The Internet Being Handed Off

I've seen many posts expressing concern that the United States is handing off the internet to foreign entities. First off, the internet is already international. It isn't owned by any one country. What really is happening is that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is being privatized instead of continuing to be under the stewardship of the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). It is already a privately owned nonprofit organization, incorporated in 1998. While that seems like just yesterday for some of us, it's eons in terms of changes in the internet.

 ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the central Internet address pools and DNS Root registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. In other words, they handle the registry of domain names (DNS) and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. ICANN is very significant in how we as users on the internet access websites, email, and other information that most internet users don't even see.

The details for privatizing ICANN were ironed out in 2014, but the plan of ICANN from its inception was for United States control of it to be temporary.

As a conservative, I see decreasing government control of ICANN to potentially be a good thing. Of course only time will tell, but it's not handing the internet over to political adversaries. We most likely will not see any major changes in how we use the internet. It may even increase our capabilities to use the internet. Privatizing the phone systems in the United States decreased user cost and opened up possibilities that no one dreamed of when your only option was a black phone connected by cable to the wall and used by turning a dial. Privatizing the organization that oversees the domain naming and internet protocols will likely open the internet up even more than what we've seen already.

These are exciting times to someone who enjoys using technology.

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.

While we celebrate the birth of our Messiah, many sermons have been preached on the significance of God choosing the shepherds for His angels to to announce the holy birth to. Most of them center on God humbling Himself to come in the form of a baby in a lowly stable. They also point out that shepherds were outcasts from society, usually poor, and definitely smelly, and not dressed in finery.

I even heard one preacher go so far as to say that shepherds tended to be dishonest and often stole from others. I beg to differ here. Shepherds had to be trustworthy. After all, they would risk their lives to protect the lambs of their masters. Many times they would have to face off with lions and other wild animals to protect the flock. When they put the lambs and sheep into an enclosed pen, they would lie down across the opening so that anyone trying to steal them or any animals trying to kill them would have to get through the shepherd first. It is no wonder that Jesus referred to himself as the good shepherd.

The shepherds would also be the only ones outdoors at night when the angels made their appearance. Unlike people in the city, they would not be wrapped up in their own lives with their doors and windows bolted shut. While they were not intentionally watching for angels, they were watching, and thus were an ideal audience for the most glorious choir this world has ever heard.

Our earthly customs would have dictated that a birth announcement like this would have been made to the king of the region. The magi who were seeking for Jesus nearly two years after his birth expected the king to know about his birth so that is where they when when they arrived in Judea. When he found out that a king of the Jews had been born in his kingdom, he did not go to welcome the king. No, Herod was not the compassionate kind. Instead, he had his soldiers kill every male baby among the jews in an attempt to kill Jesus. It was only because an angel had warned Joseph and Mary in time for them to escape to Egypt that they didn't kill Jesus too. If the angelic chorus had gone to Herod's castle to make the announcement, he would have tried then to have Jesus killed. For the angels to make their announcement to commoners made much more sense from a practical point of view as well as to show his humility.

Let us be like the shepherds, paying attention when God sends His message of good news, and telling others about that good news.

How to avoid getting scammed on Facebook.

How to avoid getting scammed on Facebook. A person could write an entire encyclopedia on this subject and still not run out of material. Today's topic is video scams.

First off, I work in the IT world. I've been on the internet since it went public, and because of my profession, I am required to know about dangers that the average Facebook user only learns about by being the victim of hoaxes or scams. My purpose with this post is to prevent you being the victim.

How many times have you seen a link that is supposed to be to a video posted by a friend, only to find you aren't getting to view a video when you get there? It happens a lot, and I can guarantee you that there is no video and somewhere, someone is stealing your personal information or collecting "likes" on their page. Either way, you've been scammed.

The first tip is if you are told you have to share or like the video before you can view it. How do you know the video is worth sharing if you haven't seen it yet? Of course the person perpetrating the scam knows the average Facebook user clicks before thinking about that. Heck, I've done it myself.

At this point the worst thing you've done in most cases is encourage the people you shared this video with to also click on it. In most cases the scammer is trying to collect information from you that they can either sell to spammers or use to assume your identity, ruining your credit record while enriching themselves. In the most innocuous cases they are merely trying to get you to "like" several times on their page to use it for commercial gain later by changing the content, but retaining the "likes".

Even worse if it the link prompts you to upgrade your browser, video viewer, driver, or other software before you can view it. What you would be downloading is not an upgrade, but rather a virus. Now you definitely need to back up. If a video requires you to use a nonstandard viewer, chances are you can see the same video by going to youtube.com and searching for that video. Otherwise, there is no real video to see.


Always be cautious when clicking on unfamiliar links, and keep your anti-virus, firewall, and anti-malware software up to date.

