Friday, 22 February 2008
Except when it isn’t, y’know...
EVE: Say, Adam, have you ever thought about making a few changes?RTWT.
ADAM: Changes? What do you mean?
EVE: You know, change. Making things different; better.
ADAM: What could be better? We have plenty to eat and drink, a fair climate all the year round, beautiful things that fill the eye at every turn. Kind of like Palm Beach without the humidity and the Kennedys.
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From former Australian Labor minister Barry Cohen:
Via: Pickles’s comment at Blair’s Place.
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Thursday, 21 February 2008
...Missile shield opponents have had a litany of defeatist talking points about the program since its inception as the Strategic Defense Initiative under Reagan:Read the whole thing.Each point has been thoroughly trashed with this emergency defensive operation. Geopolitical bonus points for proving our defensive capabilities to North Korea, Iran and others. Even more bonus points for giving China the finger when it comes to our new, ancillary anti-satellite prowess.
- Missile defense technology is unproven. It can never work. We suck.
- OK, OK, even if you get it to "work" the "tests" are highly scripted. We always know the what, when, where, and how of every attempted shot. Scientific method? Shut up, scripter.
- Oh and by the way, until you can prove it "works," we're not going to fully fund it. Figure that one out, rocket scientist.
- So you somehow got it "working" with no "money" ---- big deal, doesn't matter. The threat is minimal, therefore the need to mitigate it isn't worth those billions. You're building a 21st century Maginot Line.
And in the comments, this:
...We solved all these problems back in the 1960s and 1970s; and then deployed a functioning ABM system called SAFEGUARD.Thanks a bunch, fatso.
Which was then killed after ONE day of operation by Ted Kennedy and Congressional Democrats who defunded it.
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Sunday, 17 February 2008
He’s a gold bug, who’s selling hyperinflation, but he makes an important point:
In effect, what this caller was asking was how and when did they change the way they measure the rate of inflation? On a first hand basis he was experiencing inflation in his personal life with rising food and energy costs. There was a major disconnect between what he experienced in real life on a day-to-day basis and what he was told in published inflation reports. The host of the show and the financial reporter from the Times had no answers. - Financial Sense “Stormwatch,†June 24, 2005That was written 2½ years ago (and read the whole thing). Now read this, from “MaxedOutMama,†from October:
It is true that weak sales for items like clothing, shoes and electronics will cause price cutting for those items in stores, and push the net inflation for consumers who can afford those items down. But everyone must eat and everyone consumes energy in one form or another, and the ability for the supply chain to absorb such costs without passing them along to the consumer is diminishing rapidly. These costs are going to continue eroding consumer spending power. As you move down the income echelon, the pain gets extreme.The winter hasn't been all that cold around here (yet!), but I’m still anticipating a several-hundred-dollar increase in heating costs. So don’t tell me my personal inflation is any 3.6%.
It's going to be a long, cold winter for tens of millions of households, and instead of blathering on about giveaways attractive to the upper middle class, politicians should be discussing food stamps and energy assistance programs.
Via: Daily Pundit.
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Saturday, 16 February 2008
Melanie Phillips asks:
I wonder which is the greater of my crimes — to be ‘conservative’ or to be Jewish?Answer: Call yourself “neoconservative.†That’ll make it a 2-for-one.
(sort of) RELATED: MP linked Iowahawk's “Archbishop of Canterbury Tale.†British reaction in the comments.
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An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.It's the old autorun game...
...
The initial reports of infected frames came from people who had bought them over the holidays from Sam's Club and Best Buy. New reports involve frames sold at Target and Costco, according to SANS, a group of security researchers in Bethesda, Md., who began asking for accounts of infected devices on Christmas Day.
...
...the researchers also found four other, older Trojans on each frame, which may serve as markers for botnets - networks of infected PCs that are remotely controlled by hackers. - San Francisco Chronicle
Best Buy should have been alert for this kind of stuff already. The mass merchants (Sam's Club, Target, and Costco) had better learn quickly.
Elsewhere:
SANS Diary: Digital Hitchhikers part 2
SANS Diary: Digital Hitchhikers part 3
SANS Diary: Digital Hitchhikers part 4 (detailed info on Best Buy/Sams Club product)
SANS Diary: Insignia Photo Frame Malware Request
Microsoft TechNet: Island Hopping - the Infectious Allure of Vendor Swag
A Vista®-centric article, but buried within is this scary stuff:
The tools I have discussed so far use U3 (u3.com), a technology designed to enable users to bring programs with them on a flash drive. In a nutshell, a U3-enabled flash drive lies about itself. It tells the OS that it is actually a USB hub with a flash drive and a CD plugged into it. Windows® versions prior to Windows Vista® will, by default, automatically run programs designated in the autorun.inf file on CDs, but not on USB drives. By lying about itself, the U3-enabled USB flash drive fools the OS into autorunning something called the U3 launcher. The U3 launcher, in turn, can start programs, give you a menu, or do pretty much anything that you could do with the computer yourself.
All the exploit tools do is replace the launcher with the exploit code. As soon as the flash drive is plugged into a Windows XP system, the exploit tool automatically runs.
Via: Instapundit
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The Archbishop would probably call it “cultural accommodationâ€:
The British government has cleared the way for husbands with multiple wives to claim welfare benefits for all their partners, fueling growing controversy over the role of Islamic Shariah law in the nation's cultural and legal framework.
Bigamy is outlawed in Britain, but authorities have never prosecuted Muslim men who had legally married more than one woman abroad and continued to live with them after immigrating. Shariah permits men to have up to four wives at one time.
Now, after a review that began in November 2006, a panel of four government departments has decided that all the wives of a Muslim man may collect state benefits, provided that the marriages took place in a country where multiple spouses are legal. - Washington Times
Via: From the Maas via Ace
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(I usually don't link to videos, but there's always an exception. This one is choice!)
Bob Chirdon of Toledo's WTOL-TV has an editorial about “the kerfuffel between [Toledo] Mayor Finkbeiner and the Marines.â€
Backstory:
Associated Press: Snub of Marines starts war of words in Toledo
Thurber's Thoughts: Carty - you're in a hole. Stop digging!
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Friday, 15 February 2008
From The Guardian:
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.“Got a nice little country there. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it...â€
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
Bryan, at Hot Air:
Keep in mind that there is more to Saudi terror activity than this single threat. To this day, Saudi funding props up Wahhabi missionaries and madrassahs and mosques worldwide. Saudi Wahhabi funding backs what’s left of the jihad in Chechnya and continues to fund the jihadists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, not to mention Darfur. Fifteen of the 9-11 19 were Saudi. Wherever you find jihadist activity, chances are you’ll find Saudi petrodollars fueling it and Saudi personnel leading it.
LATER: Glenn Reynolds:
Maybe Blair should’ve had ’em killed, or something... Or at least gone public with the story and frozen all Saudi assets in Britain.
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The Republicans should change their mascot:
The House GOP had an opportunity to ensure that their commitment to end pork-barrel spending got taken seriously by appointing a porkbuster to [fill the vacancy on the House Appropriations Committee]... Jeff Flake would have delivered that message, as his record on earmark reform is unmistakable. Instead, the GOP selected Jo Bonner (R-AL), a person whose record on pork reform equals that of ... Steny Hoyer, John Doolittle, and James Moran.Oink! Oink! Oink!
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