By Brian Dann
Many Christians and those on the right believe that life begins at conception.  I’m gonna say something that may get me in trouble and it may come back to bite me but oh well, here it goes.  I think they’re crazy! I think they have totally missed the boat here.  There is no way that life begins at conception, that is just utter ridiculousness, because the real truth is life begins much, much, much earlier than at conception. The truth is life begins at Spermatogenesis, or the creation of sperm.  Oh, I know what you are saying to yourself. That is just a bunch of stinkin’ thinkin’ Brian. Well Darn! (oops! please forgive me for swearin’ like a Mormon who couldn’t baptize a dead Jew,) but this whole “when does life begin” debate really gets my panties in a holster!   Have you ever seen sperm up close?  Seriously, they are so darn cute with their oversized heads and their long wriggily tails! They’re like tiny little half people! Couldn’t you just eat them up?!  But I wouldn’t because that would be wrong, and not for the reasons that you are thinking you sick little puppy. But because of what I said earlier. Life begins at spermatogenesis.  Basically any waste of sperm should be considered murder.  That would mean that any type of sexual act that doesn’t have the possibility of resulting in conception would be considered a crime.  That would include, anal sex, oral sex, sex with a condom, sex with any form of birth control, sex with a women who knowingly cannot conceive, homosexual sex, and of course masturbation, or as I like to call it, Sperma-genocide or the mass murder of millions of potential human lives.  But to take this one step further, I would be in favor of allowing men to masturbate only after they are forced to undergo an ultrasound to show them the inside of their scrotum as well as watch a video of sperm happily swimming around like little children in a pool.  I would also have them meet with an adoption counselor who could inform them of the many places sperm can be donated for storage and eventual adoption to a loving couple. Then I would have them participate in counseling to discuss their decision to masturbate, and finally wait 3 days before they can actually perform the masturbation.  Sounds crazy?  Sounds like harassment and intimidation to try to get men not to masturbate?  Well here are just some of the actual laws that currently exist or have been proposed to harass and intimidate women into not getting an abortion or in some cases even make if illegal.

In South Dakota women must attend a lecture at a “pregnancy crisis” center which are actually anti-choice, anti-contraception facilities and must wait a first ever 72 hours before being allowed to have an abortion.

Arizona passed a law that imposes criminal penalties on doctors who perform abortions with the knowledge that the race or sex of the fetus is a factor in the decision to abort.

In Ohio there is a bill that would outlaw any abortion after a detectable heartbeat can be found which is normally around six weeks.

A Texas bill would require doctors to provide women with a sonogram of the fetus and to hear the heartbeat before performing an abortion.  Women would be allowed to close their eyes and cover their ears.  Victims of rape or incest would not be exempt.

In Kansas and Idaho there are proposals to ban abortions after 20 weeks on the claim that this is when a fetus can first experience pain, even though the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that there is no evidence of this.  The Kansas bill will also require doctors to tell women that abortions increase their risk of breast cancer, “a controversial theory that the World Health Organization, the National Cancer Institute and gynecological groups in the United States and the United Kingdom have said is incorrect,” according to an article in the Huffington Post.

Virginia just passed a bill that requires internal ultrasounds before performing abortions, or basically forcing a women to be penetrated without her consent, thereby raping her,  in order to show women what they are about to abort.

A bill in Georgia would force a woman to carry a fetus past 20 weeks even if it is dead, regardless of the health of the women or any other fetus that may be alive in the womb as well.

Now I don’t want to point fingers here or make this strictly a political issue but it is kind of too late for that since all of these laws or bills have been a result of Republican law makers putting their own religious values before the rights and health of women in this county.  They don’t care if woman dies because a dead fetus is in her body, or if a girl is pregnant because she was raped by her father.  And to use tactics of intimidation to guilt women into not going through with an abortion is frankly despicable.  Republican law makers have shown time and time again that the health rights of women in this country simply do not matter to them as much as their religious beliefs do.  This has been shown in everything from the Religious Republican Tea Party war on contraception, to… (To read more click here)

