Cameo appearance by two old friends

at Sinfest. Glad to see that Albert hasn’t lost his touch.

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Revenge of the fuzzies?

Two headlines on Slashdot:

Giant Car-Eating Rabbits, maybe?

Whod-a thunk it?

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Should you have a spare moment...

Bill Quick:

...ask yourself why you never see these questions discussed in the Ruling Class media, or among our elected representatives, let alone by members of the current administration.

Related:

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Zombie question of the day

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Life is an audience-participation activity

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Smoking Gun? Try MELTED!

Hot Time In the Old Town:

Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, really got cooking this July 4^th around 9:59AM, according to NOAA and Coast Watch.  It was there, at the bottom left row of the temperature data points, that the records reveal on that day a phenomenally furnace-like 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unanswered so far is whether the erroneous data were discarded, or if it “conveniently” found its way into global temperature models.  Oh, and by the way, northern Lake Michigan has boiled dry.

Via Ace.

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“Guilty until proven harmless.”

City Hall is a landmark in downtown New York – a dignified classical building with wide steps leading to the traditional fluted colonnade fronting, standing on a large open parcel of lawn.  The last time I walked past it, several years ago, the steps were peopled by local politicians and other functionaries, favor-seekers, reporters, and the usual assortment of Runyonesque characters that typically surround the City’s bureaucracy.  Anyone could wander up as the limousines, taxis and cars pulled up, observe comings and goings of mayors, councilmen and lobbyists, and mingle for a moment or two with the municipal machinery and absorb no small dose of all the varied fauna that feed and feed off the public purse.

No more.  Now the huge iron gates are closed and locked. Barricades of formidable size and sturdiness, emblazoned with the word STOP in two-foot-high letters, declare that no traffic shall pass.  The steps are deserted.  The once-busy lawns are lifeless, empty. A cordon of gleaming blue and white police cars flanks its borders.  It’s a ghost town.

One might reasonably conclude that whoever might be inside that building now, they are scared to death.
- “nemo paradise,” Modern Times (and RTWT)

Around here, the “search all the citizens” program got started a few years back when the county’s judges became worried that the armed deputies routinely present in their courtrooms were insufficient protection from the less decorous members of the hoi polloi.^[1]  When the courts outgrew the court wing, they mandated it for the entire City-County Building. Now you must take off your belt and shoes, and surrender your nail clippers, before you can register to vote, attend a zoning hearing, or pay your property tax.

Of course the mayor, councilmen, and bureaucrats never uttered one word of objection.


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Today’s Ruling Class update

Rabble rouser Jules Crittenden offers a bouquet of apoplexy-inducing links.

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Running Windows? Shut off shortcut icons.

Trend Micro’s ConterMeasures:

On the 16th of July Microsoft released Security Advisory 2286198 confirming an as yet unpatched vulnerability in Windows Shell that exposes all users of all current versions of Microsoft Windows to very real risk of attack and infection.

According to Microsoft “The vulnerability exists because Windows incorrectly parses shortcuts in such a way that malicious code may be executed when the icon of a specially crafted shortcut is displayed.”  So what does that mean in plain language?

It means that if any user of Microsoft Windows opens a folder containing a shortcut which has been designed to exploit this vulnerability, they will be infected.  No opening of files required, simple browsing is enough.

Although Microsoft have stated that “This vulnerability is most likely to be exploited through removable drives” users should be on their guard against all shortcut files whose authenticity they cannot guarantee.  This same vulnerability could be exploited though contaminated file shares or something as simple as a malicious compressed archive such as a zip file.

Or a malicious shortcut on a web page, or even an Office document(!).^[1]

At this time there is no patch to fix this available. Microsoft does have a workaround here; applying it makes Windows display a generic icon rather than the application’s special one.

This exploit was first discovered in a trojan targeting Siemens SCADA control systems, but has now been spotted in the wild.

Elsewhere:
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M.I.A. at the Indianapolis 500

Frank W. James has a put up great rant on the state of the IZOD Indy Car Series.  Too many good quotes to pull; just go read ’em both:

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