PEEK'd You! - Volume 1

I recently found this site called peekyou.com. The sites says its basic premise is to "search for and find people online...to access all Internet links related to actual people like you." Well that statement couldn't be more true. What peekyou.com does is take all the information from social networking sites such as Myspace & Friendster, then adds in information from anything else where your name appears on the net (specific site names based on info peekyou displays). This includes public records online that shows your info. The "skinny" is this: you can type in any person and see all the information about then that-seemly-has ever been online. 

Why is this bad? To start, you can type in a persons name: find an image of them; find what jobs that have had, or what job they currently have; find out there likes dislikes; blogs they've written; and find out where they live, all in one location. Now we know that this information is out there, but it is twisted to put it all together. Most users of social networks proliferate little difference on their profile, maybe for style sake, or maybe or security reasons. 

-Social sites are a very interesting concept. I have always viewed them as a way of seeing what old friends are doing and exposing my art to a large community. For me it is clear that a persona is created on these sites. You post the "best" photo of yourself, provide the "best" information about yourself, and try to keep up a certain image for your friends to perceive. Mind you what is posted provides a limited scope of reality no matter how diligent one is with their updates. So when one post something it is with the intent to promote only one side of yourself for hopeful social gain. Also, when placing things on these sites a profile is called and referred to as "your profile" and thus when posting you are providing content that is yours and assumably protected by you. 

Peekyou.com dives into some bad practices that should worry users and nonusers. In addition to taking unauthorized information-for which I will discuss below-peekyou.com allows for searching of people under the age of 18. This means that sicko's can go to one place to hunt their prey. As we know the younger generation is very liberal with their information and are very effected by the interaction of other on  social networks (Megan Meier). Provided all information can easily give an advantage to the twisted members on society. From the beginning social networks were a dangerous place for children. Now there is  a culmination of a very huge problem. Our kids can be searched and found anywhere at anytime. The site gives easy access to searching by schools. Within the search bar it clearly states "school, college or University name. Why would they seperate school and college? Seems that school would be simple enough, but their is clearly an illustration of something other than college. Which you can only imaging, would be a useful tool for the deranged. 

How bad can this thing get? Well I have searched a wide variety of people I know and have found  a lot of their information (excluded accurate home addresses). My own profile proved to be very frightening steeling a (copyrighted) photo from friendster.com. The location on the map given for me is close to where I once lived.

What can be done? Well there is a legality that is pretty clear. Peekyou.com gives you the following options: 

Sharing of Public Profile Information

All information that is contributed by our Users for inclusion in their public Profiles, in addition to that collected by us from public Web sources, will be available to PeekYou and anyone using the PeekYou Site and other PeekYou services. If you would like us to remove your Profile from our service, send an e-mail to remove@peekyou.com with your request and the Web address of your Profile, and we will gladly remove your information.

Then they followup with: 

NOTE: Most of the information that PeekYou displays can already be found on any public search engine. Because the Web is constantly changing, and we search millions of new and old Web pages every day, we may re-acquired your information unintentionally. We recommend that you check our Site from time to time to ensure that your Profile contains only the information you choose to have displayed, and that we have not re-posted previously deleted information. The best way to avoid having your information found by our search engine (or any other search engine) is to contact the operator of the Site that contains the original source(s) of the information and ask for that operator to remove the displayed information from the Web.

-Oh great now I have to constantly ask you not to put all my information all together. Some public information is not by choice, a good example of this is the news and celebrity pages-which are not news. Plus a something could be posted that has very personal information, like your credit card or social number. Then your a victim not by one site but by peekyou.com.

In their terms they refer to the United States Copyright Act Designation, which we all know clarifies how things can be used. Most notable in the Act is that images and other intellectual property cannot use for advertising purposes without permission. Peekyou.com site advertising is your personal information-posted somewhere by or of you.  An enticement to the site is that your friends have profiles, even if they didn't make it themselves. Peekyou.com uses your image as their "bottle shot" or "car shot". We are their advertising. It should be noted that most social network (friendster & myspace) have limited rights to any property that one posts. This includes particular information on a blogs or profiles such as: photos, writing, name (maybe), age (maybe), & artwork. So in the case of peekyou.com taking your information and re-categorizing it on it's own website is a violation of your intellectual property. Specifically if peekyou.com uses a photo from a website, they have to ask the artist permission for usage.  Copyright Issues peekyou.com can be contacted at:

Attn: Copyright Agent
PeekYou LLC
265 West 37th St,
New York, NY 10018

Mind you I'd love to say that I am an intelletual property lawyer, but I am not. If your information has been highjacked by peekyou.com and peekyou.com does not comply, you should consult a lawyer. I would love suggestions on how we can solve weird sites like peekyou.com.

