. After all:

• An educated populace is harder to trick into going along with stupid ideas in general
• A real education tends to include things like civics, economics, and critical thinking, which will only make it worse, and need I mention the specter of the dread Darwinian EVILution?
• Paying for all that education as an investment in the public good is going to mean providing it via government, which takes away a profit opportunity, which is the kind of thing that would be dreamt up by some kind of commie, and you're not a commie, are you?

Re:The mission, the people...

[dkleinsc]

But it's not just me getting a slice, it's the collective knowledge of the open source community and anyone else who wants it. It's turning deficit spending into tangible benefits, which is at least as useful as turning deficit spending into CEO bonuses.

Re:The mission, the people...

[AP31R0N]

i suggest separating the smart kids from the not so smart. The jocks can bully each other, the vapid cheerleaders can be catty and leave the kids with potential to learn w/o fear. i might have earned better grades if i hadn't been avoiding being called a nerd. Germany does this and it works pretty well. i'd be in favor of such a system esp. if it understood the difference between smart and gets-good-grades/likes-doing-homework.

America IS ardently anti-intellectual, and we're anti-anyone-doing-better-or-trying-harder-than-us in general. Among non-whites this hatred of success and accomplishment is particularly virulent.

Re:The mission, the people...

[FiloEleven]

Oh I agree with you there - I wasn't trying to paint you as a selfish bastard or anything =) It's just not the place of government to fund things like that, and it's made even more onerous for being deficit spending. It may have a greater benefit to the collective knowledge than giving CEO bonuses, but there is still a net loss even if it's hidden behind taxes, debt, and/or inflation.

PC?

[micronicos]

No-one's mentioned the Chinese governments vast expenditure on active (read - aggressive) cybersecurity - is it not PC anymore to say this?

I'm in London UK & all for your US nerds defending our cyber frontiers 'cos we certainly can't! BO rocks!

Re:PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in London UK ... BO rocks!

Yes, we all know you Brits smell bad, but you don't have to rub our noses in it.

Re:PC?

[Hordeking]

BO rocks!

Actually, America has a BO problem at the moment. Don't be fooled. Adding a lump of sugar to the poison doesn't make any less poisonous.

FYI, GW did this as well. Every president is going to do some things right, and a lot of them wrong.

Never forget, the goal of the presidents since the USA were founded has been to expand their own power. BHO will be no different in this respect.

Re:PC?

[brkello]

Except when the presidents do things to limit their own power. Not every president is as horrible as GW. They tried to expand the power of the executive branch way too far. Of course, they always see the mistake of this when the other party gets in to office.

Right now we don't have a BO problem. We have an economy that is failing. You may have an opinion on a solution that differs from BO. But it is hard to know if what he is doing is wrong or right since economic policy is extremely complex even for economists.

Re:PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true since Lincoln destroyed our voluntary union. Prior to that, you should not lump in Jefferson, Jackson, and the other anti-federalists/original democrats with federalists and whigs.

Re:PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Browser helper objects are part of the problem, you insensitive clod!

Does a Database guru have a chance?

[bogaboga]

I am a Database guru. Yes, I know myself and have worked on countless DB systems mostly on the west coast.

Question is: While I know I have a shot at this do I have a chance to be considered for one of these cyber security jobs? I would not mind even if I am on the not so fancy team.

I am kind of tired of the same-old, same-old routine.

Re:Does a Database guru have a chance?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Yes, I know myself ..."

Well your a step ahead of me. I'm still waiting to meet myself.

Re:Does a Database guru have a chance?

[will_die]

If you have a U.S. security clearance then probably yes.
Plenty of jobs for DBAs with a security clearance all along the west coast.

As for getting the security clearance that is the problem, if you cannot find a job in your local market that will hire people who are just eligible for clearance then there is not much chance of getting one.

Re:Does a Database guru have a chance?

[justin_w_hall]

I'd say yes - in my experience folks don't enter the infosec industry trained as a security engineer. Or at least up to this point, that's rare. Instead, most security teams (including the one I work on) are built with sysadmins, network engineers, code monkeys, web developers and dba's (and a few blackhat script kiddies) that have a particular passion for defending data, networks and endpoints.

