Is North Korea responsible?

It was not to along ago that the American company Sony Pictures Entertainment was cyber attacked by North Korea. Or so it seems. While the Obama Administration’s official stance and the stance of government cyber security experts is that North Korea was behind the cyber attack, independent cyber security experts have doubts and believe there is a possibility that the attack came from a third party hacking organization.

However for good or for ill the die has been cast, President Barack Obama this week announced that in light of the recent cyber attacks North Korea will face new United States sanctions.

In light of the discrepancies about who was behind the attack and North Korea’s subsequent actions I believe I was to hasty in deeming North Korea guilty in the Sony hack. While North Korea is certainly a rogue and tyrannical state its actions after news of the attack broke were not the actions of a guilty nation.

For one North Korea offered to help the US government find out whom was behind the hack and threatened the US if the US refused North Korea’s offer. I, and no doubt the US government, considered North Korea’s offer bizarre and ridiculous as I was certain they were behind the attack.

However in retrospect this offer makes sense especially if North Korea is not behind the attack after all. There is a political component of course, the Chinese government, which supports North Korea, does not approve when North Korea causes unnecessary trouble with the US. In fact the US asked China to help with preventing future attacks that come from North Korea.

The above factors combined with cyber security experts disagreeing on where the attack came from leads me to believe that North Korea was not behind the attack but was setups. This is a theory that cyber security experts have formulated as they believe that traces of North Korea’s code was planted to frame North Korea.

The Obama Administration immediately had a response by shutting down North Korea’s internet, which I believe was a correct move regardless if North Korea was behind the attacks as it disproportionally effects the North Korea elites and punishes them for their people suffering.

But now there are sanctions coming, which regardless of North Korea is guilty or not guilt of the cyber attacks, is the wrong move. Sanctions against North Korea will not effect Kim Jung-un or his inner circle, the sanctions will probably include North Koreas ability to export and prevent food aid from going into the country which will only effect the people of North Korea whom have no say in their government’s actions. Economic sanctions against North Korea will not work as their leaders stay fabulously wealthy by selling illegal arms to country’s such as Iran for hard currency. North Korean elites have little to no liquid assets that the US can freeze unlike sanctions passed against countries such as Russia.

In the end whether guilty or not sanctions, as they have been in the past, will be ineffective in harming Kim Jong-un’s regime. The United States sanctions will disproportionally harm the people of North Korea without harming its leadership. North Korea will become more hostile to aid organizations and it will become risky for aid organizations to bring food into the country. Sanctions that do little to weaken North Korea’ regime and harm its people should not be passed just so the US can appear to be retaliating against North Korea’s leadership.

The Jury is Out

The American legal system, it forms the backbone of our nation, protecting we the people from government abuse and our fellow citizens. It seems that the stalwarts of our legal system, the protectors of our legal system, the protectors of our civil liberties should be beholden to no outside interests.

I am of course referring to those black robe masters of the law, the American judge. Judges,should be clear to enact judicial proceedings in a courtroom without having to take account any factors besides the facts on hand. In the United States that is simply not the case, we have in our midst a phenomena that threatens the sanctity of the judgehood and our legal system, the phenomena of Judicial Elections.

Judges preside over court proceedings, they are often educated individuals whom possess a passion for the law and have the ability to preside over courtroom without biased concerning the case at hand. Judicial elections jeopardize this unbiased that I believe is the hallmark of a great judge, ruling on a legal matter using the facts at hand.

Elections, as is the purpose of elections, makes you beholden to those whom elect you, in the United States people who stand for office are elected not by those whom they represent but to those who donate to them, Judicial elections are no exception to this rule.

Companies have realized that judicial elections garner relatively little attention an is an extremely cost effective way to win legal cases or defeat legislation that could harms said companies commercial interests.

Judges must be appointed, the tenure of all judgeships should not be life long yet sufficiently long enough to outlast any elected official that could appoint them. Elections, force judges to make promises that they are expected to rule on, such promises and the rulings to follow could easily conflict with what a judge should do depending on the particularities of a case. While more democratic on the surface judicial elections harm the sanctity of our Republic and the liberties of its citizens.

Through common sense practices, we the people, could craft the American legal system into what it was intended to be, a shining beacon of law that relies on just defenders, just rulings, and the rigorous appreciation of facts.

Smart Men Copy

Forwarding the ideals of others, I believe, is the simplest way to innovate.

Such a way of thinking has lead to technological innovations since the birth of civilization. There are countless examples of such forwarding throughout time from antiquity to the present.

For example the Romans are famous for their use of the arch to create grand structures such as the Coliseum (they borrowed it from the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks). Where their genius lied however was combining the arch with another invention (that of course wasn’t theirs) concrete. By forwarding the technology of other civilizations, in this case the arch and concrete, and combining them in a novel way the Roman were able to create structures the world had never seen.

Flash-forward, a few years give or take a thousand years, American innovation in the field of space exploration has grounded to a slow march. Space X, founded by Elon Musk, is currently developing innovative space technologies by forwarding the ideas of previous NASA programs most notably the Space Shuttle Program. The Space Shuttle Program was suppose to be a ferry for American astronaut and a renewable spacecraft. It was reusable alright, it just took thousands of people and months to retool the Space Shuttle for its next mission. Forwarding that ideal Space X will make a rapidly reusable rocket that estimates predict will cut the cost of a space craft launch to one hundred dollars a pound in order to enter orbit.

