Wazzup?

I'm of half a mind to believe that shimmering sheets of ice engulfed this town in early July. Why do I believe that Hell (MI) might have frozen over in July? Well, it started on July 8th at this place. Yes, John Dvorak now has a blog. After his speech at Gnomedex last year (and several articles in PC Magazine), I figured that Dvorak would never blog.

I'd never even heard of the "Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer". That link says that the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is "the free, best practices vulnerability assessment tool for the Microsoft platform." I downloaded it and ran it and, sure enough, it said that I don't have SP2. I won't for a little while. Hey, this free security test tool might be worth the download. Every little bit helps.

Well, it's almost time to get ready for work. I volunteered for it. Hell, it's hard to beat 45/60$ an hour for working overtime. With that, adieu...

I've never been very fond of Michelle Malkin...

Last night's debacle on Hardball doesn't necessarily help matters. She later made this post on her blog about her fun at MSNBC. About halfway through, she mentions, "I am used to ad hominem attacks." I don't know if she agrees with them or not. However, given the title of her post and other things I've heard her say, she dishes out ad hominem attacks as well. I find it odd that she has written a book defending internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and perhaps suggesting parallels to our "war on terror". Perhaps she should be shackled up and locked somewhere incognito. After all, her parents immigrated from the Philippines. As everyone knows, the Abu Sayyaf group is also based in the Philippines and is designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Hell, we should have locked up a lot of white males after Timothy McVeigh. I don't ever see Malkin's "solution" being used. As I've said before, I'll keep watching.

We're watching the Olympics right now. I saw a commercial for the spin-off of Friends that is supposed to begin in the new NBC fall season. I would just like to know why they chose the most air-headed character from Friends as the basis for a new sitcom. I was already "Friends'd" out when the show went off the air. I probably won't be watching the spin-off either.

Iacta alea est!

As Suzanne mentioned earlier, we are GOING TO GNOMEDEX. I'm 101% stoked about this because I didn't originally think that we'd be able to make it this year. We made it to Des Moines for the last two years. Now we'll be hittin' Tahoe at the end of September. Suzanne arranged everything this morning.

I have occasionally visited the archive.org website. I never perused through it a lot. It was interesting to note this morning that they are more than a web archive. They also have sections devoted to movies, books, and audio.

There's still hope...

Suzanne was telling me that she wouldn't mind doing Gnomedex again this year. If all goes well, I'll know whether I have the days off in the next day or so. I'm ready to party my ass off and get geeky. Wait, I'm already there.

I want to see this sport in the Olympics. At the very least, net footbag would be interesting.

One of the neighbors behind us was walking his two dogs down our street tonight. No biggie, right? The only thing that bothered me was that his 2-3 year old daughter was holding the leash for one of the dogs. Being the weird one that I am, Suzanne and I were standing out front with our cat. Needless to say, the dogs were interested when they saw our cat. That's understandable... The dog that the little girl was holding lunged a little, dragged the young girl down, and got free. Suzanne said she felt bad for the little girl. So do I. Why try to let such a young girl control a dog (that probably weighs as much as she does) when you know that the dog might try to get free? I suppose I could have taken my cat inside, but it's my front yard. Screw that!

There was a story in the New York Times the other day about the FBI questioning potential protesters in NY...

They say they are just looking for people who could become violent during the Republican convention at the end of August. The original piece can be read here. The FBI's response is here.

Interestingly enough, the FBI's front page (on 8/16 @ 2105 CDT) is touting the FOIA "virtual reading room". The FBI has been known to go overboard in the past. Imagine how far they could go if they tested the bounds of the Patriot Act.

I can just see it now...

News flash: The FBI has announced that whole new classes of protesters planning to show up in NYC for the Republican convention will be subject to increased scrutiny and/or questioning. New guidance has been passed on to FBI field offices to question potential protesters who plan to attend the Republican convention at the end of August and have any of the following attributes:

feet
hands
a voice
paper
computers

Questioned about the new groups of people to be interrogated (oops, he meant to say questioned politely), an anonymous senior FBI official said, "Feet and hands are obvious. Anyone who has seen a Bruce Lee movie knows that feet and hands can be deadly weapons. Paper and/or computers? Gutenberg's printing press launched a revolution in the ability of people to learn and make up their own minds. We don't need any revolutions during this convention, do we?"

I'm sure things will never go this far (or will they?) but I will be watching closely. Imagine if KING George had tools as sweeping as the PATRIOT Act...

Things that make you go hmmmm.......

I just finished reading Imperial Hubris about five or six days ago. I was taking time to let the book soak in and start reading The 9/11 Commission Report. My final take on Imperial Hubris is that it was a damn fine book. The author SEEMED as if he was able to view the mistakes and problems he talks about from where they were being made. The one thing I liked best about this book is that it presents one argument for why I want Bush out this year. Going after people who want to kill us is fine. However, if we wanted Osama and company dead or alive, we should have inundated Afghanistan with American forces. It wouldn't have been easy, but I'm sure that we could have managed. Another downfall of this administration (and I'm sure that the Democrats would be doing the same thing) is that we seem completely unwilling to see if any of the arguments used by bin Laden to recruit might be fueled by U.S. policy. Reevaluation of policy concerning the Middle East would go a long way towards taking some of the sting out of bin Laden's ability to recruit. Iraq? I won't even go there.

The author of Imperial Hubris cites a great quote from John Quincy Adams. That quote follows:

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."

-John Quincy Adams, 1821

The author convincingly argues that when we have an enemy, we must aim to completely DESTROY that enemy. However, there are other things we can do to make ourselves safer. Amazingly, the author's foreign policy would seem to correspond with that of the Libertarians. That's my view.

One well-followed blog (and one post in particular) calls this "silly Panglossianism". I don't believe that evaluating/changing our policy will END terrorism (nor do I think the Libertarians believe that). However, I believe it would make matters more difficult for the bin Ladens of the world. Every little bit helps.