Month: December 2006

This in my inbox from eWeek:

Microsoft has issued a zero-day attack alert for its ubiquitous Word application. The unpatched flaw can be exploited when a user simply opens a maliciously rigged Word document,
and there are no pre-patch workarounds available, Microsoft
warns.

Why do I use OpenOffice, again? I mean, beside the fact that it’s FREE? Oh, yeh. More secure. Riiiight.

And though half of businesses unable to “upgrade” their computers to Windows Vista, maybe that’s not such a bad thing… since Microsoft’s “shrinkwrapped beta to the desktop” programs ALWAYS need patching the day they’re rolled out. *sigh*

Oh, and the Rio Grande is now somewhere North of Redmond?

Alla y’all who “refreshed” Internet Exploder 7 just before Thanksgiving to get the latest security patch discovered that Microsoft apparently thought we’d already changed the name of the country to “Los Estados Unidos de América,” cos the package for the U.S. English version tried convert a buncha folks’ IE7 to a Spanish language version. WTG, MessySoft. *sigh* It’s “fixed” now, though. Well, as fixed as Internet Exploder can be, I suppose. Look for more securrity patches monthly on that monster. (Meanwhile, Opera’s managed less than 2 security patches needed a year, for the past several years… and all of those were released within a day or so of the discovery of the need for them. Even Firefox development has been better than MessySoft there.)

Well, I suppose I could continue this lil poke in the eye, but MessySoft does that to itself enough to make any jabs I make in its direction superfluous.

Still, I do use Windows, though I am transitioning my personal use to different flavors of Linux (still have to use Windows for ONE application and for familiarity so I can rag on those who call on me to fix Windows-related issues. *heh*). “Different flavors of Linux”—*LOL* “Yum! Puppy!” Ymmier: Puppy on a stick! 🙂

With all the aches and pains users must experience upgrading or simply maintaining Microsoft’s products—especially in the last few years—Microsoft seems to be making its mission statement, “You only hurt the ones (whose money) you love.”

😉

See the report here, along with the video recorded by MSUnderestimated –see the citation of STACLU on the picture of the “Nativity” display. (WTG, lady! And WTG STACLU!)

13 Things I Love About Christmas

1. The smells: crisp wintry air, evergreens, baked goods.

2. The (non-musical) sounds: bells (ok, approaching musical), wrapping paper tearing… you can imagine a host of sounds with me.

3. Long lines at checkout (yeh, really: folks to play with; 🙂 “captive” audiences *heh*)

4. If I’m lucky, icy, snowy weather. The better to watch all the people who should have their cars taken away from them skid, slide and generally reveal their inability to walk and chew gum at the same time, urm, reveal also their inability to drive in any sub-optimal road conditions. Yeh, I like having my view of humanity validated that way… (What can I say? I am a curmudgeon, after all! :-))

5.) The music of Christmas. Unfortunately, there’s notalotta secular stuff (and hardly any popular contemporary or even popular traditional) that’s any good. But the carols and hymns can be awe-inspiringly beautiful. And who can imagine a Christmas season without at least one hearing of St. Olaf’s choirs singing “Beautiful Savior” a cappella? Well, I suppose any choir would do (though I also like a particular SSA arrangement. :-))

6.) The lights.

7.) The greetings of strangers smiling, “Merry Christmas!” or even the ocassional “Bah, humbug” curmudgeonly response (with the sheepish, almost secret smile lurking underneath).

8.) Heck, I’ve even been known to break my semi-rule of “Gatherings larger than five or six people are anathema” rule and attend a Christmas party *shudder* during this season.

9.) The presents. Not the getting of them. I have more stuff and junk than I need (actually, it’d be a gift to me for folks to take some-a my junk off my hands, if you know what I mean). The giving of them. Fun. But I’ll control myself. Too much fun can be deleterious to one’s financial health, my inner tightwad warns. 🙂

10.) The foods. More the cooking than the eating, now, since I find myself strangely unable to eat as much as once I could. No, I’ll not bake, but I will make different foods than usual for the holidays. Sometimes simple meals, sometimes a more complex menu. Sometimes, it’s just having everyone in the kitchen working at once that’s the wonderful part.