Unfortunately, with this decade's increased focus on security I fear we'll soon have a glut of paper CISSP's that only got into infosec because "those guys make a lot of money", not because they were any good at it, or were particularly passionate about the subject. CISSP is quickly becoming this generation's MSCE.

But I digress. For those of us hiring security professionals, we are always struggling to find quality folks with decent experience and passion. We end up recruiting at the local 2600 meeting as much as colleges or Careerbuilder.

Is it too soon for ....

[zappepcs]

"Router to nowhere" jokes? or should that be "Layer 3 switch to nowhere" I can't decide, but in view of the Psion news, we should remember that "bridge to nowhere" has already been taken.

BTW: Anyone know where to _BUY_ a Psion Netbook?

Re:Is it too soon for ....

[Tuoqui]

Regardless it's still a Layer 8 problem.

355 million...

[Anonymous Coward]

to Google? I mean, I see why keeping everyone's endless amount of data that Google has collected is important and how it makes it the nation's most important database, but shouldn't this money be going to improving the cybersecurity of the government?

This is just another example of government handouts to big business! EVIL!

MOD PARENT UP!

[Alan426]

Nothing against the Chinese, but the constant barrage of bots flinging themselves against my firewall needs to stop! In our case, it's more likely script kiddies on a rr.com connection, but nevertheless, better use packet inspection at the Tier-1 level would help here too.

Weak Postulate

[Anonymous Coward]

As an AC no one will ever see this comment, but I have to say it anyway.

The summary: "As his administration continues to work on an stimulus plan that can save America's economy.." makes it sound as if this is an accepted postulate, but nothing could be further from the truth. Many economists (and others) have serious doubts that such a stimulus package can "save" anything. And while economics is anything but intuitive, one does wonder how borrowing a trillion or so dollars -- at interest -- will work towards putting the economy "back on track."

Re:Weak Postulate

[im_thatoneguy]

The same way every other loan works.

By spending on capital now, you can leverage your potential to pay it back plus pocket profit in the future.

What is with the right wing of our population suddenly becoming stupid to basic business management?

"A loan just has to be payed back in the future it's useless."
"A deficit is just an equal tax on the future and in the long term is nothing but damaging to the economy."
"The government borrowing is just putting off the inevitable."

The economy will inevitably bounce back. At which point yes we will need to pay back the loan. The idea is that we have underutilized resources that need to be employed in order to maximize our current capacity.

If you have a factory that's missing a component you take out a loan buy the component and get the factory operational again.

The US Economy is a large factory that's producing at reduced capacity because one component is seriously broken. The US Government is theorizing that by borrowing against the future when the factory is profitable it'll easily be able to pay back the loan.

Also since the GDP has risen and tends to rise with time what 50 years ago was an absurd deficit is now pretty easily repayable. Take out a trillion dollars now. Keep our economy to stagnate for 10 years and a decade from now the trillion dollars is pretty easy to repay.

It's like my college loan. I couldn't afford college so I took out a loan. Then once I used my college education to get me a nice paying job I payed it back in 6 months. Working through college would have reduced my education time and resulted in a lower paying job which would have taken much longer to pay off. By taking out a larger loan I was able to pay it off faster. I invested in my potential.

Re:Weak Postulate

[TheSync]

The idea is that we have underutilized resources that need to be employed in order to maximize our current capacity.

What if we have too much capacity right now? Perhaps that capacity should be eradicated. Do we need as many car companies, financial firms, etc. as we do now? Only the market knows. Perhaps the stimulus will only maintain corporations that should downsize or go out of business.

It's like my college loan. I couldn't afford college so I took out a loan. Then once I used my college education to get me a nice paying job I payed it back in 6 months

That works if the benefits of the loan outweigh the costs. If for example, you took out a loan for an art degree, you may never make enough to pay it back.

My viewpoint is that the costs of the stimulus will be outweighed by the cost of future growth due to increased taxes.

The experience of Japan's Lost Decade shows that often government stimulus costs are not worth their benefits. It takes a lot of faith to believe that government (whose incentives are getting campaign donations and votes) is going to invest more wisely than the market (whose incentive is to actually make money).

