Tag: stupid is as stupid does

This is an Open Trackbacks Alliance post. Link to this post and track back all weekend long. More below the mishmash (which includes some info anyone who uses Internet Exploder or Outlook MUST read!)

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If you’ve not heard of it yet, on Tuesday Microsoft acknowledged a(nother!) serious security flaw in Internet Exploder (and by extension also in the html rendering in Outlook/Outlook Express) that you MUST take seriously.

To deal with this security flaw, you have two paths to take at this time, since Microsoft has NOT issued a patch:

1.) Stop using Microsoft’s internet applications! Stop it! Now! I use Opera for my browser, email and newsfeed client. I don’t really need to use Internet Exploder, unless some jackass website builder requires Active X components to load a site I NEED to use. (And in most cases, I’ll get on the phone to ’em and chew ’em out for it.)

2.) Kludge through the workarounds:

From Microsoft’s Security Advisory 925568, under Workarounds, in addition to UN-registering the vgx.dll (Click Start, click Run, type “regsvr32 -u “%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll”” (without the quotation marks), and then click OK.):

Read e-mail messages in plain text format to help protect yourself from the HTML e-mail attack vector

Microsoft Outlook 2002 users who have applied Office XP Service Pack 1 or a later version and Microsoft Outlook Express 6 users who have applied Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 or a later version can enable this setting and view e-mail messages that are not digitally signed or e-mail messages that are not encrypted in plain text only. Digitally signed e-mail messages or encrypted e-mail messages are not affected by the setting and may be read in their original formats. For more information about how to enable this setting in Outlook 2002, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 307594.

Impact of Workaround: E-mail messages that are viewed in plain text format will not contain pictures, specialized fonts, animations, or other rich content. Additionally:
1. The changes are applied to the preview pane and to open messages.

2. Pictures become attachments so that they are not lost.

3. Because the message is still in Rich Text or HTML format in the store, the object model (custom code solutions) may behave unexpectedly.

OK, don’t say you weren’t warned. For my part, the machines around here are all having the vgx.dll unregistered, and I’ll simply keep on using Opera for all (well, 99.99%) my web browsing, email and RSS feeds.

UPDATE: Released today by ZERT: third party patch for the VML vulnerability from the “Zero Day Emergency Response Team”—NOT a Microsoft patch.

BTW, see the foot of thos post (“read more here” below the Open trackback reminder) for a few personal observations about Microsoft and security holes/vulnerabilities.

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Continue reading “OTA Post/Security note”

(Award for dumbass opposition to Truth, Justice and the America Way)

And the award goes to… the ACLU for its opposition to the Voter Integrity Act. The blogburst from STACLU lays it out:

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Crossposted from Stop The ACLU

Via The ACLU Website:

The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed its disappointment with the House passage of a bill placing undue and unnecessary burdens on Americans’ fundamental right to vote. H.R. 4844, the “Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006,” requires voters to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote in federal elections. In addition, beginning in 2010 voters would be required to present a photo ID that was issued based on proof of citizenship in order to vote. The measure passed by a vote of 228-196.

The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:

“Less than two months after the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, the House of Representatives has chosen to pass legislation disenfranchising the very citizens the VRA was designed to protect. No eligible citizen should have to pay to vote. There are voters who simply don’t have photo ID and requiring them to purchase one in order to vote would be tantamount to a poll tax. This measure will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minority voters, senior citizens, voters with disabilities, and others who do not have photo identification nor the financial means to acquire it.”

What a load of crap! This ridiculous “poll tax” meme is quickly making its rounds. Nancy Pelosi has taken the ball with this one and ran with it headlining with the alarmist title, “Voter ID Bill Is an Attempt to Suppress the Votes of Millions of American Citizens!”

Give me a break! You have got to be kidding! Perhaps they are worried this act will supress “millions” of illegals and dead people from voting! An I.D. is required in many of the most basic things in America such as driving a car or even cashing a check. Please, tell me how all of these poor people that can not afford to get an I.D. cash their welfare checks?

Rep. Henry Hyde makes the same point.

But Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who sponsored the Federal Election Integrity Act, says requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls “presents no greater hardship than people face performing everyday activities.”

