Posts from — February 2005

My favorite quote:

…John Schwarz, president and chief operating officer of Symantec Corp., would rather see Microsoft concentrate on fixing security flaws.

“We believe they’d be better off in focusing on making sure that their platform, the Windows operating system, is less subject to attack,” Schwarz said.

Microsoft is going to start offering software to protect its flawed software from people exploiting the flaws. They are going to use this opportunity to generate even more money from the people who suffer from having bought the flawed software in the first place.

While I don’t support “frivolous lawsuits”, how, exactly, is it not a tort for someone to sell you a defective product, and then charge you for the fix to the flaw. Wouldn’t it be suspected that you had intentionally left flaws, so that you could market the fix?

I know I’m automatically suspicious of Microsoft, but I’m having a hard time believing that a dedicated team of professional programmers is totally unable to write a software package that can’t be attacked by a lone wolf programmer operating out of a dorm room.

Microsoft has the cash to create the best operating system on the planet, but they are having a hard time competing on the basis of technical competence with creation of a lone Finnish student’s adaptation of a system used as a teaching aid which was conceptually based on a system written by a underemployed engineer who wanted a computer to play a game.

If Linus Torvalds, Andrew Tanenbaum, and Kenneth Thompson can do this, why can’t billionaire Bill Gates get it done? It’s not as if there aren’t a lot of experienced programmers looking for work.

The White House has a chef because it has often given state dinners in the past. The Bush’s don’t seem interested in state dinners. If you’re not going to hold big dinners, you don’t need a chef: you need a cook.

We pay the President $400K, provide a house, and an expense account. If his wife wants a cook, he can afford to hire one, although, since his wife doesn’t seem to have a lot to do, I don’t understand why she can’t cook for the two of them.

If they like a particular meal from Crawford, they spend enough time there to buy the food and freeze it for use at the White House, or they could order out. Washington has a lot of restaurants and the eateries that sell barbeque and Tex-Mex usually have take out. At one time I might have been worried about security concerns, but after Gannon, that’s obviously not a problem at the White House these days.

Paying an executive chef to make tamales for two people is not my idea of a reasonable use of tax dollars, nor is buying a yacht or new helicopters when the deficit is at a half trillion dollars a year.

Just a hint Laura: there are hungry children in this country with two working parents, so don’t expect me for care that you can’t get tacos from the White House kitchen when your husband is cutting food stamps.

[Edit: My Dad retired years before my Mother and he did the cooking because he was the one with the time.]

A former columnist on our local puppy trainer, Bill Campbell, worked in Base Public Affairs then, and mentioned the experience occasionally. Needless to say Dr. Gonzo and the Air Force parted ways via a discharge: Mr. Thompson was not suited for a military lifestyle.

At the time in this area kerosene was regularly used for lighting, dirt floors were not uncommon in grocery stores to soak up the blood dripping from freshly butchered meat, and there was no air conditioning. If you wanted a boat you had to build it or contract with a local to have it built. Appliances arrived from Sears & Roebuck on a truck, but you had to know how to install them. Most cooking was done outside during the summer to avoid heating the house.

[Update: The local media is saying the discharge was honorable, but most others are saying dishonorable, which may indicate a general discharge at the convenience of the service to get rid of him.]

This is a short biography of a man who lived and died controversially.

The voters were “heroic” because the ink was “permanent”³ and those with inked fingers were subjected to the possibility of being killed by insurgents.

This is why I was struck by Dr. David Mikosz’s article in the Technology section of the BBC: Ink helps drive democracy in Asia about voting in Kyrgyzstan.

One wonders why the US funds the use of ink that is only visible under an ultraviolet light in a relatively stable country like this former republic of the Soviet Union, but uses a highly visible ink in a country where voting can make you a target for murder.

The US obviously knew of this safer alternative, but chose the more dangerous procedure. If I were a cynic, I would think that the choice was based on the ability to generate a photo opportunity at a speech.

1. Has anybody told them that Solidarity was a labor union, the union that lead the way to a free Poland, a country we should never forget, unlike those pesky countries in Central America who refuse to understand that death squads are so “last century”?

3. Given their attention span, any period of time that is longer than a television ad. Heard on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: “…this is because no one in the Middle East has heard of a petroleum solvent.”

The newest US submarine, SSN-23, the USS Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf class nuclear submarine, was commissioned today at Groton, Connecticut. The christening recognizes the submariner service of the 39^th President, a graduate of the US Naval Academy. Also at the commissioning was President Carter’s classmate and former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner.

The ship has additional capabilities beyond the normal Seawolf-class attack submarine, able to function as a laboratory for new technologies as well as acting as a reconnaissance platform.

[Edit: No definitive word yet on the reports that the Air National Guard will name a dental chair after GWB.]

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

“I am impressed, Private,” said Jackrum.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. © 2003

If you have an interest in reporting, especially war reporting, you should take the time to read it. It is long for a blog post but it covers all of the basic information on the Davos incident.

I read it as a former intelligence analyst and criminal investigator and it confirms something I have long held: eyewitness testimony is worthless. I see no reason to believe that anyone was lying or distorting what they heard, but the limiting context of what Mr. Jordan was saying was lost in the firestorm that followed his comments.

From the post I learned that Congressman Barney Frank said that many journalists were “collateral damage” in the Iraq war, and Mr. Jordan corrected him, saying that up to ten journalists were not “collateral damage”, but were targeted by the military. Mr. Jordan was right, but it is a distinction that most do not understand.

“Collateral damage” means that those killed were not the “targets” of those who fired the weapons, i.e. they were hit by ricochets, were too close to explosions, etc. These are people who were at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

There is a whole different class of deaths: those who were the target of those who fired the weapons, but shouldn’t have been. These are people who mistaken for “the enemy”, but weren’t.

Jordan talked about journalists, but most would be more familiar with the picture of a little girl, covered with the blood of her parents, crying. Her father didn’t stop when US troops wanted him to, and the family car was riddled with “targeted” gunfire. The troops assumed that the car was a threat. The troops didn’t intend to kill the parents of that little girl; they intended to kill the “enemy” driving the car.

I do have some advice for journalists: in a war zone, don’t point cylinders, like large camera lenses, at nervous troops. Troops who are worried about being blown up by RPGs react very badly to people carrying large cylinders. The difference between a television camera on someone’s shoulder and an RPG launcher on the same shoulder is not that great to a jumpy soldier.

Dr. Christopher Grubb told the FDA panel that COX-2 inhibitors need to be kept on the market despite potentially dangerous side effects because troops overseas would suffer without them.

“Consider our military in this particular drug decision,” Grubb said, adding that troops use COX-2 drugs because traditional pain relievers such as aspirin have been linked to excess bleeding.

Without them, the United States wouldn’t be able to have as many troops on the battlefield, he said.

“Coxhibs are essential in the global war on terrorism.”

Well, the FDA went along and will not ban the drugs at this time, but if the military would expand the regular forces and stop shipping old fogies like me to war zones, arthritis drugs wouldn’t be necessary for battlefield effectiveness.

Where’s the call for armor for walkers? Are they drafting combat geriatric medics? Do people understand how pathetic this makes the US military look?

Friday Cat Blogging [^TM Kevin Drum]

Don’t make any sudden moves.

[Edit: Pictures are terrible, but this is the second most senior female and the number 1 rat killer. Her name is based on the white diamond on her forehead.]

And we should listen to him because Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker to straighten out the inflation problem in the American economy and Volcker gave Greenspan the 3X5 card that said: you bring inflation down by raising interest rates, and you lower interest rates to the point at which inflation is minimal or if the economy slips into a recession. There was no fine print on the card that said: unless you need to help a Republican.

Greenspan did nothing about the tech stock bubble; he was telling people to get adjustable rate mortgages when mortgage rates were at historic lows; he has no clue as to why no jobs are being created; he has made no stand on the budget and trade deficits; he links Medicare and Social Security to justify talking about a problem.

Mr. Greenspan is a totem, not a wise man. Anyone who talks about increasing the rate of savings for Americans by switching to private accounts while knowing that it will increase the deficit should not head a local credit union, much less the Federal Reserve system. As one of my great aunt’s used to say, he has outlived his brain.

The Surname came late to the Russians and they were changed frequently on a whim. Often they relate to the family business, as occurs with Cooper, Carpenter, and Smith in English. Putin indicates perhaps a guide or road builder, while Rasputin is a libertine.

Michael Medved can be translated as “Teddy Bear” in English.

This brings us to out new Secretary of Homeland Security – Mr. Chertoff. Chert could be called a Slavic god. . .of the underworld. Yes, our Homeland Security is now in the talons of a spawn of all evil.

As for our new National Intelligence Director, well, a Black Bridge is better than a Blackadder.

[Update: I surrender – Blackadder is better than the Black Bridge.]

Michael, Melanie, Amy, and American Street all have posts up on this column. Amy’s post also includes a short reference to my local area and it’s religious wackery.