While the cases above seem far removed from each other they are alike in the respect that they involving forwarding the ideals of others to create innovative technologies. Ideas must be forwarded and built on consistently for innovation to remain constant. It seems those who create revolutionary technologies are not first instead they can use an existing idea (or ideas and forward those ideas to make them better.

Henry Ford didn’t event the automobile nor did Steve Jobs invent the mp3 player. They simply looked at amazing but less than perfect concepts and applied their rigorous minds to them. No need to be first in the world of innovation, just come in second and reiterate vigorously.

Mining Space: Humanity’s Cosmic Expansion

Space, the Final Frontier, has long been a topic of human interest. I believe interest in space peaked in the 1960s during the space race between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Is then that John F. Kennedy gave Americans the challenge of putting a man on the moon, while the man would not live such a goal would continue.

Mission Accomplished.

But then what?

America, and may I say the world, grew disinterested with space exploration. We had gotten man to the moon but was it possible to go farther still. Budgets cut, economies damaged, exploring the cosmos fall far on priorities. Yet the trouble for American space exploration was not over.

On August 31, 2011 the US space shuttle program was grounded Currently the only way to get to the International Space Station (ISS), a pinnacle of human space engineering, is to take the Russian’s Soyuz spacecraft. On top of all this no space faring nation takes bold leaps in the realm of manned space travel.

Luckily there are a brave few entrepreneur, willing to challenge the unknowns of manned space explorations. Elon Musk I believe is the most prominent and influential man in the field of manned space travel. His company, Space X, is regularly awarded multibillion dollar contracts to deliver cargo to the ISS. Currently Musk is working on developing a rapidly reusable rocket and has plans to put humans on Mars by 2030.

While I wholeheartedly believe in Musk’ mission and believe he will succeed, there is something else that is required to push humanity into mass space migration.

It is a time-honored tradition of greed; space must be profitable in order for space migration to take off. Currently space is not profitable, from a purely economical standpoint space is worthless. Of course space exploration is more than about a simple profit, it is about engaging in the human spirit of exploration and ensuring the continued survival of humanity.

Yet the need for a source of space capital remains. I believe that such a source of space capital can come from those fast traveling cosmic rocks known as asteroids.

Asteroid Mining!

Asteroid Mining is the future of space commerce and space exploration. Compare it to the exploration of the Americas during the Age of Exploration (1492-1700). Once riches such as gold and silver were discovered and harvested a wave of European nations began sending people to the new world. I believe the same parallel can be drawn between the exploration of the Americas and Space exploration. One, asteroids are a major source of material wealth, asteroids contain metals such as platinum, iron, nickel, and cobalt.

The problem is that currently no manned made object has ever landed on an asteroid although the Rosetta is currently in the process of doing so. Another problem is the mining of asteroids, while I certainly believe that we have the technology to mine asteroids it simply hasn’t been done. The reasons, I believe, is that it will cost billions of dollars to track, land, and then mine an asteroid. But I believe it will be done within my lifetime, an organization, a man, a woman, or a government will successfully be able to mine an asteroid.

Simply put asteroid mining must become a commonality, not an impossibility. And so it will become. Once space is commercialized the mass colonization of mars and our solar system will begin.

O Gerry, Stop Splitting Districts

America is becoming more and more politically partisan both the American People and our supposed representatives in Congress have become more and more determined to seek hard life left wing or right wing policies while rejecting all forms of legitimate compromise. While there are more than a few reasons that hyper partisanship has become the norm, I believe the root of the problems lies with the political technique known as gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the redrawing of congressional districts to gain a political advantage in elections.

Gerrymandering was invented by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, in 1810 he redistricted Massachusetts to account for populations changes. While the original intent behind gerrymandering is muddled one thing is certain: gerrymandering today is simply legal corruption used to reap massive political advantage.

I don’t believe many citizens of this nation are of aware of how gerrymandering works and how it effects them. Under the current political order every ten years, the time when population census take place state legislatures are allowed to redraw congressional districts due to changes in “ population” (at least in theory). In practice gerrymandering is used to create districts that keep the political party doing the redistricting in Congress. Far more than many Americans realize state legislatures are extremely important (or at least important once every ten years), if a political party controls the state legislature that party effectively controls whom in that state is elected to Congress.

For example lets say your the Republican Party of Arizona, you have noticed in the past few decades that Arizona’s population has become more and more Hispanic as immigrants migrate from Latin America to the United States. Before you know it your traditional white Republican voters become the minority in some congressional districts putting Republican Congress seats at jeopardy. In this instance the state legislature, Republican controlled, redraws the district cutting out Hispanic voters (whom currently votes Democrat) and packing in as much white Republican voters as possible. In this scenario the Republican in Arizona are able to hold on to their congressional seats thus benefiting the national party. ( Disclaimer I simply chose the republican party in this example Democrats do the exact same thing.

The process explained above is why congressional districts look like this

What is one to do to combat gerrymandering and the larger threat of partisanship? For one a non-partisan commission, perhaps crafted from a private organization, could be set up to divide congressional districts. However the problem is that non-partisan commissions quickly become very partisan, such is the political America realities. A second more viable solution is this: have state constitution amended to state that congressional districts must be divided mathematically. With todays technology it should be easy to create an algorithm that maps out a state and then divides said state into congressional districts into impartial bits.

Such is the woes of American political realities. Hyperpartisan gerrymandered districts leads to the election of hyperpartisan congressmen and congresswoman whom must pander to their partisan voters lest they be voted out of office.

Gerrymandering is simply one problem that must be fixed in order to return our nation to greatness and reinvigorate its political process.