Swing Vote

I just watched the movie Swing Vote. It had an interesting scenario. A presidential election came down to a tie in electoral votes. One election district became the one which would decide who got the rest of the electoral votes to win the election. Furthermore the the district count was equal with one vote making the decision.

This is an interesting scenario. I am not sure how accurate it is regarding the electoral votes. However I do know that there comes a time when a certain vote is the one that counts. You can't know for sure beforehand which vote that will be. Therefore it makes sense to make sure you vote in the election.

In the past I used to think my vote did not count for much. I registered to vote. But I have skipped a presidential election before because I was busy. These days I truly believe every vote counts.

I take a little time off on election day to make sure I get to the polls and cast my vote. This is not always easy to do given a hectic work schedule. However I make it my priority. You should too. And while you are at it, consider watching Swing Vote. Kevin Costner does pretty good a "Bud", the man who casts the deciding vote.

Former President Bush

Former president George Bush is leading a quiet life down in Texas. I had thought he would retire to his ranch. He and his wife Laura do spend time on his ranch. However they bought a new house down in Texas. That is where they currently live.

Bush is planning write a book that should be available in stores in a year or so. The book will cover the eight years he was in office. The goal of the book is to provide insight for analysts in years to come when the judge his presidency.

George Bush does not comment much on sitting president Barrack Obama, except to say that Obama has his silent support. Bush occasionally does speeches to raise money for a future project which I may blog about later.

Cybersecurity Act of 2009

There is a new bill being discussed on Capitol Hill. It is the known as the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. People are worried because they say it gives the president the authority to shut down the Internet if there is a cybersecurity emergency. I was concerned about this myself. So I read through the entire draft of the bill.

The overall goal is to protect the economy from cybersecurity threats. This is a bill covering many areas. Here are some highlights that I found interesting. It would establish a national certification program for security professionals. It would also require professionals to be licensed in a couple years before doing business in the cybersecurity field.

This bill also discusses creation of a new secure domain name addressing system (DNS). I assume this would protect against people spoofing domain names they do not legally have. There is also to be a federal cyber scholarship to be established by the National Science Foundation (NSF). There is also to be cybersecurity competitions administered by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST).

It will be most interesting to see whether this bill passes as written. For more information on cybersecurity in general, consult the Black of Hat blog.