Watch your back!

States try to tax the Internet, the Internet leaves

It is no secret that State tax collectors hate the internet. For years, they have been furious that they have been denied the sales taxes for internet sales that they collect from brick-and-mortar stores. And the Supreme Court has ruled that states can only tax internet businesses that had a "physical presence" in the state wishing to tax them.

But the States are not giving up, and now Illinois is ready to pass a law to tax Amazon.com and other companies that do business in the state. The only problem? Companies are ready to abandon Illinois entirely rather than pay taxes there!

After the Illinois law was passed yesterday, Amazon immediately fired off an e-mail to Illinois members of it “associates program” threatening to boot them from the program, which pays them marketing and referral fees on sales, should Quinn sign the bill.

Meanwhile, Scott Kluth, Founder and President of Chicago-based CouponCabin.com, told Forbes today that he would move his seven-year-old business and his 48 employees across state lines if Quinn signs the bill.

It should be noted that this would not only take sales from affiliates, but it would also take jobs out of Illinois. Not the best way to serve the people of your state in the middle of a Recession.

Welcome to Cyber War I

For years, we have been speculating about what a real "Cyber-War" would look like. We already know that War looks different in the Computer Age - smart missiles, GPS-guided troops, real-time reporting from the warzone, combatants communicating via Twitter - but we have not yet really faced a full-on war between two Cyber Superpowers, in the mold of either World War or the Cold War.

But Wikileaks is giving us a glimpse into what a real Cyber-War is like as anonymous hackers release their ire onto any and every organization which refuses to support Julian Assage's release of U.S. Diplomatic Cables. Amazon, Paypal, MasterCard, and VISA have all been attacked, and there are now rumors of pending attacks on Facebook and Twitter for taking down Wikileaks accounts. Hackers are ideologically-motivated and decentralized - literally spread around the world - so it will be difficult to locate and stop them all. And yet, law enforcement and military agencies have a vested interest in proving they can respond effectively.

In the end, Wikileaks may be remembered not for the diplomatic info which was released - which appears to be more embarrassing than damaging, for the most part - but for the real-world practice it is giving the world for a real Cyber-War. The lessons learned here - both by attackers and defenders - will allow us to harden our defenses for the future, and truly understand just how vulnerable we are.

I have actually had this conversation...

Do I resemble that remark?

Irony Overload

Yes, I know in the end, he called it off, but others did not. The extreme irony of it all stands.

Yet another reason NOT to have an affair...

...or rather the same old reason - it always comes out at exactly the WRONG time. Like, for example, when the mine you're working in collapses, and both your wife and your mistress come out to hold vigil. And meet.

Britain's Sun newspaper reports the wife of Yonni Barrios, Marta Salinas, was stunned and upset to find his girlfriend Susana Valenzuela also conducting a vigil for him.

Salinas told the newspaper: "Barrios is my husband. He loves me and I am his devoted wife. This woman has no legitimacy."

But The Sun reported Valenzuela as saying the 50-year-old miner was going to leave his wife for her.

"We are in love. I'll wait for him," she told the paper.

So, perhaps there is one Chilean miner who is NOT sorry to hear they won't be able to get him out of there for a while.

I can SO relate!

"Amazon Remembers" has a sense of humor

"Amazon Remembers" is a service of the Amazon iPhone App, where you take a photo of an item that you might want to later buy from Amazon.Com (or which you want to price-compare) and a human being will look at it and find a match (or something VERY close) on their website.

This is what I sent:


This is what the "Amazon Remembers" user recommended.


Clearly, NOT a Phillies fan. :-)

Yes, the bar IS that low nowadays

Sad but True

Sung to tune of "America the Beautiful". From Townhall.Com.

Painfully True

From here.

Irony Overload: WB Pirates Antipirate Tech

Truth is stranger than fiction, much to the chagrin of fiction writers. And you must look no further than Warner Brothers entertainment for proof. Who knew that piracy laws allowed recursion?

German firm Medien Patent Verwaltung claims that in 2003, it revealed a new kind of anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. that marks films with specific codes so pirated copies can be traced back to their theaters of origin. But like a great, hilariously-ironic DRM Ouroborus, the company claims that Warner began using the system throughout Europe in 2004 but hasn't actually paid a dime for it.

Its the little things...

On the iPhone 4G leak...

From here.

Citizenship revoked after 29 years as an American

We are often quick to point out the holes in keeping out illegal immigrants in the current system. But the fact is that the U.S. Immigration system is just as broken in dealing fairly with LEGAL immigrants. Consider the case of Angela Boneva, who was granted citizenship in 1981 only to be told now that she "was never a citizen". And all of her attempts to get clarification have come to naught as she faces an implacable, uncaring bureaucracy.

After she sought to renew her U.S. passport in 2003, the State Department informed her that a consular employee's decision to give her citizenship in 1981 broke a rule dictating that her father had to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before she was born. His time in the U.S. before moving to Bulgaria totaled only six years.

But the letter pointed out, that same residency requirement was reduced in 1986 to five years, so someone in her position would be eligible for citizenship today — though not her.

Boneva received a form letter in 2003 saying "it does not appear" that she qualifies as a citizen anymore. She has made repeated but vain attempts to get a definitive answer from U.S. authorities. But just last month, she was sent the very same form letter again — this time with another woman's photograph stapled above her name. That letter recommended Boneva contact another U.S. agency, which had already turned her away.

Immigration turned out to be a "third rail" issue for President George W. Bush. But we need to bite the bullet and come to grips with a system that is short on justice and long on outrage

Made me laugh out loud

Preach it, Brother Schultz!

So true, it hurts

Posted without Further Comment