There may be cases where government is the only practical solution due to transaction costs (such as grabbing land for road building, national defense, police, monetary policy through the Federal Reserve), but in terms of industrial investment government is on an equal footing with the global market of investors.

Re:Weak Postulate

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a loan so nobody is ignoring basic business management. It will not have to be paid back. When you print money it drops the value of all the existing money. That's why Obama is giving printed money to his friends so it can offset the drop in value. Then you give some to poor people and poof instant wealth redistribution. It's just one of the few promises he's made that he's actually keeping.

Re:Weak Postulate

[diamondsw]

Spoken like someone who doesn't have a clue about Macroeconomics and the impact of spending on GDP. Yes, there are long-term effects that will have to be dealt with. However, we need an economic response NOW, and the best way to do that is via direct stimulus. As was mentioned elsewhere, money injected into the economy is spent and respent several times before it's all saved in bank accounts and no longer has any direct economic impact. This helps reverse the slipping spending trends (both consumer and business), and if you do it right, putting the brakes on a downward spiral and seeing a small upswing can start to feed on itself in a virtuous cycle (much as the current economic crisis is a vicious cycle). Economics is a social science after all; don't ignore the psychological effects.

Deficit spending has been the prescription for pulling out of a recession ever since the Great Depression, and for good reason - it works.

Jobs shipped overseas

[Windrip]

The money will go to $5.00/hr bidders on RentACoder. There's no incentive in this bill to keep the money in the US

Re:Jobs shipped overseas

[dbcad7]

Where do you read that this money will go overseas ? .. wouldn't fly IMHO, with the new showing where the money goes web site thingy.

Re:Jobs shipped overseas

[Anonymous Coward]

It only shows who gets the money, not what they end up doing with it. Like how everyone was "surprised" when Wall Street firms took the bailout money while giving bonuses and throwing parties.

How about a bit less cheerleading?

[EQ]

For example: "stimulus plan that can save America's economy"

"can"? That remains to be seen, and many say it will not. Try being less of a cheerleader and tell the truth. "may save" is a better selection, and much closer to the truth, given several hundred prominent economists (and the CBO) have said this "stimulus" may end up hurting the economy due to the wasteful "political repayment" spending and huge debt load it contains.

Per the CBO a recovery, albeit slow, is predicted for later this year even were no "stimulus" package passed.

Go read up on the Nixon-Ford-Carter economy that used similar big-government Keynesian methods to stimulate the economy, and ended up producing "stagflation", high interest rates, high unemployment and high inflation (the latter two both in double digits).

Then go read Hazlitt and Hayek for why this Keynesian stuff doesn't work as intended.

In engineering terms, most learned this lesson in statics and dynamics class: You cannot push a rope.

Re:How about a bit less cheerleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

For example: "stimulus plan that can save America's economy"

"can"? That remains to be seen, and many say it will not.

I would have expected someone with a 5 digit UID to understand the difference between "can" and "will". Driving at 200MPH "can" kill you. Driving that fast into a wall "will".

Re:How about a bit less cheerleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

"can"? That remains to be seen, and many say it will not.

These "many" are also "those" who's "solution" is to offer more corporate tax cuts, less government oversight, and allow major failing banks to go insolvent. Please, give me a break.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, ShieldWolf is being gay with replying to an off-topic first poster. ShieldWolf, I am watching you and will never give up on this. Replying to a FP in an attempt to gain karma is a lousy idea. Sorry.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did the truth become Flamebait? Pussies.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[irishdaze]

His truth became Flamebait the second he posted it as a cowherder.

cyber?

[Lord Ender]

Of the $355 million, $36 million will be spent on improving sensor and surveillance systems that will protect the nation against potential biological attacks. Another $36 million will be spent on the development and installation of new long-range sensor systems that will be used by the U.S. Coast Guard.

That's not "cyber"security at all! Cybersecurity would be pushing for signed DNS architecture, IPv6, and a DDoS mitigation infrastructure. Sonar and radar systems are physical security, not cyber security.

DHS? WTF?

[EQ]

Why DHS? Talk about throwing money into a trash disposal.

Why not NSA/CSS? They are already tasked with this and have budget. Plus they have produced viable useful solutions, SE-Linux for example. And they have competence, unlike the DHS, who seem more concerned with political correctness than securing the nation and the borders.