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By Brian Dann

I am white.  Honestly, I don’t really think about it much, being white that is.  Being white really has not been much of a problem for me in my life, in America.  No one has ever looked at me with suspicion because I’m white, or pulled me over in a wealthy neighborhood because I’m white, or denied me a place to live, because I’m white.  I’ve never lost a job interview, because I’m white, or been asked why so many of us white guys are standing around together, because we’re white. No one has ever crossed the street to walk on the other side when they see me coming, because I’m white, or refused to serve me, because I’m white.  And no one has ever wondered why I am walking around their neighborhood, a neighborhood where my father also lives, pursuing me even though the police said not too, while calling me a racial slur, and shot me in the head, killing me…and then claim self defense because they think a box of Skittles and an Ice tea are dangerous weapons…because I’m white.  Honestly, that just doesn’t happen to us white guys, and I’ve come to learn that there’s a name for that, White Privilege.  Now I didn’t make this up, it really exists, and if you’re not white, you’re thinking to yourself, no joke it exists, because if you are black in this country, what happened to Trayvon Martin, is the fear of every black mother and father in this country, that their son or daughter, or even themselves, will be harassed, discriminated against or even killed, because of no other reason than they are black. If Trayvon was white, this would not have happened.

Personally I never heard of White Privilege until the tragedy of Trayvon Martin.  I knew that as a white person in America there were obviously some situations in life that I did not have to deal with, some ways in which society reacted towards me that was different then how they may react towards a black person, but I lived my life never giving it much thought as probably most white people do.   I never heard it defined before with the term White Privilege.  But before I even heard what the actual definition of what White Privilege was, I knew instantly that the phrase fit, it just made sense.  As a liberal, progressive white person, I sometimes like to think that things have gotten so much better in this country.  I like to think that because I don’t tend to make color an issue in my own life, because I prefer my kids to be in a school that is more culturally diverse, because I teach my kids to treat all people equally regardless of any differences, because I just don’t encounter the type of prejudice that many black people encounter on a daily basis, and I don’t usually give it much though as to why, I’ve come to falsely believe, as many have, that things have changed.  And while we have come a long way in the way of civil rights in this country, the tragedy of Trayvon Martin is a stark reminder that serious, unjust discrimination still exists in this county.  And the fact that I don’t encounter these daily acts of prejudice, and I don’t have ongoing fears of being harassed, beat up, or even killed because of the color of my skin means that by default, I have White Privilege, whether I like it or not.  And while some may think that having Privilege is something good, in this case it means that we have very far to go in this country before the dream of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be fully realized.

Now let there be no misunderstanding.  I have been discriminated against in my life.  I am Jewish.  I have experienced blatant outright ugly discrimination against me for no other reason than I am Jewish.  I experienced kids who teased and beat me up on the playground while they called me Jew boy.  I had a co-worker make blatant, anti Jewish remarks that were so offensive the non Jews in the office complained.  He was fired. But the difference is that while some people may be able to look at me and think because of some facial features, I may be Jewish, it’s not as evident as the color of a black person’s skin.  I have never been pulled over in Highland Park, Illinois because I looked Jewish, but a co-worker of mine was pulled over in Highland Park, Illinois because he was black.  I have White Privilege, because of no fault of my own. When I enter a store, no one is going to wonder if I might steal something.  I can be assured that I will be treated well at almost any restaurant I go to, and if I travel to certain parts of the south, unless they find out I’m Jewish, and last time I checked I was not wearing a gold Jewish star anywhere on my clothing, no one will harass me. I have White Privilege, but unlike most privilege, this is not something to be proud of.  What it means is that our country, because of decades of legalized slavery, because of decades of legalized segregation in both the north and south, because of civil rights legislations that while they were an enormous sign of progress and long over due when they were past, they have also made us complacent.  The laws were passed to de-institutionalize discrimination in this country, but many of the attitudes have remained, and because it is now easy to point at the law and say “well it’s now illegal”, we have stopped putting forth the effort to change what was at the core of the prejudice in the first place, the fear, the ignorance and the misunderstanding.

