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Some of the major announcements related to education made in the federal budget 2012 tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in parliament in October this year are:
- RM50.2bil will be allocated to the education sector so that it can continue to develop talented, creative and innovative people
- RM1bil will be provided through a special fund for the construction, improvement and maintenance of schools
- We will abolish payments for primary and secondary education, making these free for the first time in our history
- Private schools registered with the Education Ministry will be given incentives including an Investment Tax Allowance
- The Govt will give tax exemption for contributions to educational institutions and all places of worship
- To encourage private sector human capital development incentives including a double deduction on scholarships will be offered
- Book voucher worth RM200 will be given to Malaysian students in all private and public institutions of higher learning
- One off RM100 aid for each school pupil aged 6 to 16.
- RM120 million to offer 5,000 Masters and 500 doctoral scholarships for eligible civil servants, including teachers.
- The government will offer 20,000 places for diploma teachers to pursue undergraduate studies.
Update 29/1/2012: Minister of Higher Education Ministry said that cops are investigating varsity students advertising their 1Malaysia RM200-book vouchers for sale at a cheaper price online.
According to BERNAMA, at least 113 students from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) have sold their Baucar Buku 1Malaysia (BB1M) at RM180 to a couple who own a bookshop at Kuala Lumpur. The couple was suspected to get RM20 profit from each voucher bought and arrested for investigation.
UUM Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak said the couple have no connection with UUM and their presence in campus were to buy book vouchers from the students. Mustafa also said that all students involved will be called as soon as the second semester begins as he has identified them.
On a related note, all Borders Malaysia bookstore are currently offering free Borders Rewards Card Membership and free Starbucks buy 1 free 1 voucher when you spend a minimum of RM100 (2 x RM50 BB1M vouchers).
Update 16/12/2011: Minister of Higher Education Ministry said that only those higher education students registered and active in January till March 2012 are eligible for this book voucher.
Today, Minister of Higher Education Ministry, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said eligible Malaysian students can start collecting RM200 book voucher from the respective education institution from the 3rd of January, 2012. All current part-time and full-time Malaysian students in Form 6, Matriculation, diploma, Vocational programmes and polytechnics schools and those undergraduates (degree) and postgraduates (master, phd) studying at public and private local institutions of higher learning are eligible.
Previously, deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said that the book voucher is not redeemable for cash and students must make full use of it to buy books, references, journals, Science magazines or learning aids.
Also, the higher education institutions have prepared a list of eligible students together with their identity card numbers or matriculation or registration numbers. Students must ensure that their names, identity card numbers and the stamp of their institution are filled on each voucher. Each voucher has the value of RM50 hence each eligible student will receive a total of four RM50 book vouchers. The book voucher is valid from the 1st of January, 2012 until the 31st of March, 2012. These vouchers can be used at all participating bookstores.
From the Prime Minister's Budget 2012 speech (download pdf):
41. Knowledge is the pillar of civilisation and the foundation for excellence. Therefore, to achieve the aspiration of becoming a developed and high-income country, the Government continues to give priority to the development of the education system to produce talented, highly-skilled, creative and innovative workforce. The education sector will be allocated RM50.2 billion in 2012. For the Ministry of Education, development allocation amounting RM1.9 billion will be spend on all types of school consisting of national schools, national-type Chinese and Tamil schools, mission schools and Government-assisted religious schools.
42. In addition, RM1 billion will be provided through a special fund for the construction, improvement and maintenance of schools, particularly to cater for the immediate needs of schools. Of this, RM100 million each will be for the national-type Chinese schools, national-type Tamil schools, mission schools, Government- assisted religious schools, Maktab Rendah Sains MARA while the remaining RM500 million for national schools.
43. To provide a brighter future for all Malaysian children irrespective of their socioeconomic background, the Government will ensure quality and affordable access to education. Currently, students in primary and secondary schools are still required to pay RM24.50 and RM33.50, respectively, for co-curriculum, internal test papers, Malaysian Schools Sports Council fees and insurance premium. To ease the burden on parents, it is proposed that these payments be abolished commencing the 2012 school year. With this announcement, for the first time in history, primary and secondary education is provided free. The abolition of these payments would involve an allocation of RM150 million.
44. The private sector also plays an important role in providing quality education towards creating an excellent future generation. In line with this, the Government proposes private schools registered with the Ministry of Education and complies with stipulated regulations be given the following incentives:
First: Income tax exemption of 70% or Investment Tax Allowance of 100% on qualifying capital expenditure for a period of 5 years;
Second: Double deduction for overseas promotional expenses to attract more foreign students; and
Third: Import duty and sales tax exemptions on all educational equipment. The Government hopes that the savings accrued to the private school operators will subsequently result in the reduction of school fees to ease the burden of parents.
45. Registered primary and secondary schools, including national schools, national-type schools, mission schools and Government-assisted religious schools often receive financial contribution from companies and individuals to upgrade school facilities. To encourage more charitable activities, contributions are eligible for tax deductions. This facility will be extended to all registered places of worship. The Government will expedite tax exemption approvals for education institution and all places of worship.
46. In addition, the private sector is encouraged to work together in strengthening the development of high-skilled human capital. To achieve this, the Government proposes tax incentives as follows:
First: Double deduction on allowances paid by companies to the participants of internship program;
Second: Double deduction on scholarship awards; and
Third: Double deduction on expenses incurred to participate in career fairs abroad.
► Read more on Budget 2012: Students to Get RM200 Book Voucher from January 3


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The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy
By Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan
- Foreword
- Ch. 1, The Constitutional Imperative
- Ch. 2, The Contractarian Vision
- Ch. 3, The Myth of Benevolence
- Ch. 4, Modeling the Individual for Constitutional Analysis
- Ch. 5, Time, Temptation, and the Constrained Future
- Ch. 6, Politics Without Rules, I
- Ch. 7, Rules and Justice
- Ch. 8, Politics Without Rules, II
- Ch. 9, Is Constitutional Revolution Possible in Democracy
The Reason of Rules, by Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, is a book-length attempt to focus the energies of economists and other social analysts on the nature and function of the rules under which ordinary political life and market life function.
*1 The argument is that modern economics seems mired in either explaining the obvious or overmathematizing the trivial. The message of this book is that such efforts are misguided and that analysts' time would be much better spent on the problem of how rules can be devised and improved upon so that the ordinary life of an economy can proceed with a minimum of social dilemma ingredients. In other words, there is more than one way to get out of the jungle; can we develop any positive and normative theories of what the "best" way might be?
Harkening back to classical economics, Brennan and Buchanan stress that this consideration of rules is not really a new problem for economic analysis, and they point out that applying the analytical rigor of modern economics to rules and their selection is not an entirely new intellectual enterprise. The foundation stones have barely, if at all, been laid in this work, and this book is as good a source as any in all of Buchanan's work for capturing the essence of his vision of constitutional political economy.
There are, of course, other sources of this approach contained in various papers and books in this collection of Buchanan's works. The basic idea of the importance of rules dates to at least
The Calculus of Consent and threads its way through Buchanan's work to this very day.
*2 More than anything else, Buchanan's basic insight that rules are important can be said to have driven most of his written work over his career. More than any other single scholar, he is responsible for this emphasis and its emergence in modern economics and political science.
The Reason of Rules reflects an attempt to erect some methodological and analytical substance around this basic idea of rules. Perhaps it reflects a turning point in economics in that this book foreshadows the work of future constitutional theorists. It is hard to be sure about this because the problem that Buchanan assigns himself is so hard. However, the inherent difficulty of the problem reflects the stature of Buchanan the man and scholar. Better to build a base camp so that others can ultimately scale the highest mountain than to climb a nearby hill.
University of Mississippi
Geoffrey Brennan
As we noted in the preface,
The Reason of Rules is a response to critics of
The Power to Tax, also jointly authored with Geoffrey Brennan. In an analytical sense, Brennan and I were essentially clones of each other in the whole enterprise. We shared the same reactions to the criticisms of those who seemed simply to misunderstand our whole purpose in the earlier book.
We had planned to write a third book, which we were to call
The Power to Transfer. This book has not been, and will not be, written. The basic analysis proved to be much more difficult than we had anticipated, and, also, Geoffrey Brennan returned to Australian National University in 1983.
Geoffrey Brennan probably knows how I think better than any other coauthor. For me, it is good that he serves as coeditor of the Collected Works.
Fairfax, Virginia
Anglo-American jurisprudence emphasizes the rule of reason; it grossly neglects the reason of rules. We play socioeconomic-legal-political games that can be described empirically only by their rules. But most of us play without
an understanding or appreciation of the rules, how they came into being, how they are enforced, how they can be changed, and, most important, how they can be normatively evaluated. Basic "constitutional illiteracy" extends to and includes both the learned and the lay. We note with a mixture of admiration and envy those clever strategists who manipulate existing rules to their own advantage. It is these persons in the role of spivs rather than the sages that all too many emulate. Intelligence abounds, but wisdom seems increasingly scarce.
Our hypothesis is corroborated by the veneration Americans accord their Founding Fathers. James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and their peers are distinguished by their essential understanding of the reason of rules in political order, an understanding they implanted in the constitutional documents, the "sacred" texts that have, indeed, worked their influence through two centuries. The wisdom and understanding of the Founders have been seriously eroded in our time. The deterioration of the social-intellectual-philosophical capital of Western civil order is now widely, if only intuitively, sensed.
At the most fundamental level, rules find their reason in the never-ending desire of people to live together in peace and harmony, without the continuing Hobbesian war of each against all. How can social order be established and preserved? All social science and philosophy must address this question, either directly or indirectly.
In part, the relative neglect of the question in its explicit form stems from the absence of a clearly defined answer. When we recognize that man's natural proclivity is to pursue his own interests and that different persons' interests almost inevitably come into conflict, it is all too easy to despair. Any social order seems to rest on extremely fragile foundations. Must life tend to be either "nasty, brutish, and short" in anarchy or "nasty, brutish, and slavish" under Leviathan?
Two broadly defined escape routes have offered hope to scholars and citizens through the ages. One of them is man's capacity for moral improvement. People may, in a time to be, come to love one another. Much energy has been expended in promoting this objective. The observed record of success is dubious, although we do not want here to judge such effort unworthy or unnecessary.
The second possible avenue of escape from the "social dilemma" does not require that people become "better" in some basic moral sense. This approach starts with the empirical realities of persons as they exist, moral warts and all. These realities, summarized somewhat unsatisfactorily in the catchall term "human nature," limit the attainable states of social harmony. But even within such constraints, hope emerges for sustainable social order through the appropriate design, construction, and maintenance of
rules that set limits on the way in which each person is allowed to order his conduct toward others.
The notion that rules may substitute for morals has been familiar to economists and philosophers at least since Adam Smith. And, of course, the great intellectual discovery of the eighteenth century was the spontaneous order of the market, the discovery that within an appropriate structure of rules ("laws and institutions" in Adam Smith's phraseology), individuals in following their own interests can further the interests of others. The result is the great network of social coordination—refined and extended to the boundaries of the division of labor—that even after centuries defies the imagination when evaluated as a cooperative enterprise. The cooperation of agents in a market, however, requires neither that such agents understand the structure nor that they transcend ordinary precepts of morality in their behavior. What it does require is an appropriate "constitutional context"—a proper structure of rules, along with some arrangements for their enforcement.
All of this was once the centerpiece of "political economy," and even today economics textbooks retain vestiges of such principles. But at one time an economist was literally defined as a person who "knows how markets work," with "work" being understood in terms of the coordination of individual behavior through the institutional structure. Since the early years of this century, however, professional economists have shifted their attention. They have become preoccupied with predicting the effects of exogenous changes on the observable and measurable aspects of market outcomes (price, wage rates, quantities, etc.) and with elaborating the logical implications of alternative assumptions (or alternative "models"). With this shift of attention, modern economists seem to have all but lost the earlier understanding, which was, perhaps, their primary raison d'être in any "social" sense.
In public-choice theory, which applies the techniques and analytic apparatus of modern economics to the study of political processes, a similar divergence in emphasis is distinguishable. Some modern scholars view public-choice theory as offering a "pure science" of politics that is fully analogous to the "science" of markets. The objective is to derive testable hypotheses about the effects of specified changes in basic parameters on observed political results. Still other public-choice (social-choice) theorists concern themselves with analytic esoterica in the modeling of alternative political arrangements. The third strand of research activity within public choice, and the strand with which we have been personally most involved, has more in common with the earlier tradition in "political economy." The objective here is to understand the workings of alternative political institutions so that choices among such institutions (or structures of rules) can be more fully informed. We have called this research program "constitutional political economy," both in our subtitle for this book and in other works. Broadly defined, the methodology of constitutional political economy is the subject matter of this book.
This research program is not new for either of us. We have, jointly, separately, and severally, in bits and pieces, here and there, made previous attempts to shore up constitutional understanding. Specifically, we have made some start at analyzing how rules of political order work, how such rules might be chosen, and how normative criteria for such choices might be established. We have also, particularly in works written in the early 1980s, attempted to analyze the basic logic of rules, to indicate why rules or institutions rather than outcomes should be the central focus of inquiry. As it turns out, this sort of analysis, which we had thought to be almost universally understood, has proved surprisingly controversial. Our experience in attempting to persuade others, both in the academy and beyond, to accept the results of analysis of the more sophisticated and complex questions of constitutional design has generated a developing conviction that the intellectual problem lies at the deepest level of the mental process. Without a shared "constitutional mentality," without some initial common ground from which discourse can proceed, all argument on design comes to naught. Persons must be cognizant of the
reason of rules before they can enter into dialogues devoted to questions concerning choices among rules.
Since we are ourselves professional economists, we have been particularly mystified by the reluctance of our profession to adopt what we have called the constitutional perspective. Economists in this century have been greatly concerned with "market failure," which was the central focus of the theoretical welfare economists that dominated economic thought during the middle decades of the century. This market-failure emphasis extended to both micro- and macrolevels of analysis. Scholars working at either of these levels showed no reluctance in proffering advice to governments on detailed market correctives and macroeconomic management. In retrospect, post-public choice, it seems strange that these scholars so rarely showed a willingness to apply their analytic apparatus to institutions other than the market; they paid almost no attention to politics and political institutions. Once a policy recommendation seemed to have emerged from their market-failure analytics, there was no subsequent analysis aimed at proving that persons in their political roles, as either principals or agents, would somehow behave as the economists' precepts dictated. Implicitly, economists seemed locked into the presumption that political authority is vested in a group of moral superpersons, whose behavior might be described by an appropriately constrained social welfare function. Initial cursory attempts by a few public-choice pioneers to inject a bit of practical realism into our models of individual behavior in politics were subjected to charges of ideological bias. The myth of the benign despot seems to have considerable staying power, a phenomenon that we examine specifically in Chapter 3.
In its most fundamental aspects, the difference between the constitutionalist and nonconstitutionalist perspectives involves a difference in man's vision of himself as a conscious being interacting with others in a social order. Our interests are limited by our presupposition that persons must be evaluated as moral equals. In our research program, the constitutionalist perspective is necessarily contractarian, a point that is the subject matter of Chapter 2.
The discussion in this book can be divided into four parts. The first four chapters cover general issues in any analysis of rules. Chapter 1 makes the basic distinction between end states, or outcomes, emergent from behavior within rules and the rules themselves. We attempt to indicate why our emphasis on rules is important by introducing several independent justifications. As already noted, Chapter 2 discusses the properties of the normative stance usually labeled "contractarian." As also noted, Chapter 3 embodies our attempt to understand the opposition to a constitutional approach. Chapter 4 is concerned with a methodological dimension of the distinction between in-period and constitutional choice—a widely overlooked dimension that brings our work more closely into line with that of the classical political economists. Specifically, we argue that the behavioral assumptions appropriate for an analysis of rules may be different from those relevant to making predictions about outcomes generated under well-defined rules.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the temporal dimension of choice in the private—as distinct from the collective—choice setting. The object is to show that individuals will rationally discount the future more heavily in the collective-choice context—a fact that provides a distinct reason for rules in collective-choice settings. The general abstract argument of Chapter 5 is developed in Chapter 6 by appeal to three modern examples. The analysis of "politics without rules" through these examples establishes general support for the earlier analytic argument.
Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the connection between rules and "justice," variously construed. Chapter 7 offers an interpretation of the notion of justice that depends on the prior existence of rule-bound behavior. To the extent that justice is valued, justice so understood provides a reason for rules. In Chapter 8 we attend to the question of distributive justice. The focus is on the workings of "politics without rules" in the attempted implementation of a norm for distributive justice, as opposed to the more familiar discussion devoted to comparisons of alternative imaginable "distributions."
The book concludes with Chapter 9, which stands apart from the rest of the discussion. We could properly be accused of naïveté if we failed to address the critical issue of implementation. Is constitutional change possible in democracy? Clearly,
no, if there is widespread ignorance about the reason of rules. But even with some requisite constitutional wisdom, how can reform surmount identifiable self-interest? Cassandra looks over our shoulders here, but our whole effort, in this book and elsewhere, testifies to our faith that we can, as participants in the ongoing academic dialogue and ultimately as citizens,
improve the rules of the game we play.
As noted, part of the motivation for our exercise in this book lies in the reaction our previous work encountered—among sympathizers and antagonists alike. Much of that reaction was based, we believe, on a major misunderstanding—a failure to grasp what we had attempted to do. Whether we have been more successful in the present effort only our readers can decide. The only point to be made here is that in writing this book, we have been more than usually dependent on our critics. In this connection, we should express particular gratitude to Richard Musgrave and Jules Coleman, who paid us the greatest possible academic compliment—that of taking our work seriously. Among our immediate colleagues, Dwight Lee contributed to some of the ideas expressed in the chapters on politics and time, and Loren Lomasky, always a stimulating presence, provided valued comments on earlier versions of Chapters 6 and 7. Viktor Vanberg's comments on Chapter 1 helped us avoid ambiguities, and Dennis Mueller's comments on Chapter 7 were helpful. Robert Tollison's several notes helped us improve the whole manuscript.
This book, like its predecessor,
The Power to Tax,* and many shorter works, is a genuinely joint product of both authors. The labor had to be divided, however, and first-draft responsibility parceled out. To Brennan fell the task of initially drafting Chapters 1, 4, 7, and 8; to Buchanan the remainder, Chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9. Some of the material in Buchanan's chapters in particular was originally presented in lectures at Liberty Fund conferences at Snowbird, Utah, in 1981 and at Oxford, England, in 1982.
We have been assisted in our efforts directly by the Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University, and indirectly by those who have generously supported the center's program. For the more inclusive project on "constitutional political economy" of which this book is only a part, we gratefully acknowledge the specific support of the Foundation for Research in Economics and Education, Los Angeles.
In the emerging Buchanan tradition, we must once again thank Betty Tillman for putting the package together. Her effort was more than usually noble, since it occurred in the wake of a major move that involved the entire Public Choice Center, a move she orchestrated virtually unaided. Her extraordinary dedication and unfailing cheerfulness, which have been characteristic for more than two decades, have continually surprised us and merit our continuing gratitude.
The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), volume 10 in the series.
The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), volume 3 in the series.
The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of Fiscal Constitution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), volume 9 in the series.]
Chapter 1

subset: commoncrawl


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The Letter Left
The Healing Hearts Ranch Book 1
by Angela Ford
Genre: YA Sweet Romance
A story of remembrance, a gift, and a love rediscovered through healing hearts.
Angela Ford takes a different direction this time to bring you a new adult series. A story centered around family, horses, true love, and finding your way from the wise words left to you.
Jack Willows was a great man. He always put others first. He'd taught his granddaughter to do the same. Raine Willows left her grandfather's farm at eighteen to find her way in life. Seven years later, his death brings her back to the farm and her first love–the boy next door.
An empowering story of healing through horses. A farm that introduced her to the boy next door–Luke Daniels. The one she could never forget, no matter how many years and miles came between them. Grief reunites them, horses help heal their hearts, and gives them an idea to help others. An idea that had been her grandfather's dream for her. The letter he left, changed the direction of her life and her heart.
Angela resides in Nova Scotia - Canada's Ocean Playground. Inspired by sunsets, the ocean, her family, and books! She is never without a book, whether she's reading or writing. Angela is a bestselling and award-winning author who has been in the Amazon top fifty, Readers' Choice Awards and ScreenCraft. She has over 50 published works in paperback, eBook, audiobook, and foreign translation. An Award of Distinction sparked the idea for her first book 'Closure' that hit Bestselling Action & Adventure, Women's fiction. In between mysteries, Angela writes short contemporary romance. She loves to connect with her readers!
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Penetration Testing : Hacking Gmail account using GX Cookie
GMAIL is currently being used in corporate environments widely due to high popularity . During penetration tests we might come across scenarios where the employees are using GMail as the primary mode of email communication. (GMail also provides a paid service of email for corporates . )
Introduction to the Cookie Replay Attack :
Hacking web application was always curious for the script kiddies. And hacking free web email account is every geek first attempt. The method which I will describe in this post is not new; the same method can be applied to yahoo and other free web email services too.
The method we will be using is cookie stealing and replaying the same back to the Gmail server. There are many ways you can steal cookie, one of them is XSS (Cross site scripting) discussed by other is earlier post. But we won't be using any XSS here, in our part of attack we will use some local tool to steal cookie and use that cookie to get an access to Gmail account.
* You are in Local Area Network (LAN) in a switched / wireless environment : example : office , cyber café, Mall etc.
* You know basic networking.
Tool used for this attack:
- Cain & Abel
- Network Miner
- Firefox web browser with Cookie Editor add-ons
The Attack
We assume you are connected to LAN/Wireless network. Our main goal is to capture Gmail GX cookie from the network. We can only capture cookie when someone is actually using his gmail. I've noticed normally in lunch time in office, or during shift start people normally check their emails. If you are in cyber café or in Mall then there are more chances of catching people using Gmail.
We will go step by step,
If you are using Wireless network for hacking gmail account then you can skip this Step A.
A] Using Cain to do ARP poisoning and routing:
Switch allows unicast traffic mainly to pass through its ports. When X and Y are communicating eachother in switch network then Z will not come to know what X & Y are communicating, so inorder to sniff that communication you would have to poison ARP table of switch for X & Y. In Wireless you don't have to do poisoning because Wireless Access points act like HUB which forwards any communication to all its ports (recipients).
* Start Cain from Start > Program > Cain > Cain
* Click on Start/Stop Sniffer tool icon from the tool bar, we will first scan the network to see what all IPs are used in the network and this list will also help us to launch an attack on the victim.
* Then click on Sniffer Tab then Host Tab below. Right click within that spreadsheet and click on Scan Mac Addresses, from the Target section select
All hosts in my subnet and then press Ok. This will list all host connected in your network. You will notice you won't see your Physical IP of your machine in that list.
How to check your physical IP ?
Click on start > Run type cmd and press enter, in the command prompt type
Ipconfig and enter.
This should show your IP address assign to your PC.
It will have following outputs:
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : xyz.com IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Main thing to know here is your IP address and your Default Gateway.
Make a note of your IP Address & default gateway. From Cain you will see list of IP addresses, here you have to choose any free IP address which is not used anywhere.
We assume IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is not used anywhere in the network.
* Click on Configure > APR > Use Spoofed IP and MAC Address > IP
Type in xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and from the poisoning section click on
"Use ARP request Packets"
and click on OK.
* Within the Sniffer Tab , below click on APR Tab, from the left hand side click on APR and now click on the right hand top spreadsheet then click on plus sign tool from top. The moment you click that it will show you list of IP address on left hand side. Here we will target the victim IP address and the default gateway.
The purpose is to do ARP poisoning between victim and the default gateway and route the victim traffic via your machine. From the left side click on Victim IP address, we assume victim is using zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz . The moment you click on victim IP you will see remaining list on the right hand side here you have to select default gateway IP address i.e. 192.168.1.1 then click on OK.
* Finally, Click on Start/Stop Sniffer tool menu once again and next click on Start/Stop APR. This will start poisoning victim and default gateway.
B] Using Network Miner to capture cookie in plain text for hacking gmail account
We are using Network miner to capture cookie, but Network miner can be used for manythings from capturing text , image, HTTP parameters, files. Network Miner is normally used in Passive reconnaissance to collect IP, domain and OS finger print of the connected device to your machine. If you don't have Network miner you can use any other sniffer available like Wireshark, Iris network scanner, NetWitness etc.
We are using This tool because of its ease to use.
* Open Network Miner by clicking its exe (pls note it requires .Net framework to work).
* From the "—Select network adaptor in the list—" click on down arrow and select your adaptor If you are using Ethernet wired network then your adaptor would have Ethernet name and IP address of your machine and if you are using wireless then adaptor name would contain wireless and your IP address. Select the one which you are using and click on start.
Important thing before you start this make sure you are not browsing any websites, or using any Instant Mesaging and you have cleared all cookies from firefox.
* Click on Credential Tab above. This tab will capture all HTTP cookies , pay a close look on "Host" column you should see somewhere mail.google.com. If you could locate mail.google.com entry then in the same entry right click at Username column and click on "copy username" then open notepad and paste the copied content there.
* Remove word wrap from notepad and search for GX in the line. Cookie which you have captured will contain many cookies from gmail each would be separated by semicolon ( GX cookie will start with GX= and will end with semicolon you would have to copy everything between = and semicolon
Example : GX= axcvb1mzdwkfefv ; ßcopy only axcvb1mzdwkfefv
Now we have captured GX cookie its time now to use this cookie and replay the attack and log in to victim email id, for this we will use firefox and cookie editor add-ons.
C] Using Firefox & cookie Editor to replay attack for hacking gmail account.
* Open Firefox and log in your gmail email account.
* from firefox click on Tools > cookie Editor.
* In the filter box type .google.com and Press Filter and from below list search for cookiename GX. If you locate GX then double click on that GX cookie and then from content box delete everything and paste your captured GX cookie from stepB.4 and click on save and then close.
* From the Address bar of Firefox type mail.google.com and press enter, this should replay victim GX cookie to Gmail server and you would get logged in to victim Gmail email account.
* Sorry! You can't change password with cookie attack.
How to be saved from this COOKIE Stealing attack?
Google has provided a way out for this attack where you can use secure cookie instead of unsecure cookie.
You can enable secure cookie option to always use https from Gmail settings.
Settings > Browser connection > Always use https
Please Not that this tutorial is purely for educational purposes and any misuse is highly discouraged .


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Affiliated Institutions
No affiliated institutions
IDC Rank of Financial Ratios 2024-Q1:
CAMEL Analysis
Capital Ratios - A Foundation for Safety and Soundness
Tier 1 Capital % Tier 1 Assets
Risk Based Capital % Risk Based Assets
Tier I Capital % Risk Based Assets
Adequacy of Capital and Loan Loss Reserve to Cover Loan Delinquency
Loan Loss Reserve % Tier I Capital
Loans 90 Days Delinquent % Tier I Capital
Loans Nonaccrual + REO % Tier I Capital
Margins Measure Management
Common Shareholder's Net Operating Profit After Tax % Tangible Equity Capital, NOPAT ROE (1yr)
Cost of Equity COE (1yr)
Net Interest % Earning Assets (1yr)
Noninterest Income % Earning Assets (1yr)
Noninterest Expense % Earning Assets (1yr)
Operating Profit Margin OPM (1yr)
OPM Risk Standard Deviation
Earnings Return on Equity Equals the Operating Return Plus the Financial Return
Return of Net Operating Profit From Operations After Tax % Earning Assets (ROEA)
Return on Financial Leverage (ROFL) = Spread X Leverage
ROEA less COF AT = Leverage Spread
Leverage Multiplier
Liquidity Determines the Ability to Grow
Balance Sheet Cash Flow % Tier I Equity
Percent Annual Growth in Equity Capital
Nonperforming Assets % Total Loans
Illiquid Loans % Stable Deposits and Borrowings Plus Excess Liquidity
Interest-Bearing Liabilities % Earning Assets
Affiliated Institutions
No affiliated institutions
Supplemental Ratios
Investment Yield
Loan Yield
Cost of Adjusted Debt - After Tax
Net Income % Avg Assets
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Today the Commission is further delivering on its top priority of creating jobs and boosting growth in Europe, by unveiling a record €13.1 billion investment plan in 276 transport projects, selected under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). This investment will unlock additional public and private co-financing for a combined amount of €28.8 billion. Along with the future European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the CEF will play a major role in bridging the investment gap in Europe, which is one of the Commission's top priorities. Beyond transport, it will benefit the European economy as a whole by creating more favourable conditions for growth and jobs.
EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said, "Today, I am very pleased to propose the largest investment plan ever made by the EU in the transport area. The projects we selected will serve citizens and businesses alike, by upgrading infrastructure and removing existing bottlenecks. They will also promote sustainable and innovative mobility solutions. This unprecedented investment represents a major contribution to the Commission's agenda of growth and job creations. Implementing the trans-European transport network could create up to 10 million jobs and increase Europe's GDP by 1.8% by 2030".
Selected projects are primarily located in the core trans-European transport network. Among the beneficiaries are flagship initiatives such as Rail Baltica, the Brenner Base Tunnel, the Seine-Escaut waterway, the Caland Bridge and the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link. Smaller-scale initiatives include cross-border projects between Groningen and Bremen, the Iron Rhine rail line, LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) deployment plans or projects enhancing the navigability of the Danube River.
Launched in September 2014, the CEF calls for proposals generated an unprecedented interest. The Commission received 700 applications totalling €36 billion of requested funding, three times more than the available envelope. This allowed the Commission to select the projects with the highest European added value, while guaranteeing a balanced distribution geographically and between the transport modes. In particular, nearly €4.8 billion have been earmarked for Member States eligible for Cohesion Funds. Contribution to other Commission priority actions, such as the Energy Union or the Digital Single Market, was also evaluated during the selection process.
The EU's financial contribution is made in the form of grants, the co-financing rate of which is between 20% and 85% of a given project, depending on its type.
Next steps
The proposed funding decision must now be formally adopted by the Connecting Europe Facility Committee, which will meet on 10 July 2015. The individual grant agreements will then be prepared by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) and signed with the project beneficiaries in the second half of 2015.
Under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), €24.05 billion will be made available from the EU's 2014-2020 budget to co-fund TEN-T projects in the EU Member States. Of this amount, €11.305 billion will be available only for projects in Member States eligible for the Cohesion Fund. Annual and multi-annual work programmes specify the set of priorities and the total amount of financial support to be committed for each of these priorities in a given year. 2014 has been the first programming year under the CEF.
For More information
- List of projects proposed for funding: I, II
- Connecting Europe Facility (DG MOVE website)
- Fraunhofer Study on the cost of non-completion of the TEN-T


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It has come to the attention of Something Awful that certain white people are very confused about when it is and isn't appropriate to use the "n word." As a service to our readers, we've prepared a comprehensive FAQ with detailed directions for nearly every situation in which the word might be used.
Q: I saw a very good movie called Blazing Saddles, and I'm the sort of person who loves to quote movies in social situations. Does my duty as a hilarious movie quoter require me to quote every line of Blazing Saddles, even those that might feature the "n word"?
A: No, you are not required to quote those lines. We suggest quoting the character Mongo for maximum laughs.
Q: I'm out with my friends and coworkers at my favorite karaoke bar, and the next song in the rotation is a popular hip hop song. Is it OK to shout the "n word" in this context?
A: No. It is particularly not OK if the lyrics don't contain the "n word," or if you're not the one performing the song.
Q: OK, I'm alone this time. I'm singing along to a popular hip hop song on my radio and I'm fairly sure one of the lyrics mentions the "n word." Help, what do I do? The word is coming up quick and I need an answer in like 38 seconds max!
A: You should not say the "n word" in this case.
Q: My boss, a black man, is a casual friend of mine. He often stops by my cubicle to "trash talk" me about the upcoming NFL football game and the quality, or lack thereof, of my fantasy picks. I wish to respond in a way that demonstrates friendly rapport and familiarity with his culture. Can I--
A: You must not.
Q: I read about this thing on the internet called "irony." Supposedly, it allows me to say anything I want, no matter how stupid or insensitive, as long as I claim I'm being "ironic." Nothing else is required. Can I say the "n word" as long as I shriek the word "IRONY" afterward?
A: Ironically, no.
Q: Recently, I heard a comedian named Chris Rock explaining the difference between people of a certain race and the small segment of that race who might be called a certain "n word." I found the routine quite invigorating, and became excited to explain the distinction to my friends and, with any luck, introduce the "n word" into my regular vocabulary.
A: Your friends are not lucky to know you.
Q: I recently scored hundreds of points at the Skee-Ball machine in the Dave N' Busters outside the mall, yet the only item I could afford to purchase with my tickets was a comically gaudy plastic gold chain with a spinning medallion. I am now wearing it and striking poses that people of my upbringing do not normally strike. Can I use language I do not normally use, for the sake of character?
A: This is a perfect opportunity to not only not say the "n word," but to stop everything you're doing.
Q: I don't think it's fair that one group of people can--
A: Stop it.
Q: I'm a white person, and I have a tight-knit circle of friends of all races. We regard each other like brothers, and there's lots of jocular teasing among us. I suspect that one day, one of my friends of another race might level the "n word" at me. Is it OK, in this casual context, to call them the "n word" back?
A: This is one situation in which we can give our most ironclad assurance that you absolutely cannot ever use the "n word."
Q: I'm at a NRA convention and--
A: This is another such situation.
Q: I'm reading aloud to a group of schoolchildren. The book is Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. I come to a passage containing what I can only assume is the "n word." I halt there, unsure of what to do, as the innocent children look up at me expectantly.
A: You should make some older friends.
Q: My username for Windows 8 is the "n word." It was probably poor judgement on my part to make that my username, but what's done is done. My friend is logging on to my computer and asking me what he should type in the box for the username.
A: Saunter over as if to help your friend and then nonchalantly spill a five-gallon bucket of paint on your laptop and say, "oops, I guess we'll never know."
Something Awful is in the process of changing hands to a new owner. In the meantime we're pausing all updates and halting production on our propaganda comic partnership with Northrop Grumman.
Dear god this was an embarrassment to not only this site, but to all mankind
Landmarks and statues around the world: old, boring and could use an update.
Join the SA Forum photoshop goons in their quest to make horror wholesome!
Yes, there are finally enough games for a new round of One Sentence Reviews
The Something Awful front page news tackles anything both off and on the Internet. Mostly "on" though, as we're all incredible nerds.
Copyright ©2024 Jeffrey "of" YOSPOS & Something Awful


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I'm Anita, a Product Manager here at Stack Overflow.
We are starting to work on the questionnaire for the 2020 Developer Survey. Thanks to you, we had some great questions in the 2019 survey, such as:
- On average, how many hours per week do you work?
- At what age did you write your first line of code or program?
- Does your company regularly employ unit tests in the development of their products?
(Check out the results from the 2019 survey if you haven't already.)
We'd love to get your suggestions for compelling topics we should cover this year.
It's the 10th anniversary of the Developer Survey. Any questions regarding how things have changed in the last decade?
We are always on the lookout for fun/silly questions, in the tradition of have you tried turning it off and on again and tabs vs. spaces.
We are aiming for a much shorter survey this year, so we can't include every idea -- but we always try to include a few of the top-voted suggestions.
As always, thanks for your time and contributions! Please add your suggestions by Tuesday, Oct. 1.


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Traffic School Online
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Privacy Policy
This privacy policy governs the information collection practices of this website and all other websites maintained and operated by National Traffic Safety Institute. The policy below explains how we collect and use the personal information you provide through the website when interacting with it. It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update this information.
Information we collect
We collect certain information from and about our users in three ways: directly from the user (for example, when ordering a product, registering an account, or signing up for a newsletter), from our web server logs, and through cookies and tracking technologies:
Information provided by users
During course registration and to process your order, we collect the following types of personally identifiable information: personal data such as your name, address, email address, and phone number; payment information such as credit card numbers and billing addresses; and other demographic information including your zip code, date of birth, and gender.
Based upon the particular course or product that you are ordering, and the State in which the course/product is provided, we may also collect additional personal data such as driver's license number and information about your traffic citation.
We will not sell this information to any unrelated third party, nor will we use or disclose this information to promote products or services of an unrelated third party, or in ways different from what are disclosed in this statement. We will deny requests for marketing, scholastic, demographic, or other information requests from entities that could derive commercial or social benefits from such data.
Log Files
Our web servers automatically collect website usage information from you when you visit our website. In common with the majority of websites you visit, this site employs log files. These log files record data from visitors to this site. The data gathered is non-personal and may include things such as your: Internet protocol (IP) address, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP) name, entry and exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks. We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track customers' movements on the site, and gather broad demographic information for our exclusive use. Occasionally, we may disclose aggregate statistics from our logs that do not contain personally identifiable information when dealing with service providers, affiliates, or business partners.
Cookie/Tracking Technology
We collect non-personally identifiable information through the use of third party technology, including tracking technology and cookies. Cookie and tracking technology are useful for gathering information such as browser type and operating system, tracking the number of visitors to the site, and understanding how visitors use the site.
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive that helps us to improve our service and your experience by customizing the site for visitors. Cookies contain a unique number (your session ID) which allows our server to recognize your computer and "remember" what you've done on the site.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to block cookies. Instructions for blocking cookies in your browsers are available at
. If you accept cookies, you can delete them later. Instructions for deleting cookies in your browsers are also available at
. If you choose to delete cookies, any settings and preferences controlled by those cookies will be deleted and may need to be recreated. If a user rejects any cookie, he/she may still use our site. Rejecting cookies will not limit the user from any portion of the site.
Notice to California Residents – "Do Not Track" Signals
The State of California requires commercial website owners and operators to disclose how their website responds to Web browser "do not track" signals. If you have enabled your browser for that purpose, at this time, we do not honor "Do Not Track" requests or change our services or information practices in any way as a result of receiving "Do Not Track" requests from your browser.
Our Use of Personally Identifiable Information
The information we collect is used to register a customer for a selected course, to process customer payments, to provide you with the course or other product that you have ordered, to send you information about our company and its services that we believe may interest you, and also to help us access your record in case you are experiencing technical difficulties while taking the course. The personally identifiable information we collect online is also used for verification of your identity while taking our online course to prevent fraudulent use and, when applicable, for accurate certificate processing with your court. While taking our course online, verification questions will appear on the screen asking you to identify yourself. The correct answers to the questions are based on the information you provided to us during enrollment. Each course has a different security measure depending on the course type, the State you are taking the course for, or where the citation was issued (if you are taking the Driver Improvement Course).
To process your order, we will ask you to provide personal information including your name, email address, phone number, home address and credit card billing address. Credit card numbers are used only for processing payments and are not used for any other purposes. Your personal information is used to get in touch with you if we have trouble processing an order. Our website does not save your credit card information after the transaction is processed. Your credit card information is saved by a third party service provider that we use for credit card processing services, and with which we maintain a written agreement to ensure appropriate security and confidentiality measures are in place to safeguard your personal and financial data. We will not authorize the release of your personal or financial information to anyone not directly involved in processing the transaction of your order.
Disclosure to Third Parties
We will not share your information with any third party except as outlined within this privacy policy or as required by law. We may share your personal information with Service providers under contract who help with our business operation, such as outside shipping company to ship orders, third party verification partners to whom data is passed for means of authenticating students throughout the course, court (or court assistance agency contracting with your court) for proper paperwork processing and dismissal of traffic citations, and with a third party hosted call center solution for telecommunication (chats and emails) and call monitoring services. In some instances, your Personally Identifiable Information will be shared with various course providers we contract with to provide course delivery and certificate fulfillment. These agents access our database to offer customer support to students in the respective states, print certificates of completion, and/or report course completions results to regulatory bodies.
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with an appropriate law enforcement investigation, current judicial proceeding, a court order, or legal process served on our website, or as required by law.
If you are using any of our courses, after the course completion we may request information from users via surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and you can skip the survey page. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of our sites and for statistical purposes. We may also use your survey information for a customer testimonial. However, if you let us know that you do not want us to use your survey responses for testimonials, we will honor that request.
Special Notifications
National Traffic Safety Institute may send two types of emails.
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Our courses are designed to generate email notifications at certain intervals throughout the course, such as password information, course completion information, transactional confirmations, and notices of updates to our Privacy Policy (if we choose to provide such notices to you in this manner). These emails are exclusively related to the products and services offered through and subscribed to by you on this website.
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Occasionally, you will receive information on special pricing offers and other great deals from National Traffic Safety Institute.
You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes. You can opt out of all marketing and newsletter emails by clicking the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email, or by contacting us directly using the contact form. If you ask us to remove your name and address from marketing and newsletter emails, we will maintain your name in a "do not contact" file to ensure that we can honor your request, however it may take up to 10 days to process your request.
Please be aware that if you opt out of National Traffic Safety Institute emails, you will still receive transactional emails from National Traffic Safety Institute for essential communications.
This website takes precautions to protect our customers' information. When customers submit sensitive information via the website, the information is secured both online and offline. When a customer is required to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is then encrypted and secured during transmission using industry-leading encryption software. You can verify this by looking for a closed lock icon at the bottom of your web browser (while on a secure page such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of web browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to unlocked or open when you are browsing a non-secure page), or looking for "https" at the beginning of the address of the web page.
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information during online transmission of the data, we also take precautions to protect customer information offline. All of our customers' information, encompassing more than the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our employees must use password-protected screen savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their password to re-gain access to your information.
Links to Other Sites
For your convenience, this site contains links to other websites. Some of these sites are administered by or on behalf of National Traffic Safety Institute, while others are unrelated. National Traffic Safety Institute is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of linked third party websites not administered by National Traffic Safety Institute, and this Privacy Statement does not apply to these linked websites. Each website should be checked for its own privacy statement.
Collection of Information from Children
We do not seek information directly from children. If you are under 13, you should not provide us with any information without the involvement of a parent or guardian. A parent or guardian may register a child age 14 or over to visit or join one of our courses.
Notice to California Minors (California Residents under age 18)
The State of California requires an operator of an internet website that is directed to CA minors to comply with California S.B. 568 and allow California minors to remove or request and obtain removal of content they posted to a website. If you are a California Resident, under the age of 18, and would like to submit a request to have your content (photos, reviews, testimonials, comments) removed from our website, please contact us 425-369-9000.
Notification of Changes
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will post those changes so you are made aware of those changes. Any new policy will not apply retroactively. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.
If, however, the change expands the ways in which we share users' personally identifiable information that we collect in the future in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection, we will provide users with more prominent notice (such as adding a statement to our home page, or sending users a specific notice through email).
Effective Date: April 6, 2019


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Virtual Memories Show 231:
Sven Birkerts
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More
"There are thresholds or shelves where we go from having incremental change to systemic moments of transformation."
In the '90s, Sven Birkerts cautioned us about the impact of technology on reading with The Gutenberg Elegies. In 2017, we mute our iPhones to talk about his new book, Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age (Graywolf Press). We dive into the impact of digital technology on perception and identity, but also get into the way life becomes a thematic puzzle in middle age, why he stepped down from his role directing the low-residency MFA program at Bennington, the joy of bringing his favorite writers in as instructors (and the ones he regrets not getting), the challenge of interviewing fiction writers, his big literary 0-fer and what I'm missing about Virginia Woolf, how he's adapting to a year-long sabbatical and how he understands his writing life, what he's learned editing the literary magazine AGNI, and why the prerequisite for anything he's reading is that it has to be more interesting to him than whatever it is he's vaguely brooding about. Give it a listen! And go buy his new essay collection, Changing the Subject!
"When I was your age, I discovered the doubling over of one's own experience. . . . Themes, recurrences and motifs in my life began to manifest. Then as if on command, the whole sunken continent of memory began to detach from the sea-floor."
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
Lots of ways to follow The Virtual Memories Show! iTunes, Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!
About our Guest
Sven Birkerts is the author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age and nine previous books, including The Other Walk: Essays, The Gutenberg Elegies, The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again, and My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time. He recently stepped down as director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and he also edits the journal AGNI based at Boston University. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, and he's on Twitter as svenbirkerts and Instagram as cyberbirk.
Credits: This episode's music is Nothing's Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Mr. Birkerts' home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Mr. Birkerts by me. It's on my instagram.


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Mac Parker's lenders miffed at state inquiry
MIDDLEBURY — A state investigation concerning the financing of a full-length film by well-known Addison resident Malcolm "Mac" Parker has been misconstrued, says a spokesman for a group of lenders who support Parker's project.
"First and foremost, we are strongly opposed to what the state is purporting … that he (Parker) is selling securities and that he is not licensed to sell securities. Both complaints are completely groundless," said Vergennes resident Christopher White, a lender and spokesperson for a group of supporters who have established a legal defense fund on Parker's behalf.
"The very contracts we have signed state in black and white that we were not buying shares in the film, had no say in the making of the film, and that the payments were not dependent on the success of the film or even the completion of the film," White continued, adding that he had been in contact with more than 100 other lenders and "no one has expressed any dissatisfaction with the way Mac has handled this project or dealt with the finances. To a person, everyone I have talked with has recognized that these were loans to Mac to help him do his work."
The State Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration, however, has confirmed that investigators are looking into whether Parker violated state law in the way he solicited financing for a movie called "Birth of Innocence." They also have been clear that no allegations of wrongdoing have been filed.
"It's selling an unregistered security by an unregistered person" the state is concerned about, Paulette Thabault, commissioner of the department, told WCAX in a Tuesday night report that portrayed the financing arrangements in a questionable light supporters considered highly unfair.
"It's just rubbish," White said, concerning any allusion that the financing was suspect or deceitful. "Anyone who knows Mac knows he is the salt of the earth … Everyone of the 100-plus people I have talked with over the past six weeks has said, without exception, that they have rarely met a man with such integrity."
The state filed a complaint in Superior Court in Montpelier based on the premise that the loans were securities, that he offered to repay lenders 12.5 percent to 15 percent interest on those loans, and agreed to pay some lenders up to 30 percent interest. The state alleges the transactions were "investment contracts" and alleges Parker owed "approximately 10 million dollars in principal and interest from the sale of securities to approximately 200 investors, individually investing amounts ranging from $100 to $500,000."
Parker, who gained fame in the 1980s and 1990s as a Vermont storyteller entertaining crowds at festivals as well as creating a video that introduced children to farm life in Vermont, has spent the past 10 years working on the film and offered a written statement in his defense.
"I have borrowed money to make a beautiful film called 'Birth of Innocence,'" he wrote. "This is not a scheme, and I have no intention to deceive or violate anyone. I have made an absolute commitment to repay all loans made to me, and I remain steadfast in that commitment.
"I have always considered these loans," Parker continued, "and had no idea the state might consider them securities. The state raised these questions, and I have acted with openness and cooperation to support their investigation. I dismantled my Web site at their request. I have assured them I will work to bring myself into compliance with all regulations, if violations are found."
Parker's attorney, Wanda Otero-Ziegler, who works with the law firm of Langrock, Sperry & Wool in Middlebury, emphasized the state's complaint has "no indication of wrongful intent on his part or any criminal allegation."
She maintained that the agreements with lenders, which Parker had drafted without the help of an attorney, may have used faulty language but clearly stated in essence that the transactions were loans with a guaranteed payment of interest.
The agreements were essentially "promissory notes," Otero-Ziegler said, because there was an "unconditional promise of repayment with interest" regardless of the film's success or failure. A promissory note, or loans, would not fall under the state's jurisdiction and, therefore, Parker would not be in violation of state law.
Otero-Ziegler explained the distinction between a promissory note and a security is that a promissory note establishes an "unconditional promise to pay" with a fixed interest rate and a fixed term of payment, all of which were in Parker's agreements with his lenders. Investments are dependent on the success or failure of a particular project or stock and are tied to performance.
Otero-Ziegler said her client and his supporters were not troubled that the state was looking into the financing, but they have objected to the recent turn of events in which the state has taken a more aggressive stance by freezing Parker's assets and putting his project on hold. "They have a responsibility to enforce the regulations and a right to look into this activity," she said, but added their recent actions have been more harmful than helpful.
"No one benefits if this project comes to a grinding halt," Otero-Ziegler said, adding that the film is near completion and all that the lenders want is for the state to drop the pretense it is defending their interests and to let Parker get back to work.
"It really rankles me, and a lot of lenders, that the state says it is representing my interest as a lender," White said, adding that nothing could be further from the truth. "To say the state's intention to protect the lenders is a contradiction is a gross understatement. What they're doing is a huge disservice."
White said lenders heard of the state's investigation in a December update to lenders from Parker, and that lenders were supportive of Parker's effort to come into compliance with any state regulations deemed necessary to complete the project. When investors learned of the state's intent to file an official complaint, a legal defense fund sprung up organically and has grown significantly in the past several weeks.
"What became quickly apparent was the outpouring of support for Mac by all these various supporters of the project," White said, noting that he has been in the unique position of being in contact with more than 100 of them in the past several weeks. "We all think the state has overstepped its bounds and that we are not being represented by the state's viewpoint … We view the state's role in this as highly inappropriate …. The state is so far off the mark that it is almost laughable, if it were not for the fact that the state agents involved are devaluing the greatest asset we have (Parker), and that detracts from the very real value he is creating."
Ironically, the film Parker is creating speaks directly to the human condition, overcoming hardship and obstacles and realizing the full potential of one's life, says White.
"It's a very compelling and powerful film… It has a message, at a time when people are feeling disenfranchised and there is a lot of trepidation in the world, that is very relevant and uplifting."
White characterized the majority of the lenders he has talked to as friends, family and neighbors of Parkers and said they have all expressed frustration with the state's actions.
"These people have recognized the inherent value of the film and believe in the person who is piloting this project … To know Mac is to know how ridiculous (the talk about speculative schemes are)… these are his neighbors, friends and relations who are working with him on this project … If we were to believe the state we would be outraged; instead his supporters, those who have loaned him money, are circling the wagons around him."
Parker, meanwhile, just hopes the state will let him finish his project without undo legal expense and delay. "I am asking for the time and freedom to finish (the project)," Parker wrote, "and to honor my promises to all the good people who are supporting this project."
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Reel Rock Tour 2011 / 2012
25th Jul 2011
Last year the Reel Rock Tour trailer was a massive internet hit. To date it has had nearly a quarter of a million hits on Youtube!
This year's trailer is due out on August 15th. The tour premieres in Boulder, Colorado on Sep 25th and will hit the UK and Europe very shortly after that. Heason Events is taking bookings for the UK and Ireland. If you are interested in hosting a screening please get in touch asap.
Here is the programme for this year:
OPENING INTRODUCTION ACTION MONTAGE WITH SPONSOR ADS (4minutes)
REEL ROCK FILMMAKING COMPETITION (4minutes) — 2 winning short films.
ORIGINS: OBE & ASHIMA—There's a nine year old girl from New York City taking the bouldering world by storm, and her name is Ashima Shiraishi. Under the tutelage of her passionate coach, Obe Carrion, this tiny master is crushing competitions and raising the bar for climbing's youth. Obe brings her to bouldering's proving ground, Hueco Tanks, TX, where he had his own big breakthrough 13 years earlier, and Ashima rips the place apart.
ICE REVOLUTION— At British Columbia's spectacular Helmcken Falls, a revolution is taking place, led by Canadian maniac Will Gadd. After 30+ years of ice climbing, Gadd has finally realized his dream of climbing radically overhanging, heinously difficult ice. Gadd and Brit Tim Emmett dodge exploding 30 foot icicle bombs and send the hardest pure ice climb in the world, but they swear it's just the first step in a whole new direction for the sport.
COLD—Over the past 26 years, 16 expeditions have tried and failed to climb one of Pakistan's 8,000 meter peaks in winter. In February 2011, Simone Moro, Denis Urubko, and Corey Richards became the first to achieve this alpine dream by summiting
Gasherbrum II, surviving -50 degree temperatures and a massive avalanche. Richards captured both the glory and the pain of their adventure in this raw and moving, first-person look at modern super-alpinism.
SLACK LIFE—American climbing dirtbag Andy Lewis is taking the discipline of slacklining into the future as he solos the worlds longest high-lines and masters the hardest aerial tricks, all the while pushing his equipment to the limit. As Andy goes higher, harder and faster with climbing, slack and BASE, we all have to wonder how far he can go before it's one step over the line.
INTERMISSION: (5-15 minutes)
Can include gear giveaways, fundraising for non-profits, tabling, and contests.
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PROJECT DAWN WALL — Tommy Caldwell is the master of big wall free climbing. He's devoted the last decade of his life to opening free routes on Yosemite's El Capitan, rewriting climbing history in the process. Now he's three seasons deep into his ultimate project - the seemingly impossible Dawn Wall. Joined by bouldering specialist Kevin Jorgeson, Tommy makes his first big ground-up push, pulling pitch after pitch of 5.14 first ascents before an epic storm shuts the team down until next year…
RACE FOR THE NOSE— Welcome to the wildest competition known to man -- the speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan. We follow Dean Potter and Sean Leary on their attempt to break this legendary record on the classic route that has been the scene of epic rivalries, brutal accidents, and remains to this day a hotly contested prize


text:
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a startling price range — close to $700 billion for 2012 — but that's barely more than half of it. If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.
Take that in for a moment. It's true; you won't find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it's no misprint. It may even be an underestimate. In any case, it's the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars. The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for "security" is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up.
So, here we go. Buckle your seat belt: it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officially released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request. Of course, it hasn't been passed by Congress — even the 2011 budget hasn't made it through that august body yet — but at least we have the most recent figures available for our calculations.
For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon's annual "base" budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, that's already nothing to sneeze at, but it's just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
To get closer to a real figure, it's necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.
Missing from the Pentagon's budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them. That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy. And then, don't forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a "miscellaneous" category — a kind of department of chump change — that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.
So, even though we're barely started, we've already hit a total official FY 2012 Pentagon budget request of:
$703.1 billion dollars.
Not usually included in national security spending are hundreds of billions of dollars that American taxpayers are asked to spend to pay for past wars, and to support our current and future national security strategy.
For starters, that $117.8 billion war-funding request for the Department of Defense doesn't include certain actual "war-related fighting" costs. Take, for instance, the counterterrorism activities of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For the first time, just as with the Pentagon budget, the FY 2012 request divides what's called "International Affairs" in two: that is, into an annual "base" budget as well as funding for "Overseas Contingency Operations" related to Iraq and Afghanistan. (In the Bush years, these used to be called the Global War on Terror.) The State Department's contribution? $8.7 billion. That brings the grand but very partial total so far to:
$711.8 billion.
The White House has also requested $71.6 billion for a post-2001 category called "homeland security" — of which $18.1 billion is funded through the Department of Defense. The remaining $53.5 billion goes through various other federal accounts, including the Department of Homeland Security ($37 billion), the Department of Health and Human Services ($4.6 billion), and the Department of Justice ($4.6 billion). All of it is, however, national security funding which brings our total to:
$765.3 billion.
The U.S. intelligence budget was technically classified prior to 2007, although at roughly $40 billion annually, it was considered one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. Since then, as a result of recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress has required that the government reveal the total amount spent on intelligence work related to the National Intelligence Program (NIP).
This work done by federal agencies like the CIA and the National Security Agency consists of keeping an eye on and trying to understand what other nations are doing and thinking, as well as a broad range of "covert operations" such as those being conducted in Pakistan. In this area, we won't have figures until FY 2012 ends. The latest NIP funding figure we do have is $53.1 billion for FY 2010. There's little question that the FY 2012 figure will be higher, but let's be safe and stick with what we know. (Keep in mind that the government spends plenty more on "intelligence." Additional funds for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), however, are already included in the Pentagon's 2012 base budget and war-fighting supplemental, though we don't know what they are. The FY 2010 funding for MIP, again the latest figure available, was $27 billion.) In any case, add that $53.1 billion and we're at:
$818.4 billion.
Veterans programs are an important part of the national security budget with the projected funding figure for 2012 being $129.3 billion. Of this, $59 billion is for veterans' hospital and medical care, $70.3 billion for disability pensions and education programs. This category of national security funding has been growing rapidly in recent years because of the soaring medical-care needs of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, by 2020 total funding for health-care services for veterans will have risen another 45%-75%. In the meantime, for 2012 we've reached:
$947.7 billion.
If you include the part of the foreign affairs budget not directly related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other counterterrorism operations, you have an additional $18 billion in direct security spending. Of this, $6.6 billion is for military aid to foreign countries, while almost $2 billion goes for "international peacekeeping" operations. A further $709 million has been designated for countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combating terrorism, and clearing landmines planted in regional conflicts around the globe. This leaves us at:
$965.7 billion.
As with all federal retirees, U.S. military retirees and former civilian Department of Defense employees receive pension benefits from the government. The 2012 figure is $48.5 billion for military personnel, $20 billion for those civilian employees, which means we've now hit:
$1,034.2 billion. (Yes, that's $1.03 trillion!)
When the federal government lacks sufficient funds to pay all of its obligations, it borrows. Each year, it must pay the interest on this debt which, for FY 2012, is projected at $474.1 billion. The National Priorities Project calculates that 39% of that, or $185 billion, comes from borrowing related to past Pentagon spending.
Add it all together and the grand total for the known national security budget of the United States is:
$1,219.2 billion. (That's more than $1.2 trillion.)
A country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. Still, don't for a second think that $1.2 trillion is the actual grand total for what the U.S. government spends on national security. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once famously spoke of the world's "known unknowns." Explaining the phrase this way: "That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know." It's a concept that couldn't apply better to the budget he once oversaw. When it comes to U.S. national security spending, there are some relevant numbers we know are out there, even if we simply can't calculate them.
To take one example, how much of NASA's proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force's facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support? In dollars terms, we just don't know.
Other "known unknowns" would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on moneys borrowed to fund veterans' benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.
There's a simple principle here. American taxpayers should know just what they are paying for. In a restaurant, a customer would be outraged to receive a check almost twice as high as the menu promised. We have no idea whether the same would be true in the world of national security spending, because Americans are never told what national security actually means at the cash register.
Note on Sources: The press release from the Office of The Director of National Intelligence disclosing the Fiscal Year 2010 $53 billion intelligence budget consists of 138 words and no details, other than that the office will disclose no details. It can be found by clicking here (.pdf file). An October 2010 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office entitled "Potential Costs of Veterans' Health Care" projects rapid cost growth for Veterans Administration services over the next decade as a result of spiraling health care costs. To read the full report, click here (.pdf file). To see all the federal agencies that contribute to homeland security funding, click here (.pdf file)
Christopher Hellman is communications liaison at the National Priorities Project in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was previously a military policy analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Defense Information, and spent 10 years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer working on national security and foreign policy issues. He is a TomDispatch regular and a frequent media commentator on military planning, policy, and budgetary issues. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Hellman explains how he arrived at his staggering numbers, click here, or download it to your iPod here.
This article was originally published on TomDispatch.com.
Copyright 2011 Christopher Hellman