This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.

Secondly how is this supposed to stimulate demand in the economy? Remember, that was the purpose of the huge debt load we just got saddled with.

Watch for crony-contracts, and the money to not produce anything other than rich politically connected friends.

I know, right?

[copponex]

Obama should cut taxes for millionaires and take away basic rights like due process if he wants any real support. I mean, he has the support of 65% of Americans, but not the richest ones.

Aww, boo...

Re:I know, right?

[TheUglyAmerican]

This is not a democracy. It is a republic. You should learn the difference before you end up with neither.

Re:I know, right?

[copponex]

Awww. False dichotomy win?

Palin/Romney 2012! I'll take leaders who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old for $200, Alex.

Re:I know, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww. False dichotomy win?

Palin/Romney 2012! I'll take leaders who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old for $200, Alex.

The sad thing is, you probably really believe what you just posted is actually true.

Because it sure isn't like news media to deliberately paint an inaccurate picture of any candidate, now is it?

Or are you too brain-addled to remember "fake-but-accurate"?

And FWIW, I'd rather have someone in charge who believes wrongly about irrelevant things like how old the Earth is than some pandering twit who things he can tax and spend his way out of a recession despite all evidence to the contrary.

Re:I know, right?

[TheUglyAmerican]

Your bigotry does not disguise the fact that you cannot explain the difference between a republic and democracy. Actually I think Obama is a good thing for America. Each generation needs to learn how vacuous his ideals are. Too many today were not around while Carter was president so the lessons need to be learned again. So let's get this out of our system so we can get back to the idea that growth and prosperity are driven by PEOPLE pursuing "self interest rightly understood." (Dazzle me copponex by telling me where that quote is from.)

Re:I know, right?

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

I was at first really upset by all the brain-dead people out there considering themselves so enlightened by voting for this guy because he was "the intelligent choice." It's amazing how easily manipulated by corporate interests these people were.

Think about it: Who, in his first month, has quadrupled the national deficit and keeps pushing for more -- most of which is being funneled to rich Liberals on Wall Street. (I work there, and believe me, most of New York -- Wall Street included -- are liberal Democrats and socialists. Don't believe me? Just try to hold a conversation with these people and espouse fiscal conservative ideals. Traders might be more libertarian, but most of the rest are socialist.) In fact, Wall Street was one of the biggest donors to Obama's inauguration.

I swear, liberals are some of the worst critical thinkers on the planet. Just gobble it up.

Look, everyone is saying "He's only been there a month - can't turn it around that fast - etc, etc." but the fact is that he's not only not slowing the spiral, he's making it worse by spending like a drunken sailor, selling ill-conceived Congressional spending bills, nominating corrupt cabinet officials and the "genius" Geithner who can't seem to come up with a plan that makes any sense at all.

Re:I know, right?

[copponex]

Regurgitation is not intelligence. Knowing the facts does help. Anyone can repeat the definitions of a Republic and a Democracy. What's interesting is that you said, "we can get back to the idea that growth and prosperity are driven by PEOPLE pursuing 'self interest rightly understood.'" You're absolutely right, but that's a democratic ideal, not a republican one in the classical sense. Remember, people advocated a republic instead of a democracy because they thought slaves, women, and non-land owners were too stupid and not invested enough to be allowed to vote.

Furthermore, I looked up the quote. Did you read the rest of that paragraph?

"The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state." --Alex de Tocqueville

How did you end up believing the exact opposite of what that quote actually meant? I actually already know. Through propaganda, the same talking heads have convinced people that Adam Smith was against government regulation of markets, which is exactly the opposite of what he wrote. They have convinced low income midwesterners that cutting the taxes for the rich will somehow result in a better economy for them. They have even convinced people that the separation of church and state was invented to protect the church, despite the backdrop of hundreds of years of religious wars waged by nations against each other.

The alliance between the evangelical voting bloc and the party of business is falling apart. It's too embarrassing for any critically thinking Republican to be associated with Sarah Palin. That's why the talking heads went nuts when it was pointed out, very plainly, that she was simply too ignorant to be the vice president. Evangelicals are learning that they have been hoodwinked for the past thirty years. They were needed for their vote and their money, but not their intellectual contributions.