Tyranny-Volume 1

The English language has an estimated 171, 476 words that are validated by the Oxford Dictionary. These do not include the vast amount of colloquialisms that we now use through speech and the ever growing language of Texting. Of all of these words there is one that rattles the cages of all of those who are free men (woman). This world is Tyranny; for which the equally (Oxford) knowledgeable  Merriam-Webster describes as: "oppressive power & a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force." I have known this word; I have faced it many times, from ignorant jocks, to school system, to freelance jobs in America. In the past when confronted by this word I have faced it with an eagerness to defeat it.  But 2 weeks ago I faced Tyranny inside the walls of a corporate entity. At first I couldn't really understand what to do. Like a fish out of water I just flopped around and did nothing. One would think through my past experiences that I would simple be ready fight the system, but I was ready to just run. This is an all-to-easy route for us, the people who have fought and lost; we "Just simply stop fighting and find a place to hide"(verbalized). In these moments of oppression I remembered when my backbone slipped, and I almost became one of them, the "normals" (verbalized).  

In 2004, I went to the RNC (Republican National Convention). I was eager to gather with like minds to stop the tyranny produced by the Elephant Party. I gathered my energy and arrived with many, carrying signs and waving flags, but what I saw made me surrender my verbal fist. I viewed so many people all griping about different things and not directly focusing on the RNC. Each person of the-what I believe-100,000+ people all had some issue from every imaginable sect of the "liberal" mind. We all wanted the same thing, but we were selfish, and did not come together and say "no", "absolutely not" to the entity(RNC) we were there to fight. It was almost easy for the system to spend 70 million in order to divide and concure us. We did not link arms and face the Imperialism Army, for we were just "bitching" not acting. And those of you that did attend may not agree with that breakdown, but truly you could see by the armed officers pinning us in like cattle,  we "lost the day." Even if the media had covered and correctly counted the army that was us, we were an ugly bunch, fighting amongst ourselves. It was sad, and I felt lost. 

That day made me think there was no real resistant to tyranny and each day after that, as the RNC's leader became more powerful I became weaker and weaker till it was almost hard to believe. I ignored my emotional state and kept up my speech, but truly never found myself, after that day, faced with this element of tyranny again. I avoided the fight and integrated into the system. There I sat, not waiting, but just excepting. This was true 'til one or two days of being a slave for the Tyrannical. 

Out of somewhere deep in my soul came the real power that music, art, and words were suppose to invoke. Up until then my thoughts of resistance had fallen on deaf ears. I grabbed my pen and wrote to instigate a change within the system. I made the choice to stand and face the real "fire(d)". 

I want to say it worked, that my ink on a page made the difference. 

It didn't stop, but my verbal response to an inappropriate order rang in what I hope to be true change. "Absolutely Not, No" and with that there was a change. I now resist and the ink on the page are orders that echo against the Imperialism and tyranny that plagues our nation and our world. Fight the system and stop the Tyranny. 

"Now something must be done...'Cause I'll rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system...I was born to rage against 'em"

-professed  through the vocals of Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine in their piece Now Your Enemy.

Also see

www.axisofjustice.org/

Stimulus Wreck (Check)-Volume

So some of ua have received our incentive checks. And some of us have noticed that not only did the government send a check, the Department of the Treasury also sent a separate letter saying "You are entitled to an economic stimulus payment of xxx as provided by the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008." The best part is that this separate letter seems to come on the same day as the checks. Depending on how your sorted your mail you either found out you had a check or that you were getting a check all in one moment. For me I sniffed out the money first; opened the envelope with the check and looked at what the government had supposedly given back to me to somehow fix our vortex of an economical spiral of death! Then I opened like 7 bills and then I opened a letter telling me I would get a stupid check. Great thanks for letting me know I am getting a check, the check wasn't helpful enough to clarify this. 

Let me break down the stupidity of this situation just so I can be clear. For those of you who haven't gotten your check or notification of a check the notification letters are usually dated after your check has been cut.  This would indicate some sort of delay in ideas. It seems that someone cut the check and said "mmmh we should tell people they are getting a check, so they know." They then wrote a letter and mailed it out the same day the checks were mailed. I am all about notifying people, but come on. I mean does no one in the treasury department do math. Lets' go through the numbers. 

Postage by the US Postal service (at the time of this posting; fck knows its going to go up again-bastards) is 42 cents. 

First a letter goes out with a check to 130 million households. Then the notification letter is sent out to those same 130 million households. (130m households does not clarify actual number of people and what amount they are receiving. This exact information is not written on the IRS website)

That's 130,000,000 x .42 = 54,600,000

And 130,000,000 x .42 = 54,600,000

add those two numbers together and you get 109,200,000. 

Why did they do this? It's not like we are in serious economic trouble-oh wait, WE ARE! 

The government should have used this extra 109.2m to sort out any mess ups, because the government needs money to fix clerical problems. I am sure there are some clerical errors andI  have seem some articles, but the full extent is not known, since it will take more time and MONEY to figure it out.  