The St. Valentine's Day Double Whammy

I get a double whammy every year because my wife Un Hui's birthday is four days after Valentine's Day. Now it's not as hard as it seems because my beloved wife understands and does not expect me to break the bank, especially twice in one week, for which I am eternally grateful. I really love my wife.

Last year for Valentine's Day I baked a heart shaped layer cake and a cluster of heart shaped cupcakes. She liked that so much I may do it again. Now to find the heart shaped cake pans that I shopped all over for last year. Of course I also took her out to dinner, but she has already told me she wants to go out for dinner on her birthday. Now to think of something special to cook for her birthday. Hmmm, maybe smoke a brisket? That might work.

Speaking of which, I think it's mighty nice of our government to make my wife's birthday a holiday this year. She even told me where she wants to go for her birthday dinner and what she wants to eat there. One less thing to have to plan. YES!

Not all whammies are bad, mind you. In this case, I get to do something special for my sweetie. I hope you all have a special Valentine's Day.

A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping,

This morning we lit the Joy candle in the Advent wreath. Joy, yes, even in light of this last week's news, God brings joy. Not necessarily happiness, but joy none the less.

The birth of Jesus didn't happen in a sanitized context of Christmas carols. No, it happened during a time of turmoil, not entirely unlike today.

"This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.”" Jeremiah 31:15 NIV These words were first written by the prophet Jeremiah about 600 years before the birth of Jesus. The next time we see these words is in Matthew 2:18 when the prophecy was fulfilled after King Herod tried to kill Jesus by having all Jewish males under 2 years old killed. Jesus life was spared only because his parents, Joseph and Mary, took him to Egypt.

Again Rachel is mourning her children, but this time instead of being murdered by a jealous king afraid that he would be usurped by Jesus, her children, as well as their protectors, were murdered by a young man whose motives we may never understand.

The fact that this happened just a few days before we celebrate the birth of Jesus makes this even more painful. While the families were looking forward to Christmas celebrations and presents, their lives were suddenly disrupted by unspeakable evil. And yet, for their families, and for the rest of us, life must go on. For those families there will be presents unopened, and there will forever be an empty chair at the dinner table. Eventually there will again be laughter, but there will always be moments of grief that cannot be consoled.

We pray, as we should, for the families and friends left behind, for they are hurting more than most of us can even imagine. We mourn for those who were killed, though they are comforted now in Jesus' arms. We also recognize the heroes: teachers who protected their students with their own lives, and employees in the school office who let the teachers know what was going on. They prevented even more innocents lives being taken.

May God comfort the families in Newtown and ease their pain.

Is the death tax the death knell for organic family owned farms?

Yesterday I wrote a post about the effects on hunting lands, but by the time I was finished typing I realized the reason hunting lands would be eliminated is that family owned farms would be either split up and sold to developers or bought up by large corporate farms. This should be especially alarming to those who want to buy non GMO locally grown organic foods. Most of these farms are family owned. When the owners pass away, with the inheritance tax, the heirs will not be able to afford to carry on the family farm because they won't be able to afford the taxes.

This should not be a Republican vs Democrat issue. Yes the Republicans were the primary proponents arguing for eliminating the death tax, but most organic farms are owned by liberals. (Disclaimer: I tend to be a conservative on most issues, but there are some where we should agree, and this is one of them.)

If we keep the inheritance or death tax in place, we may be only a generation away from losing nearly all access to non GMO foods. The only organic farms will also be large corporate farms instead of family owned farms. Gone are the days when a family could count on their children continuing the tradition of farming the family homestead because the federal government will mandate that it be sold piecemeal to subdivision developers or intact to farm corporations in order for the government to extract its pound of flesh.

Is the Death Tax a Death Knell for Hunting?

This is the title of an article I read this week, and it brings up some important facts. Many family farms are having to be sold off when the owner passes away instead of staying in the family because the heirs can't afford to pay the inheritance or death tax. It's not just the land and buildings, but all the farm equipment, livestock, everything that belon

ged to the family that owned the farm.

Many of these farms are being sold to developers instead of other farmers because the developers are able to pay more per acre since they're going to split up the farm. Because of this, much of the privately owned land that hunters have counted on hunting on will no longer be available, but will be turned into subdivisions and suburbs.

One thing the article didn't mention, since it was in American Hunter, is that this will also decrease the number of acres available for farming and withing a few generations could eliminate all that's left of family owned farms, leaving only the corporate owned farms.

It's not just the corporate jet owners who end up splitting their "fortunes" with the federal government with the death tax. It's also family farmers.

PS - If you don't like GM foods, you've only got a generation left if the family farms have to all be sold off to pay inheritance taxes.