As far as your hatred of Carter, that's a pretty standard parroting. I'd be interested if you could name any specific policies that you believe led to the economic conditions of that era.

Re:I know, right?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The US is (ideally) both a democracy and a republic. Democracy, rule by the people, is the strategy. Republicanism, the particular structure of our government, is a tactic. The two are mutually supporting, not mutually exclusive.

There are republics which aren't democracies, and democracies which aren't republics; the latter are generally much better places to live than the former. Hint: any country which has the words "Democratic Republic" in its name is lying with the first word, but usually not the second.

Re:I know, right?

[Curunir_wolf]

I don't know why you were marked a troll. You just seem terribly misguided to me.

Anyone can repeat the definitions of a Republic and a Democracy. Remember, people advocated a republic instead of a democracy because they thought slaves, women, and non-land owners were too stupid and not invested enough to be allowed to vote.

I see you have been properly indoctrinated by one of the progressive schools. Your argument makes no sense with regards to the form of government, since they *still* could have formed a democracy, just set land-owning white men as the only voters. A Republic means that *every person* is sovereign. It means that the plurality, or the collective, or whatever you call it *cannot* impose its will on individuals, because individuals are sovereign, and their rights are *inherent*, not granted by the state, as you would like it to be.

Furthermore, I looked up the quote. Did you read the rest of that paragraph?

"The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state." --Alex de Tocqueville

How did you end up believing the exact opposite of what that quote actually meant?

You have missed an important part of the quote: the "willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property" part. It's an important distinction. You seem to think that congress spending other people's money that they confiscate at gunpoint somehow as generosity or compassion. That, however, is corrupt self-interest rather than the "self-interest rightly understood" that motivates people to help their neighbor. Take a look at New Orleans today. Compare the federal programs involved in repair and renovation to the Habitat for Humanity (kudos to Carter for his involvement there, BTW) and other private programs. Which ones are working?

Just how did you get such a twisted viewpoint of reality?

I actually already know. Through propaganda,

Ah, of course. Your state-run education and the drooling-over-socialism mainstream media.

They have convinced low income midwesterners that cutting the taxes for the rich will somehow result in a better economy for them.

Sigh. You're like a parrot. It's really about what drives the economy. Is it government confiscating money from private citizens to spend it on a $40 billion program that benefits a few, or is it people deciding for themselves how to invest their money? History is pretty clear that government is wasteful, corrupting, fraught with inefficiency, and produces absolutely $0 in new wealth.

As far as your hatred of Carter, that's a pretty standard parroting. I'd be interested if you could name any specific policies that you believe led to the economic conditions of that era.

First, presidents don't really have a lot of impact on the economy. They can either interfere (FDR) or get out of the way (Reagan). This can have some impact, but none have had the kind of impact that FDR's ruinous policies did.

Still, Carter's policies were horrible:

• He instituted several price controls that (predictably) resulted in shortages, including the gasoline shortage.
• His appointment of Miller to the Fed meant a huge increase in monetary supply, which led to massive inflation.
• The top tax rate of 70 percent meant that investors had very little incentive to pursue money-making (prosperous) ventures.
• The Department of Education - An agency that has received hundreds of billions in funding and overseen the educational system in the U.S. drop from #1 in the world in most categories to being near the bottom among all the other industrialized nations.
• The Department of Energy - Received billions of dollars with the mission to make the US "energy independent". How's that working?

Re:I know, right?

[tjonnyc999]

I'll take "Alexis De Tocqueville" for $ 600, Alex.
"Democracy In America"
Chapter 8: "How The Americans Combat Individualism By The Principle Of Self-Interest Rightly Understood"

"The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of persons in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command; and if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues would doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross depravity would then also be less common. The principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents men from rising far above the level of mankind, but a great number of other men, who were falling far below it, are caught and restrained by it. Observe some few individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, they are raised."

It seems De Tocqueville, while acknowledging the need for a "common morality" to guide the vast majority of the population, is also inserting a "subtle" warning that the same "common morality" will prevent some individuals from "rising far above the level of mankind".

A point somewhat related to Andrew Ryan's ideal (dazzle me with the source of this one, no Googling please): "A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, {this city} can become your city as well."

