One in six Europeans living below poverty threshold: study

One in six Europeans living below poverty threshold: study



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It's Not Your Place!!

It's Not Your Place!!!

One day we are going to wake up in society where we won't be free to exercise our freedoms in public or in our homes, and most of us will be accomplices in helping the architects of the nanny state accomplish this goal. Most won't realize it, because they would be lending their support to what they viewed as a popular cause. I am writing this because recently I read the state that I reside in (Virginia) and the state that I once resided in and hope to again one day (New Hampshire the Live Free or Die state) are attempting to impose smoking bans in public places (restaurants and bars). Most polls say this is safely in the pro-smoking ban camp, and smokers are not a popular bunch, so its easy to support a smoking ban, hell some smokers will support it just to help them quit their habit. It would also be easy to say that I am smoker who has a vested interest in opposing the ban, and I am exaggerating the assault on freedom that I eluded to earlier. I do smoke Cigars on occasion, never while eating in a restaurant, and occasionally at a bar where the owner or management chooses to allow me to, but most of my smoking is done at home or in specialty tobacco shops. The Virginia bill SB1161 protects both homes and specialty tobacco shops, so why get all worked up about this one might ask. Aside from the regulation creep (remember in the 70's and 80's all that was asked for was to separate smoking from non-smoking, and smokers largely agreed as a reasonable compromise), is that the logic, the argument the methods, can all be used to restrict other behavior that nanny state supporters find objectionable, and once you swallow those arguments and accept those premises it hard to resist them on other issues.

Forget what you hear about concern for public health, smoking bans are all about people who don't like smoke around them, and rather than make a choice that a truly free society requires of them (which do I value more going to that restaurant that allows smoking or finding another that caters to non-smokers or even just going home), they would rather use the force and power of government to change others behavior to suit their will. Rest assured that if tomorrow there was a ground breaking irrefutable study that smoking harmed no one other than the one smoking, they would still work to have the government force proprietors to ban something they would otherwise allow. The next time you are in a establishment that allows smoking and you wish there was a law against it, just remember it is not your place, and if you don't like go someplace more to your liking or better start your business that caters to like minded people.

Unfortunately, the advocates of coercion don't really make the argument easy, they know that most people have had the concept of freedom totally driven from their minds. They introduce a third party to justify their argument. First it was secondhand smoke (for the sake of argument lets assume that it is dangerous, although the matter is far from settled) affecting non-smoking patrons, and then it was food service workers and their exposure to secondhand smoke. In both these cases the assumption that is passed off, is that these “victims,” have no choice and that their freedoms have been infringed by those dirty smokers. The fact is the patron and the worker are not forced to be there, they have the same choice that the non-smoker mentioned earlier has, and that is to choose between going into an establishment that appeals to them but allows a behavior they disagree with or remain in a smoke free environment and go somewhere else. If all else the they will appeal to us based on effects on society, health insurance, medical costs, increased government expenditures, (that would lead to another argument about the government and its involvement with health care), but do we want a society that is no longer based on freedom of choice?

We now see that they have started in on fast food, there are people who hate fast food for whatever reason, health, big companies making money selling food they think is sub-standard. They launch campaigns of education against fast food, processed food and junk food, when results don't happen fast enough (like McDonald's going out of business) they introduce the third parties, like children in obesity campaigns and the health insurance arguments like you saw in the anti-smoking efforts, look at the extra-cost to society in health care costs (most of the times it private insurance, that people choose to opt into). I wonder how much sports injuries cost us in health care costs, the only difference is someone thinks it is acceptable behavior to play sports. I say that it isn't someones job to dictate what individual behaviors are acceptable. Now in New York he have laws banning trans-fats, we have gone from education, to third party victims, to legislation in record time. So what other behaviors will they go after next, I remember telling my friends in high school that fast food and junk food were next and it was only a matter of time. It has been about 20 years, and they are on their way to working on fast and junk foods, using very similar arguments. What other offensive behaviors, can they take aim at, alcohol, medications, don't under estimate their ability to make a crisis out of anything, eventually they will be on your doorstep, at firs asking you to be reasonable, then once you have given and inch they will take the mile. There will always be people that think your business is theirs and they will meddle your affairs. They can educate all they want, rant and rave, but we should draw line when they attempt to use the power of government step in and relieve them of burden of living in a free society and make a simple choice. I guess they feel they shouldn't have to. I say to bad.

It Is NOT Your Bar

It Is NOT Your Restaurant

It Is NOT Your Home

It Is NOT Your Life

My CISSP Ordeal

Over the past few months I have been studying for the CISSP exam. CISSP stands for Certified Information Systems Security Professional and is considered one of the standard measure of information security knowledge. I considered waiting until I found out if I passed or not before writing about this, but I felt that if I didn't pass that this would come off as sour grapes, and that would not be my intention. The CISSP is a 250 multiple choice question (as a kicker 50 don't count they are experiments, but they don't tell you which ones they are) test that you have 6 hours to take. When I first learned of this I figured that if you prepare enough that 6 hours would be more than enough time, and it is but not like I thought. I also heard of the tests legendary difficulty and stories of eighty percent first time failure rate on the first try. One friend of mine figure that it should rank up there with with Bar exams and Medical Board exams in stature. I believed that it was difficult, I don't know about comparing it to the Bar or medical boards I have not been close to either process. The test also is described as being a mile wide and an inch deep, you are tested on ten areas of knowledge, that are loosely related (Access control, Telecomunications Security, Security Management, Physical Security, Law and Ethics, Operations Security, Application Security, Cryptography, Security Architecture, Disaster Recovery Planning). I have to say it is every bit as difficult as promised.

I spent 4 months preparing for this exam. The first three month were light is spent time reading preparation texts in between getting married, honeymoon, thanksgiving, Christmas. In the last month I spent time taking practice quizzes (cccure.org) to assess where what areas I needed to re-enforce. That final week I took the week off from work to study, I also called in sub-goalies for my hockey team. One of my colleagues who took the test a couple of years ago told me that if you score 80% or better consistently on the cccure quizzes that you are in good shape and in the last week I was scoring in the 75-85% range on all the quizzes I was taking. I was nervous, but I felt that I did a fair amount of preparation.

Test day February 3rd in Reston VA came, and I was actually taking this test that I have put off for 3 years or so. The test is one of those choose the most correct answer type of thing, and I knew I was in trouble in the first 12 questions, as I put questions marks next to 8 of the first twelve questions, (that is my way of saying I answered as best I can but come back if there is time, because I am not as sure as I would like to be.) Most of the questions I could get down to two possible choices but I was hard pressed to to get into IC2's (testing organization) head and discerned from the question or the answers what was the most correct answer, in my head I could make a case for either. Over the span of the entire test I marked 68 questions to revisit, and that number could have been greater. It took me an hour to go through the first 50 questions (it took 2.5 hours to take 250 question quiz), and 3.5 hours to go through the first pass of 250 questions. Then it took me almost an hour to fill in the dots on the answer sheet, and to double check the accuracy. Then it took me till the 5 hour and 25 minute mark to revisit the 68 questions I had flagged, I didn't come up with a reason to change more than 5-8 of them but I still felt that I was doing myself a dis-service in my second guessing so I stopped at that moment and handed in my test. One of the proctors asked me how it was and I told him it was probably one of the work experiences in my life.

It has been 9 days since and I am waiting for notification as to whether I passed or not. The CISSP lives up to it reputation as a difficult test, and I hope I pass if no other reason as to not have to take it again.