For example, Hyde noted that government-issued photo IDs are required for driving vehicles, applying for Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, food stamps, boarding airplanes, entering government buildings, registering at school, getting student loans, renting movies, and cashing checks.

Given all the cases in which U.S. citizens are asked to produce photo IDs, it should not be difficult to produce IDs to guard against fraud in the electoral system, Hyde said.

It really isn’t surprising that the ACLU would be against making our democratic process have more integrity. After all, they know which side butters their bread. They even keep a scorecard on Congress.

The ACLU are involved across the country fighting voter I.D. laws. In Missouri at least 16 St. Louis area Democrats have been found guilty of election crimes in the last year and a half! When Republican Gov. Matt Blunt signed a law requiring voters to provide I.D. the ACLU had to come up with a different argument than the poll tax crap. Even though Missouri the Missouri law provided for free photo IDs that voters could obtain before election day the ACLU represented a group of Democrats to challenge the law by arguing for a loophole they found stating the law violated a state constitutional provision against imposing costs on local governments without providing state funding. So much for the poll tax argument or putting an undue burden on the poor.

As a matter of fact as Digger’s Realm points out:

Those against it are claiming it’s a poll tax on the poor, minorities and elderly and that they can’t afford to get a drivers license or passport. They fail to mention that the bill includes a portion to pay for free for the poor who can’t afford a photo ID.

People can see for themselves. The full text of the bill is here.

The ACLU were also involved in the recent case against a similar bill in Georgia that was struck down. It also provided free I.D.s. They also fought voter ID laws in New Mexico, Michigan, and Indiana. The ACLU has clearly shown its true colors in support of voter fraud. The only possible reason I can realistically see why someone would be against this bill is if they actually desire for voter fraud to continue. Once again the ACLU has shown just how transparent their lie of non-partisanship is. It is clear what the ACLU and democrats want. They want rights for illegal aliens, dead people, and felons to vote early and often.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

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*sigh* And the ACLU can probably get judges like “Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana… “ to go a;ong with their cockamamie, dumbass attack on the integrity of the voting process.

As a society/people/nation? Answer: apparently General Mills makes money off this crap:

‘Nuff said.

Report Critical of Training of Teachers.

MQ starts with the lede:

Most American teachers are trained in university programs with low admission and graduation standards, and with faculty members and courses that are often unimpressive and disconnected from what takes place in elementary and secondary schools, according to a study released yesterday.

Some education departments and schools should be shut down and others need vast improvement, said the report, “Educating School Teachers,” released by the Education Schools Project, a research group.

Well, duh. Anyone with more than two active brain cells knows that. If the “education system” in America were a person, it’d need another neuron just to make a synapse.

Is there any doubt that many (perhaps tending toward most) Feddle Gummint judges have their brains surgically removed before taking the bench?

Exhibit number (many–larger than I have time to type, maybe a googleplex squared):

US federal judge declares boating illegal in all US navigable waters.

Also evidence that jackasses don’t like boats, I would guess.

This example of anarcho-tyranny provided by Roland Dobbins

(…and wish I’d never learned…)

Did you know that in order to become Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had to have his balls surgically removed (leaving him, I suppose, intestate)?

True. At least that’s the only explanation I can come up with for this:

Pope Expresses ‘Deep Respect’ for Islam

(h.t. to Lovely Daughter for the link to the story.)

Note: Yeh, I know this is up kinda late. Server problems at fatcow’s end this ayem. And I have no idea when they fixed it since I’ve been out for the past four hours… so here’s Wednesday’s OTA post

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Now, the roundup.

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Tired of BSODs and such? Don’t spend a fortune buying one of the new INTEL Macs for the Unix-core OSX. Try out Puppy Linux or Ubuntu. I just put Puppy Linux on an OLD 266Mhz comp with a 2gig HD and only 64MB of RAM last night. Ran like The Flash. Minor configs (which the connection wizard walks anyone, even of the “Aunt Tilly” kind) and on the internet and cruising with no problem. I use two other “flavors” of Linux—one is Ubuntu, another is a stripped down Slackware with command line-only for use as a firewall—on a couple of other computers and haven’t had an issue with them yet. Recommended. Oh, and the newest Puppy Linux distro will fit on a “credit card” CD and boot as a live session, so you don’t even have to actually install it if you don’t want to.

