Tag: stupid is as stupid does

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Well, I may actually watch 20/20 on Friday…

I can’t recall the last time I wasted an hour watching 20/20 (“Puff Ficto-Journalism for the Sheeple”), but this Friday, I may actually watch it, or at least tape it so I can skip the dull yappy-yappy airhead portions for something (possibly, we’ll see) a wee tad interesting by someone who’s not a complete idiot.

John Stossel is reportedly doing a segment asking “Are kids in the United States being cheated out of a quality education?”

I’m not holding my breath. While the broad strokes may actually have some validity, there’s no way Stossel’s going to have air time enough (assuming he has his data ducks in a row) to air the issue or make much of an answer to the question.

But he may at least have some information to offer, and he has a well-known POV and tendency to throw the Bullshit Flag.

May actually be worth watching. But probably not live.

Written on the blackboard (though scarcely 500 times–surely I’ve not been that bad?) at Committees of Correspondence, NIF and Jo’s Cafe’s Monday Specials.

UD: Is it a segment or the whole hour? Conflicting info. But an hour’s not enough to more than touch on the issue, anyway, but we’ll see. Comparing New Jersey students and Belgian students on a standardized test is just mean, though…

heh.

Update: In comments, Hugh weighs in with an observation I might quibble with in percentage breakdown only a small tad. A very wee tad, not substantive. And an observation concerning local SC state politics/education.

I agree that responsibility can be shared. The roughly approximate proportions are as follows: Parents: 60% (most probably more) * Administrators: 20% Legislators: 20% * Parents have the ability to vote. And, they can hold administrators feet to the fire. Alas, most parents are gutless wonders who REFUSE to take responsibility for their offspring. What I can vouch for is the statement(s) in the NewsMax item. What was written here about Gov. Sanford and SC is TRUE!

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Off-the-wall/0PEN P0ST

Every now and then, offbeat questions come to my mind (I know, I know–some of y’all already think that’s the only kind I ever entertain). Like, how many people can recognize their own neighborhood in aerial photos? I’d suspect a few more than can read a map accurately, but absent some academia nut somewhere weaseling some of YOUR money (and mine) from a spendthrift government, I don’t imagine we’ll have a fair ballpark guess on that any time soon.

Mystery01-b

0PEN P0ST for Monday—a few hours early. Link here and trackback. If you don’t know what to do, drop me a line or a comment and I’ll try to help you out. Note: for those of y’all still stuck on using the antiquated Internet Exploder, The World’s Crappiest Browser (hey, I understand: some folks are so conservative as to be positively reactionary in some areas. I have some of those areas, myself. :-), I understand scolling down to where IE has chopped up posts cos it can’t read the CSS specifying the cneter column size can be a pain. So, here’s the Trackback URI (right-click and copy, unless you have one of those even quainter one-button Mac mice, then it’s “Splat/options key+Click”–maybe, depending on your browser and how you hold your mout—heh). Or just copy and paste this: http://haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113677098423922307 . The URL for the post itself is: http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2006/01/off-wall0pen-p0st.html

Can’t find the blogosphere with Mapquest, but Conservative Cat (who also has a—serious—DIRE WARNING from Ferdy about an email virus) can probably give you directions to current hotspots.

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An Answer to Murtha “Dhimmi-crats”

Michelle Malkin made the following video available for download. She also includes this snippet, as well as a link to the full transcript of the Murtha/Moran townhall meeting designed to elicit anti-war (really, anti-Bush and anti-victory) thetoric last week.

“… I think it’s a disgrace when members of our Congress –just as they did in 1975 when they sold out the south Vietnamese–are selling out our soldiers today in Iraq!”

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And just in case you missed it, in an earlier post, Michelle Malkin also provided the following clip of Sgt. Mark Seavey speaking to Murtha and Moran. (She has more from Sgt. Mark Seavey at her blog, linked above.)

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Poor players, strutting and fretting their hours upon the stage…

The Stupid Party needs to get some schooling in Texas Holdem, cos the Demoncraps are taking their shirts:

“Game Theory and Media Bias” by Todd Manzi:

It used to be that the press would report the happenings of politics. Somewhere along the line, the process became perverted, and politicians began playing to the press and engaging in behavior that was motivated solely because of the prospect of media coverage. The tail wagged the dog, and politicians learned they could manipulate the press. Today, the message of politics is delivered through a liberally biased prism. Not only do Reid and the Democrats make moves designed to get media coverage, they take full advantage of the premise that the people reporting the news are predisposed to liberal ideology.

And infusion of testosterone and an ability to call the Dem’s bluffs every now and then might make a difference in how the game is played in Washington…

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A gross mis-carriage of “justice”

I heard about this today on Sean Hannity’s show, but left the car (and, therefore, the radio) before I heard any real details. Wizbang! sends me over to the Burlington Free Press, which has the full story:

A Williston man who admitted repeatedly sexually assaulting a young girl for four years was sentenced Wednesday to spend 60 days in prison — a punishment that angered the victim’s family but was defended by the judge as the only way to provide counseling for the perpetrator.

“Counseling for the perpetrator”?! Screw him, it’s that poor child he raped who needs counseling! It boggles my mind that anyone in the legal system should have more empathy and concern for the criminal, rather than for the victim. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this kind of criminal behavior: when convicted beyond reasonable doubt by a jury (and especially after admitting guilt), this cretin should have been incarcerated immediately!

Hulett began sexually abusing the girl — a friend’s daughter — when she was 6, and the conduct continued until the girl turned 10 in April, according to court papers and testimony Wednesday from the girl’s relatives. [emph. mine]

Frankly, this man ought to have been given at least the eight years the prosecutor was aiming for, and preferably the life sentence he was facing. When the judge only gave this 60-day sentence, he spit in the face of the legal system, justice, and the victim and her family. Judge Edward Cashman ought to be removed from the bench, disbarred, and drawn and quartered!

Prosecutors wanted Hulett incarcerated for at least eight years, and in impassioned pleas the girl’s family members asked for a stern sentence. Cashman, though, told the crowded courtroom that punishment was not his priority in sentencing Hulett, but rather finding treatment for the man to prevent future abuse.

“This is not a situation where I’m doing this for the family,” he said. “My heart goes out to this family, and I would hate to be in the situation this family is. But there’s other families out there, and there’s other people who could be victimized, and I’m trying to take the long view.”

Later, Cashman added that a lengthy prison term “will accomplish nothing but to harden this fellow.”

“Harden the fellow”? Hel-LO? Reality check, here: if this piece of shit masquerading as a human was already raping a SIX YEAR OLD, how much more hardened could he possibly get? Throw him in the deepest, darkest pit of the jail, lock the door, and throw away the key!

Prosecutor Nicole Andreson said punishment is a valid component of a sentence.

“This is not only about Mr. Hulett,” Andreson said in arguing for an eight-year minimum. “To sentence him to any less demeans the level of trauma he has caused. To sentence him to any less will send a disturbing message of tolerance to the community.”

Cashman disagreed, saying retribution “accomplishes nothing of value.”

“We feed on anger,” the judge said. “That’s not my job. I’ve got to do something that solves problems. The one message I want to get through is, anger doesn’t solve anything.”

Anger doesn’t solve anything? Oh, yes, it bloody well does! Righteous anger drives us to correct wrongs, to overthrow tyrants, to fight for freedom, to protect the helpless, and to stand up for what is right! Righteous anger gave this country independence. Righteous anger abolished slavery. Righteous anger conquered Hitler. Righteous anger brought equal civil liberties.

Righteous anger ought to put this criminal away for the rest of his life, and ought to offer full support and restitution to this little girl and her family.

Hulett spoke briefly at the end of the hearing, crying as he apologized for his actions.

“I want to get treatment. I need it,” he said before officers led him from the courtroom to begin his prison term.

Oh, boo-fucking-hoo-hoo. The only treatment you need, buster, is someone to slap you upside the head every 15 minutes (every 5 minutes on Sundays) and tell you what a low-down, dirty, worthless, rotten, scum-sucking, heartless, depraved, revolting, accursed, monstrous, villainous, loathsome, disgusting, vile piece of trash you are. And that’s insulting to trash.

God may forgive you – but I sure as hell wouldn’t!

(Crossposted to CatHouse Chat)

Pingposted to: Choose Life, Otimaster and TMH’s Bacon Bits

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Head ’em up! Move ’em out!

I haven’t done a “Around and about” roundup in a while. About time.

First up: Alexandra’s blunt presentation of (if I may paraphrase in some vernacular or whatever) There ain’t no such thing as a Palestinian. Nah, she didn’t say it that way. She has more class than that. But that’s what the info she presents means, and it’s bang on the money.

Woody has a great pointer to a talk by Michael Crichton that’s a must-read for folks who have to deal with eco-freak-fearmongerers. It’s a straight, fact-based followup to State of Fear. Oh, and after you read the Crichton talk Woody links to, try this one, too. One of my favs. Crichton gets all cranked up on the topic “Environmentalism as Religion“.

Battling takes on the week’s “big” article on the fate of Western Civilization by Mark Steyn: The Real Ugly American and Big Lizards (the discussion in comments there is nearly as good as the post itself). My take distilled to a (not at all accurate) one-sentence precís? Prophecy can tend to affect outcomes… if the prophet’s words are headed. It’s all over the place. Cruise around with a google on Mark Steyn and you’ll probably pick up a bunch more.