In general this concept of giving working class Americans some extra cash seems great. I mean who doesn't want a Hula Whoop and/or a Squeezy doll. But that's not what working class Americans are going to do. I am sure many other literary pieces will illustrated how people are going to pay their bills with the checks, not buy things that will spur economic growth. Not to go into to much details on my disdain for this stimulus idea, but this money is just going to go back into the corporate fat cats that control our electric, gas, water, etc. People should use this to pay their bills and ease the pain of how our cast system is setup, but no ones going to really this money on "stuff". I suggest that if one can, place the amount into a savings account with a high interest rate and just let it sit. This will grow by just leaving it there. Maybe one can only keep it there for a little bit, but a few bucks more is still a few bucks more. Or you can use the old fashion banking system and place the cash in a safe place and use it later. Please consider this option and remember you already gave this money to the government/corporations so see if you can use it for yourself by saving it for the upcoming real rainy days. 

Let them eat War!-Volume 21

Got up this morning and heard Let Them Eat War, by Bad Religion off the Rock Against Bush album. The song echoed through my mind during a political conversation during brunch. The question is should "us" as the liberals really try and take control of a conservative society. If we assume that most (50%?) of our country is conservative or what liberals call the "dumb" or "ignorant", is it right to lead them if we are not the majority. The conservative Reich has a handle on the Midwest. Would it be right for the Liberals, a group who denies Republicanism, to be the LEADERs of such a group?

The obvious first solution that our liberal minds go to is that "we" should split this country up. If we consider that Liberals live in NY & California and the Midwest fences in the conservatives.  We first all laugh, then sigh. Then depression sits in and we have to continue our discussions.

An argument for leading people is the simple that the right (the truly justified, not the right wing) are suppose to be the leaders of human kind. Take for instance the time of Hitler; it can be perceived-in a generalized way-that Germany with its Hitler Youth had a leader that mirrored its national state of mind. Therefore the "just" have an obligation to move in and defeat such tyranny to correct those who are ignorant. Then again did the "just" only react because Germany began infringing on other countries or groups. When do the "just" have the right to really intervened? Is it all the time or only some of the time?

The US has always taken the road that WE are the "Just"; "Our democracy is the way to go." But WE forget that it took time to make changed. We added in Civil (Human) rights slowly into our society, when it started with a quick change. This may have ultimate lead to the sick & twisted segregation between the races in later years, where one race still presided over another in a social slavery. Was it that the designers of the change compromised too much? It is hard to say that if the promoters of this justified change kept to their guns the general public would have quickly agreed. 

Assumable not; People have their convictions and they are mostly going to reject changing what they know.  Humans become frighten of things they don't understand or have never seen before. An article in the recent news illustrated the fear of a tribe untouched by modern (technological) times 

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7426794.stm). This tribe in the remote parts of Brazil, throw spears at the plane that photographed their whereabouts. Obviously this culture is simple afraid of a mechanical bird booming overhead. The first reaction of the tribes men(woman) is to try and knock the plane out of the sky; Maybe not to kill it, but assumable to hurt it or intimidate it. So what if we assume that this society does not have a legal system with checks & balances and that one chief decides the fate of each person. Do we intervene because he could be ignorant to the evolution of human rights? Maybe children are placed in danger in a society test. Like being force to face a lion by themselves. Do we intervene because the child could get hurt or will we destroy their whole existence by just arriving? (see the history of the "Western Movement" for the true reference on destruction of culture.) If we did come in a protect the boy, could it be suggested that the boy would not know how to defend himself in the jungle due to the removal of this one event. As he wonders out for food would he have missed the forced education. Is it for the greater good that he is tested in this manner? Those who watch Star Trek have seen this put into fictional action by the Prime Directive. (Although it seems that there would be no show if they didn't break that rule, like, every episode.)

This issue always comes up in modern medicine. This Brazil tribe does not have access to modern drugs or medical techniques. If they keep getting sick from eating the same poisonous plant do we swoop in and say "no that's bad for you" and/or provide a remedy; will we offset an immunity that could come about through generations? By eating the plant over and over again will their genetics create an immunity to the poison? 

Who is truly knows what to do? We want to know if we didn't have the ultra-conservative would be truly be so liberal? Would we have races, sexes, educations, cultures, & religions all intermingling because we were separated? Or maybe at one time we did start a new nation with the Liberals, and the conservatives emerged because we must have an adversary that enunciates our convictions. 

So the title of Let Them Eat War may not be correct; "They" know not so we must educate. But we should step lightly with understanding because they may just throw spears at us out of fear. Upholding the fictional Prime Directive (Star Trek) may be all that saves cultures or may ultimately kill us all.  To monitor progression of this conservative society could be the truly just thing to do. Make them feel as though their laws and beliefs all still in tacked, but sneak in a slow change? I don't think so. At some point the right truly have to provide justice for all. At the risk of even being unjust. The chance has to be weighed time and time again, but "we" the just  have to step in and force change...right?