Nice.

On a tip from STACLU, I had a chuckle when I read about the ACLU being sued for invasion of privacy and defamation. Rich. The sanctimonious, pusillanimous, hypocritical terrorist-loving bastards… May 1,000 flying camels deposit turds in their soup.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the DLC has had its tax-exempt status revoked. Oh, dear. What will they do for slush funds now? (Yeh, like that’ll make a difference.)

A little over a week after observing rememberance of 9/11, Edward Feser discusses why so many dumbasses still cling to idiotic conspiracy theories about the event. Worth a read.

Bou laments bureaucratic nonsense. (Remember: medical privacy laws and regulations are NOT in existance for the reasons they say; they are there for two primary purposes: to protect the doctors and to make medical care more expensive and inconvenient. *heh*)

Lady Diane has a roundup of a different sort. Why, she even mentions necktie parties in America’s Third World County. (I’ll have to see that Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether send her an engraved invitation to the next one… ;-))

Don Surber notes something I take as another good reason for the Fair Tax (cos it’s FAIR, that’s why… *sheesh*)

Kat told me to feel free to post at Cathouse Chat while she and her family are in Hawaii, but I’ve been enjoying her Hawaii posts too much to break up the flow (although, yeh, one did sneak in… ). Here’s one; check out at least a few of the others (including the video tour of their timeshare). Have a great time, Kat! Keep those “cards n letters” comin’!

Well, I did say a “mini-roundup” so that’s all for now.

Remember: this is an open trackback post. Hit me with your best shot.

Everything that is must have some sort of raison d’être, mustn’t it? Otherwise, what’s the point? Now, it doesn’t have to be a good purpose or even a notably sensible one, but everything MUST have some sort of reason for its existence.

I think I may have discovered the raison d’être for SPAM. Consider for a moment: how many people are going to be positively influenced by unasked for email or blog comments/tbs clogging inboxes (or moderation queues) touting pr0n, “male enhancement” products, get rich quick schemes, Nigerian bank accounts or any of the other dumbass pitches?

OK, we know from the evidence that there are plenty of folks who are dumber than a bag of hammers, cos SPAMmers wouldn’t keep on spending their money, time and other resources sending out such massive floods of junk for no return at all, now would they? So maybe that is the most obvious reason for SPAM: there are enough genuinely stupid people—as in fewer active brain cells than a head of cabbage—to keep SPAMmers awash in the cash they suck from such idiots.

But is there a higher purpose that SPAM serves (I mean besides the lofty purpose of royally pi$$ing me off–a worthy end in and of itself, some might say)?

Well, yes, of course there is. I refer you to my previous comment about SPAMmers sucking $$ off stupid people and my post earlier today about how stupidity ought to exact a price. The more $$ SPAMmers (or any scammers for that matter) can suck off stupid people, the less stupid people have to spend. In a best case scenario, this could result in some stupid people not having enough $$ left for their grocery bill, and being really stupid, they might, just might, be too stupid to find someone to rescue them.

With any luck at all, SPAMmers could be helping stupid people kill themselves off.

But that’s stretching our luck a lil too far, I fear.

*sigh*

Oh, well. For a brief instant there, I thought I was onto something…

Asking Ferdy for comment…

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Some links to interesting (and some infuriating) posts/articles/pages I have stumbled across in the last few days:

Flying “car” (not really, but sorta-semi-almost).

Mother jailed for homeschooling. In Germany, but who can doubt educrats and at least some politicians in this country don’t harbor similar desires?

UPDATE: a followup from a reader:

“This is the companion article to the one you linked”:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/139

Stücher called upon all Christian parents in Germany to withdraw their children from the public schools which, he says, have fallen into the hands of “neomarxist activists propagating atheist humanism, hedonism, pluralism and materialism.”

Well, of course they have. Just as they have in these sorta United States.

The Age of Horrorism. I don’t fully agree with Martin Amis’ points, but the article’s worth a read. 5-parter.

Rick does an alleyoop with the pass from the Pope, all over poor lil Muzzies’ hurt feelings cos of Benedict’s comments… (What a fortuitous juxtaposition: Benedict=good words. Pope speaks truth and Muslims are upset… par for the course.)