11.) The memories. Of family, children, extended family, friends.

12.) And remembering them, renewal or strengthening of contacts and bonds of love.

13.) The One whose birth we celebrate this time of year (even those who do so unaware).

Check out more TTs at the Thursday Thirteen Hub.

*ISG=Idiotic Silliness Gone (over the top) (pdf file)

Read it yourself. A group of “Run away! Run away!” Dems and “Neville Chamberlain” Reps have redefined “success” in Iraq as “The U.S. needs to be just like us: runaways and appeaseniks able to play well together.”

Huh?!?

Well, that’s what their report really boils down to.

But what can ya expect of a bunch like that? Not one of them has any more expertise on the dynamics–the hisotry, the culture, the social-geographical landscape of the region than I do. And from the text of their report (warning: PDF file), it appears they have less understanding of the region than I.

And I’ve never even set foot there.

Of course, their actual experience on the ground there is less useful than my non-physical visits, since they actually just touched base there in the very briefest of manners, just to add it to their puffed up creds (and to pad the expenses) for their report. Kind of a “touch and go” landing… And they didn’t even do a “touch and go” in the areas controlled by the Kurds, where they might have gotten a hint (if their ossified brains could grasp it) of what is going wrong in the two provinces of Iraq that are troublesome.

Nope. They apparently, from the evidence of the report, went into this with the idea of avoiding such “buzz words” as “victory” because… Well, I can’t figure any positive reason why they’d avoid looking for a road to victory, can you? And their idea of success is really just a way of defining success down to a level that is meaningless.

The only things I can find that they got even close to right are the delineations of mistakes made in the prosecution of the peace. And even there, I strongly disagree with their priority and even some of the list itself–nortably absences from the list and the failure to out the disasterous Bremmer. But their silliest remarks were reserved for analysis of the various “options” that they presented. For example, partitioning garnered this fatuous comment:

Continue reading “ISG* Speaks (Now, if they’d just shaddup already)”

This is a Christmas Alliance post.

One of the strongest songs of the Christmas season, worth considering in Advent, approaching Easter or at any other time of the year as well, is Frank Houghton’s “Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour”–truly one of the most powerful lyric expressions of the birth, life and ministry of Christ sung at Christmas, and well-mated to the equally beautiful traditional French tune, usually named ODEUR (or FRAGRENCE) in hymnology texts, the song is “sweet-smelling” indeed to a heart burdened with quotidian cares.

Here’s the text of the first verse, only (Google the song for someone else’s listing–the thing’s still in copyright, so I’ll not feature more than excerpts that Fair use should allow) and a recording of that verse by an unknown (to me) church choir. Don’t let yourself be distracted by the archaic language; just hear the words.

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love’s sake becamest poor.

[audio: http://thirdworldcounty.us//audio/Thou_Who_Wast_Rich_Beyond_All_Splendor_clip.mp3]

mp3 file

Chip Stam has this to say of this hymn:

Serving as Editorial Secretary for the China Inland Mission, Frank Houghton made a trip to China in 1934 to see first-hand the progress of the work. This hymn was written at a particularly difficult time in the history of the missions to China. Missionaries had been captured by the communist Red Army and released in poor health after over a year of suffering. Others had been captured never to be heard from again. In 1934 the young missionaries John and Betty Stam (my great aunt and uncle) were captured in Anhwei and beheaded . The news of these sorrows had reached the mission’s headquarters in Shanghai. Though this was a very dangerous time for both the Chinese Christians and the foreign missionaries, Frank Houghton decided he needed to begin a tour through the country to visit various missionary outposts. While traveling over the mountains of Szechwan, the powerful and comforting words of 2 Corinthians 8:9, “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor,” were transformed into this beautiful Christmas hymn.