Sharia banking-for-Islamic-bigots-only at Michelle Malkin‘s. Yeh, there are other takes. All she does is report. You decide (I have). Look around yourself. If they can have their own fun-damn-mentalist banks, then I wanna see fun-damn-mentalist Bapticostal banks that can say, “No Dogs, Islamofascist murdering savage S.O.B.s or Lutherans allowed” and Pope-friendly banks that can say, “No pill-popping feministas, Dunkin’ Bapticostals or Jean Fraud sKerrys allowed.”

heh

A reminder: Windows users PATCH YOUR SYSTEMS. Maybe…

Cos… *sigh* I really don’t want this to become the “Windows Metafile Vulnerability Blog” but… hackers claim they have broken through the official Microsoft patch to the vulnerability. Plus ça change and all that. BTW no user interaction at all is required for the vulnerability exploit to be used to infect users. See the linked article. And see Rick Hellewell’s take on protecting yourself.

Personally, I backed off the M$ patch on Win2K machines (only). Disabled WMF viewing (by de-registering the dll that makes it possible) and applied the third party patch once linked at Steve Gibson’s site (and alas, apparenttly no longer available). I don’t need WMF functionality, so it’s gone. YMMV. (One reason I cite Hellewell is cos he disagrees with the measures I took. It’s a crapshoot.)

Doing linkfests? Check out Linkfest Haven. G’wan, ya know you wanna. What can N.Z. Bear do to you, anyway? heh

Haven’t been to Rick Lee’s place recently, have you? *tsk-tsk* Depriving yourself of some great eye candy. Or in some cases, nutritious produce blogging.

Romeocat says it’s time to hook Pat Robertson off the public stage. How loudly and enthusiastically can I agree?

Click on over and appreciate the memories, music and musings of Kat’s Keep the Coffee Coming. No. Not gonna link just one post, cos they’re all worth your time.

And I’ll just bet I’m not the only one who can second most of Christine’s New Year’s Resolutions. Yep. Definitely a doable list (except for those movie and tea things–heh).

Diane and Mel are going strong on their Bloggers Without Butts Week. Click on over to their blogs and drop ’em some notes of congrats and encouragement, willya?

The Mary Hunter posts a picture of a typical DemoPol. heh. Pure evil.

Well, there’s a lot more, but I just had some utility I did NOT install chime at me from another computer letting me know “Time’s Up! Get off your… “

Awww, shuddup, already.

Noted with all due decorum at TMH’s Bacon Bits and Imagine Kitty Magazine (Helloooo Kitty!).

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Warp Speed! (0pen Post)

Open Trackback Alliance

(Yeh, this is Friday’s Open Trackback Alliance post, slapped up Thursday night.)

Is interstellar travel on the horizon?

Maybe. And if so, it may be at “warp speed”.

The Department of Energy and the Air Force are funding research into a magnetic bottle/gravitational field drive that would in effect be the “hyperspace drive” of science fiction. But unlike most of the science fiction “hyperspace” drives, this one’s envisioned as being usable within the solar system, as well.

Man. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to vacation on Mars?

Yeh, yeh: I know they’re still working on building the tools to make the test beds to test the theory. But at least it’s a Step Farther Out.

h.t. Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor

Oh, also: Open Post. If you don’t know how to link to this post and trackback, drop me a note in comments.

Open Trackback Alliance

Dilithium crystals excited at Bloggin’ Outloud (where PUNishment is meted out unmercifully) and Stuck on Stupid (dig the new, uh… digs).

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Official Microsoft WMF Patch Now Available

Microsoft has now made an official patch available for the WMF vulnerability for all versions of Windows from Windows 2000 forward. See the notice at Microsoft’s site here, and select the proper patch for your system.

Official Microsoft WMF Patch Now Available

(Click the link, then look for “Security Update for the Windows Meta File Vulnerability Available”. OR just visit Windows Update. A direct download is more certain, though, with high-demand updates.)

OR

CLICK HERE

…if you want to go directly to the page with all the patches listed by Windows version.

Three ways to update, so you’ve no excuse.

🙂

Oh, and if you have previously applied Ilfak Guilfanov’s patch, uninstall it through Control panel before applying Microsoft’s patch.

PSA-pinned to Ferdy’s Bulletin Board at Conservative Cat

Update: All the security/OS wonks I usually listen to kept saying AV only a very few companies had some partial protection against WMF exploits. I just checked Grisoft’s website (remember: I’m concerned about computer security and have never suffered an infection by malware, probably because I practice semi-paranoid computing, BUT I am a tightwad, too. :-). All Grisoft’s products (including the Free Version of AVG) have offered at least this much protection against the WMF exploit since December 29–pretty quick response:

Exploit.WMF

These files exploits WMF vulnerability in Windows Operating Systems that allows malware code execution while WMF format file is opening. Unfortunately security patch for this vulnerability is not available at this time. AVG detects these files as Exploit.WMF and also as Trojan horse Downloader.Agent.

Not exceptionably bad. In fact, not half bad. Even unpatched systems can have such files noted for deletion or removal to a “vault” on normal daily scans (your AV software is set for daily scans as well as scans of all downloads, automatically, right? Right? 🙂

But. What about a visit to a web page with an exploit-embedded graphic? Better patch those systems, folks, even if your AV does offer some protection.