While you were cruising peacefully through life this last week, the picaroons in Washington set new lows for governance of their citizens.  "Picaroon" means a pirate, a thieving scoundrel.

One example:  Zero's Department of Transportation (DOT) is claiming that the computers of car dealers become government property upon participating in the cash-for-clunkers program. 

It's another object lesson as to the critical importance of achieving and maintaining solid protection and privacy from prying picaroons - for yourself physically and virtually via  your computer.

Last week we talked about one way to do this with Cryptohippie.  Now let's discuss several more ways.  First, do you know about RFID?

Here we are, well on our way into the 21st century. The human race has been around for at least 5,767 years as of last weekend (the Jewish New Year), and we've been working with e-mail, Internet and spam for over a decade already. With those credentials, you'd think people would know better.

Well, we do know better - but some people never learn. The proof? Many people are following the advice offered in the flood of stock-scam spam that has hit the Internet in recent months, leaving virtually no computer immune.

I'm sure that some To The Pointers are among them.

According to a recent study by Internet researchers at Harvard and Purdue Universities, the prices of "penny stocks" being touted in mass mailings to suckers actually rose significantly after a batch of messages were sent - as if recipients were rushing to their online brokers to buy the likes of Cyberhand Tech and ThermaFreeze Products in the hope that they could double their money.

Well, the come-ons are certainly appealing, but it's a scam, of course; all part of "pump and dump" schemes, where scammers buy stock in companies that exist mainly on paper and are traded on unsupervised exchanges, and then dump the shares on those who respond to their spam.

It must be working, because in the past few months stock spam has begun edging out fat pills and Viagra messages in my inbox!

Dear Dr. Wheeler,

I am a 16 year old Boy Scout from Kansas and I recently read your book "The Adventurers Guide". I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion about adventure, but the only roadblock that seems to get in my way is lack of money. I would appreciate it a lot if you could give me some insight on how you dealt with this problem, and how I might overcome it. Also, I have read on various web sites that you still lead 2-3 expeditions per year, and I was wondering where they would be to and the age limit, cost, and other requirements.

Sincerely,

Nathan Montgomery


Dear Nathan --

It means a lot to me that you were able to gain some value out of a book I wrote so many years ago. And all during those years I have been trying to figure out the answer to your question. Basically it is a choice: discover some way to make money doing adventurous things, or have a business that makes enough money that you can do adventurous things in your spare time.

Both are not easy.

It's all about winning and losing, but the best man doesn't always win, and outcomes frequently have more to do with luck than with merit.  Brilliant strategies fail, and fools stumble into glorious victories.  Napoleon preferred a lucky general to a brilliant one.

Which brings us to today.  The headlines are grim, the pictures from Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine are blood-chilling, executions and demonstrations are mounting in Iran, and Obama doesn't know what to do about anything.  So he doesn't do anything; he and his strategists just dither.  And yet...

And yet, our enemies may be on the verge of losing.  Big time.

The global anti-freedom alliance consists primarily of jihadis and radical leftists, the two principal forces committed to the destruction of what is sometimes known as the Western world.

That alliance is cracking, because many millions of people are fighting the anti-Western tyrants.  Here's the scorecard.