Dan Lipka Web Log

During times of danger, throughout the history of this country, our government has withheld certain civil rights from the people in order to protect something “greater” than an individual’s rights. On almost all of the times this has happened, it has later been looked upon as a mistake (McCarthism, Vietnam Draft, even Lincoln regretfully dismissed many rights during the early stages of the civil war). Today, there are factions around the world that pose a threat to the US and its citizens and the current administration believes it has the right to encroach on our civil rights in the name of national security. This is evident in (at least) two secret programs the government operates to track the financial and communications records of anyone in this country. Furthermore, the administration has accused the people who exposed these secret programs of treason. It makes me wonder what are the other secret programs we don’t know about. They are already (as part of the Patriot Act) coll

Congress is currently debating an increase to the federal minimum wage from its current rate of $5.15/hour. The Democrats have a reasonable argument which states that nobody, especially a family, can live on that wage (which is just over $10,000/year). The Republicans say that wages should be determined by the economic laws of supply and demand (and not by arbitrary governmental regulations). This debate has gone on for years, and I feel that the democrats have failed to ask the Republicans some simple questions that could change the debate; the questions are “Do you support lowering the rate from $5.15/hour? If not, why $5.15, that is an arbitrary number isn’t it? What makes that number good for you? Do you think it is a fair wage?” A Republican can’t say that they want to reduce the minimum wage, so they are left supporting something they oppose. Than again, but not increasing the minimum wage, it is essentially lowering it (due to inflation). If you look at inflation adjusted rates

The following is part of a letter I wrote to my only friend who watches the World Cup, surprisingly he is not from the US.... Iain, I just wanted to wish Scotland the best of luck in the world cup...hmmm, wait I don't see them there. It seems that the English won't let the scots have their own team. poor poor scots. Anyway, now that you are a US citizen are you rooting for the home team? I don't think this is the year for the US, which is a good thing, for as I have explained, I hope the US never wins the World Cup; it would just infuriate the world too much to have us win and we won't even care about it. It's just showing off, it's like it Michael Jordan winning a spelling bee, it's just not fair to the home-schooled Mormon kids who can’t get a date. (However, it is inevitable that US will win the World Cup eventually, their team is drastically improving, the young players are great, and they are one superstar (maybe Freddy Adu) from giving great youn

I didn’t write about the house for so long as I was afraid of jinxing the whole deal. (actually in the very back, tiny regions of the paranoid part of my brain, I thought the now previous owners of the house would read my blog and they would become even more paranoid than they had become). In the time between signing the contract and the closing (about 4 weeks) there was mind-numbing, stressful drama. The owners wouldn’t let us into the house to measure or look around. The title search revealed the there was a lack of permits on records for a number of things and the owners wouldn’t let us send inspectors over. To make the story short; in the end there was nothing wrong with the house, but we were really stressed that the owners were hiding something horrible from us. Everyday was something new that they wouldn’t let us do; it was the largest investment of my life and I felt I couldn’t do the proper research, and I wasn’t reassured by assurances from people who said that this was