Author: David

A short bits roundup of sorts…

Point Five wants us all to align our monitors pointing North (but doesn’t say which end to point that way).

Kender and Cao each go on a tear (and rightly so!) at The Wide Awakes.

The MaryHunter pulls a “Wait ’til your daddy gets home!” with “When Jesus Returns, Boy Oh Boy…” *heh*

Musings from Brian J. Noggle poses a bad analogybetween home ownership and “blaster cars'” stereos owned by cretinous vermin who think nothing of assaulting people with physically harmful noise. Nice try, Bri, but motor vehicles are licensed for a good reason: public safety. And my hearing’s safety is in danger with those abominations on the road…

Check out Kris’ ongoing auction at Anywhere but Here. Some really nice artwork going out the door.

“If You Believe In Nothing You’ll Fall For Anything” Riffing off a comment on her blog, Alexanfra von Maltzen disects The Hollow Men. No, not the poem; the Democratic Party. You tell ’em, Alexandra!

Just a neat find: The Two Grenadiers (in English and German–and an mp3 performance in English). Not just a neat song, something a little more behind the curtain… h.t. to one of Jerry Pournelle’s readers.

Speaking of Pournelle, his brief (very brief) discourse on governance in the Middle East is provocative, to say the least. Pay attention while Professor Pournelle *s* holds forth.

There. A very brief roundup. Let me once again recommend The Founders Constitution and The Fair Tax Book, as well, for longer reads.

Bolivian leader cuts his salary in half

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) – Bolivian President Evo Morales cut his salary in half and ordered that no Cabinet minister collect a higher wage than his own, with the savings being used to hire more public school teachers.

Yeh, now that’s something we need from prezes and congresscritters. Include all the perks, too. Cut ’em to the bone. Not only that, but make ’em ALL give up their cushy government pensions and rely on Social Security.

No, let’s go a little further: Congresscritters should make not one dime more than the mean after tax income of all citizens over the age of 16 in their congressional district (or state, in the case of senators). And that income should reflect ALL benefits, perks and retirement. President and cabinet members, etc.? Not one thin dime more in income, benefits, etc., than the mean after tax income of citizens of the United States 16 years of age and older.

Judges and Supremes? Limit them the same. (Oh, and select 50% of all government workers-by lot or by whim or by salary: highest first to go and work on down ’til half are excised- build a fence in Utah around the most desolate land available, confine these critters there and “pension” ’em off at half pay. Better yet, just feed ’em and warehouse ’em. Allow vigilance groups to patrol the fence with open season on any “retired” civil service “workers” who attempt to leave.Do not hire replacements for these “retired” civil service “workers.”)

Extend this “rule of income” for five years (or longer) after the fed official leaves office and bar them and any member of their family from anything remotely resembling lobbying for life.

You know who we’d then have running for office? People who were a LOT closer to the citizen-statesmen the Founders envisioned. People who would truly be more likely to enter public office to serve, and then go back to their private lives.

And MUCH less likely to take from those who work for a living and waste on pork.

What chance is there of something like this happening? Well, you know that proverbial snowball in hell? About that. Or, maybe about the chance of Diogenes finding an honest congresscritter in D.C.

Lobbying for this amendment at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

Making a hard left, here, in response to one of Woody’s comments. Here’s a repost of a business card I pulled off a local TWC bulletin board…

Yep. That does indeed say “We clean meth houses… ”

Just another way that druggies (and the “war” on them) benefit enterprising TWC residents…

…Wherever you are…

Today (edit: well, OK, yesterday when this post was written–heh) marks the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Mozart. Below is a short piece written by the pre-teen (nine years old) Mozart during a visit to London in 1765. It’s the only known piece of his that was originally written in English. From Psalm 46:1, God Is Our Refuge and Strength:

The graphic is linked to a Sibelius Music version of the piece. You can view/play it using the free Scorch plugin (available at the site) or view it there and listen to it by clicking below.

Happy Birthday, Wolfie!

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Singing out loud and strong at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Don Surber’s, NIF, Basil’s Blog, TMH’s Bacon Bits and Weekend Specials at Jo’s Cafe.

Technorati : Mozart, Psalm 46

Now call me a right-winger if you want (says I, aghast at being called a liberal by someone before), but I think that that this opening paragraph of the ABC News article really puts this whole thing into perspective:

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

So let me get this right: the US Army, in the three years it has been operating in Iraq, and the thousands of people it has arrested, detained, imprisoned, questioned etc., has arrested just two wives of suspected insurgents and the media is clamouring that this was a form of “leverage” to get their husbands to surrender. Note part of the Hammer of Truth‘s quotation, from an Iraqi human rights activist (Hind al-Salehi).