Continue reading “Christmas Alliance 1.9: Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond all Splendor”

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Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

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What Would It Mean to Pass the FairTax Plan?
by John DeJong of NotMeUSA.com

How would you like to keep one hundred percent of everything you earn? That is one hundred percent of your paycheck, your savings interest, your inheritance, your winnings and any money given to you from a benefactor. How much would you like never to have to worry about tax laws, deadlines, audits, penalties and punishments? Imagine a world where April 15 is just another day of the year… won’t that be wonderful?

It will soon come to pass. Some day in the not so distant future we will all benefit from the passage of the FairTax Plan (HR 25/S 25). Once this piece of legislation becomes law the United States will experience an economic escalation that is unprecedented in history. Imagine the cost of living actually moving downward! Envision fuel prices falling and the prices for everyday consumables lowering back down to sixties proportions. How about being able to have mortgage companies actually compete with low prices against each other?

With the FairTax in place we will see incredible job growth. There will be hundreds even thousands of jobs that foreign companies will be bringing back to America. It will be poetic justice when Asian companies start building “call centers” all over the USA. We’ll see Japanese, German, Chinese and even Mexican manufacturers moving into the USA to save huge sums of money while providing Americans with jobs-a-plenty.

Continue reading “Fair Tax/OTA”

To the third world county bloggers and readers, thank you for your support. I thought I’d cross post this here so you can see how the program is working.

I missed the news of the steam line on the USS FRANK CABLE (AS-40) rupturing and burning 8 sailors this past weekend, but I just received an email forwarded by Soldier’s Angels from LTC (Ret) Jim Riley:

From: Riley, James D CONT BAMC-Ft Sam Houston TX
Date: Dec 5, 2006 1:36 PM
Subject:
To: Soldiers Angels

Patti

I can’t get post or even read most of the BLOGS at work. I thought you might like to update BLACKFIVE on the sailors injured in the boiler explosion. Here is what I would like to say if you’d like to send it to them

Just wanted you to know Soldiers’ Angels is on the ground in San Antonio and in an protective overwatch position & I am personally looking out for the injured sailors and their families. We will support them in any way we can as their treatment progresses. The families have arrived and are being tended by the staff and chaplains.

Thanks to Blackfive and the other MIL Bloggers, Soldiers’ Angels will be providing a new laptop for each of these six heroes as soon as they get out of the ICUs and we hope they will be blogging their story themselves very soon. Our prayers are with them and
their families.

Jim (LTC, Med Svc Corps, ret), Director, Medical Spt Ops Soldier’s Angels

Bubblehead is on the story.

For all who chipped either effort or money or both at the fund drive for Valour-IT, this is the result of your dedication to supporting our troops and, in this case, the sailors in particular.

For anyone else late to the game, Valour-IT donations are accepted year round…. (hint, hint!)

UPDATE: This graphic and link will be at the top of every Christmas Alliance post for the rest of the season:

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Christmas at Rock-Away Rest

I recieved this in email, and had a hard time finding an already-scanned image of a Christmas song old enough (well, no, not really :-)) for the sender to feel right at home… 😛 (Thanks, Hugh).

‘Twas the night before Christmas at Rock-Away Rest…
Continue reading “Christmas at Rock-Away Rest/OTP”

Ever feel like you’ve seen a reflection of public school and wondered if you’ve fallen through the looking glass? A tenth grade class in a Denver Public School was asked to complete an exercise in “critical thinking”–this exercise:

“[W]rite down five things the U.S. government is currently doing that might be unconstitutional.”

A student who got a grade of 40% (for only writing down two things) submitted this:

“1. Bushe cold have help the Katrina people whin it hapin. 2. Bushe should’t be tipin in to people’s phone.”

Compiling a list of people who should be horsewhipped for that result would be an arduous task. First in line, of course, would be the teacher (or curriculum developer) for devising such a loaded exercise and labeling it as a “critical thinking” exercise. Then there would be the student and his parents. The student for being too lazy to bother learning how to read during the previous nine years (or more) of schooling; the parents for not MAKING the kid learn (although, probably the kid only had “parent” to supervise–and I use both terms losely).

Then there are all the lazy-assed and wrongheaded teachers, pubschool admins, eeducrats and “education” professors that wasted the previous nine years (or more) of this kid’s life indoctrinating him in becoming an untermensch.

Read the article. Weep. Then get angry and take it out on the next educrat/pubschool admin/useless idiot pubschool drone who crosses your path. No, don’t engage in violent behavior, but do excoriate them in a most vigorous manner. And encourage everyone you know to do the same. Again and again and again and…

Folks, in a country where idiots like this can vote, this is a serious national security issue. And running, crying to the feds about it will only make things worse! If we each do not do what we can at the local level to move against the educrats and politicians who exercise remote control over our schools, pressure our local boards to hire—and retain—teachers who can teach (instead of subliterate semi-morons recently churned out from “education” factories) and place gag bits in pubschool admins mouths (some, literally!), then we will have the country we deserve, and it won’t be the United States of America. Briefly, it may become Los Estados Unidos… before being overrun by jihadists establishing the Caliphate… on the way to dissolution, starvation and utter ruin.

A pretty picture. And one our educational establishment, with the complicity of parents and lazy-assed students, will bring to pass if folks don’t wake up and take back the schools.

Just a little Christmas cheer for ya!

h.t. Chaos Manor in Review

Today’s Blogburst is also available as a Podcast.

Illegals Deadlier Than War On Terror
by American Daughter

This past Thanksgiving evening, a United States Marine who was home from Iraq was driving with his date, when another car smashed into theirs and killed them both. The other driver, who was not even injured, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

On the early broadcast news in Washington, DC this morning (Thursday, November 30th), some stations carried the report of this incident, and described the drunk driver as an “illegal immigrant.” By the time the 7 AM news came on, that version of the story had been quashed.

The main-stream media versions of the story do not mention the illegal status of the accused driver:

Driver Accused Of DUI In Crash That Killed Marine Home For Thanksgiving

COLUMBIA, Md. – A local Marine was killed Thanksgiving night in a crash caused by an alleged drunk driver. Brian Matthews, 21, of Columbia, Md., was driving with a date, 24-year-old Jennifer Bower of Montgomery Village, in his car on Thanksgiving night.

A driver hit them in Columbia, killing them both.

Matthews had served in Iraq and was home for Thanksgiving.

Matthews’ mother says her son had just signed up to be an organ donor and his organs helped save six other people.

Eduardo Soriano, 25, the driver of the other vehicle, was charged with driving under the influence.

This additional information comes from a news channel in Baltimore:

Matthews had served in Ramadi, Iraq, as part of the Fox Company 2nd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment.

One of his family members said he was the kind of person who would do whatever he could to help others.

Matthews, who recently trained in the Pacific Ocean, had just celebrated Thanksgiving with his family when he and Bower went out on a date….

Police said the driver of the other car, 25-year-old Eduardo Soriano, failed to stop at a traffic signal and hit Matthews’ car.

Soriano wasn’t injured but was charged with driving under the influence. Court documents showed he had a blood-alcohol level of .32. The legal limit is .08.

Soriano is also charged with two counts of manslaughter while intoxicated and homicide by motor vehicle.

Matthews graduated from Howard High School in 2003. He was an Eagle Scout.

According to statistics compiled by US Congressman Steve King (R-5th CD Iowa),

• 13 Americans are killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals
• 12 U.S. citizens die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day in crimes

Do the math.

That’s more than nine thousand people killed every year in the United States by illegal aliens.

By contrast, consider the death toll for US servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of the war on terror, as reported last week by the Department of Defense:

• Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863.
• Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289.

Again, do the math.

So illegal aliens in the United States are more than fourteen times as lethal (14.48 actually) as a full scale armed conflict.

Quod erat demonstrando.

Our mainstream media outlets are strangely silent about this. Do we hear them constantly beating a drum about THIS civil war? No. Their selective reporting amounts to blatant prevarication.

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[Comment: actually, it’s not a “civil war” at all, of course. It’s an invasion actively sponsored by at least one foreign power—Mexico—and aided by complacency or even active treason by U.S. government officials, agencies and politicians…—ed. ]

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our Blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to admin at guardtheborders dot com.