Re:I know, right?

[sumdumass]

Still, Carter's policies were horrible:

You forgot: changed the banking rules that to allow direct investment in real estate which created a bubble on property values that played a big role in the S&A collapses as well as the farms being forced to sell out.

I think that's important because it had one of the largest impacts and effected the most people's lives. It drove property values out of the reach of most people while the economy was collapsing around them. It was perhaps worse then it is today- at least now the banks are attempting to sell the property at a loss instead of sitting on them while closing down and locking them into legal limbo in attempts to secure assets in their bankruptcy.

$335 million??

[Zarniwoop]

That's enough for TENS of jobs, or even twice that if they invest in tech school graduates instead of so-called 'experts'!

Wa wa wee wa!!

Re:$335 million??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah with all the headlines lately about billions and trillions, isn't it weird that a number in the millions feels like pocket change?

I can't help thinking of Doctor Evil, with his pinky in his mouth: One...MILLION...dollars!!! ha ha huh?

and the second after its spent

[CHRONOSS2008]

POOF they get hacked.
HAHA
watch and see how stupid this is, go hire hackers that get caught...gooo go gogogo go

Re:DHS? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush did this to the Coast Guard. He gave DHS the money, shorted their budget, and then DHS made them an offer they can't refuse. I'll be interested to see if the NSA gets fully funded.

If not, DHS will task the NSA, eventually. That's where all the brains are. If that's what's happening, this is Big Brother coming, fellas. Obama's starting to make me nervous, by supporting this monocultured, centralized structure. I want DHS disbanded and dismantled.

But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does. As Franklin said, "I have given you a Republic if you can keep it." We will have the government we want if we don't "keep it."

Politics matters.

Intrusion Detection Systems

[oakleeman]

I don't see why anybody with a network connection isn't running some sort of intrusion detection/prevention system whether it be hosted based or network based....this should especially include the government's systems as well. Snort is now included in quite a few of the specialized security distros. In fact I know of at least two distros that are specifically designed for IDS/IPS only and can be up and monitoring traffic in less than 30 minutes.

EasyIDS: http://sourceforge.net/projects/easyids/
Strataguard from Stillsecure: http://www.stillsecure.com/strataguard/

*Disclaimer: Yes I am a developer for EasyIDS but it doesn't change the fact that people should still have an IDS/IPS in place.

Re:Intrusion Detection Systems

[cyriustek]

Some people with network connections do not bother running an IDS, as it is easily bypassed, and often offers little value added. Additionally, if one were to have an IDS, what good would it do you unless you are actually watching it, and tuning it? The staffing required for something like this on a national scale would be prohibitive.

We also have to consider that to monitor all of the traffic with an IDS, you must have access to all of the traffic. Although we believe this is already occurring, you can be certain that your traffic will be watched if a country-wide IDS system is in place, and there will not be a law preventing the US govt from spying on you and others.

The USA and Britain are losing so many rights in the name of security today. It is alarming.

Re:Intrusion Detection Systems

[Lord Ender]

Perhaps because IDS is almost worthless? The days of single-packet exploits seem to be nearly at an end. The only really worthwhile detection method we are seeing today is digging through network and application logs, checking them against blacklist, grep -v'ing away known-good stuff, and looking for unusual stuff. This means a really, intelligent human is required, not a bunch of Snort signatures looking for packet attacks which haven't been used since 1997.

DHS?

[Spatial]

It should be a fine production.

Re:DHS? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.

hey now, we have a winner. the entire stimulus package is nothing but political back scratching and no one wants to believe it because obama has been painted up as such a darling by the media. top economists have already said it will do nothing. top investors are pulling back because they know it's a losing game. when the pros are squeamish you know it's a bad deal for everyone.

so obama did in 30 days what it took dubya three years to do and we're still hearing more about what michelle is wearing on any particular day than where the stimulus money is going. it's going to be a fun next 10 years or more...

B-b-b-ut you forget hopenchange

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopenchange can overcome reality.

So STFU and start paying your great-great-great grandkids taxes!

Re:B-b-b-ut you forget hopenchange

[Mille Mots]

So STFU and start paying your great-great-great grandkids taxes!

