Bush's Top Ten Flip-Flops

The Repubs have taken "flip-flop" to a new level. If a thinking man has a position that he later reverses, it generally means he has admitted an error and corrected it. That's no longer so -- particularly if you are a Democratic Presidential candidate. Let's look at Gee Dubya's position changes, shall we? [by CBSNEWS.com]

Pulling Back the Curtain: What a Top Reporter in Baghdad Really Thinks About the War

"Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity," Fassihi wrote (among much else) in the letter. "Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler." And: "Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come."

Fassihi observed that the insurgency had spread "from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq." The Iraqi government, he wrote, "doesn't control most Iraqi cities.... The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health--which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers--has now stopped disclosing them. Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

And what of America's "hope for a quick exit"? Fassihi noted that "cops are being murdered by the dozens every day, over 700 to date, and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly....

"I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad...."

Making clear what can only, at best, appear between lines in her published dispatches, Fassihi concluded, "One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle."

A friend of mine has just returned from Europe and Scandanavia. He tells me how Americans are hated everywhere he went; how Sweden has banned the immigration of American males. Thank you, George Bush.

The Phishing Guide

Throughout the centuries, identity theft has always been high on a criminal’s agenda. By gaining access to someone else’s personal data and impersonating them, a criminal may pursue a crime in near anonymity. In today’s 21st Century world, electronic identity theft has never been easier.

Hidden away amongst the mounds of electronic junk mail, and bypassing many of today’s best anti-spam filters, a new attack vector lies in wait to steal confidential personal information. What originally began as a malicious hobby, utilising many of the most popular Internet communication channels, professional criminals are now using spoofed messages to lure victims into traps specifically designed to steal their electronic identity.

The name on the (electronic) street is Phishing; the process of tricking or socially engineering an organisations customers into imparting their confidential information for nefarious use. Riding on the back of mass-mailings such as Spam, or using ‘bots to automatically target victims, any online business may find Phishers masquerading as them and targeting their customer base. Organisational size doesn’t matter; the quality of the personal information reaped from the attack has a value all in itself to the criminals.

Weapons of Mass Delusion

Just in time for 9/11 comes this book from Richard Forno called Weapons of Mass Delusion. It's now available as a free download.

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us,
‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’
  -  Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to
more popular songs.... don’t give them slippery stuff like philosophy
or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy…
  -  Fire Captain Beatty, discussing political strategy in
     RayBradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

The Repugnant Convention

Alex Jones is a bit of a local legend -- a member of the independent media and star of his own radio program. He was in NYC and took some interesting pictures.

"I've Never Seen the Police State This Bad. This So-Called National Security Event Was, in Truth, Textbook Martial Law. My crew and I, despite having official NYC Press credentials, were threatened with arrest at least three times a day, had a still camera smashed by police, were detained twice, had photos taken of us by police and were told that we had no right to film in the City.

None of this has anything to do with terrorism or security. It's about setting the precedent that we have no First Amendment."

I rarely agree with Alex, but on occasion I find later that he was right and I was wrong. He's always "out there", but sometimes that makes him the discoverer.

Genesis data 'retrieved intact'

Material has been found still intact inside the crashed Genesis space capsule, say Nasa scientists.

"We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our primary science goals," said physicist Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Gee Dubya's Service Record

The Bushies have been making a lot of noise about Kerry's military record, yet there hasn't been a lot said about GW. We know he was in The Guard, but a lot of his military record is either sealed or simply unavailable. So, from what we know, here's a .pdf timeline of how he served our country.

The Whitehouse has released memos that are supposed to explain the lapses in his record, however, check this quote from "Green Footballs":

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft’s Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date “18 August 1973,” then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian.

And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as “authentic.” The spacing is not just similar—it is identical in every respect.

Hmmmm.... An "authentic" 1973 document exactly reproduced by the default settings found in Micro$oft Word, ca. 2004...

EcoBot II

This little fella is an autonomous robot that eats flies to generate electricity. Right now it has to be fed, but the inventors plan to use a "lure" -- and it's NOT sugar. Expect it's lure and digested fly battery creates an... interesting aroma.

Genesis Crashes

The Genesis sample return capsule entered Earth's atmosphere at 9:52:47 a.m. MDT and entered the preplanned entry ellipse in the Utah Test and Training Range as predicted. However, the Genesis capsule, as a result of its parachute not deploying, impacted the ground at a speed of 311 kilometers per hour (193 mph). The impact occurred near Granite Peak on a remote portion of the range. No people or structures were anywhere near the area.

Micro$oft Rules the Waves

Well, the British Navy anyway. Three years ago the British Navy began converting to a W2K-based command and control system. The engineers on this project balked and got canned.

I recall a test of this sort conducted on an American vessel that failed horribly, leaving the vessel floating dead in the water.

Micro$oft now holds the keys to the release of nuclear weapons. Let's hope they didn't include a wi-fi connection to the Internet.

Capture a Piece of the Sun

On Sept. 8, NASA's Genesis mission is returning to Earth, bearing samples of the Sun. In a well-rehearsed midair maneuver, a helicopter will hook the spacecraft's return capsule and bring it gently and safely to the ground. The capsule's contents of solar wind may help scientists understand the origins of our solar system. The event, which takes place in the skies over Utah, will be broadcast live on NASA TV and the Internet.

This is the culmination of an experiment started over three years ago -- TV coverage begins at 11:00AM.

Why Dell Loves Gates

A common question that I get is, "When will Dell start promoting desktop Linux computers?" The answer is "probably not for a long time."

This article, written by Michael Robertson, the CEO of Linspire, goes on to make some informed assumptions and suggests that 25% of Dell's profit comes from Redmond's kickbacks and price fixing. Further, he recounts meetings suddenly canceled, for no apparent reason, between Dell and his Linux company, Linspire.

I once worked for one of Dell's competitors in Austin as the director of R&D. I know how Micro$oft stepped in with adjusted pricing when word got out that I wanted to start selling Solaris on my servers. Robertson's article doesn't surprise me in the least.

A Better Nuke

It's cheap, it's foolproof, and it not only generates electricity it also makes hydrogen fuel to power your automobiles. It can be mass produced and shipped anywhere for assembly, and spent fuel isn't an environmental nightmare. The technology is as old as atomic power, but it was forgotten and swept aside by business and government. Now, in China, it's getting a second chance.