The Oppenheimer Report 4/25/10

There was an interesting story on the six o’clock news last Monday about copy machines and identity theft. I never knew this before, but Xerox copy machines (and perhaps many other brands as well) made after about the year 2000 contain hard drives, and all the data copied on those machines is recorded on that hard drive. Because there is a market for used copy machines, and because most companies that discard their copy machines don’t usually think to wipe the hard drives clean, anyone who purchases a used machine has access to private information. To prove the point, some investigative news reporters purchased three used machines and then downloaded the information stored on the hard drives. In one case, the machine came from the Buffalo Police Department’s Sexual Offender division, and there were over 20,000 documents stored in it, including lists of known sex offenders and classified information about sex offense cases. Another machine contained sensitive income tax information. There were tax returns, copies of checks, social security numbers, and a pile of other personal information. The point is, unless the data on these hard drives is erased when the machines are discarded or sold, a tech savvy identity thief can really hit the jackpot. We tear up ATM receipts, we don’t give out our Social Security numbers to just anyone, and we worry about the information we transmit over the internet. Here’s yet another example of how difficult it is to control our information.




Has anybody been paying attention to this grassroots Tea Party movement sweeping across America? From what I can gather the gist of the movement is that people are finally waking up to the reality of Obamanomics, and now the perception is that JFK is really The King of England. Essentially, this is a growing political movement of fiscal conservatives who opposed the bailout and stimulus packages in favor of free markets. With the advent of the latest Goldman Sachs fraud scandal (venerable Goldman Sachs that, co-incidentally posted record profits last year), there seems to be growing concern that perhaps the wrong people are getting the stimulus money. Unemployment is still high in America and lots of people are still losing their houses. The SEC will try to tar and feather Goldman Sachs, because they have so far been publicly ineffective at closing the cookie jar. I’ll just bet that some of that bailout money will even be used for the Goldman Sachs defense against the SEC allegations. I realize that “Tea Party” is probably just the Republican right re-branding itself after all those horrible Bush years. I also know that a lot of the financial problems we have now happened during Republican administrations (not all of them, by the way). What worries me - and as always this is just my perception - is that the pendulum seems to be swinging to the extremes. I watched a big gun rally outside D.C. and once again the “liberal” press are not so subtly suggesting the polarization of American political factions. Either you’re a right wing Republican facist or a commie, pinko whale-hugging Democrat. Hey, what about the rest of us?!!! What about all of us cynical, somewhat apathetic middle-of-the-roaders?



Finally, nature once again proved to be the mother of all inconvenient truths, when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland erupted last week, spewing ash 50,000 feet into the air, crippling air traffic, and wreaking economic havoc on Europe. Millions of air travelers were affected and they’re talking about billions in lost revenue. Now I have another phobia to add to my list. We always hear about the devastating consequences from earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, but what about volcanoes? How many ticking time bombs are there percolating underneath the earth’s crust? Volcanic eruptions can vastly change the weather, and render large areas uninhabitable. I just read about the Mt. Toba eruption in Sumatra 72,000 years ago. That eruption had a volcanic explosivity index, or VEI, of 8 and was probably the biggest eruption on the planet in 25 million years. By comparison the recent volcano in Iceland had a VEI of 2. I wonder if this one will adversely affect the weather, as the Mt. Pinatubo eruption did back in the summer of 1991. Some of us worry about nuc-“u”-lar anhiliation, some of us worry about climate change, a small and very neurotic minority of us worry about asteroids and solar flares, and of course there are the Gore Bores, who believe that plunging the world into economic chaos in order to lower the global temperature by an insignificant fraction of one degree Farenheit will save our planet. I say let them polar bears and snail darters fend for themselves. I’m a fatalist … why buy a Prius when the next big planetary zit pop, which is by the way COMPLETELY out of our control, could be the final curtain call. Seriously, I don’t think there is anything wrong with being conscious of one’s impact on the planet, in fact it’s a very good idea. I simply find man’s hubris ludicrous … to presume that we have anything more than negligible control over it any of it. We don’t, at least not enough to make much of a difference. The horse is out of the barn and he didn’t look before he leaped. Know what I mean? We screwed the pooch with overpopulation and all the resulting consequences, but won’t I feel stupid when I realize that I denied myself that over-powered American muscle car as we’re all being buried in smoldering volcanic ash? Wow, I could’ve had a V-8.


Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED