Technicalities

Blogs for Bush

I have finally gotten around to putting up a Blogs for Bush Button on my sidebar. I don't generally do signs to support politicians. They just add clutter to the world. However, as I will be supporting Mr. Bush in this election, I thought a small sign on my blog would a nice thing.

There are things about any candidate that won't match 100% with everyone out there. But the thing I most admire about Mr. Bush is the fact that he takes a position and doesn't waffle on the issues according to the latest poll numbers. Plus his support for our military is simply outstanding.

So, I will quite proudly say I support Mr. Bush to be re-elected in November.

Computer Code - blowing up a pipeline near you

Eugene Volokh is blogging on security and the reliance on software for use in critical industries. This is a potentially serious problem that Computer Security experts have been talking about for years. There are a couple of reasons why I think that little or nothing will be done in this area.

Number one is the expense. Vetting all sourcecode used by a company to run critical functions is extremely expensive. You have to hire people who can actually spot problems. This is far easier said than done and it takes a great deal of time. That is if you are even able to get hold of the sourcecode to look at it. Companies like Microsoft don't just share their sourcecode with anyone. When sourcecode is the "crown jewel" of your company, it's highly unlikely you're going to turn it over to someone else to go over with a fine tooth comb.

Number two is apathy. This is an even bigger problem than Number one. You aren't going to be able to convince people there is a problem until something actually happens. And maybe not even then. Those who try to try to forward the cause of secure computing are often brushed off as hysterical, sky is falling types. People who have no problem locking doors, barring windows, setting alarms seem to be quite unable to grasp the fact that a simple computer hookup can leave their company wide open to criminals.

No - unless you can change people's mindset to include computers as a source of more problems than just having to reboot when the screen freezes, you won't be changing the way software is used in critical operations.

Friday Night Ramblings

Yes this falls under Ho-Hum because it's been one of those days. I was going to post something about Rep. Corrine Brown's remarks to Roger Noriega about white men. But what is there to say about a racist-bigot? She will get a pass because first she's a Democrat, second "she" is a woman, and third she's black. She has even convinced herself that the remarks were not of a "personal" nature and therefore should be okay. Any bets on whether she's forced to resign? Any thoughts on how fast the liberal news media will try to bury the story? ..... No? Thought not.

OTOH Martha Stewart got some excellent news today when the most serious charges against her were dropped for lack of evidence. I'm glad to hear it. No matter what you think of Stewart, those charges should never have been brought, and once they were on the table, the judge should've immediately thrown them out. Kinda scary to think you can have charges brought against you if you proclaim you are innocent! Or maybe that's only if you're Martha.

And I see that John Kerry has a plan to make us safer.

The front-runner used a campaign speech to outline his plan to combat terrorism that relies on stronger intelligence-gathering, law enforcement and international alliances — proposals that Kerry has been touting for more than a year.

I'm kinda curious about how he plans on doing this. It's been well documented that he spent much of his time in the Senate trying desperately to cut the budget drastically to the Intelligence agencies. He couldn't figure out why we needed to spend so much money on them. And I also wonder who he wants to make alliances with... it's got to be France. They're about the only country not talking to us. Even Germany is making nice.

As I said Ho-Hum...

Milblogs

You may notice that I now have a Milblogs Logo up over on my side bar. Since my son is Army - and his MOS is Chinooks the choice of logo was easy. Enjoy reading all the Military Bloggers and many thanks to Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette for making it all possible.

BTW - This is my 100th post which is pretty cool!

Nader for Prez

Harvey has a precision guided humor assignment you can read about at his blog. Basically he wants slogans for Ralph Nader to use in his quest to become president.

This got me to thinking - always a bad thing. How about:

Ralph Nader for President :

- He'll check everyone's emissions.

- He'll lobby Congress into submission

- Green is not just his skin color, it's what he'll get out of evil corporations

Eh - yuck. I'm sure Harvey and Susie will do MUCH better so stay tuned.

But Is It Art?

Lileks, one of my favorite bloggers, sometimes leaves me completely baffled. There are moments when I am trying to guess if he is willfully naive or simply blogs as if he is. Today's bleat is a case in point.

He is decrying the downward spiral of public discourse, which is something I certainly will not deny, but his choice of a segment from a Howard Stern show makes me wonder, James where have you been all these years?

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I remember sitting in a hired car in New York, waiting to enter the tunnel. The driver had Stern on. He was talking to a caller who was born and raised in Nigeria – she spoke impeccable English with that lovely African flavor. She wasn’t pleased about something he said; he let her go on for a while, then cut in and asked her if she’d ever ate a monkey. She was stunned – how do you reply to something like that? He went on to note that a lot of people in Africa ate monkeys, and perhaps that’s where AIDS came from. And so on.

This is completely typical Howard Stern behavior. My surprise is that, after all the years that Stern has been on the radio and even on television, that James is taken aback by this conversation.

I am not a fan of Howard Stern. His brand of humor doesn't interest me at all. But over the years I've caught bits of his shows - it does not take long to figure out exactly the direction each conversation will take. The biggest mystery might be, how long Howard lets things run on before branching off into the downward spiral. Since I am not a fan, I simply don't listen to him - end of problem. But there always seem to be people out there who either think they can change him, or simply like to say they argued with him on the radio. I think most people just like to say they've been on the radio and Howard Stern's show means that people across the country have heard them.

As far as I'm concerned, if you are going to call in to a radio show because you disagree with the host, it's a very good idea to know how the host treats callers. In the case of Howard Stern, the Nigerian woman should certainly have been prepared for something offensive. It would've been even better if she had a comeback for it. Something along the lines of "yes, monkey is very tasty, can we get back to the comment I'm making now?" OR "no I haven't, but I understand you love it".

Tales from Leaf Blower Land

My neighbor has a leaf blower.
It's small, it's electric, it has a high pitched whine that is like nails on a blackboard.
My neighbor uses her leaf blower at least once a day for 20-30 minutes to blow things out of her garage.
My office is directly across the street from her garage.
Closed windows do nothing to keep the whine of the blower from making my skin crawl.
When she is having a party, my neighbor will use the leaf blower up to 10 times in one day.
My neighbor is a very nice lady.
I really need to move soon or face destruction of property charges...

The Patriot Act

The USA Today has a decent story about the controversy that continues to surround The Patriot Act. Surprisingly it appears to be well balanced, showing how both supporters and detractors are using the confusion surrounding the bill to their advantage.

The administration's chief spokesman for the act, Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites), occasionally has blurred fact and fiction in giving the law credit for preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He also has belittled anyone who has questioned the law and played down how it has expanded the power of federal law enforcement agencies to gather evidence in terrorism and intelligence probes.

Considering that the liberal news media hate John Ashcroft with a passion, almost overwhelming their hatred of Bush. I find it very possible that Ashcroft has said far more than this about The Patriot Act. It would be simple enough to make sure all news stories portray Ashcroft in this light and ignore the rest of what he says. The fact that Libertarians also hate this law because of its real and perceived provisions, means that they don't question the liberal media when hearing news snippets about the law. The tendency appears to be, if you agree with what the media are saying, you don't go to the trouble to dig any deeper.

Liar, Liar

Bill Hobbs has more about the lies about benefits for military veterans. It seems that the lie has reached such proportions that one of the Congressmen from Bill's state of Tennessee is now repeating it as truth:

But it's not true. It's a lie. It's a lie that even has been repeated by members of Congress. For example, Tennessee's Fourth District congressman, Democrat Lincoln Davis, repeated the lie in an article in the Chattanooga newspaper May 3, 2003 - and even touts the article on his campaign website.

Strangely, Davis claimed veterans' benefits were being cut even though Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi had released a statement two weeks earlier, on April 24, 2003, explaining the truth and blaming the rapid spread of the rumor on the Internet.

Bill has the statement by Principi on his site and has it as a Word Doc too. Go check it out.

School Board Follies

The Daily Herald is carrying a story about angst in Elgin, Illinois school district U-46. It seems the School Board has been presented with a proposal to redistrict. Thus a recent School Board meeting was packed to overflowing with parents protesting the move.

I lived in this school district for 13 years. My daughter attended grades K thru 6 at the local public school. Then I placed her in the local catholic school (much to her intense displeasure) because of well known gang problems in the Middle and High Schools. My son attended the public school in grades K thru 3. When he hit 3rd grade (the first year my daughter was in catholic school) the teachers went on strike for an entire month. The next year I started him in catholic school - end of strike problem. However, having had kids in the district and having lived there for so long. I found one of the statements in this article exceptionally amusing.

He called the boundary changes a "de facto form of segregation," as it will ship middle-class Elgin students east to Hoffman Estates and keep poor, mostly Latino students in east Elgin.

Why do I find this funny? Because any Hispanic child whose parents do not have English as a native language, end up in ESL classes. THEY ARE ALREADY SEGREGATED! We had a boy who lived in the house behind us who was Hispanic, my son played with him all the time. When school started, he was shipped off to another school instead of attending the local school - right across the street. Several YEARS later, he was still at that school, and still spoke English poorly. HA! talk about Segregation!

Only one person had a finger on what I considered to be the prime problem when we lived there (and one that has only increased since we left)

"Why will you not consider the possibility that this school district is failing by every important measure of success precisely because it is so unmanageably large?"

Yes, it is far too big for it's own good. U-46 is second only to Chicago in the size of it's district. Who knows, it may have surpassed Chicago by now.

I'm glad my kids grew up in such a diverse area. They aren't afraid of differences in people. I am glad there were education alternatives that we could afford, and I am very sorry to see that the school district continues to have large problems.