our 2nd greatest invention: “Monetize”

— Drupal & WordPress two Classic Works of Fine Software —

WordPress has been more than adequate for our requirements here. I've been working on other projects however, where Drupal better addressed the needs at hand. Plus I have plans for our site here that will also be better handled by Drupal. In any event I much prefer to fulfill all my publishing needs with one product instead of two, so it's sadly time to say a warm goodbye to WordPress and an enthusiastic Hello to Drupal.

— Advogato ... the real thing —
Following is my application (aka "Notes:") to Advogato

        The Press & Gutenberg -- Who made Whom?

Does a man make a movement or can the reverse be assumed?
A star rises imminently above all the rest
  is the secret in the Sun-of-Man or mass consciousness?
After a tide of change time has crown
  mankind seeks names to honor & renown.
Fame games are fun -- sets the masses to wallow
  though life as a follower waxes hopelessly hallow.

So where is the next trend and how does it begin?

— Diverging yet further from what I should be doing here. —
Following are reproductions of three recent email sent to Mr. Limbaugh regarding the current affairs in Honduras. –
Subject: A question from the new seat of Democracy - HONDURAS

Mr. Rush,

Not being a sophisticated political analyst, I am wholly bewildered by the upsetting unanimity of polarized political prejudice against (the people of) Honduras (i.e. support for Manuel Zelaya).  Moreover, the moronic mantras mouthed about democratic principles & processes and constitutional order is blatantly brazen considering that those are precisely the points most violated by ‘Mel’.

Regarding the Honduras Constitution, allow me to quote from the bottom of the page found at http://countrystudies.us/honduras/84.htm
“Title VII, with two chapters, outlines the process of amending the constitution and sets forth the principle of constitutional inviolability. The constitution may be amended by the National Congress after a two-thirds vote of all its members in two consecutive regular annual sessions. However, several constitutional provisions may not be amended. These consist of the amendment process itself, as well as provisions covering the form of government, national territory, and several articles covering the presidency, including term of office and prohibition from reelection.”

Moreover from http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/29/748124/-Peculiarities-of-the-1982-Honduran-Constitution (and written by a Honduran politician in 1992) we read, “… the armed forces are charged with fulfilling eminently political functions: maintaining the rule of the Constitution, the principles of free suffrage, and the alternation of the office of the presidency of the republic.”

SO MY QUESTION IS THIS:  Is the vehemence of the reactions against Honduras by Obama and other leftist leaders due to FEAR? 

In other words, the courageously pro-democratic actions taken by Honduras cannot be allowed to prevail as this would set a highly dangerous precedence.  I mean, IF Honduras can get by with independently cleaning up a grave threat to their constitution and way of life with zero outside assistance/interference, THEN what is to prevent other countries from following their valiant example?  Could this “Honduras Happening” potentially derail us off the “new world order” track and revive quaint dreadful notions of sovereignty?  Is there any validity to the prospect that Ortega, Chavez. or even Obama could follow Zelaya's fate if this Honduran happenstance is not urgently undone?  *OR* is there a better answer to the desperate untenable accusations exacted against Honduras by leftest??

— Confusing the intangible with the tangible —

Commenting on my post of December 12 ,2007 — What's wrong with the GNU GPL?

Alan wrote, “I believe the core argument in this post is: "Copyright is one of the state's basic mechanisms for seducing weak minds into sanctioning governmental violence to enforce contrived rights who's only hope of possibly being realized lies in the menacing threat of arrogant aggression." Without commenting on the rest of the post (which I mostly agree with), I feel this main point needs rebuttal.”
    While the post in question concerned various (largely laudable) observations concerning the GNU General Public License, Alan did identify the single sentence that best captures my primary core argument. It could consequently be argued that this terribly belated response should follow Alan's comment under my original provocative post. I have, instead elected to create a new main (root level) post for the following reasons:
      1) Alan's comments far exceeds the scope of the main post.
      2) It's my unwary way of dignifying all my brutish ape-like chest pounding that has preceded this event.

