excuse me?
The Buckeye Lake Beacon, Newspaper for Buckeye Lake, Ohio
Nov. 27 edition, classified ad:
Knocked up, no friends? Get Free room & board, just keep an old man company. P.O. Box 17, Buckeye Lake, OH 43008.
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November 27, 2006
November 25, 2006
next thing you know, they'll be going outside.
A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt - WSJ.com
Blaine Stuart of Rochester, N.Y., mistakenly whacked his fiancee, Shelly Haefele, while playing tennis and also accidentally hit his dog while bowling.
do not speak harshly to the camera, citizen.
'Big Brother' cameras listen for fights | CNET News.com
In U.K. public places, smarter closed-circuit TV cameras have been given the ability to listen for disturbances and also keep an eye on citizens.The system has already been put into use in the Netherlands to listen for people speaking in aggressive tones, to try to counter violent attacks in Dutch streets, prisons and railways.
The aggression detector has been fitted to CCTV cameras on the streets of Groningen and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In the U.K., London police also are considering installing the system, said Derek van der Vorst, the director of Sound Intelligence, the company that created the technology.
The system works by putting microphones in CCTV cameras to continually analyze the sound in the surrounding area. If aggressive tones are picked up, an alarm signal is automatically sent to the police, who can zoom in the camera to the location of the suspect sound and investigate the situation.
"Ninety percent of violent cases start with verbal aggression," Van der Vorst said. "With our system, the police can respond a lot quicker to a violent situation."
The sound system also means fewer people can monitor more cameras in surveillance centers, Vorst added.
Everyday mutterings are not detected by the system, though, Vorst said. "You cannot push a button to hear what people are saying," he said. "And even if you could, the microphones are 3 to 4 meters above the ground, so the words cannot be heard"
Pub brawls were cut by a quarter earlier this year in Yeovil, England, when a fingerprint-before-you-drink scheme was unveiled.
November 22, 2006
sic transit tunafish sandwiches
Smart school of fish expose stupidity of a popular myth
Fish are not the brainless dolts they are often assumed to be. Scientists have discovered that they are actually adept learners, with distinct personalities that change as they pick up information about the world.The popular notion that fish memories are measured in seconds has been exposed as a myth by research which showed that rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) remember experiences so well that they alter their behaviour in line with what they learn.
The study, led by Lynne Sneddon of the University of Liverpool, found that individual trout display very different characters — some are bold and inquisitive; others are shy and passive.
[more at link]
November 21, 2006
don't laugh
GR8 TaT2 Maker
It's job training for one of the few secure occupations left in this country.
November 18, 2006
where did your computer go today?
'Pump-and-Dump' Spam Surge Linked to Russian Bot Herders
... Stewart, a reverse engineering expert with expertise in deconstructing malware samples, gained access to files from a SpamThru control server and found evidence that the attackers are meticulous about keeping statistics on bot infections around the world.For example, the SpamThru controller keeps statistics on the country of origin of all bots in the botnet. In all, computers in 166 countries are part of the botnet, with the United States accounting for more than half of the infections.
The botnet stats tracker even logs the version of Windows the infected client is running, down to the service pack level. One chart commandeered by Stewart showed that Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) machines dominate the makeup of the botnet, a clear sign that the latest version of Microsoft's operating system is falling prey to attacks.
Obviously, the solution is for Microsoft to sue Linux users.
November 17, 2006
shove it, monkeyboy*
Computerworld - Ballmer: Linux users owe MicrosoftIn comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property.
In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and Microsoft wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation."
[snip]
"Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered," Ballmer said. This "is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."
"My reaction is that so far, what he [Ballmer] said is just more FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," said Pamela Jones, editor of the Groklaw.net blog, which tracks legal issues in the open-source community. "Let him sue if he thinks he has a valid claim, and we'll see how well his customers like it."
[snip]
Jones also challenged Ballmer to "put his money where his mouth is" and detail exactly what part of the Linux kernel source code allegedly infringes upon Microsoft patents, so that "folks will strip out the code and work around it or prove his patent invalid."
Ballmer did not provide details during his comments Thursday. But he was adamant that Linux users, apart from those using SUSE, are taking advantage of Microsoft innovation, and that someone -- either Linux vendors or users -- would eventually have to pay up.
"Only customers that use SUSE have paid properly for intellectual property from Microsoft," he said. "We are willing to do a deal with Red Hat and other Linux distributors." The deal with SUSE Linux "is not exclusive," Ballmer added.
-----
* Steve Ballmer at his feces-flinging finest:
November 12, 2006
could we see a menu, please?
Left to right: Boots, Yo-Yo, Inky, Gus (sitting up), Little Girl Cat (rear) and Marley. With the exception of Gus, they are all siblings.
The table had been moved to that spot about ten minutes earlier.
sunday afternoon fun
Gus the Cat should be able to swing this if I can get him to watch the video.
November 10, 2006
The Unbearable Lameness of Columbus, Part 713
Election can wait till after footballCounty puts off final tally until after OSU-Michigan meeting
Friday, November 10, 2006
The outcome of one of the nation’s tightest congressional races will wait until after one of its hottest college football games is played, Franklin County elections officials said yesterday.
Elections workers will delay their final, official tally of Tuesday’s ballots — a total that could add more than 38,000 votes to unofficial results in some races — until Nov. 19, the day after state law lets them begin counting provisional ballots.
They said they don’t plan to open for business on Nov. 18, a Saturday, when Ohio State plays Michigan at Ohio Stadium. But they’ll issue final election results by Nov. 21, a week before the state requires them.
They could count nearly 18,000 absentee ballots now, but they said they’ll wait to avoid more unofficial numbers.
"Our goal is to accommodate our employees’ plans for both the OSU football game and Thanksgiving," said Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder.
...
The official vote count is a second tabulation of ballots that produces the election results certified as final by local and state officials. It’s usually a formality that doesn’t change Election Day totals by much. But the second count this year will include thousands of extra votes because of an increase in the number of absentee and provisional ballots, fueled in part by a new state law that allows people to vote absentee without stating a reason.
A total of 17,766 absentee ballots that were returned Monday and Tuesday will remain uncounted until after the OSU-Michigan game, Damschroder said, correcting an elections board spokeswoman’s earlier comment that they’d be tallied by today.
...
tastes like surrender
November 8, 2006
election roundup
Damn. I shoulda bought more popcorn.
November 5, 2006
another one bites the dust
Soldiers of Christ (Harpers.org)
... “Church” is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life's various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex's western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life's founder.Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation's most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life's “free market” approach to the divine.
Golly, wotta shock. Didn't anyone around here read Elmer Gantry?
November 4, 2006
this just in
This is a column I wrote in early October. Since it won't appear on my web site until well past the election, I thought it might be fun to sneak it in here:
Dear Word Detective: Now that we are in the throes of another political
campaign season, my curiosity has become aroused by the designation of
Democratic-leaning states as "blue" states, and Republican-leaning
states as "red" states. These designations seem to have come out of the
blue a few years ago, and I would like to know how and when they came
about. I am curious, too, about the colors. It seems to me they should
be reversed. I associate blue with "blue-nosed" and "blue laws," which
suggests to me conservatism/Republicanism, and red with the left in
politics where the Democrats are generally positioned. -- Russell J.
Greatens.
Good question, but you left out the "purple" states, where a solid
majority of voters cast their ballots for Barney the Dinosaur. The big
galoot actually carried the state of Ohio, where I live, last time
around. Quite a change, I must say. The colors are much brighter now,
people are nicer and almost everyone sings instead of talking. It makes
dealing with the local IRS office downright pleasant. "I love you, you
love me, we'll just waive those penalties...."
OK, back to depressing reality. But Ohio really is a "purple" state (a
mixture of "red" and "blue"), one where the margin between Democratic
and Republican votes has been narrow, to put it mildly, in the last few
elections. In reality, of course, no state is all one party, and the
"red/blue" election-night shorthand only has any validity at all because
of the "winner take all" US Electoral College.
The "red state/blue state" divide has become such a staple of cable news
since the 2000 presidential election that many people assume that it's a
recent invention, but it isn't. More importantly, although "red" and
"blue" have become rallying cries for political partisans in recent
years, the color labels were never intended to last beyond a given
election, and are, in fact, supposed to flip in 2008.