And in the same vein, Abbagav looks at current events and includes this lil aside,

Sure, the Pope has sent a message that religion and violence don’t mix, and been greeted with an Islamic response not unlike the retort one would expect from Moe if Curly complained he was too violent — pick two fingers.

And…

Kris lends more perspective on the “Religion of Peace” (MHWA).

UPDATE #2: The Random Yak voices the definitive post on the Pope’s remarks and the tantrums thrown by the follwers of The Butcher of Medina.

And…

“Religion of Peace” MHWH…

And, while we’re (very rightly) roasting Muslims, how about a couple from Woody? Here and here. (It’s the SECOND link on that last one that lampoons the followers of the Butcher of Medina. The first link–in the second “here”–is NSFW.)

And…

CrusadeS! (WTG, Angel. :-))

Linknzona: The President’s Little Red Book for Illegal Immigration. Must-read.

“Right to know (nothing)”? Dan Rhiel has the Rhiel deal…

And lastly, for those with a desire for a lil light macabre play, here’s the latest Dead Guy on the Sidebar.

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Woman Pays $14,000 to Lease Rotary Dial Phone

The part that gets to me is the comment by a family member:

Strogen’s family is outraged by AT&T’s actions. Strogen’s granddaughter, Barb Gordon said “It’s taking advantage of the elderly. People our age wouldn’t even consider leasing a telephone.” Gordon also expressed her anger and pointed out the obvious that “If my own grandmother was doing it, how many other people are?”

“Taking advantage of the elderly”? How long has it been since everyone who’s paid any attention at all (and has more than two active brain cells) has known that leasing rotary phones from Ma bell is unnecesasary? Sure, the woman’s in her 80s now, but she was only in her 50s or 60s when such information became common knowledge. Anyone stupid enough to pay a $10/month rental/lease fee for a piece of trowaway technology really ought to be paying that money as a fine for stupidity.

But no, our society wants to put bumper guards on life, now… and that’s making us ever more stupid and incompetent. In our economy of abundance and our society of cocooned ease, we are breeding whole generations of incompetent, lazy nincompoops and whimps (or over-reacting hyper jackasses). As a small example, the other day a young nephew of mine asked about some DOS commands so he could play around on an old computer his family had aquired. Almost stumped me. Windows (and Linux, for that matter) are so graphically-oriented, so easy, that I rarely use DOS commands any more, rarely write batch files, rarely even see the command line.

Enstupiating ease. That’s a critical danger to our society. That and cocooning, bumper-guarding children throughout childhood and adolescence to the extent that they never grow up to be really competent adults but sheeple who always need someone else to take care of them, instruct them in how to do things. Incompetent at learning or doing nearly anything on their own.

Filled with an always present undercurrent of fear.

Take a “discussion” I’m having elsewhere with a gal who prides herself on being a swimming inbstructor (for nine whole years! woo-hoo!). Her claim to expertise? She is the ONLY swimming instructor she knows or has even heard of who can teach someone the breast stroke in half an hour!

Gime a break! When I was eight, I saw someone doing a breast stroke in the public pool we frequented. I thought it was cool, so I did it too. (And yeh, if my lifesaving and WSI instructors years later are to be believed, I apparently did it right.) A few minutes later, I “taught” my six-year-old brother the breaststroke. How? “Hey! look what I can do!” “I can do that too!” “Show me.” So he did. Simply by copying me.

Big stinking deal.

But no, not today. Today, apparently it takes instruction by a professional for today’s incompetent whimpy kids to learn an idiot-proof breast stroke. And it takes (apparently) 30 whole minutes to do so. Gee, people really are getting stupider by the minute. Growing up, I never met anyone (who already knew how to keep their head in the water) who couldn’t pick up the breast strooke in under 5 minutes, “instructed” or not.

And so it goes. “Education professionals” (filling positions that formerly would have been filled by teachers) are talking (again) about how training wheel teaching methods (oh! That’s another experience! I never knew there were such things as “training wheels” as a kid. Just got put on a bike and pushed off… ) can cripple students’ intellectual development.

Yeh, it’s all talk.

*sigh*