Wonkette has an article on her blog about the censorship that the Bush regime which affects what our troops deployed in Iraq can see on the web. Of interest and what is extremely suspicious are what sights are being allowed, versus which sites are being blocked.
This is a collection of disturbing developments. Some point towards increasing fascism under neo-conservatives, and others point out continuing incompetence in the new regime.
Here are a collection of short posts that all seem to have a common thread—Republicans misbehaving. Whether it is lying, intimidation, spying, breaking the law, or stealing, it all seems to point to a definite lack of moral values by the party of the Moral Majority. How sad. Even worse is that the American people continue to allow such behavior to continue endlessly.
George W. Bush has been President for a little over five years. He has yet to exercise his right to veto laws passed by Congress. This week, he has finally threatened to use his power of veto, and what is he planning on vetoing? A law which would prevent a company based in the United Arab Emirates, a known haven of terrorism, from taking over control of six major American ports.
Apparently, the Bush regime has decided that force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo is allowed. The New York Times reported on nearly eighty prisoners going on hunger strikes earlier this month. The most probably reason for the force-feeding of prisoners is that the Bush regime is afraid that the prisoners will become martyrs if they should die [...]
There is a good article over at Wired News on how the current Mac-related security issues are being blown way out of proportion. But by taking reasonable precautions, there is actually very little risk to the Mac platform in reality. As I have said before, Mac users should be running a firewall, like Intego’s NetBarrier, and a good anti-virus package, like ClamXAV, at a minimum. Good computer security is an on-going, ever-evolving process.
More stories I would like my readers to know about, but not worthy of a full post. Corporate Greed AOL has seen fit to screw over its loyal dialup customers. Now dialup customers will pay the same price for their service as AOL’s broadband customers do, increasing their monthly fee to $25.90. AOL has done [...]
Dell, which changed its name from Dell Computers in 2003, is going after a web designer, Paul Dell, because of his two websites. Dell claims that Paul Dell’s use of www.dellwebsites.com and www.dellimages.com dilute their trademark, and is suing for both transfer of the domain names as well as monetary damages. Paul Dell is a Menorca, Spain-based web designer and photographer.
Here are a series of stories that I thought were worth reading, but I don’t believe warrant a post of their own. Some are related to previous posts, and I will try to link them back to the related posts.
I recently had a conversation with a woman about politics. She is a Republican, and I am not. Whether I am still a Democrat really has more to do with whether the party can get its head out of its collective rear and find a spine, more than my political and social beliefs. I don’t [...]
Score one for the side of truth, ethics and science. Apparently, GWB’s politically appointed toady, George C. Deutsch, has resigned according to this article over at New York Times. While NASA won’t disclose the reasons for his resignation, the fact that George (Deutsch, not Bush) lied about graduating from Texas A & M University has [...]
If the Moslem doesn’t feel that they need to do anything about the fundamentalist fanatics…then why should the rest of the world respect the Moslem community, or treat them as other than the irrational supporters of terrorism that they are becoming in fact.
Editorial cartoons have been in the news quite a bit recently. The main furor is over the Danish newspaper depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, which can be seen here. The reactions of the Islamic fundamentalists has been a bit extreme, but not surprisingly so, given that they are Islamic fundamentalists. What is worrying is the reactions of other, non-Islamic groups, like the Vatican, which has called the cartoons a “unacceptable provocation”; CNN, which has in its cowardice, refused to even show the cartoons in question; and our own government, which has denounced the publication of cartoons that incite religious or ethnic hatred. The Hammer of Truth blog makes these points quite well.
Do you want to know why there are so many nasty lawyer jokes. This article is probably one of the reasons why. Some overly litigious lawyer has decided that there is merit in a class-action suit against Apple over the iPod. The basis for the lawsuit is the possible hearing loss caused by the use [...]
Oklahoma Republican State Representative Lisa J. Billy has proposed a bill that would redefine nudity and sex; favor certain businesses over less morally acceptable ones; and limit the First Amendment rights of those less morally acceptable businesses.
Apparently, in an attempt to recycle paper, the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, both subsidiaries of The New York Times, sent out credit card data on possibly as many as 240,000 subscribers. The credit card data was printed on paper, which was then recycled internally and used for printing the routing slips attached to 9,000 bundles of newspapers sent to retailers and carriers last weekend, according to the newspapers.
Last night was the annual State of the Union address by the President. In this case it was given by GWB, the current Commander in Thief Chief.
Technology, being used for technology’s sake, rarely is effective, unless it is done with a thorough understanding of the underlying issues and requirements. That is not the case here. RFID technology is not a technological panacea that will make national security or identifying the bad guys easier, unless it is properly used. In fact, it is more likely to make national security, especially for our citizens abroad, far lower, and make them more easily identifiable by the bad guys.
Apparently, the Republican party is corrupt at the state level as well as the federal level. Given the state of the current Republican leadership, and how much of it is current either under indictment or investigation, this isn’t all that surprising.
I was reading Bruce Schneier’s blog and he had an article on a man who was on the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list. The person was detained and had his passport confiscated upon his return to Canada. The strange part in this story is he never set foot in the United States, having flown from [...]
Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is close to deciding what should happen to ChoicePoint regarding their selling consumer credit data to a ring of identity thieves. They’re being fined a currently undisclosed amount, and are required to setup a fund to help victims of identity theft, which is to be administered by the FTC. I [...]
Everyone knows that the Motion Picture Association of America is very much against unauthorized copying of movies. Then why is the MPAA admitting that it copied a movie, when it was specifically told not to by the copyright owner. The movie in question is Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not Yet Rated. According to the [...]
SBC is getting a bit too big for it’s britches. You might not know this, but SBC just recently acquired it’s former parent company, AT&T. Most recently, SBC has been trying to turn its ISP services into a new profit center. Unfortunately, the way they’re trying to do this is by asking large websites, in this case Google, to pay fees to get sufficient broadband to their site for customers on SBC’s ISP network.
Apparently, the Republicans really don’t care if our troops die in Iraq or Afghanistan. Our troops have been told that they may not qualify for the $400,000 SGLI life insurance policy if they are KIA wearing non-government issue body armor, as seen in this story.
Apparently, the people over at BoingBoing are jumping the gun on the spyware/adware accusations against Apple’s new iTunes 6.02. While I haven’t had a chance to play with iTunes 6.02 all that much, I have taken a look to see what this idiotic screaming was all about. He is accusing Apple of installing spyware because [...]
Should eBay be responsible for fraud committed through their services. I think they should be. My reasoning is this. They profit from even the fraudulent transactions. They should be responsible for vetting the people who use their services, both buyers and sellers, and should take responsibility when their vetting of users fails.
The Bush administration seems to think that it is above the law. Apparently, the Constitution doesn’t apply to them or their War on Terrorism.
Today, on my way over to see a client, I saw something that made me laugh. In Canton, right on Neponset Street, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. In New England, Dunkin’ Donuts is the local 800-pound gorilla of donut shops—they’re based in Rhode Island. The shop is relatively new, as it wasn’t there last [...]
I am outraged. Apparently Denver has just passed a law that makes owning a “pit bull” illegal. This law gives the city the right to seize and kill dogs based, not on bad acts or behavior, but purely on their appearance.
Yet again, the United States is doing something for the sake of doing something, rather than something that may actually affect the war on terrorism. In this case, I’m talking about the decision to conduct random searches of people in New York’s MTA system… The random searches are far more likely to infringe on the civil and constitutional rights of the majority of the public than it ever is likely to capture a terrorist on a suicide mission. Worse than that, the government seems to be saying that this is a security measure that will help prevent the kind of attacks that happened in London…giving a false sense of security.