ITYM, "...start spending your great-great-great grandkids taxes!"

HTH. HAND.

Re:DHS? WTF?

[Hordeking]

But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does.

Enlighten us. How did Tolkien warn us about power?

I think a fitting quote, from John Dalberg, Baron of Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Wow, with $325 million

[smchris]

That'll be a _really_ secure version of SELinux.

Pork, pork, pork

[DerekLyons]

As with yesterday's story we now begin to see the reality of the 'stimulus bill' - endless pork, pandering to special interests, and earmarks.

Re:Pork, pork, pork

[Hordeking]

As with yesterday's story we now begin to see the reality of the 'stimulus bill' - endless pork, pandering to special interests, and earmarks.

Ironically, I prefer the smell of real swine to this shit. Pig shit I can stand. Political shit is just nasty.

Re:DHS? WTF?

[Hordeking]

This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.

That smell...that's the smell of shit. And napalm burning. Oh dear...is our country on fire? I say...we better go smother it with these exceedingly flammable dollars!

so obama did in 30 days what it took dubya three years to do and we're still hearing more about what michelle is wearing on any particular day than where the stimulus money is going. it's going to be a fun next 10 years or more...

Took W a little more than 3 years to blow $2x10^12. He got started with eroding civil liberties about a year in, though.

Re:Let me be the first to ask...

[steelfood]

...but does it run on Linux?

Can it really be saved?

[aztektum]

The economy that is. Or rather, should it be saved? If it means we still have ridiculous copyright and patent laws on the books? Government granted monopoly of what should be public infrastructure (cable/data/phone lines)? No real barrier for lobbyists to buy off our politicians?

Our economy woes are entirely thanks to big business and lazy, greedy politicians. What exactly do they want to "save"? They legislated and lobbied their way into a system that benefited them at the expense of true progress and the average Joe the Plumber.

Re:DHS? WTF?

[aztektum]

Huge debt we "just got saddled with"? You haven't been paying attention much for oh, say the last 30 years.

Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Sexurity

[M8e]

Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Sexurity

Re:DHS? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Took W a little more than 3 years to blow $2x10^12.

How much of that raised the national debt as Obama's plan is sure to do? Where are all the howls of corporate welfare like we heard for dubya? Where's the consistency?

Bunch of little Obama faggots. We got another bunch of little faggot goose steppers under a different flag but the same mentality. Think you're different, think you're better but you're not.

The evaporation of knoweldge

[SgtChaireBourne]

Obama's campaign was approached in the fall of 2008 by the NSA, to let him and Axelrod know that either the Chinese or the Russians hacked his campaign systems.

I'm not affiliated with any such group, but I did drop by campaign offices in the early part of the summer. I commented to three very separate people on the weaknesses I saw and that the systems would get cracked and approximately when (+/- 1 week). I contacted two of them after the breaches made the news. So far not even one has responded to my finely worded Told You So, accompanied by links to the news articles.

Just to pick a random vulnerability, the staffers did not appear to have Samba or even WebDAV over TLS. Instead it appears that documents were sent around, unencrypted via e-mail as attachments. That works fine if you're wanting to make archiving virtually impossible, waste storage like its going out of style, and ensure that each and every document has a fair chance of being intercepted.

vigintillion, did you know that's a word?

[Anonymous Coward]

This Stimulus plan is clearly not enough. In my opinion there is only one way to solve the current economic crisis. Each person in the United States should receive one vigintillion dollars each day for as long as the current President is in office. Because the President has already held this esteemed office for several weeks, the first payment will be for 42 vigintillion dollars to include a retroactive payment for the first 41 days, plus 24.99% interest on the first 41 vigintillion dollars, compounded constantly and accruing from 12:00:01 AM on each of the days, except the first day, when the interest accrues from noon Washington, D.C., time. This expanded and improved Stimulus plan will ensure prosperity and equality for all.

Cheerleading, is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's hilarious that you can be modded Insightful for pedantry over the word "can" versus the word "may". It's as if you've pointed out some great flaw in Obama's plan that has profound implications.

I can understand the grammatical improvement in your suggested change, but calling it "cheerleading" is just anti-Obama derangement.

How about a free anti-virus?