I recently asked my friends on Facebook what they believe White Privilege to be.  I was hoping to get responses mostly from the black people I am friends with simply because I wanted their perspective that as a white man I could never have.  One wonderful woman, Shawn, who I met on my trip to Australia in December 2010, said “I believe it to be an overall conclusion that you are…trust worthy, right, better, more beautiful, deserve more respect, and not held to the same standards as non whites.”  She then went on to say, “And with that said, I think it’s all crap.  I don’t believe that anyone is better than me.  I am simply amazing. Believe that.”  I do believe that.  I believe that Shawn is simply amazing as are all of us.  I believe that the color of our skin should never give us privilege over someone else. I believe that a country where a man can shoot a seventeen year old boy in the head because of the color of his skin, who is carrying nothing but an Ice tea and a bag of Skittles, and not get arrested, and hide behind a ridiculous law that let him claim self defense, and have the police dismiss the entire situation, says more about the failure of our society as a whole, then it does about this one individual man who killed out of hate and ignorance. I believe that we have much more work to do then just bringing this one man to justice and having him pay for his crime. I believe we must use this crime as a call to action to reform attitudes in this country so that Trayvon Martin’s life has meaning and so that his parents who were so proud of their son can continue to be proud of him.  As our President said “I can only imagine what these parents are going through, and when I think about this, I think about my own kids…If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”Trayvon does look like our President, and just think how much it must have meant to Trayvon to see someone who looks like him become president.  That is not something this President could ever say about me.  I am white.

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By Brian Dann

It was the fall of 1993. I was sitting in the audience in the upper tier of the historic Second City main stage theater, waiting my turn to go up on stage with four other hopefuls and audition to be one of the cast members of this historic institution. I had dreams of following in the footsteps of such great actors like John Belushi, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, and Gilda Radner.  Between The Players Workshop, the Second City Training Center, and the ImprovOlympic, I had put in my dues in Chicago learning the art of improvisation.  This was going to be my final and third attempt to become one of the few to be asked to be a part of this great legacy of comedic actors.  But the best improv education I had received was not from a training class, was not from performing onstage with others, but was from sitting in the audience at the Second City, night after night, watching some of the best actors I had ever seen perform their craft.  That was the real education.  That is where I learned how to do it, how it’s not about trying to be funny, and how improv can be as easy as listening and reacting just like you would in life.  Little did I know at the time how famous two of those actors on that stage would become.  Both of them were named Steve.  One was Steven Carell, easily one of the funniest people I had ever seen on the Second City stage.  He could make you laugh so hard you would be crying, and then he would turn around and give a moving performance worthy of an Oscar.  The other Steven was sitting right next to me in the audience, in the upper tier of the historic Second City main stage theater, as I waited my turn to go up on stage for my final audition.  Although he was probably the smartest improviser I had ever seen in my life, no one could have predicted the level of success he would obtain as the host of The Colbert Report.  Watching Stephen Colbert do improvisation was like watching Fred Astaire dance. So knowing that I was about to go on that stage that I had watched him perform on night after night, I took that moment to get whatever words of wisdom I could from him to give me that added boost of confidence to go out there and make them want to hire me.  I introduced myself to Stephen, told him I admired his work, and then asked him what advice he could give me before I went up there.  All he said to me was, “Just be yourself.” Then off I went.
 
Looking back on that day I think to myself the complete irony of that advice Stephen Colbert gave me because today he makes a living being anything but himself. His television persona as the overly pompous, self righteous, ultra right wing conservative, political pundit is as far from whom Stephen Colbert really is.  His Stephen Colbert character has been crafted so perfectly that at times some real ultra-right wing conservatives simply don’t get the joke.  This cannot be more evident than in what a recent poll by the firm Public Policy Polling showed.  Colbert, who is not even running for president, is not on the ballot in South Carolina, and is not even really a Republican, beat John Huntsman by one point. According to the poll Colbert would receive 5% of the vote and Huntsman 4%. Reportedly, after hearing the results of this poll John Huntsman was overheard uttering the Mormon expletive “DAG NAB IT!”  Is there really anywhere to go with your campaign after you are beat in the polls by someone who is not even running? A fake republican, who is NOT running for president, and is NOT on the ballot, is beating someone who is!  Seriously!?  Can we just forget all this election crap and just declare Obama the winner already.  Even if Romney becomes the candidate, there are republicans out there who are so against voting for him that they would rather give the nomination to a television comedian who is not even a republican, let alone running, than to Mitt Romney!  Of course Mr. Colbert has taken this ridiculous set of circumstances and fully capitalized upon it by launching a mock exploratory committee to consider a mock run for the presidency, and has transferred his very legitimate Super PAC to the control of Jon Stewart so he could legally explore a run for office and at the same time expose the loop holes and inherent fraud in the Super PAC system.  He has even gone so far as to rename is Super Pac, oops I mean Stewarts Super Pac, the “The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC”.   But seriously, what does this really say about the current state of affairs of the Republican Party, about their leadership, and about the voters?
 
Let’s start with the voters.  The clear message that this sends is that there is no one running on the republican ticket that anyone really and truly wants as their candidate. Santorum is to way too religious right wing, Paul wants to end…(To Read More Click Here)

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By Brian Dann

The most effective way to seize power and ruin other people’s lives, is to convince the people whose lives you are going to ruin, that your enemy is also theirs, that their downfall is the fault of others, and that their passion comes from within and not the rhetoric that you feed them, systematically, on a daily basis. Then they will hand you the power, with no fight, and defend your right to have it before they ever realize the mistake they have made. In 1932 Adolf Hitler’s Socialist party took power in Germany. But it wasn’t until 1939, seven years later, that the Nazi’s invaded Poland.  It was during those seven years that Hitler, slowly and systematically, put in place his “Final Solution” and convinced that German people that all the social and economic ills of their time, that were a part of everyday German life at that point, were the fault of the Jews, with the help of the blacks, the gays, and the Gypsies.  And even though all of this was categorically false and the real truth was that Germany was a country that had never recovered from the economic, and structural ravages of World War 1, the people of Germany trusted in Hitler’s rhetoric and through constant false and misleading rhetoric over seven years came to believe that the solution to Germany’s problems was Hitler’s Final Solution which he drafted while in prison long before he ever came into power.  Hitler convinced the German people to buy into his own selfish and sociopathic beliefs by convincing them that clearly insane policies would fix their country. Clearly they were wrong, but they listened to Hitler’s rhetoric, handed him the power, and defended his right to have it, before they ever realized the mistake they had made.  Sound familiar?

Today we live in a country, a world, that is experiencing economic collapse, inequalities in income, and social injustices that we have not seen or experienced since the time of the great depression and pre-WW2 Germany. Our middle class is experiencing record foreclosures, millions of people can’t afford health insurance or can’t afford to pay for the out of pocket expenses not covered by their insurance, and regardless of the rhetoric, our Congress has not even began to take seriously the commitment to getting our middle and lower class Americans back to work.  According to the IWRP/Rockefeller survey, a year and a half after the Great Recession “ended” in 2009, the middle class in America is having trouble paying for things like:

Food (26 million women and 15 million men)

Health Care (46 million women and 24 million men)

Rent or Mortgage (32 million women and 25 million men)

Transportation (37 million women and 28 million men)

Utility Bills (41 million women and 27 million men)

And saving for the future, which used to be a staple of American life can no longer be done by at least 56 million women and 45 million men.

Middle class incomes are stagnant or dropping and the unemployed are unemployed for longer than ever, and are often forced to take deep cuts in pay in order to simply get a job which will provide them with health benefits that they could not otherwise afford on their own.

We sacrifice programs that effect our children education, our ability to place police on our streets, to provide effective health care to those who can’t afford it.  We no longer pay a fair wage for a fair days work but instead ask our workers to take pay cuts, and reduced benefits.  Our government borrows to invest in wars overseas, rebuilding other countries, but we no longer invest in rebuilding our own country.  Then we give tax breaks to the people who don’t need them, and who can afford the most to pay them, then expect a middle class family who is facing foreclosure because of medical bills that they cannot afford, who barely make enough to put food on the table and are facing cutbacks in the workplace, to pay higher taxes then those who are wealthy enough to not even realize the money is gone.

And why are we in this position?  Because slowly and systematically…(To read more click here)

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By Brian Dann

It was the summer of 1988.  I sat down in this little coffee shop, just off of some street whose name I would not even attempt to pronounce for the fear of twisting my tongue in a knot that I would never get out.  After waiting for a few moments, the waiter, who spoke perfect English, handed me a menu.  I opened it up and inside was a selection of every kind of coffee and tea concoction that they served.  The words were easy, no ventis or grandes, no frappuccinos or macchittos.  They kept it simple and I quickly ordered a plain cappuccino, knowing that after all, this was not the real reason that I came to this coffee shop.  After a few minutes they brought me my drink, then handed me a second menu.  Quite honestly, having never been to this kind of coffee shop before, I did not really know what to expect.  The last thing I expected was for the next selection of items to be presented to me in a menu, maybe on a plate neatly arranged where I could simply point to the one I wanted, or perhaps in a glass, temperature controlled case like some fine chocolates, but most defiantly, not in a menu.  At the time I was in collage doing a semester abroad and it had been many years, high school exactly, since I had last partaken of this particular indulgence, but considering the uniqueness of this opportunity, an opportunity that I would never have a chance to experience anywhere in the United States at the time, I felt almost obligated to place an order from this second menu.  I took my time and looked the menu up and down reading each description, considering my decision carefully knowing that unless I ever came back to this part of the world I most likely would never experience a purchasing opportunity like this again. Then the waiter came back to my table and asked me if I had made my decision. I had. “One gram of Jamaican Sinsemilla please?” The waiter asked, “Would you like anything to smoke that with, a pipe, a bong, a hooka?” Not expecting to be able to partake of it right there and then, I answered, “No, I’ll take it to go.”

I just could not imagine being able to smoke marijuana so openly and legally, and even though I knew that in Amsterdam, where I was visiting for a few days, it was perfectly legal, as an American, the culture shock of being allowed to smoke cannabis as if it was no different than a cigarette or a shot of tequila, was something I just could not wrap my brain around.  Quite simply, it was just too weird.  Whether I actually smoked it or not was not was what was important.  It was the experience, the experience of being able to buy something, so openly and so legally, that in the United States is considered so taboo.  I paid for my coffee and ganja, placed the bag in my pocket, and walked down to the red light district where I could observe Japanese business men and English students on break legally paying for hookers, another experience that was just too weird to see so openly and legally.  Also where there was this little Greek restaurant that I ate at every night I was there.  I thought to myself either this country is the most immoral on earth, or they’ve got it all figured out.

In the United States of course marijuana is illegal.  The funny thing is, as a teenager marijuana was just as easy to purchase here as it was in Amsterdam.  The only difference was that here it wasn’t done in the openness of a coffee shop, but instead in some guys basement or behind a Seven-Eleven.  The truth is if a person wants to smoke marijuana, there is not a single law out there that is going to deter them from doing it.  I am sure that today, if I wanted to get high, which I haven’t done so since my early twenties, in a matter of three phone calls I could buy whatever I want to. So why exactly is marijuana illegal?  To tell you the truth I am not really sure. Cigarettes are legal and nicotine is considered to be more addictive than heroine.  Marijuana actually has no addictive properties at all and is impossible to overdose on. Alcohol is legal but to this day I have never seen a mob of stoned people beating the crap out of each other, but get a bunch of drunk English soccer fans together, and two kegs of Guinness later you have a riot. In the U.S. annually the number of deaths that can be attributed directly to cigarettes is around 450,000.  The number of annual deaths directly attributed to alcohol is about 85,000.  The number of deaths attributed directly to marijuana is…(To Read More Click Here)

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By Brian Dann

I think most people get it.  I really do.  It comes down to this. Be nice to each other.  It’s that simple.  We all just need to be nicer to each other.  We can disagree.  We can be angry.  We can be passionate about this issue or that issue. We can be grateful as I am that President Obama is now our President, or we can even be disgusted by the thought for whatever reasons we have, whether it is the fact that he is a democrat and you are a republican, or even if it is because you are a racist and the President is black, but in the process, in our discourse, we can be respectful to each other, but what we can’t do is be so mean spirited that it fuels a culture of hate so venomous that it is both scary and appalling all at the same time.  But before I go on, I want to try something.  First, clear your head of any thoughts you may be having at this very moment, I’ll wait… Now that you have done that, I want you to think of President Barack Obama, bowling, wearing nothing but his under wear. Take a minute if you need to, to really picture that in your head. Get a really good image of President Obama bowling in his boxers or briefs, whatever you choose.  Good, now that you have that mental image floating around in your brain, forget it.  Erase it completely from your head. Do not think of President Obama, bowling, in his underwear.  You can’t do it, can you?  No matter how hard you try you are now imagining President Obama bowling, wearing nothing but his underwear.  It’s out there, I said it, and now you can’t forget it.  You see, the reason why you can’t get that image out of your head, even though I told you to erase it from your mind, is because, quite simply, words have consequences.  This consequence may be very small.  I used words and the consequence is an image you can’t get out of your head.  But words can also lead to consequences that aren’t small, that are big, very, very big.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  I am in no way insinuating that the hateful tone of our discourse or any individual’s rhetoric was in any way shape or form directly responsible for the shooting that happened in Arizona like some have tried to do.  In fact I will go so far as to say that I do not believe for a second that Jared Loughner, the gunman who shot Gabrielle Giffords, was influenced by anyone other than his own deranged mental illness, not even Sarah Palin as many have also attempted to link to this. Jared Loughner is a mad man who was determined that day to reek as much death and destruction as he could and only a miracle and maybe stricter gun control laws could have stopped him.  But regardless of Jared Loughner’s actions and the tragedy that occurred in Arizona the fact remains that since Barack Obama was nominated as the Democratic candidate for President, the tone of our discourse has been nothing short of appalling, disgraceful, disrespectful, hateful, and at times plain racist.  I knew that when Barack Obama became the Democratic Candidate that this would be a major test for our nation. It would be a test to show who we really are as people.  It would be a test to find out just how far we have come in this country or how far we have not.   It would be a test to show our true colors.  I fully expected we would see the ugly head of racism show itself in ways we… (To Read More Click Here)

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From 1999 through 2007, in Great Britain, 473 individuals were killed by firearms. During that same time period in the United States, 106,125 individuals were killed by firearms.  What is the difference?  In 1997 it was made illegal for a civilian to own an assault weapon in Great Britain.  No one owns guns, except for firearms that fall into the category used for hunting, and so far the government has not taken over.  There has been no need for their citizens to rise up against a government trying to oppress them, and the argument that now only the criminals will be the ones with guns, simply has not come true. In 2008, gun related deaths in Britain dropped 18% to 42, from 51 the year before, and no, that’s not 42 per 100 people, or 42 per 100,000 people. That’s 42 people total! In 1997 Britain disarmed.  They disarmed because of a massacre that occurred in their country.  Their politicians took charge, passed legislation and did whatever had to be done to make sure that no one else would die because of a firearm.  Imagine that, they actually did something.  What a novel idea! People with guns, killed lots of people without guns, so to stop people getting killed by guns, they got rid of guns! That’s fucking genius! So I suppose that is what will happen here now.  Monday morning the House and the Senate will all get together, forget about their party lines, and with a collective outrage at the events that have unfolded in Arizona, will passing sweeping legislation that will make all assault weapons illegal for civilians to own, finally putting an end to the extraordinary bloodshed that we have witnessed at Columbine, Virginia Tech, in countless schools and workplaces across our country, from inner-city gang violence,  and most recently outside a supermarket in Arizona during a peaceful gathering of Senator Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents.  I’m certain that in the name of the victims that fell that day and the others that were wounded, including the death of a nine year old girl, our politicians will finally ignore the gun lobby and the NRA and pass the necessary laws that will ensure that violence of this magnitude will never happen again.  And then monkeys will fly out of my ass!  Seriously, because that is about as likely as our politicians doing something about this.

Just once I would like to see our politicians forget about getting re-elected, forget about the millions given to them by the gun lobby, and instead do whatever has to be done to save lives.  There is no reason for anyone in this country to own… (To read more click here)

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By Brian Dann

In 2001, a network administrator who I worked with at one of the largest, most prestigious law firms in the United States, and whose headquarters was located in Chicago decided to do a search of all of the employee folders on one of the main servers where each employee saved their “personal” files, for any file that ended in JPG, MOV, or AVI, or in other words, any photo or video files.  He was not looking for anything in particular, but instead just to see what types of things the partners and associates at this firm were looking at.  Like almost every employee in that I.T. department he had full access to every file, every piece of information, no matter how mundane or sensitive that information was to the person or the firm.  Major case files, major pieces of discovery, major evidence that could easily be copied on to a DVD and passed along to the opposing council, were all available to every person in that I.T. Department, completely unrestricted in any way.  The only thing stopping anyone in that department from stealing any data they wanted to and passing it along to anyone they wanted to was the confidentiality agreement each employee signed, and a certain level of blind trust, not any real network security or restrictions to data, just trust.  What was most interesting about what that network administrator found that day, when he searched for every photo or video file that was in the home folders of some of the highest paid partners and associates at this firm, was not the amount of sensitive legal evidence that could have been stolen and passed to council or the press, yes that was there, but instead the amount of pornography, racist or offensive “humor”, or even illegal materials that could ruin the careers of any one of those lawyers.  And it wasn’t just a handful of photos and videos that were found, it was thousands.  One attorney’s folder actually contained a video of a woman having intercourse with a horse.  This law firm was lucky.  Nothing was ever done with what was found, no one was turned in for having inappropriate materials, although they could have and probably should have, and the I.T. Department had a good laugh at the attorney’s expense, which I’m sure is some kind of HR violation right there.  The files that were found were all copied for safe keeping and deleted from the attorney’s folders with certain confidence that no one would be coming to us to complain, “Where is my video of a woman screwing a horse?!”  And even if that video was evidence in a case, it was not the proper place for evidence to be stored.

If you think I am trying to make some point here about what is appropriate or not appropriate to save  on your work computer, or any type of commentary on the morality of attorneys, then you are wrong.  Personally, having worked in Information Technology, I always find it amazing the types of things I find on the computers that people use for work. A work computer is the property of the company you work for and so is everything on it, so keep that in mind next time you are thinking about checking out barelylegal.com on your company laptop.  The point I am making here is simple.  What just happened to the U.S. Government with the release of tens of thousands of documents, that supposedly were considered secure but instead were easily obtainable by anyone of the 600,000 persons with security clearance to those electronic network based files, was a WikiLeaks accident just waiting to happen, and if you think the data at your own company is secure for even just one heartbeat, you are wrong.  The data at your own company not only can be stolen but I will go so far to say, to some degree, it has been.  Keep in mind, the U.S. government was not hacked into by international foreign spies, or by operatives working for Al Qeada.  The information obtained, stolen, and given to WikiLeaks was done so by a U.S. soldier working internally inside the I.T. structure of the supposedly secure computer network of the U.S. military and government.  The files leaked to the world were simply copied off a server and on to one or more DVD disks, and no one knew about it until it became international news, and a nightmare not just for the Obama administration but also governments and individuals around the world.   The biggest threat to any organization whether private or public is not external threats but internal ones.  Employees today have far too much access to the information stored on company networks and any person who has worked in any I.T. department for any decent amount of time will tell you that the WikiLeaks indecent doesn’t surprise them at all, in fact they will tell you that they are surprised it didn’t happen sooner. With USB flash drives available up to 64 gigabytes a person could easily walk out of a company with millions of confidential and damaging documents without ever being noticed.  And to complicate things further, the trend towards outsourcing the administration of company servers and data farms to third party firms that have no vested interest in the data they are administering is like handing the keys to your house to a group of strangers and hoping they don’t steal your jewelry.  According to Perimeter E-Security, a security firm based in Milford, CT,  who each year publishes their list of the Top 10 Threats to Information Security, “Malicious Insiders” are the number two threat for 2010, only to be beaten by “Malware”, and… (To read more click here)

By Brian Dann

So, how do I put this tactfully? Awe forget it, there is no way to put this tactfully.  Obama got his ass handed to him on a silver platter Tuesday.  At his news conference the next day he looked like a wet puppy dog standing in the rain that just got struck by lightning.  The correspondent from Fox News looked happier then Glenn Beck does after he pleasures himself to a photo of Sarah Palin.  The Republicans, the Tea Party, Fox News, they did it, so go ahead guys gloat, no really it’s ok, I understand.  After all you did get your asses handed to you two years ago and we did plenty of gloating at that time, so go ahead, I’ll wait………Are you done? Good, now shut the fuck up because here’s the deal.  You didn’t win.  I know what you are saying to yourself.  “What, are you on crack Brian?  We won the house.  Nancy Pelosi is out, we run things now.  The people spoke and the people told Obama NO!  This was a direct repudiation of Obama’s reckless policies!  We are taking this country back!  How’s that hopey changy thing working for you now!? Palin for President, Palin for President! WE WON!”  Let me say this again, You…didn’t…win.  Oh sure, you took the house, but you didn’t win.

One of my favorite shows is The Apprentice.  Inevitably on each season there are one or two people who do nothing but complain.  They are no help to the team, and think they know everything and week after week they skate by while someone else takes the fall.  Then comes the week when it’s their turn to step up to the plate and be project manager, and prove that they know better than everyone else, and prove that they are not all talk, and nine out of ten times, when the task is over, when the talking is finished, when they get to the board room, they lose, and The Donald says to them those two words that no one in that board room ever wants to hear, “You’re Fired.”  You see, while it may seem like the Republicans won, what happened on Tuesday was actually the best of scenarios for President Obama and the Democrats because now the Republicans have power.  And the Republican and Tea Party candidates who got elected, who vowed to take back this country can no longer simply blame President Obama and the Democrats for the issues that face this country.  The Republicans can no longer just sit back and say “no” to every initiative that the President tries to push through.  It’s easy to let the President take the fall for all of the issues facing our nation when you have no power to do anything about it, but now the Republicans have the power and with power comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes accountability…  (To Read More Click Here)

By Brian Dann

If you were given a choice to be straight or to be gay, what would you choose? For arguments sake, let’s forget about the debate for a minute of whether homosexuality is a choice or not. Just think about the question.  Assume for a moment that you actually could choose.  I’m not talking about choosing whether you would have sex with a person of the same sex as you. You could do that regardless if you are gay or not.  I’m talking about making a choice to love, have feelings, a relationship with a same sex partner just as you would with an opposite sex partner. Think about all the implications surrounding that decision, if it was truly possible to choose one lifestyle over the other, and the implications it would have not only on your life but on the friends and family around you as well.  Forget for a moment about your own personal feelings and prejudices or lack thereof about homosexuality and just focus on society and how your life would be depending on which choice you would make…Seriously think about that.

Now, let me ask all of the straight people a question.  When was it that you chose to be straight?  You see, you cannot answer that, can you?  For me I just knew that my seventh grade English teacher was “I’m hot for teacher” hot and I would have gladly given up my new Atari Pong console to get into her skirt!  I never thought about it, never made a choice between her and my gym teacher, never questioned which sex I preferred, I just always knew.  And that’s the answer to the debate.  You just know.  Sure maybe some people are confused, they question what they feel, maybe they even experiment just to confirm one way or another what their feelings tell them, but the bottom line is at some point we all just know.  If you still doubt me, think about for a moment what homosexuals in this country have to endure just to be who they are.  Their lifestyle is continuously ridiculed, questioned and spat upon by members of society that claim the religious higher ground.  They are demonized by homophobes too intolerant of others and too insecure with their own masculinity or femininity to accept those different than they are.  They are made victims of hate crimes, beatings, and social network bullying to the point that they commit suicide.  They are shunned by parents who can’t love their children unconditionally, by politicians who say they can’t marry, and they are forced to hide who they truly are from a military who won’t ask, and who says don’t tell, because if they do they will be treated like a criminal, and discharged dishonorably.  So, if you could choose, if your choice was not predetermined for you, which choice would you make?  The bottom line is you can’t choose. And even if parents dress their boys up like girls, have them play with dolls, and force them to watch Liza Minnelli videos, they will never turn a straight kid gay or turn a gay kid straight.  The bottom line is there is no debate, there is no choice. We are who we are and nothing can change that, and anyone who believes different is just plain wrong. Our sexual preference is something that is ingrained in all of us from birth, just as is our eye color, our skin color, and our desire to watch Glee.

On Thursday, President Obama, during a town hall style meeting with college students said, when asked by one student whether he thought homosexuality was a choice or not, “I don’t think it’s a choice. I think people are born with a certain make-up.  We’re all children of G-d… We don’t make determinations about who we love. That’s why I think discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong.”  WAIT! (Screeching tires…Record player scratch!)  Did I hear that right? What was that he just said?  Did the President of the United States just come out and publicly state that he thinks homosexuality is not a choice?  Holy S#!t!  I hope you can grasp how huge this is.  This is “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!” huge.  This is Regan saying…(To Read More Click Here)