Bay Area Murder by BART Cop

I'm in agreement with the folks at Reason on this story.  It seems to be highly likely that the BART (subway) cop intentionally killed a handcuffed man who was on the ground surrounded by cops.  The cop in question is no longer with the department.  If he isn't put away for a while then I will have truly lost some faith in our justice system.

Joe the Plumber is going to Israel

As they say, the truth is stranger than fiction; or at least funnier.  Joe* the plumber** is heading to Israel to report on the Gaza conflict.  His plan is to find the "average Joes" of Israel and talk to them about their problems.

Keep in mind, this is the guy who said that Obama's election would be "death to Israel", which, obviously was not very prescient since Israel is still alive and kicking, post-election.

*his name is sam

**he is not a plumber

OpenDNS offers speed, security

I started playing around with Open DNS today.  DNS stands for domain name system, and the mechanisms that drive it are one of the ancient pieces of the internet, going all the way back to the early 1980s.  

On a simple level, DNS will turn a domain name into an IP address. For example, you type in google.com and the DNS server figures out that it is 74.125.45.100, and you get to the site.  The problem is that some ISP's, like mine (Cox), have somewhat crappy DNS servers.  This can lead to longer page loads.  Also, DNS servers can be compromised and by default they allow users to transition to sites that are "bad", for example, phishing sites.

What Open DNS does is apply the Wikipedia approach to trusted sites.  Users (and there are many of them) will designate a site as a phishing site or a porn site.  Other users confirm this and vote.  With enough votes, the site is tagged with that label.  

Now comes the fun part.  You do some very easy modifications to your computer or router and you are now using the Open DNS servers instead of your ISP's.  You can choose to block entire categories of sites or specific.  The way they make money is if you type a wrong address, you are transitioned to one of their ad pages, which looks like Google.  Pretty innocuous, if you ask me.

If you want to try it out, go ahead and point your DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.  

I will post an update on this very useful service once I've had the time to play around with it a bit more.

Paging Dr Gupta: For Surgeon General

The word is, Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be Barack Obama's pick for Surgeon General.  The famous neurosurgeon appears often on CNN and is already practically the nation's doctor.  He is a familiar, trusted face.  Not to mention a good doctor.  

The SG post is not particularly glamorous, but having the closest thing to a celebrity doctor that is possible (although Dr. Oz would have worked too) may help him to get across the government's message on health.

Middle east conflict benefits OPEC

Oil prices have climbed 38% in recent weeks, mainly due to the Gaza conflict.  What is ironic about this, is that as Israel, right or wrong, continues to press into Gaza, the source (oil) of the money that funds Hamas continues to grow in price.

Is this enough for the remainder of the GOP?

Barack Obama's stimulus package, which will hopefully be passed soon after he takes office (only 15 days away!!!!!) will contain $300B in tax cuts.  While this is not quite as much as Bush's tax cuts, it does a lot to convincing the remaining GOP members that Obama is for real.  This tax cut would give almost $500 to every American per year, which is a decent amount of money for many of my fellow citizens.

Seat 'em both

There are still some unresolved senate seats lingering.  I'm going to skip NY for the moment, since there's no clear declaration if Caroline Kennedy will be appointed (I hope not; as her experience is non existent).

The two other seats are in IL and MN.  I think that both Al Franken (D-MN) and Roland Burris (D-IL) should be seated as United States Senators.

Let's first look at Franken's seat.  The MN State Canvassing Board has certified results that show Franken winning the seat by 225 votes.  He actually was down with the first results, but the recount shows him a clear winner.  The result was the direct consequence of shrewd lawyering, but that is a moot point.  He is the winner, and deserves a 6 year term.  The Republican who holds the seat for a few more days, Norm Coleman, plans to file lawsuits challenging this result, but given our litigious nature and the possibility for lawsuits to last for a sustained time, Franken should be seated now.

Now we move to the most interesting seat, Barack Obama's old seat in IL.  The governor, Mr. Blagojevich, has appointed Roland Burris to the seat.  Burris has already called himself Senator.  We all know that Blagojevich allegedly tried to sell this very seat.  However, he has not been indicted or convicted of any offense.  As his is presumed innocent for the time being, this appointment is legal.  The only hiccup is that the Illinois Secretary of State did not sign the appointment.  But it would be quite unprecedented for the Senate to refuse to seat him.  I think for the time being, he should be seated.  If Blagojevich goes to jail or is indicted, the Senate can then decide if it wants to remove Burris.

Kaine to be DNC Chairman

Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia, will be the next chairman of the Democratic Party.  He is a very close friend of Obama, and was one of the first state officials to endorse his bid for president.  In this new job, he will help push Obama's agenda with other party members.  This is great news for Tim Kaine!

3 million new jobs

If you want to know what the next year will look like, take a look at President-Elect Obama's weekly radio address below.  Expect a push on renewable energy, infrastructure repair, and modernization of healthcare systems, which is hopefully the first step towards universal healthcare.