Alan, graciously continues, “First, let me point out the extreme irony in this idea. It is no doubt that Mr. Z. Clark is strongly of the libertarian persuasion (as I am), sharing the two most important core beliefs of abhorrence from unnecessary force, and utmost respect for (physical) property rights. Yet, this is an argument over an abhorrence for intellectual property (IP) rights.”
    Thanks, a better lead-in would be hard to come by. A no doubt conclusion (accusation) of my strong libertarian persuasion merits a few shared reflections however. I wonder if said persuasion is evident from this blog's contents or has more to do with personal knowledge of say the fact I ran against D. Gephardt as a Libertarian. In any event, the average libertarian may well cringe at any Z.Clark associations. If I had the stomach to investigate such things, Libertarians would likely still prove to be the least offensive political party in the US. But like the GPL, the mere exercise of either lends credence to a system which is ill founded at base. It's quaint at best to hope Libertarians can improve/salvage what the ‘Founding Fathers’ could not (i.e. the morbid transition from confederacy, to republic, to democracy on to socialism is systemic in nature and is fated to unfold as such despite the bloody patriot's best intentions). A flattering distinction for the GPL is that it hopefully sets a precedence (wittingly or not) of binding the machine against itself.
    To more directly contest the issue however, Alan apparently considers my inability to equate the “physical” horse in my front yard to the “intellectual” unicorn in Danny's imagination as “extreme irony” ... hmmm. All are invited to rephrase the foregoing to more advantageously reflect their perspective. Nevertheless the real crux of the problem I see lies in first 1) inventing then 2) claiming and finally 3) protecting ‘rights’ in the first place.

— PATENT Left – Taking the Patent to it's ultimate logical end —

I apologize up front for inserting an extra post in ahead of my long over due thrashing of Intellectual Property theory. However, there's this hot idea that came to me while finishing up “WHY I.P.??” and it just can't wait. In fact, it's probably unwise to have delayed as long as I have – as some like-minded jerk could swoop in and steal all the glory.

Anyway, even yours truly has been bitten by the patent bug now. One can only imagine how the prospects of fame & envy serves to motivate an ill defined ego. So without further ado, here is the patent to end all patents:

  A business method wherein profits are realized from acquiring patents and then suing infringers.

Don't worry if the beauty of this doesn't exactly jump out at you (as that should help prove non-obviousness). Also note that acquiring any patents (other than the Power Patent just defined) is not necessary. You just need to find plaintiffs with patent infringement suits; then they in-turn become intrinsic defendants for infringing on your patented business method. A jolly-good bonus for anyone lacking friends is that such a patent would make you adored by thousands of attorneys.

It'd be dandy if someone could better express this concept in patent legalese. And anybody wanting to push my plan into some sort of fruition is welcomed to do so. In the event of actually filing a patent on this, one could even use me as the “Inventor” as this very post records the original idea. I don't even know what part of any profits I'd want to control, except to say that the initial candidate for receiving my share would be Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation. The two reasons for this are: 1) it would be apt pay-back for the wonderful contributions rms & FSF have made to the world I love, and 2) the whole concept is just a basic rip-off of copyleft anyway — transforming patent rights to patents left powerless (to thwart innovation as they normally do).

— Intellectual Property and Other Fantasized Rights —

I've rightfully been faulted for too slowly producing my promised pummeling of the pathetic premises behind Intellectual Property (IP). On the other hand, the mere diversion of attention from the blog's core theme (money morals) to engage IP proponents could reasonably be question as well. So true to what I indicated previously, this post will examine why IP is a valid YeNom blog topic.

Restating exactly what this blog's objective actually is may be useful. This can be best encapsulated as ... freedom. Now if the direct connection between YeNom/SUYO (Simple Undeniable Yank-proof Ownership) and freedom is not readily evident then this review is particularly pertinent. In contrast to ‘freedoms’ afforded by the state (better called “freakdoms”) were one is generously released of responsibility and encouraged to enjoy rights to unearned medicine, food, housing, condoms, etcetera; the freedom I'm selling is the exact anti-thesis where responsibility is actually the prime prerequisite for real freedom and a person is free to suffer the consequences of their own actions (regardless of how excruciatingly successful that may turn out). I'd further like to aptly argue that freedom can be equivalently understood as disengagement from slavery.

YeNoms advance the above by simply providing the most effective means personally conceivable for realizing freedom. In other-words, no single thing predisposes the human mind to respond more slothfully and slave like than the notion of money as some natural proprietary asset of the state. This hardly argues that money per se is evil (as if such a thing existed), but just the opposite since money could fully enable the division of labor with all it's life saving and Homo-sapien enhancing advantages. So the real problem lies in money being catastrophically crippled when employed as some proprietary weapon. YeNoms are not only a thief proof foundation for open money, but is further distinguished from the current proprietary system by rewarding integrity instead for enticing issuers to profit from acts of bad faith.