[jemenake]

One of the things that I hope this administration does is give money to CERT (or some other appropriate agency) to provide a free anti-virus product for everybody.

Granted, it would have to be open-source so that we'd know that the gov't wasn't using it to snoop on us. But, unlike a typical open-source project, the gov't would pay a team to continually update the virus definitions and the source code.

Now, I realize that there already are free anti-virus products out there, and some of them score very well on av-comparatives. But they often have nag-screens prompting you to buy the premium verion and they're also not publicized very well, so only techie people like my co-workers know about them and use them. If one were provided by the gov't, it could eventually universally understood to be a gov't service as much as, say, free tax forms at the post-office.

Now, why should the gov't bother with this? Consider the amount of lost productivity due to virus infections? Imagine if that same amount of productivity were lost due to a biological virus. Imagine how much attention that would get from the Center for Disease Control. Or, if there was a group of people causing enough vandalism to businesses across the country to cause the same amount of lost productivity. Picture how much resources the FBI would be throwing toward stopping that.

Now, I don't know exactly how much it takes to maintain a team to provide daily virus updates, but I can't imagine it would take more than about $5 million per year (heck, that's about 50 top-notch programmers)... which is a pittance compared to the saved productivity and, of course, it would be a good PR move for whatever administration provided it, since we'd have that constant reminder of it in our system tray.

More nations die of national debt than

[Anonymous Coward]

Any other cause. The ultimate cause may be a revolution or war, but the fundamentals of these are very often national debt.

One of the very repeatable relationships in economics is the inverse relationship between national growth rate and "total government burden", the sum of taxes and regulations. 100s of studies have confirmed this: get gov out of the way, the nation prospers. Let it start growing, the economy slows, eventually dies.

The US is way over the edge: we haven't generated enough jobs for 20 years, have hidden the problem with rising disability payments and early retirements.

Re:Good.- Creating Jobs?

[tjonnyc999]

Hm, I would have thought one Jobs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs) was enough...

Re:DHS? WTF?

[EQ]

Congress just bumped it up by almost double, in one month, what it took Bush 8 years to do, which was bad enough.

And they did fiscally what Bush and Congress did with the Patriot Act - created a crisis atmosphere and rammed a bill through without proper scrutiny.

Both were wrong.

Re:DHS? WTF?

[EQ]

Fyi - I said "debt load" not debt - you severely misquoted me, There is a difference. The former is what was added (the debt load contained in the spending bill), the latter is the sum total.

To the mods of the above crap...

[Atario]

...in what way is this "interesting"? Fatuous "LIBRULS SUCK!1!" drivel dressed up in slick graphics? Uh, no.

Re:To the mods of the above crap...

[Atario]

I see. A whole website set up to shout "liberals are commies" gets a +5, Interesting, and a reply pointing that out gets a -1, Flamebait.

So much for the theory that Slashdot is a haven for said commie liberals, huh?

Child porn

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as an expert witness in computer child porn cases.

The current definition is pretty broad--and subject to subjective interpretation by the court to a great extent.

A major problem is that the link between child porn and paedophilia's is not causative--paedophiles usually become child porn consumers--the reverse is much less common.

So stopping child porn does nothing to stop pedophiles.

Another problem is that no judge, juror, or DA can be seen as as "being soft" on child porn.

Thus an accusation is often enough for a conviction. Even if it doesn't convict, the accusation can ruin your life.

If you examine the recent high-profile child prostitution cases, the number of adults involved in these cases is often close to 20 times the number of children.

Like any other crime, the only true method of prevention is to educated or condition people not to accept it.

in the 1980's there was a lot of concern about an "increase" in child abuse. This was not an increase in abuse, it was an increase in reporting. a hundred years ago, no one would have stopped you from disciplining your child however you did it--unless you killed them it was "family matters."

Our society decided that such was not a good idea and it became a "bad thing."

Currently the same exact phenomena is taking place regarding workplace sexual harassment. People no longer put up with it.

The problem is that the definition of "sexual harassment" boils down to "you think you were sexually harassed, you were."

None of which has anything to do with the article.

Correction

[Mr. Firewall]

As his administration continues to work on a stimulus plan that can save America's economy....

The Obama administration is not working on ANY plan that can save America's economy.