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.

I hate it when I feel like I have to turn down overtime...

I just hope that my choice will give me enough time to get over whatever I have. The only thing I plan on doing tomorrow (other than grocery shopping with the wife) is going to the Badnarik 2004 Meetup. Interested?

Greatest Grains, 1600 Harrison st, Davenport, IA on Saturday, August 14 @ 3:00PM

This was TOTALLY crappy. The title of the previous link is "Gee, aren't nuclear plants scary?" I mention that because this same kind of leak could happen at ANY steam power plant anywhere in the world. That doesn't make it much easier to believe or understand. I just hope that people don't associate this accident exclusively with nuclear plants.

One thing I forgot to mention about Bier Stube last night was that they have free wi-fi. I still think I'd be hesitant to take my laptop to a restaurant unless I was just sitting down for a beer. It just doesn't seem proper...

Extraordinary day at work today...

Well, I guess I wouldn't go that far. We took several tests. They actually sucked. The best thing about the day at work was Achim talking about this restaurant. I had a Spaten Optimator, a Köstritzer Schwarzbier, and a Franziskaner Dunkel from this list. The food kicked ass and the three brews that I had that were on tap completely impressed me.

Dudes, what the hell is up with this? I suppose that Naked News would be more entertaining than Fox News.

I was happy to get a Badnarik for President bumper sticker today. Now I'll be zipping about town spreading the word. Not only am I tired of Dubya, I'm not too hip on John Kerry.

I'm not opposed to Alan Keyes' run in Illinois...

However, I find it amusing given his statement on Hillary's candidacy in New York in 2000:

"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn't imitate it." -- Alan Keyes on Fox News Channel, 3/17/2000

I happen to think that Keyes will lose. Besides, I'm not voting for Obama or Keyes anyway. Jerry Kohn will have my vote.

Do you want your cat to TRULY have nine lives? These people might have the answer... I'm not having my kitty cloned.

We had some ice cream this afternoon. When we were in the store, I noticed that there was a flavor called Smurf. I mentioned that aloud and one of the women working there mentioned that most of the young people who come in don't even know what the hell the Smurfs are. I noted that perhaps a young kid might know about one definition of smurf if they were interested in computer/network vulnerabilities.

I don't happen to use any P2P programs and I haven't for a long time...

While I was looking around today, I noticed this story on Reuters. I had trouble accessing the seewhatyoushare.com site that was mentioned in the article, but the other site that was talked about in the article has some pretty crazy pix.

We've all heard the "shove it" and "four more years of hell" "SCANDALS"(?) being bandied about when people talk about Teresa Heinz Kerry. This is a few weeks old, but if you believe what this individual has to say, Dubya also has practice using a one-finger salute. I don't really know and the picture doesn't make anything crystal clear, but it would be funny if it happened. Besides, how easily can we forget some of the Dubya issues from the first campaign? I'm not offended at all because I could swear Dubya up one side of the room and back down the other. However, seeing that some of Dubya's "base" is the conservative Christian movement, I find the CinC's actions amusing.

At work last night, Achim was telling me about a "Lynndie England fansite"...

Out of curiosity, I started looking for it when I got home this morning. I knew this was going to be funny when I noticed that the author is railing against Michael Moore in the same area where he appears to be infatuated with Lynndie England. More power to whoever set this up, but in my opinion the individual is a dumbass with a warped sense of right and wrong. Here you have an individual appearing to extol an apparently dirty little skank who has done much damage to the image of America in the Middle East while haranguing Michael Moore for asking legitimate questions through a film (editing methods aside). You're free to be stupid!

Over at PABAAH, there was an article posted about a new film from Trey Parker and Matt Stone. At IMDB, someone has even started a thread entitled "So fighting terrorism is now a joke?" I trust that Trey and Matt will effectively ridicule both sides of the "world police" topic.

I wasn't interested enough to even go to the little protests surrounding Dubya's visit to Davenport today. I needed to sleep. However, I do think the idea of the "Halliburton lemonade stand" is very funny.

Some dude on Scarborough Country is talking about jihadist fronts talking to politicians...

Do they have to be reminded of the strange case of Sami al-Arian? How about Halliburton's "subsidiary" that does business in Iran? These things look fishy, but I still don't feel that I have enough info to judge for myself one way or the other. However, Halliburton released a canned response to CBS's report that seems to ring hollow to me.

As I mentioned the other night, politicians are highly adept at politicking...

It doesn't matter what the topic is, both sides will spin things up to try to achieve their aims. Keep in mind while Dubya is giving lip service to a quick follow-up on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission how Dubya and Friends were opposed to even having the Commission in the first place.

As I expected, this book is a DAMN FINE READ! Go buy it or get it from a library. The administration makes rosy statements about how we are winning our little anti-jihad jihad, but I haven't believed that for quite a while. That's just my opinion. If you disagree, tell me why...

The FTC has a new address for reporting deceptive spam...

For quite a while, uce@ftc.gov was the place to forward unsolicited e-mail. The new address is spam@uce.gov. The news originated here. The related FTC site concerning itself with spam info is http://www.ftc.gov/spam/.

Are you still getting lots of spam? How's that whole CAN-SPAM act working for you? It's good to know that the government knows what kind of BS joe consumer has to go through when reading e-mail, but the continued proliferation of digital detritus just goes to show that legislation really can't do that much when it comes to these kinds of technological issues.

Well, it's about time to get ready for work. I had the added pleasure of an extra hour for emergent training last night. At least we are paid for working extra time here. I can't say the same for some other jobs I have had. I still wouldn't trade any of it back.

Zzaj has some new MP3s available...

Zzaj talks about them here. Check'em out!

Thank God the Democratic convention is over...

I watched the whole thing. I'm not really THAT interested in the candidates, but I do like to hear what they are saying. Obviously, Obama did a great job and is an up-and-coming star for the Democrats. Edwards and Kerry... They made a lot of grandiose promises without talking about how they intend to pay for them AND attempting to get rid of the deficit. Bill Clinton... He even brought up the Scriptures in his exhortation to "Be not afraid!" I'm not taking Biblical suggestions from Slick Willy! I'll also watch the Republican convention. I'm sure there will be hours of patriotic breast-beating and "war on terror" braggadocio. Besides, I like to see if the convention was worth the American taxpayer money. I'll always believe that the parties should pay for these events because they are merely taxpayer-funded, four-day long political advertisements. I'm sure that the two parties will never allow themselves to be extricated from the dole list.

Speaking of the "war on terror"... There's been some grumbling that Dubya and Company are pressing Pakistan to capture "high value targets" during the election season. Politicizing the "War on terror"? Say it isn't so...

Several days ago, I spoke about Brandon Mayfield. As always, The Smoking Gun has some excellent supporting material about Mayfield's case.

I received an e-mail the other day...

I receive plenty of e-mail EVERY day (much of it junk), but this one was about politics. The text of this e-mail follows:

"Can You Name This Country?
709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL.

293,000 RESERVE TROOPS.

EIGHT STANDING ARMY DIVISIONS.

20 AIR FORCE AND NAVY AIR WINGS WITH 2,000 COMBAT AIRCRAFT.

232! STRATEGIC BOMBERS.

19 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES WITH 3,114 NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON 232
MISSILES.

500 ICBMs WITH 1,950 WARHEADS.

FOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 121 SURFACE COMBAT SHIPS AND SUBMARINES PLUS ALL
THE SUPPORT BASES, SHIPYARDS, AND LOGISTICAL ASSETS NEEDED TO SUSTAIN SUCH A
NAVAL FORCE.

IS THIS COUNTRY:

RUSSIA? NO

CHINA? NO

GREAT BRITAIN? NO

FRANCE? WRONG AGAIN

MUST BE USA? STILL WRONG

GIVE UP?

THESE ARE THE AMERICAN MILITARY FORCES THAT WERE ELIMINATED DURING THE
ADMINISTRATION OF BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE.

SLEEP WELL!.........

If you can read this, thank a teacher; If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier."

John Kerry on Defense -- I hadn't seen this list printed before. It would make one heck of a mailer if it were sent to voters.

He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle

He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank

He voted to kill every aircraft carrier laid down from 1988.

He voted to kill the Aegis anti aircraft system

He voted to Kill the F-15 Strike Eagle

He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16

He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade

He voted to Kill the B-1

He voted to Kill the B-2

He voted to Kill the Patriot Anti Missile System

He voted to Kill the FA-18

He voted to Kill the B-2

He voted to Kill the F117

In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988 to include the battle armor for our troops. With Kerry as president our Army will be made up of naked men running around with sticks and clubs.

He also voted to kill all anti terrorism activities of every agency of the U.S. Government and to cut the funding of the FBI by 60%, to cut the funding for the CIA by 80%, and cut the funding for the NSA by 80%.

But then he voted to increase OUR funding for U.N operations by 800%!!!

Is THIS a President YOU want?

Please pass this on, as many people may not know how bad it is. And don't limit your sending to just your Republican friends. Everyone needs to know."

A day or so later, there was a response from someone else who had received this e-mail. In the interest of saving space, I'll point to the article on Slate that was used as a rebuttal.

This brings up interesting points. How do we sort through the BS that is used by both sides? If you watch Fox News exclusively, you'd be unlikely to hear the Kerry side of things. If you listen to the Republican attack machine, you won't see the full story. The conservative machine cries foul when Michael Moore is using the same tactics that they use. Both sides use these methods. Both sides should be ashamed.

One way to sort through the crap is to check out the Annenberg Political Fact Check site. Another (much more difficult and far less likely for "joe swing voter" to do) way is to actually look at the voting records. In the minds of many voters, this election is one of the most important that has been held for a while. Please check the facts before making up your mind... This country went to war on what has proven to be questionable intelligence. More often than not, intelligence is conjecture. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be able to catch someone in the act but that doesn't happen very much. As Americans, we are bombarded from the left and right by snippets of information carefully sculpted to steer us in the direction that the source wants us to go. I've chosen to jump off of the wagon because it's beyond my control. I'd love to see people send a message to the powers-that-be (Democrat and Republican) by voting Libertarian or Constitution or even Nader. My vote may not put someone in office, but it won't be wasted.

Bill O'Reilly...

C'mon Bill...

As a "news"man, you should be aware of the news. You wanted a case of someone harmed by the "Patriot" Act? As a "news"man, I would expect that you would have heard about the story of Brandon Mayfield. Brandon Mayfield is an Oregon lawyer whose home was searched surreptitiously under the Patriot Act after "his" fingerprints were discovered on some material related to the Madrid bombings of 3/11. I'm sure the story is FAR MORE complicated but it ended up with the FBI issuing an apology to Mayfield because they realized after a couple of weeks that he didn't have a damn thing to do with Madrid. They have to hate it when that happens. Mayfield was lucky that his innocence was discovered quickly. The detention of Mayfield is a glaring example of what is wrong with the Patriot Act. Two weeks ago, Ashcroft gave a speech talking about how wonderful the Patriot Act is. There's no mention of Brandon Mayfield.

Health news...

A company released a report today saying that an average of about 195,000 people died in hospitals from medical errors in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Remind me to stay out of the hospital...

Speeches from Boston? Get'em here. There's been some pretty good stuff. However, I'll never vote for those in question.

I was listening to the radio on the way home from work this afternoon...

NPR was playing classical but I felt like listening to news/talk. I changed the station to WOC. Oh crap, Hannity was on the radio. A little later in Hannity's broadcast, I heard something mentioned about a "battle for the soul of America" or some other tripe along those lines. I don't want my soul to be anything like Hannity's!

Why? I'll just bring up one example. One of Hannity's books (called Deliver Us From Evil) is credited with (at http://www.townhall.com/bookclub/hannity1.html) "Recounting in particular the strong leadership of Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, and more recently George W. Bush, Hannity calls on all of America to recognize the importance of having (a) the moral clarity and discernment to identify evil and call it by its true name, and (b) the strength and conviction to address that evil head-on, regardless of the venue in which it exists."

Moral clarity? Reagan and company KNEW some of the questionable methods that Hussein was using during the Iran-Iraq war and they also knew that Hussein was brutal. So, what did the Reagan government do? Hey, let's give Saddam weapons, bio-weapons related material, and intel with which to kill Iranians. Yeah, that's the ticket... Well, that wasn't good enough. Since we knew that Hussein was a pretty evil character, we couldn't have him winning the war either. Hmmm, what to do? Hey, maybe we'll arm the other side as well. Yeah, that whole "Islamic Revolution" thing and the hostages...no biggie. The whole Iran-Iraq policy just shouts "moral clarity" to me. Well, at least if I was a citizen of Bizarro World.

I think the debate about the means we used to carry on the Cold War (especially in the Reagan era) will be going on for a very long time. Would the "Evil Empire" have collapsed on its own or was the only possible way to win to arm and train individuals who would later become some of the most deadly enemies of the United States?

One final thing... This whole thing about Teresa Heinz Kerry telling a reporter to "shove it" is laughable. It's OK for Dick Cheney to tell a Senator "fuck yourself" on the Senate floor but John Kerry's wife can't tell someone to shove it?

I also meant to say...

I truly think that I could take Ken Jennings. I wish that it would be a little bit easier to get the chance. I could take him.