— the Meticulous & the Meaningless —

I'm fond of saying YeNom is the reverse of money. It is perhaps reasonable then to clarify some basics regarding the world's most popular money. Fortunately we have classic comments from Alan at our disposal to serve as authentic examples of popular legends. Reacting to my post “The thought provoking Eric Harris-Braum”, Alan argues, “... referring to [the] introduction of government money, you say, ‘… money is injected into the economic area via bank loans (so it is never free and always burdened with interest). Plus it trickles down from the money moguls to the producers.’ I believe you are looking at this with blinders on! Bank loans are in the middle of the cycle, not at the beginning. Banks can only lend money they possess. They do not create it. The government does that, lending initially created money to the banks to re-lend. Banks also re-lend money from deposits. These deposits come from both the moguls and the peons, meaning it both trickles down and up (i.e., it is again with blinders that you ignore an important part of the overall equation).”

To best deal with these typical assertions, I naturally turned to our friendly fiend the Internet. And while the majority of the results coughed up by an initial search are expected to be crude, this particular monetary topic was considerably comical. Government sources are particularly prone to avoid substance and gravel in trivia. Although many ‘authorities’ may welcome Alan's viewpoints and want to encourage them, I still could not find any instance where the line was crossed with blatant falsehoods to justify anything like Alan purports. Not even the Bureau of Engraving and Printing with the incredibly intriguing domain name of moneyfactory.gov offered any support for Alan's claims.

— How did I cause such confusion?? —

Commenting on my previous post “Levels of Wealth” Part 1, Alan said in part:
“... You: An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments follows: Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock in his press release ...
    I would prefer you not so honor me. I find this drivel repulsive as do you. I hope you did not seriously relate this crap to any of my IP arguments. ...
”
    Excuse me. My above quoted lead-in was not intended to honor anyone per se (as another's sentiment could be honored while the person himself is not). I was merely interested in dissecting an example of authoritarian political blather. The type of rhetoric emitted by the dear Australian Attorney-General is hardly anything special and equally precious statements could have been readily gleaned in just about any page of any newspaper. I just focused in on an IP related instance because that theme had merited your defense. There was no interest in implying that you two were particularly in agreement. That being said however, I was taken back by your vehement reaction against Ruddock. He was providing no defense of IP at all, but was merely dutifully reporting a change to the statutes in a pathetic yet wholly typical newspeak manner.

Alan continued:
“... I do find your arguments against Ruddock's statements to be rather poor logic. While the context of the included quotes ... are clearly in reference to the changes in Australian law, you misinterpret them to reference technological capabilities and ignore the certainty that they refer only to reduction in legal prohibitions. That is a strawman argument which is way beneath your capability for logical argument.”
    What I believe I did (and as clearly as I could) was merely to demonstrate how they announce changes in the statutes by choosing vocabulary that is literally consistent only with technological issues ruled by the laws of physics. I even went through the exercise of rewording his statement to read accurate and semantically correct. So it is intriguing to imagine that anyone could honestly believe that I literally misinterpreted Ruddock. To argue that I misrepresented him might be a more legitimate attack.

* From Eric Harris-Braum's openMoney.inf WEB site*                        — Why I was confused although Alan was not. —

Commenting on my previous post, The thought provoking Eric Harris-Braum, Alan worte, “In response to Harris-Braun's openmoney.info page, I would like to say I agree. Specifically, this is an EXCELLENT perspective on money and wealth, with an honesty and clarity and depth that is rare.
Your first impression says, ‘You [i.e. Eric] open with an introduction on the Tradeable - Measurable - Acknowledgeable paradigm. I needed to reread and wrangle with it a bit to get this new perspective into focus.’ I sure hope you provide elaboration on this. I found the paradigm very easy to understand.”
    Elaboration on a personal inability?  Another's insight into this would perhaps be more valid than my own.  Anyway, in Eric's “Levels of Wealth” the circle of Acknowledgeable wealth is more sizable than the merely Measurable, while actually Tradeable wealth (the stuff of mega-billions of GNP) is the smallest of all.  This concept is especially appealing for its propensity to put the realm of traditional money into perspective.  Now then, the “Levels of Wealth” oval graphic moreover implies (to me) that Tradeable is a subset of Measurable which in turn is a subset of Acknowledgeable.  At the very least, this is a comfortable assumption due to the terribly counter intuitive notion of saying that Tradeable wealth is NOT (i.e. excluded from the set of) Measurable and in turn insisting that the Measurable isn't Acknowledgeable.  This would, for me, constitute an overly extreme distancing of these words from their common casual meanings.  Nevertheless Eric, could potentially be advocating exactly this when he writes, “Acknowledgeable Wealth: Friendship, beauty, freedom, civility, culture, happiness, integrity, reputation--these are all forms of acknowledgeable wealth. They are neither tradable nor objectively measurable because their impact is only felt subjectively.”(emphasis added)  Then when Eric teaches that Acknowledgeable wealth are “relationships between systems”, I find myself fumbling with the notion of “beauty” and “freedom” (from the previous sentenece) as relationships between systems.  An excellent recognition of the “interdependent” nature of wealth levels, is followed with a whole section on “Wealth Acknowledgment” which focuses on Tradeable wealth issues.  So I guess this “Acknowledgment” is very much distinguished from (if not the antitheisis of) the former term “Acknowledgeable”.  Perhaps it is unfortunate that the things I've just cited overly interfere with my ability to grasp new perspectives.  However an agreeable benefit of the doubt posture where we all ‘know’ more or less what we're talking about is increasingly objectionable for this student to adopt.  My way of developing his theme would be to start with Acknowledgeable wealth and then examine Measurable and Tradeable as clearly identified natural subsets.

— The Spiritual within the Mundane —

Back on April 14th Eric Harris-Braun wrote to me in part:
“....I thought I'd point you to my latest writeup on open money: http://openmoney.info I think you might be most interested in the theory page, ....

As it turned out, this email came in on a partially forgotten account, so I didn't even see it until June 21st (over 9 weeks later). Embarrassed, I apologized for the delay; and then continued:

“Interestingly, I'd been thinking about you recently and just a few days ago I was going through much the material on your WEB sites (I even logged into my account at http://alpha.openmoney.info/om.cgi). And yes, I actually did read with much interest your "theory page". In fact it was the most intriguing document I came across that day. So let me recount my most notable impressions:

1. You open with an introduction on the Tradeable - Measurable - Acknowledgeable paradigm. I needed to reread and wrangle with it a bit to get this new perspective into focus. However it was worth the effort and could possibly provide the basis for some valuable elaborations. It's when one gets into rewriting a piece that you really need to devote maximum effort to do the concepts justice and hopefully come up with a real contribution.

2. Regarding concepts such as “Wealth Acknowledgment” and your interest in setting the stage where the creativity of others can extend our horizons beyond anything we have yet considered — these are things I relate to instantly. Many of your objectives are so much in accord with my YeNom idea that it's almost eerie.

3. There is, I propose, a extremely pertinent & significant factor that desperately needs recognition in your theory page. A lot is said regarding the scarcity of money and your/our proposal to eliminate that scarcity through the creation of (local) currencies. However, the crucial thing that is left unsaid (and will likely make readers uncomfortable on at least a subconscious level) regards misgivings about possible inflationary factors. I think it is worth addressing this issue head on. The two main distinctions between the proprietary money supplied by governments and the type we want to create is a) what is being monetized, and b) how it is introduced into circulation. In the first instance, government debt is the preferred poison. I'd even argue that the very foundation of such a system is consequently a form of anti-wealth, with more & more debt not being a positive thing. The basis of our systems lie essentially in promises of individual personal performance insured by the issuers best interest to maintain a respectable reputation. And the more we have of this is a positive thing. Another night & day difference exists with the methods of introduction. In the former, money is injected into the economic area via bank loans (so it is never free and always burdened with interest). Plus it trickles down from the money moguls to the producers. Our alternative is the exact opposite of this! Not to mention that said debts (the fodder for their proprietary money) were created by the government to either fund their welfare programs (which essentially saps recipients' motivation for gainful endeavor) or, they are entering the market place to buy-up/divert labor and materials to satisfy their needs for arms, surveillance and policing (which of course tends to drive prices up). ......





”

That very same morning, Eric responded saying: