Any interest in music? sports? nature? history? any outlet like that to express that pent-up inner self. I love the interest in the speech. There’s a budding smart-guy there for sure. It’s just very hard, I’ll bet, to cope comfortably with school routines. Hang in there, both of you.

I am NOT a professional, just a mom with a MS in animal behavior, so file my comments appropriately. I know some aspects were genetic from my half of our family tree (heh). Right about at his age, our sonny & I around our respective versions of that age led us to gain interest in such things also, a generation apart. That’s why I suggest you just keep tabs and make sure a particularly riveting speaker doesn’t lead him off some deep end in some fashion such as anger he can’t “file” psychologically, without some background and guidance from you or some other adult with their head screwed on tight.

Silly story time in the [more-knowledgeable-than-teacher] category: Our son one time got into “trouble” with his 6th grade science teacher, for blurting out “in my back yard!” when the teacher asked if anyone in the class knew where the Continental Divide was located. The mistake was HERS, for she failed to say WHICH Continental Divide. She was thinking East/West, but didn’t say so; and he was referring to the North/South one, which DOES INDEED run through our back yard. The teacher had too much false pride, so that was wounded a bit, and thus she wrongly remained aggravated at our son for awhile, even though he meant no harm. Humans will be human. Now, of course, it’s a big joke in our family lore. Back then, he was hurt and frustrated.
Moral of the story, if there is one: stay in touch as well as you can; and, yeah, plenty hugging and sharing of thoughts can’t hurt. It should bring you through this.

Our son never grew out of his condition, but he grew into a very sweet-tempered, understanding, extremely wise and learned adult, who works well with others (whew!). Neither did I grow out of my “version”. But I suspect your son has fighting chance to turn what is currently a bit of a trial into a great strength. I hope you’ll stay in touch. Sorry about the babbling on. Another characteristic of my version. *sigh* Tis why I often wait for EPU-land, so it’s not a bother to others… quite so much.

P.E.A.C.E.

The blog states, however, that ”The Neighborhood Network Watch will operate as if it were an actual government backed entity along with actually carrying out collections of real data and doing actual analysis on this data to create statistical results.” So what we have here is a college student masquerading as a government approved organization, telling people to illegally access other peoples’ networks and communications and fooling them into sending that information to him. Yet even though he’s obtaining personal information through a fraudulent web site, most phishing filters do not flag the site.

Many references to the site on the web show that a lot of people have been fooled by it. They’re outraged at the government for ”endorsing” such a program – which may very well have been the intent. The Register did print an article last month that exposes the site:
http://www.wxpnews.com/B3CGG1/080429-Unmasked

I’m not amused. Claiming to be affiliated with the government when you aren’t is lying in my book. That Martin hides under the cloak of an academic project doesn’t make it any less dishonest. His blog states that one of his goals is essentially to make people angry with the government: ”Since the NNW operates as if it were a government agency it will bring to the forefront the methods and tactics used by these bodies to disseminate fear and exercise social control.” If that’s what he wants to do, he should expose real examples of real government abuse, instead of perpetrating fraud on the public.

What do you think? When you first saw this site, did you think it was legitimate? Did it make you angry that the government was supposedly encouraging citizens to engage in illegal spying? Would the government be justified in shutting it down, or at least forcing the owner to remove the false DHS endorsement and history? Should the owner have to post a prominent disclaimer on the site itself identifying it as a spoof? Should the owner be charged with a crime for collecting personal information contained in email and other captured traffic under false pretenses? Or is the web a no-man’s land where ”let the buyer (surfer) beware” is the only rule? Is it okay to make false claims on a website, no matter how outrageous? Tell us your opinions at feedback@wxpnews.com.

think you had already left the threads the day I posted this for you

Daniel Tammet

his blog