• Russia Responds to Georgia Handling Conflict in South Ossetia

An additional story covering the cyberattacks, when they first occurred in the region, can be found here:

• Cyberattacks Crippling and Defacing Georgian and Ossetian Web Sites

Here’s an excerpt from the Sky News story about the post:

“The map was created by American blogger David Drake who writes for the blog ilovebonnie.net.

David will be keeping the map up to date as events take place.

He told Sky News: “When I first heard about the conflict I was surprised that it was so difficult to find a good map of the area so I decided to make my own.”

“I first became interested in Russia when I took a History of Russian Culture class in my studies at George Mason University. We studied some of the conflicts that have happened, historically, in the region. Obviously Georgia came up during those discussions.”"

The main story from Sky News about the conflict can be found here.

While you’re here, please consider subscribing to my feed, and also be sure to check out the other Google maps post I’ve done including a map of the 2008 submarine cable cuts.

The Bush administration has decided that there is just too much fact-checking occurring for developers when it comes to their effects on endangered species:

“The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don’t require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years…”

This is not the first time the Bush administration has tried to annihilate our environment.

When I first read this article my hear dropped, but I was not surprised in the least. Why? Because I remembered hearing about a major development project that the current administration has been working towards. The NASCO Corridor. Before Bush and friends are removed from office, they want to be sure the NASCO corridor is going forward with full steam. Why does it seem appropriate to tie this endangered species announcement together with the NASCO corridor?

Well, 2 months ago, the NASCO Conference 2008 was held. There, Mexican Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel, speaking on behalf of the Mexican President:

“…emphasized that Mexico recognizes that growing global trade and rising North American trade flows “have generated challenges in infrastructure, logistics and public policy.” She praised the nonprofit, tri-national NASCO and its efforts to unite public and private sector trade and transport stakeholders to overcome these challenges and “promote a secure, efficient transport system in North America that facilitates cross-border trade.””

In addition:

“Undersecretary of Transport for Mexico Humberto Treviño informed attendees of President Calderón’s aggressive National Infrastructure Plan to invest $45 billion in public/private funds in Mexico’s national transportation infrastructure, including in highways, tollroads, railroad network expansion, modernization and expansion of airports, air cargo terminals, seaports and port terminals as well as in major electricity grid transmission equipment and networks and oil and gas pipelines and electric power plants.”

It would seem, from these quotes, that the conference is focused around the transportation of Mexico. So, it is probably a conference made up of mostly Mexican officials from Mexican companies, right? WRONG:

“Top company executives in attendance included Mike Haverty, CEO of Kansas City Southern Railroad; officials from Mexico’s Ferromex Railroad; Roberto González Barrerra of food/tortilla giant Grupo Maseca and Banorte Bank; senior executives from FedEx; and leaders of small, mid- and large-sized trade, logistics and transportation firms across North America.”

… just to name a few.

Two months after this meeting (where U.S. companies as well as U.S. senators attended), there is suddenly a need to make it easier for developers to develop in the United States? Why would there be this sudden interest in giving less oversight to developers?

Enter the NASCO corridor. A highway; a very, very big highway. That’s right, a 10-lane, limited access highway, that runs directly from Mexico to Canada. The effect that this will have on the U.S. economy will be absolutely staggering:

The video above starts to describe just how much of an impact this is going to have. One example offered of how this will have an effect on America is by looking at the Ford company. They worked to release 30,000 jobs in the U.S. and plan on employing 150,000 in Mexico. In addition, they have invested $9,200,000,000 (9.2 billion) in the country of Mexico to help their plans along. But surely an American company opening plants in Mexico would use American parts for production, right? Nope. Where, then, are the bulk of the parts necessary for production coming from in Mexico? China.

It’s interesting that this major U.S. development plan is not mentioned anywhere in the Associated Press release. But then, that shouldn’t surprise us much anymore now, should it?

In the recent conflict that has broken out between Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia, a different kind of war has been waging. There has been a series of cyberattacks against various Georgian websites including news agencies and governmental organizations.

The information is appearing on the wikipedia article as more information becomes available. Many of the websites involved in the attacks are unavailable.

Here are the hacks known to be associated with the conflict:

• 2 Ossetian news sites hacked by Georgian officials to cover up news.
• Georgian National Bank website defaced
• Many Georgian news portals are unavailable
• Georgian Ministry of Foreign affairs website defaced

These are only the reported attacks thus far. The website defacing that has occurred is usually in the form of comparing the Georgian President Saakashvili to Adolf Hitler. This is an image that was grabbed from the main website of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mfa.gov.ge) before it was taken down:

These attacks are reportedly very similar to the ones that occurred in the 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia.

As more information is provided, this page will be updated to reflect the ongoing attacks. If you would like to stay updated, then please be sure to subscribe to my feed.

[UPDATE] - As events occur, I will do my best to add them to the map. It seems that Russia is no longer focusing on South Ossetia, but instead has started attacking all areas of the country of Georgia. The attacks are marked on the map and it can be seen that they are spread throughout the country.

[UPDATE] - Cyberattacks have been commencing against various governmental and news organizations for the country of Georgia. The website for the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mfa.gov.ge) has been defaced, for example. Instead of a website, you are treated to an image of Hitler and Saakashvili. More details (including the image) can be found in this post.

Though the conflict has been going on for some years, today the region of South Ossetia has fallen victim to levels of violence not seen for quite some time.

Russia has decided to attack Georgia for their response against the South Ossetians. Many of whom, Russians say, are still Russian citizens.

It seems a bit too convenient that just a month ago, thousands of troops were meeting with other countries in the region for training exercises called “Immediate Response 2008.” You can see some photos of the event here. In addition, Russia has recently been critical of Georgia for wanting to join up with NATO.

I thought I might be able to get a decent view of the area with Google maps. However, there is very little data for the region. So, as I have done before, I created my own map to further my understanding of what is going on in the region. The map was created through research and the use of a map that was uploaded to Wikipedia detailing the region.

I tried my best to locate the various towns and villages that are scattered throughout the area. In addition, if you click on the View Larger Map link, then you can see the list of conflicts in the order they occurred along the left. I hope that others will be able to use this map to further their understanding of the region and what is really taking place.

In this map, you can find small towns and villages marked with a small green indicator, larger towns with a yellow indicator and capitals marked with reddish indicators. The area known as South Ossetia is highlighted in orange. In addition, if you zoom in, you can see the approximate route that the refugees are most likely taking to flee the area to Russia. The exclamation points mark where conflicts/attacks occurred and the tent-looking images represent military bases that have been attacked:

Now that I have completed the map I feel like I have a much better idea of what is going on over there. I hope that this map will help provide others with the same kind of knowledge.

Please let me know if there are any corrections that need to be made and I would be glad to make them. Also, if you liked this post, please be sure to subscribe to my feed.

Why so confusing? I mean, it seems simple enough doesn’t it?

Well, there’s a lot to consider:

• How do you store the dates?
• How do you store the time zones?
• How do you do the math for adjustments?
• etc.

Through enough research and googling, you can answer most of these questions. However, there came a time to decide how the time zone was going to be displayed to the user. In PHP you have some built in options that are fairly handy. However, we wanted to show the user the time zone abbreviation. In addition, we had to match up what PHP does with the time zone options that we give our users. The time zone options are stored in our database like so:

 timezone_id |                   name              | gmt_offset
-------------+-------------------------------------+------------
           1 | -12:00 International Date Line W.   |       -720
           2 | -11:00 Midway Island, Samoa         |       -660
           3 | -10:00 Hawaii                       |       -600
...

Pretty straightforward list of time zones with their IDs along with the offset in minutes. This does not include every single time zone under the sun mind you.

The PHP functionality provides a fairly easy way to find the different time zone codes in the country/area format such as America/Los_Angeles or Europe/Berlin. You can use functions such as timezone_abbreviations_list to get the offset along with the time zone code or you can use timezone_identifiers_list to get a list of just the time zone codes.

However, PHP does not have any simple means of gathering the time zone abbreviations for each time zone such as MDT or BST. This is the format that we wanted to use to display to our client.

So, here’s a simple function to list them all out for you:

$time_zones = timezone_identifiers_list();
$time_to_use = 'now'; # just a dummy time
$time_zone_abbreviations = array();
foreach ($time_zones as $time_zone_id)
{
    $dateTime = new DateTime($time_to_use);
    $dateTime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone($time_zone_id));
    $abbreviation = $dateTime->format('T');
    if (!in_array($abbreviation, $time_zone_abbreviations))
    {
        echo $time_zone_id . ' - ' . $abbreviation . "\n";
        $time_zone_abbreviations[] = $abbreviation;
    }
}

This will give you a wonderful list of unique time zone codes that you can use now:

Africa/Abidjan - GMT
Africa/Addis_Ababa - EAT
Africa/Algiers - CET
Africa/Bangui - WAT
etc.

Eventually you may come to an unexpected result in the list:

Factory - Local time zone must be set--se

But, for the most part, this is a useful list.

Now, this list is okay, but what if you need to know the offsets that go with this? Well, PHP provides another function called timezone_abbreviations_list. This gives us the time zone code and the offsets. Cool: let’s modify our previous function and make our list that way.

This is where some unexpected results start to occur. The timezone_abbreviations_list function returns an array of time zones that are sorted by their abbreviation like so:

["mst"]=>
  array(32) {
    [0]=>
    array(3) {
      ["dst"]=>
      bool(false)
      ["offset"]=>
      int(-25200)
      ["timezone_id"]=>
      string(14) "America/Denver"
    }
    [1]=>
    array(3) {
      ["dst"]=>
      bool(false)
      ["offset"]=>
      int(-25200)
      ["timezone_id"]=>
      string(13) "America/Boise"

    etc...

Our previous function extracted the abbreviation by using the long description, such as America/Boise, to create a date. We are going to do the same thing, only we are going to use the timezone_ids that are given to us from the timezone_abbreviations_list function. It seems like this would be the correct route since we can have access to the offsets from that function. For now, we just want to produce the same list as we did before with this function:

$time_zones = timezone_abbreviations_list();
$time_to_use = 'now'; # just a dummy time
$time_zone_abbreviations = array();
foreach ($time_zones as $key => $time_zone_array)
{
    foreach ($time_zone_array as $key => $info)
    {
        $time_zone_id = $info['timezone_id'];
        $dateTime = new DateTime($time_to_use);
        $dateTime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone($time_zone_id));
        $abbreviation = $dateTime->format('T');
        if (!in_array($abbreviation, $time_zone_abbreviations))
        {
            echo $time_zone_id . ' - ' . $abbreviation . "\n";
            $time_zone_abbreviations[] = $abbreviation;
        }
    }
}

It all goes fine and dandy until it gets to the end of the list:

...
Antarctica/Vostok - VOST
Pacific/Efate - VUT
America/Godthab - WGST
Asia/Yakutsk - YAKST

Fatal error: Uncaught exception ‘Exception’ with message ‘DateTimeZone::__construct() [function.DateTimeZone---construct]: Unknown or bad timezone ()’

Uh-oh, that doesn’t seem good. It looks like it is trying to construct the time with no time zone information. A bit of code will show us where the problem lies:

$time_zones = timezone_abbreviations_list();
foreach ($time_zones as $key => $time_zone_array)
{
    var_dump($key, $time_zone_array);
}

We can go through the list of arrays and look to see where the problem is occurring. Eventually we come to listings that look like this:

string(1) "a"
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  array(3) {
    ["dst"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["offset"]=>
    int(3600)
    ["timezone_id"]=>
    NULL
  }
}
string(1) "b"
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  array(3) {
    ["dst"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["offset"]=>
    int(7200)
    ["timezone_id"]=>
    NULL
  }
}

Yes, the entire alphabet is at the end of the list. There are a bunch of arrays with keys of a-z that have null timezone_ids associated with them. What are they there for? I can’t find any rhyme or reason to the entries, but they are there, and they mess up our function.

A quick change to our code to check for empty timezone_ids will make our function work properly:

$time_zones = timezone_abbreviations_list();
$time_to_use = 'now'; # just a dummy time
$time_zone_abbreviations = array();
foreach ($time_zones as $key => $time_zone_array)
{
    foreach ($time_zone_array as $key => $info)
    {
        $time_zone_id = $info['timezone_id'];

        if (!empty($time_zone_id)
        {
            $dateTime = new DateTime($time_to_use);
            $dateTime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone($time_zone_id));
            $abbreviation = $dateTime->format('T');
            if (!in_array($abbreviation, $time_zone_abbreviations))
            {
                echo $time_zone_id . ' - ' . $abbreviation . "\n";
                $time_zone_abbreviations[] = $abbreviation;
            }
        }
    }
}

Now we should have the same list we did before. But, we don’t. The first script, using the timezone_identifiers_list function gave us 175 results. Our other script? 136. So, what are the time zones that exist in the timezone_identifiers_list function that don’t show up in the timezone_abbreviations_list function? Here’s the list:

Indian/Cocos - CCT
Indian/Christmas - CXT
Pacific/Tarawa - GILT
Etc/GMT+1 - GMT+1
Etc/GMT+10 - GMT+10
Etc/GMT+11 - GMT+11
Etc/GMT+12 - GMT+12
Etc/GMT+2 - GMT+2
Etc/GMT+3 - GMT+3
Etc/GMT+4 - GMT+4
Etc/GMT+5 - GMT+5
Etc/GMT+6 - GMT+6
Etc/GMT+7 - GMT+7
Etc/GMT+8 - GMT+8
Etc/GMT+9 - GMT+9
Etc/GMT-1 - GMT-1
Etc/GMT-10 - GMT-10
Etc/GMT-11 - GMT-11
Etc/GMT-12 - GMT-12
Etc/GMT-13 - GMT-13
Etc/GMT-14 - GMT-14
Etc/GMT-2 - GMT-2
Etc/GMT-3 - GMT-3
Etc/GMT-4 - GMT-4
Etc/GMT-5 - GMT-5
Etc/GMT-6 - GMT-6
Etc/GMT-7 - GMT-7
Etc/GMT-8 - GMT-8
Etc/GMT-9 - GMT-9
Factory - Local time zone must be set--se
Pacific/Port_Moresby - PGT
Pacific/Ponape - PONT
Pacific/Palau - PWT
Pacific/Fakaofo - TKT
Pacific/Truk - TRUT
Pacific/Funafuti - TVT
Etc/UCT - UCT
Pacific/Wake - WAKT
Pacific/Wallis - WFT

So now we know that we can get a more complete list of the PHP abbreviated time zones by just using the timezone_identifiers_list function. We are going to use that list and instead of relying on the offset given to us by the timezone_abbreviations_list, we are going to use the built-in getOffset function to get the offset from GMT:

$time_zones = timezone_identifiers_list();
$time_to_use = 'now'; # just a dummy time
$time_zone_abbreviations = array();
foreach ($time_zones as $time_zone_id)
{
    $dateTime = new DateTime($time_to_use);
    $dateTime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone($time_zone_id));
    $abbreviation = $dateTime->format('T');
    $offset = $dateTime->getOffset() / 60;
    echo $offset . ' - ' . $abbreviation . ' (' . $time_zone_id . ')' . "\n";
}

This looks like the useful list that we were looking for in the beginning:

0 - GMT (Africa/Abidjan)
0 - GMT (Africa/Accra)
180 - EAT (Africa/Addis_Ababa)
60 - CET (Africa/Algiers)
...

Now you know all the acceptable time zone abbreviations to use for PHP! But wait, there’s a catch (isn’t there always?):

Some time zone abbreviations refer to more than one time offset!

Do’h!

Let’s modify our function so that we know which ones to be careful for:

$time_zones = timezone_identifiers_list();
$time_to_use = 'now'; # just a dummy time
$time_zone_abbreviations = array();
foreach ($time_zones as $time_zone_id)
{
    $dateTime = new DateTime($time_to_use);
    $dateTime->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone($time_zone_id));
    $abbreviation = $dateTime->format('T');
    $offset = $dateTime->getOffset() / 60;
    if (!array_key_exists($abbreviation, $time_zone_abbreviations))
    {
        $time_zone_abbreviations[$abbreviation] = $offset;
    }
    else
    {
        if ($time_zone_abbreviations[$abbreviation] != $offset)
        {
            // We have two offsets for the same abbreviation
            $previous_offset = $time_zone_abbreviations[$abbreviation];
            $same_abb_diff_o[$abbreviation] = $previous_offset . ' and ' . $offset;
        }
    }
    $time_zone_ids[$abbreviation] = $time_zone_id;
}
foreach ($time_zone_abbreviations as $abbreviation => $offset)
{
    echo $offset . ' - ' . $abbreviation . ' (' . $time_zone_ids[$abbreviation] . ')' . "\n";
}
echo "Watch out for:\n";
foreach ($same_abb_diff_o as $abbreviation => $info)
{
    echo $abbreviation . ' same abbreviation used for ' . $info . "\n";
}

This gives us our same list before, but it lets us know that there are a few to watch our for at the end:

CDT same abbreviation used for -300 and -240
AST same abbreviation used for -240 and 180
ADT same abbreviation used for -180 and 240
CST same abbreviation used for -360 and 480
GST same abbreviation used for 240 and -120
EST same abbreviation used for -300 and 600
IST same abbreviation used for 330 and 60
WST same abbreviation used for 480 and -660

So what did we learn here today?:

• There are helpful time zone functions available in PHP.
• When speaking of time zone abbreviations, you may get unexpected results between the timezone_identifiers_list function and the timezone_abbreviations_list functions.
• The timezone_abbreviations_list function returns an array that (for some odd reason) has time zone entries for each letter of the alphabet, a-z, that have no valid timezone_id.
• Using the time zone abbreviation when setting time zones is not always safe.

I hope this post was helpful to those struggling to understand the time zone functions or to others who are trying to utilize time zone abbreviations within PHP. Once you understand how the time zone functions work, and how you can get access to the abbreviations, it becomes a bit easier to understand how to shape your code for your application.

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Most jobs require that you have certification ahead of time. Once you have the magical piece of paper (or pieces of paper), you will probably have to prove your abilities in some way before you even get to talk to the person who may be able to refer you to the person that might be able to hire you. Usually this “proof of competence” comes in the way of a verbal or written quiz.

Depending on the business, you may have to answer the questions in the interview, or you may be able to take the quiz home and use reasonable resources to answer the questions to the best of your abilities.

This particular applicant apparently didn’t understand that you should, at the very least, do your own work. He got pwnd for it.

The original post was from a user named bradcarr in the Ubuntu linux forums. It was entitled “Calling All Linux Experts”:

“If I could ever so kindly ask the Linux world for some help.

I have applied for a job that is in a heavy Linux environment and I have been sent a questionnaire about my knowledge. I know my way around pretty good and just want double check my answers. Some of the questions and a gim-me, some take some thinking and some are just down right hard. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Here are the questions:

1. Give an example of set of shell commands that will give you the number of files in a directory
2. How do you tell what process has a TCP port open in Linux
3. On a Red Hat Linux Variant how do you control whether a service starts when the system boots
4. How do you tell the amount of free disk space left on a volume
5. Give an example of a set of shell commands to tell how many times “bob” has logged on to the system this month
6. Give an example of a recursively copying a directory from one location to another.
7. How do you modify the IP and Net mask of a system running a Red Hat Variant of Linux
8. Give an example of a set of shell commands that will give you the number of “httpd” processes running on a Linux box.
9. On CentOS or Fedora based system using the package management application, how do you tell what package provided the file “libnss_ldap.so”
10. What is the difference between VTP client, server, and transparent
11. What is the maximum length of CAT6
12. How does one set up a layer two link to share VLANs
13. How does one implement redundant links at Layer 2
14. What is the difference between a hub, switch, and a router
a. What are the security advantages of switch vs. hub
15. Show an example of using telnet to learn the headers of an http server.
16. In what OSI layer does PPP exist
17. What’s the difference between TCP and UDP
18. Given a DNS server that has just started (with an empty cache) and host contacting this DNS server (using it’s OS setting) to learn an address for google.com, list the steps the DNS server will take to learn it with IP addresses (each step will have multiple possible IP addresses – you need choose only one per step).
19. Why are layer 2 loops bad, and what protocol was designed to prevent them
20. Given a radius server at 10.0.0.2 and a shared key of ‘abc123’ show the IOS commands necessary to authenticate switch users against the radius server, while still allowing the use of local username / password pairs

THANKS FOR THE HELP!!!!!!!!!!”

Users were quick to respond with reasonable answers to his post like this one from dcstar:

“How about you supply the answers so we “experts” can tell you if they are correct or not, because I for one will not be taking the risk of aiding and abetting someone to get a job they may not be qualified for by potentially helping them cheat (and possibly prevent someone that is qualified from succeeding).

If you don’t answer then those others on this forum who may not be as cynical as me may have learned a valuable lesson themselves…..”

However, the real kicker was the response on page two of the post from a user named ptinsley:

“For those who have commented, it is indeed an entry level network administration position with some Linux skills required as most of our network management tools run on Linux. I would also like to say thank you for the very sensible comments you all have made about the call for answers. And “bradcarr” while you haven’t broken the rules of my questionnaire you have definitely broken the spirit of the exercise. I did indeed say you could use any resource available to you, but didn’t it cross your mind that this might be the wrong thing to do? I want to see the “real world” ability of a potential employee, not what they can recite in an interview but what they can come up with using their normal information sources to solve a problem or research a subject.

This has shown me that you won’t take the initiative to research a problem, even when it might land you a job. I “googled” most of these questions before making the list and most of them are very easily discovered. It didn’t seem to me that I was asking too much for people to use mailing lists, forums, IRC whatever to compile the answers themselves. I actually expected to see some questions show up on forums but I didn’t expect someone to paste the entire thing and expect the forum users to do all the work that would qualify you for an interview. I think at this point you could save us all some time and not turn the answers back in, I already have the information I need on your answers.

As far as the rest of you, if there are any of you reading this thread that live in the Nashville area that want a network administration job with some Linux work feel free to shoot me your resume at [please check original post for email address]. Oh, while you are at it, go ahead and send me the answers to the questions :)”

Yup, I think pwnd would definitely be the correct word here.

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This video is particularly interesting because it focuses on the treatment of a minor. Definitely worth the 10 minutes:

Thanks to Drew Carey and reason.tv for the wonderful video. Hopefully politicians will start to wake up or the Federal Government will start to butt out.

More information about some of the necessary steps towards changing the drug policies in America are explored in my other post, which is entitled: “Necessary Components in an Exit Strategy for the War on Drugs.”

If you liked this post, then please consider subscribing to my feed.

Kucinich released a letter to his colleagues which asked the following of them:

“This Thursday evening I will bring a privileged resolution to the House with a single Article of Impeachment of President Bush for taking our nation and our troops to war based on lies. We owe it to our troops who even at this hour stand as sentinels of America because they love this country and will give their lives for it. What are we willing to do to match their valor and the valor of their successors? Are we at least willing to defend the Constitution from the comfort and security of our Washington, DC offices?”

The President is being accused of:

“Deceiving Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq WMDs to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization of the use of military force against Iraq.”

The article has been introduced and as of this writing, it is being voted upon to refer to the judiciary committee. (42-34 with 5:00 minutes left) (51-52 with 3:00 left) (59-64 with 2:00 left) (70-77 with 1:00 left) (77-80 with :30 left) (85-83 00:10 left)

SUCCESS!!! - (238 - 180) The Senate Judiciary Committee will review the article of impeachment. Oh my gosh, we might get to see justice after all.

If 30+ reasons weren’t enough… maybe one solid reason will be.

During this time, my fiance and I have had the chance to take a trip across the country to the capital of this nation, Washington, D.C. There, I was able to speak with one of the Senators from the state I live in. It was a brief meeting but the feeling of empowerment was worth it. Although I know the words that I said had little effect, it is still nice to have that weight lifted off of your shoulders.

“Which weight is that,” you ask?

“The weight of knowing that you are aware of problems going on around you without taking the time to do something about it.”

During the past month or so we have seen attacks on our own liberties in ways never thought possible. Criminal actions are being waived aside and criminals, themselves, are allowed to roam the world without having to answer to anyone:

Telecommunications companies (such as Verizon) are growing at huge rates with acquisitions occurring every few months it seems. Will it be long before we’ll be looking at the value of the KBps instead of the cost of dollars per barrel?

The one person, who it seemed had the drive (and ability) to cause the necessary change has failed us as well. He too, has subscribed to the “Timothy Leary-esque” command that the government seems to be trying to shove down our throats:

“Tune in, turn on, and MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.”

An excellent book by Bill Emmott, former editor and chief for the Economist was recently released:

In it, the author details how America will be surpassed within the next 20-25 years as the global economic dominator. It has started to increase my desire to look beyond the walls of our country for solutions to our future and opened up my eyes to that area of the world. Is it true that this country, the United States of America, is actually slipping in the realm of global economic dominance? Though the signs have been there for a while, there was always the inkling of doubt that America could be a great country again. However, these inklings have “tuned in, turned on” and are diminishing with a steady pace.

Whether it be economics, law, or government, it seems that the world as we know it (we being Americans), is changing beneath our feet every day… faster and faster. Our country, is being driven towards some end with the citizens being drug behind it in a fashion not dissimilar from Laramie, Wyoming. Where fear, hate, and stupidity cause the damage and the only people left feeling like winners are the ones driving the truck.

Do you feel fine?

Offering vast amounts of information and very interesting insight into what lawyers across the country and government officials are really starting to do, Representative Goodman had a lot of good things to say. This began with a brief history of the war on drugs, and concluded with question and answer portion in which Goodman was confronted with tough questions about a very complex problem. The discussion took place in the basement of a liberal arts building on the University campus.

He started off in the early American historical drug use:

“The Chinese were the first targets in the late 1800s and 1900s. The opium laws. Against smoking it.”

He continued with:

“They built our railroads and smoked opium at the end of the day to relive the pain, but then there were too many of them.”

His history then started to highlight the racial turn that the laws on drugs took.

“Plantation owners fed their black slaves cocaine to make them work better.”

Goodman continued by stating some very interesting statistics by proposing the following explanation for what people are imprisoned for:

“Imagine possession of vegetable matter is a crime. Transferring vegetable matter from one person to another is a crime.”

He continued along these racial lines saying:

“71-72% of drug users are white, and they are do their drugs indoors…but 75% of Americans in prison for drugs are Latino or African American.”

He later made a similar comparison in the regards to crack: “65% of crack users are white. But 90% of criminal crack offenses are black.”

He then began to move the discussion towards the economic side of things. Using marijuana as an example he stated: “marijuana is illegal solely because of economic reasons.” He then went on to discuss how William Randolph Hearst brought the Mexican sounding word to Americans to begin a war against the hemp plant. How Hearst worked with Harry J. Anslinger against the hemp industry as it threatened the giant paper-making and timber industry. After all,

“…you can make around 10x as much paper from hemp than from wood pulp.”

Hemp can even be processed to create plastic, according to Mr. Goodman, which led the DuPont company to get patents on products so as not to allow hemp-based products to compete with their rapidly growing petroleum-based laden industry.

“1937 is where we branched…we could be either a biomass based economy or a petroleum based economy. And look what happened.”

He jumped forward to the Nixon administration where the phrase “war on drugs” really started to take flight. Here, Goodman said, is where the war became “about vulnerable groups.” However, the vulnerable groups were colorblind. Even white America was being dragged into the mix and people were

“…treating social dislocation of poor whites as a drug problem.”

This, however, did not address the problem at hand. He said that we “need to address the economic roots” to get anything done.

So, what did Representative Goodman say are some of the necessary components in an exit strategy for the war on drugs? The first, was offering treatment to drug users instead of prison time. This, he stated, was a very necessary and missing component in the state of Montana. Since becoming a representative in the state of Washington, he has seen the direct payoff in the investment of treatment. Two years ago, they changed the funding for prisons from 200 million dollars to 269 million dollars in one year. Savings were yielded almost right away. Because they did the research, and realized that if you treat someone, they are not going to get in trouble again and/or harm someone. The state saved 84 million dollars as a result. that’s 15 million dollars in a year. Imagine the possibilities if this were done at a federal level. What does the government spend money on when it comes to drug prevention?

Programs like D.A.R.E., or Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Goodman stated that %75 of schools have the D.A.R.E. program in them. However, this is the only program that has been evaluated at a federal level. What did Goodman have to say about this program?

“Exposure to the D.A.R.E. problem means increased drug use.”

In his opinion, the program offers “no attention to the kids needs.” Kids needs, is something that also needed to be looked at. While we wage war on drugs in their minds, we feed them drugs such as Paxil. Goodman jokingly offered that we prescribe this kind of drug for “generalized anxiety disorder, otherwise known as shyness.” Goodman went on to say that we should not “just say no,” but we should “Just say know. K-N-O-W.” His humorous undertones to the discussion continued offering that “We have given kids a choice, in school, between crack and diet crack.”

“As a result of 50 billion dollars spent in the war on drugs, drugs are plentiful, cheaper, and more pure than ever before. Imagine what the 50 billion dollars could have done for early childhood education or health care for Americans. We just have to keep fighting this war on drugs…prohibitions have not worked.”

Representative Goodman called for a “regulatory scheme” stating that an exit strategy to the war on drugs needs to examine fiscal policy as well as family policy. One of the biggest hurdles in developing an economic regulatory scheme in the trade and sale of drugs was the fact that interstate commerce falls under law of the Federal Government. Or, in the words of Attorney General Robert Spire:

“The Commerce Clause gives the United States Congress full plenary power to regulate interstate commerce, and therefore, Federal statutes passed by Congress and Federal administrative rules and regulations passed under proper authority from Congress are capable of pre-empting any state legislation or regulation of the same subject.”

An amendment to this rule, Goodman stated, would help to allow states to come up with their own laws about how to regulate the sale of drugs which offer medicinal purposes such as marijuana.

So, does Representative Goodman want all drugs to just be legalized? No. He says:

“People should be allowed to say, ‘I want sovereignty over my own mind.’ But the end of my liberty ends at the end of your nose.”

“A drug should be regulated according to its propensity for harm.”

The current classification of drugs exist in a series of schedules. Schedule 1, being the one needing to be most examined. Drugs within this schedule are under complete prohibition in this country in terms of laws; drugs such as cannabis, crack, ecstasy. Even though some of the drugs were originally developed to help people. “Ecstasy,” Goodman said, “is the number one treatment for post traumatic stress disorder experienced by soldiers in the military.”

What does the rest of the world think? It seems that the trends are leaning towards Goodmans beliefs. Goodman stated that in Germany if you are a drug addict you are given a certificate that states as such which entitles users to drugs administered in a safe, controlled environment. Because of programs like this, Amsterdam has around the same number of heroine addicts in the country that they did in 1976. Around 25,000 people.

It seems that America may be leaving itself in the dust again. It’s nice to know that we have people in the government that don’t want to just give up and not talk about it. We need more Representatives who are willing to talk about regulation and control instead of legalization. There were over 850,000 arrests for marijuana last year. Goodman hopes that through the results of many years of discontinuous change, there will be a breakthrough akin to the falling of the Berlin wall.

So what can we do?

Talk to people. Write letters; hand-written letters stating your feelings and opinions to anyone you think can make a difference. Educate people. Get the conversation started.

You can start here by sharing ideas about what you think are necessary components in getting America out its war on drugs. Here are the results from the grupthink.com topic so far:

Here are some links to additional information in relation to Representative Goodman:

• King County Bar Associations Drug Policy Project
• Friends of Roger Goodman
• Official Washington State Gov. site for Mr. Goodman
• Effective Drug Control: Toward a New Legal Framework - an informative 149 page report released in 2005 outlining much of the information Goodman covered in his speech as well as an in-depth look at topics related to the war on drugs

Additional links to organizations devoted to this kind of work:

• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
• Voluntary Committee of Lawyers
• The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

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