Two.

Out of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand. Just two. And that’s a pattern of “leverage” because a civilian intelligence officer suggested it in his memo (pdf)? Isn’t this like saying acts of violence were occurring in the middle of a war? The law of statistics surely would allow for one or two arrestees to be related to suspected/known terrorists.

Here’s the thing, if you or I, the average person, gave shelter to a murderer on the run, we would be committing a felony. Why would it be any different for the wife of a terrorist? Does that law not exist in Iraq right now? Seems to me that it would.

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Donald Rumsfeld indicating that the US had violated the Fourth Geneva Convention by arresting relatives of Iraqi fugitives (their wives). But again, I contend that in the US such a thing would be commonplace, if they were giving assistance to known criminals (which, the terrorists could be considered, in Iraq).

Finally, something from that article which I wanted to point out, by the brigade’s deputy commander…

Two days later, the brigade’s deputy commander advised the higher command, “As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband.”

He went on, “These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation.”

… and this by Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a US Army spokesmam…

Of this episode, Johnson said, “It is clear the unit believed the females detained had substantial knowledge of insurgent activity and warranted being held.”

’nuff said.

Crossposted at The English Guy.

Well, perhaps.

Apple’s recent announcement that it’s building PC clones with Intell-based chipsets prettily painted over with a veneer of OS X is really just making lemonade out of a whole big bunch of sour lemons. Why choose Intel chips? Well, cos Motorola and IBM have been wanting out of the PowerPC chip business for years-development had languished and setting up to fab new runs of the things for Apple wasn’t great business, since Apple has such a small market share in its idiosyncrastic hardware.

Sooo… go with Intel. The chips are good, their characteristics well-known and not at all difficult for Apple to port OS X to (after all, nearly every other OS will run on Intel chipsets), they’re just not “Apple” hardware…

Oh, and this: Apple’s Switch to Intel Could Allow OS X Exploits

The recent move by Apple Computer to begin shipping Macintosh computers that use microprocessors from Intel could open the door to more attacks against computers running the company’s OS X operating system, security experts warn.

The shift to Intel processors from the Motorola Power PC processors will make it easier to create software exploits for Macintosh systems, and could result in a steady stream of Mac exploits in years to come.

Yeh, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Caught between a rock and a hard place with its perennial chip fabbing problems, Apple bit the bullet, forsook its hard line stance on hardware (like, you couldn’t see that coming, as Apple had already adopted the PC’s PCI bus, PC-style memory architechture and all the other trappings of a regular old PC) and adopted an Intel chipset.like you’d find in any beige box. Sure Apple dressed it up in pretty, cutsy (impractical) iMac clothing, presented it as “setting the Intel chip free” (in qa Mac OS straight jacket) and loudly trumpeted “Pay no attention to the man behind the cutain!”

But really. Apple’s become just another Intell PC choice. Spend an arm and a leg on an Apple Intel box… or get very similar functionality (and expansion limited to snaking a buncha wires around your worspace) by spending $300-$400 at WallyWorld for a Mandriva Linux box.

And have the same security issues all Intel-based boxes have. Sure, Wintel boxes more than most, in part because M$ is still not really serious about security (can anyone say “Internet Exploder” and “WMF flaw”?) and even more because nobody bothers to steal from the guy who has nothing worth stealing… When there’s an almost overwhelming wealth of Wintel boxes to choose to attack, concentrating on a niche market like Mac users is naturally less appealing.

But now, if Apple makes this run, similarities at low-level-even machine code level-code base could make attacking Apple machines more appealing. And it’s not as though Apple users were automatically secure, anyway, as my recent check of Mac security sites rvealed when one of the highly-referenced Mac security sites turned out to have been hacked.

Not a really security-conscious group, as a whole… In fact, Mac users as a class (note: I do know some very sharp, intelligent, competent Mac users who simply like the interface) seem to me to have more in common with AOL users than any other group…

There, now I’ve slammed both Mac users and AOL users. *heh* That feels pretty good. If I could add enviro-cultists who do their computer faking modeling on Macs I’d have a hat trick.

linkposted at Stuck on Stupid, cos it just seemed appropriate…

Yet another 0pen Post. Check the OTA link below for more information about Open Posts, if the concept’s new to you. Otherwise, links away! Oh, and once you’ve linked to this post, trackback to it so I don’t have to go hunting down your brilliant prose, ‘K?

See for more linkfests, as well as the Open Trackback Alliance

What is it with the Dems, anyway? I mean, seriously: at the national level there are NO real liberals left. No, not one. You may have been thinking of someone like Joe Lieberman, but if you look closely, you can see a mostly empty suit with ocassional relapses to humanity, even a flash or two of recognizable liberal tendencies. What passes for liberalism nowadays is tyranny cloaked disingenuously in self-righteous doogooder nannyism. Every single damned one of ’em (and I use the term theologically to refer to habitual liars) lies about their own positions and the actions of their political opponents. Oh, yeh, there are a couple who seem to have some shreds of shame, but given their track record, I am reluctantly compelled to believe that’s a sham as well.

*sigh*

And oh, those wonderful Republican’ts! While there remain a few with some sort of backbone and committment to principle (mostly in the administration), not a one can truthfully call themselves conservatives, as far as I can tell. (Please prove me wrong!)

Leadership in neither party is willing to actually do what’s necessary to fulfill the primary Constitutionally-mandated functions of the federal government: the securing of our borders, and only the Republican’ts are willing to in any way defend this country’s citizens against attack by foreign agents who intend to do them harm.

Both parties leadership seem committed to the continued destruction of public education.

Despair, I am often reminded, is a deadly sin. But this year is an election year. And once again, I fear being presented with more choices of “the lesser of two evils” to vote for. And that’s the problem: choosing the lesser of two evils still makes me complicit in voting for evil…

*sigh*

Cheer me up, wouldya? Link to this post and trackback with some good reads, ‘K?

A voice crying out in the wilderness at a buncha places once the lazy bums get their open posts up… including Adam’s Blog,

Want to know how to win the war on Islamic jihadist butchers? Jerry Pournelle points out some strategic steps we NEED to take in order to win this thing the smart way… Not the whole answer, but absent what he advocates, the task will be much higher in blood and treasure, as well as a lot less sure.

The Iraqi War continues, but we don’t do anything about the underlying causes of the war, which is our dependence on the Middle East for vital resources. If we were independent of Middle Eastern Oil, the Arab world would have to develop a real economy, learn to make things and sell them, and in general live with the rest of the world, instead of supporting people with too much time and too much money. They might actually learn to extract the oil themselves, which would require that they develop some actual capabilities other than bomb making and persuading young people to blow themselves up and kill policemen, or sit on the floor learning the Koran, or turning out Wahhabi preachers.

Read the whole thing, would you? OK, another teaser from Dr. Pournelle’s post:

I said back in A Step Farther Out that there were three great examples of the futility of vast centralized bureaucracies: the Soviet system of agriculture, the American System of Education, and NASA. One of those has crumbled, and while the Ukraine has not returned to its pre-Stalin status as the breadbasket of Europe, production is higher than under Communism. There is no longer one big central Soviet system of agriculture. In America, though, the education establishment, and NASA/Aerospace Industry are even more centralized and accomplish even less than when I first wrote all that.

Setting up the chess board at TMH’s Bacon Bits

Just read The Real Ugly American’s post, Commie Radio Comes Crashing Down! Yeh, it’s about a radio station, but really about so very much more. As I read it, I saw the obvious parallells even before Rick drew the straight black lines connecting the dots…

eWeek carries the warning today about “Blackworm”—

The worm, which uses the lure of sexually explicit Kama Sutra photographs to trick e-mail users into executing an attachment, is programmed to deliver the destructive payload on the third day of every month…

…At 5:00 p.m. on Jan 24, more than 700,000 computers had already been infected by the worm, according to a stats counter used by the worm author.

Keep your anti-virus software updated.
Do NOT open unexpected email attachments.
Do NOT open attachments that you have not MANUALLY scanned with an up-to-date antivirus software.
Nuh-uh. Don’tcha do it.

Let me try that again:

Keep your anti-virus software updated.
Do NOT open unexpected email attachments.
Do NOT open attachments that you have not MANUALLY scanned with an up-to-date antivirus software.
Nuh-uh. Don’tcha do it.

Please believe me: “What I say three times is true.”

Keep your anti-virus software updated.
Do NOT open unexpected email attachments.
Do NOT open attachments that you have not MANUALLY scanned with an up-to-date antivirus software.
Nuh-uh. Don’tcha do it.

And last, but not least,

“…the [“blackworm’s”] payload is capable of completely destroying important documents on an infected machine…” so don’t come crying to me if you infect yourself.

Nanny-nanny-boo-booed at Customerservant.com and Quietly Making Noise

I never even imagined imagining an embouchure like this guy demonstrates!

(But I’d not want to be the one to clean his trumpets… )

h.t. to DNW for the link to this amazing display (again, via email).

blown at Conservative Cat