The use of "red" and "blue" as color codes on maps of electoral results
actually dates back to at least 1908, when the Washington Post printed a
special supplement in which Republican states were colored red and
Democratic blue The colors were apparently arbitrarily assigned in that
case, although in later years both parties strove to claim blue (as in
"true blue Americans") and avoid red, with its connotations of radicalism.
Finally, in 1976, the TV networks agreed to a formula to avoid any
implication of favoritism in color selections. The color of the
incumbent party, initially set as blue for Gerald Ford's Republican
ticket in that year, would flip every four years. Consequently, a
successful challenger runs again in four years, as the incumbent, under
the same color. So in 1992, the challenger Clinton was red on the maps, and in 1994, incumbent Clinton was also red. Challenger Bush, red in
2000, was red again as an incumbent in 2004. But perhaps because the
pundits decreed 2000 to be a watershed election, the "red/blue" divide
has assumed a broader political significance (at least to pundits), and
although the formula dictates that the Republicans should be carrying
the blue flag in 2008, it will be interesting to see how the networks
color their maps.
Hey, I've seen that movie
Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship?The Department of Homeland Security has proposed that airlines and cruise ships be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each individual passenger on all flights to, from, or via the U.S. Unless the answer is “Yes” — if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all — the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane or ship.
November 3, 2006
rats scramble for the lifeboats
Neo Culpa: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com
As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.
Includes creepy photographs (most by Annie Leibovitz) of the usual suspects, including one of Bush that makes my skin crawl.
Tom Toles
Click image for larger version
November 2, 2006
read this.
U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
By Greg Mitchell(November 01, 2006) -- The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton, Jr., murdered last month by our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn’t make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners.
She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Az., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”
She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq so her death drew wide press attention. A “non-hostile weapons discharge” leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials “said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian.”
But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:
“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed….”
She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.
The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."
Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, revealing that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He has now filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note.
Peterson's father, Rich Peterson, has said: “Alyssa volunteered to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq.”
Alyssa Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and then sent to the Middle East in 2003.
The Arizona Republic article had opened: “Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages.
“Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001.
“With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents.”
On a “fallen heroes” message board on the Web, Mary W. Black of Flagstaff wrote, "The very day Alyssa died, her Father was talking to me at the Post Office where we both work, in Flagstaff, Az., telling me he had a premonition and was very worried about his daughter who was in the military on the other side of the world. The next day he was notified while on the job by two army officers. Never has a daughter been so missed or so loved than she was and has been by her Father since that fateful September day in 2003. He has been the most broken man I have ever seen.”
An A.W. from Los Angeles wrote: "I met Alyssa only once during a weekend surfing trip while she was at DLI. Although our encounter was brief, she made a lasting impression. We did not know each other well, but I was blown away by her genuine, sincere, sweet nature. I don’t know how else to put it-- she was just nice.….I was devastated to here of her death. I couldn’t understand why it had to happen to such a wonderful person.”
Finally, Daryl K. Tabor of Ashland City, Tenn., who had met her as a journalist in Iraq for the Kentucky New Era paper in Hopkinsville: "Since learning of her death, I cannot get the image of the last time I saw her out of my mind. We were walking out of the tent in Kuwait to be briefed on our flights into Iraq as I stepped aside to let her out first. Her smile was brighter than the hot desert sun. Peterson was the only soldier I interacted with that I know died in Iraq. I am truly sorry I had to know any."
November 1, 2006
Andras Schiff on Beethoven
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - music: Andras Schiff on Beethoven
One of the best-kept secrets in London was the lecture series Andras Schiff gave in parallel to his electrifying cycle of Beethoven sonatas at the Wigmore Hall. In May a friend managed to get a ticket for me - and I was simply dazzled by the performance he put on - a riveting mixture of erudition, analysis, passion, wit and memory. Schiff talked for more than two and a half hours about three lateish sonatas - and for anyone interested in these peaks of the piano repertoire they were quite compelling.It seemed such a waste that all this scholarship and revelation should not have a wider audience. I learned from the Wigmore Hall's director, John Gilhooly, that the lectures had all been recorded - and neither he nor Schiff needed much persuading that the obvious place to podcast them was on the Guardian's new arts and entertainment blog. Over the next seven weeks you'll have the chance to download the series of seven lectures.
Schiff marks the start of his complete cycle of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas with this first lecture-recital, which you can listen to and download here.