Borepatch: The Internet Leader in Potty-Mouth

Oh dear.
Sorry, Mom. I shall endeavor to do better.

Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool

To Old To Work, Too Young To Retire asks:

Should I install the MS Malicious Software Removal Tool? I ask because some people consider most stuff by MS to BE malicious software!

Well, assuming that you don't want to download loadlin, the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool really is the shizzle Flippity Floppity Floop.

Microsoft is doing something right here. As you can imagine, they see lots of malware, and they've packaged up the tool to delete it from your system.

And it's free. So well done, Microsoft.

Download it here, or run it online in your browser (Internet Explorer, of course - but it's OK just this once).

It's Personal

The Intellectual Class prides themselves on their superior thinking ability. It's how they entered their field (the University, or the media); it's how they advance once in it. Always the best students in the class, they learned very early how to collect information, how to sort the wheat from the chaff, how to muster the winning argument.

So it's been a bit of a mystery as to why so many lean towards, or are sympathetic to socialism. After all, it's not like there are a wealth of examples of successful socialist economies. Or any at all.

So what gives?

To understand it, you need to understand the Intellectual Class, and their view of their role. We can start a couple millenia ago, with Plato, in The Republic:

Socrates makes it clear that one is virtuous if and only if one is a philosopher. For we already knew that virtue requires knowledge, and now we learn that only the philosophers have knowledge (esp. 474b-480a).

Mind you, this may be nonsense on stilts, but this is the sort of thing a young member of the intellectual elite gets immersed in. Certainly I did, when I was a downy cheeked member of the "best and brightest."

OK, well so what? Eventually the overwhelming evidence of socialist failure will out, won't it? After all, there are no examples of successful socialist experiments, and many (and tragic) examples of its failures. Why the life long loyalty to an empty philosophy?

Well, everything you need to know about this, you can read at Megan McArdle's:

Yet writers are, as a class, extraordinarily at risk. They spend their twenties, and often their thirties, living paycheck to paycheck. They are extremely well educated, and all that education is not only expensive, but builds expensive habits. You end up with a lot of friends who make much more money than you--who don't even realize that a dinner with $10 entrees and a bottle of wine is an expensive treat, not a cheap outing to catch up on old times. Our business is in crisis, and we lose jobs often. When we do, it's catastrophic.

This is what David Brooks calls "status-income disequilibrium", and unless you are among that happy breed of writers who is married to someone with a high-paying job, or who has a trust fund, you feel it keenly. Everyone you write about makes more than you. Most of the people you know make more than you. And you come to feel that shopping at the farmer's market, traveling to Europe, drinking good coffee, are minimum necessities. Your house is small, your furniture is shabby, and you can't even really afford to shop at Whole Foods. Yet you're at the top of your field, working for one of the world's top media outlets. This can't be so.

It's personal. One is virtuous if and only if one is a philosopher. All this expensive intellectual training can't have been a waste - it must be that the system is rotten.

It's not at all astonishing that they cling to a socialism that promises them power and (relative) wealth. In fact, it would astonish if they weren't. They'd be on the barricades, except they're men (and women) of words, not deeds.

UPDATE 20 May 15:58: Holy cow, it's a T-Boltalanche! Thanks for the link, T-Bolt, and welcome all. If you like this, you might also like a series I wrote a bit back starting with the Founder's view of the 2nd Amendment (T-Bolt just had a post about this, too).

Borepatch: The Internet Leader in Glue-Sniffing Recovery 12-Step Programs

Well, almost the leader.

It's very strange, how Google sets its page rankings.

"200 days, not out."

The Boer War is something that most Americans have never heard of. That's too bad, as it was in many ways the intersection of modern, industrial war, and an older - and while not kinder, in many ways more genteel era of conflict.

Concentration Camps were new. Not a lot to say there, except that these were run by the British, and so were probably about as good as concentration camps would ever be, for those on the inside looking out. There would be much worse later.

What was old: rifle marksmanship. The Boers simply shot the British to pieces a number of times. The Kaiser's diplomats ensured that the Boers had lots of the new fangled Mauser G98 rifles, which the south African farm boys put to deadly good use.

Also on the cusp of being left behind was a sense that war still should be something less than total. The siege of Mafeking found 2300 British and Colonial troops surrounded by an army of 8000 Boers. But even though the town was enveloped, both sides negotiated Sunday diversions for the townspeople: theatrical productions, competitions, and Cricket matches.

Looking back, it's too easy to smile at that last bit - a last glimmering of misplaced chivalry before the industrial shredders of World War. The fighting was deadly earnest: 200 British and many more Boers lost their lives at the siege, and dead is dead.

But the Cricket matches went on. The Boer commander even challenged the British troops to a match. The British commander thanked him for the invitation, and said that he must first complete the current match, which currently stood at "200 days, not out.*"

The commander's name was Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, and among his troops was a Cadet Corps of boys aged 12-15, acting as messengers and orderlies. Later, the then Lord Baden-Powell would use this inspiration to form the Boy Scouts.

The siege of Mafeking was relieved on May 17, 1900.

* American readers may be mystified with how you score in Cricket. Each battsman has the chance to score as often as he can, until he gets out. Then the next battsman is up. When all the battsmen are out, the final score is tallied. "Not out" means "still batting".

Oh, the Humanity Peeps!

Browsing Brigid's place, I saw that she has some graphic Peep-on-Peep violence posted (search the page for "HARVEY FOUND OUT WHY IT'S NEVER A GOOD IDEA TO BRING A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT"). Pretty funny, that.

Well, it seems that there's a blog devoted to Peep destruction: 100 Ways To Kill A Peep. Here's my favorite:
Jeep, baby!

If you like this sort of thing, then - well, you'll like it.

The Four Rules - Easy to understand in any language

UPDATE 17 May 2009 17:39: Welcome folks from NJ Gun Forums. I should just point out that the Japanese part came with the manual for my Tokyo Mauri Airsoft pistol. I don't know what the Japanese says (anyone who reads Kanji, please feel free to leave a comment). IOW, the commentary is my own, not the folks at Tokyo Mauri. However, it's clear that the 4 Rules are alive and well in the Land Of The Rising Sun. /UPDATE

The Tokyo Mauri 1911 Airsoft pistol is pretty fun, but the instruction manual is very interesting. It's all in Japanese, but there's a section that is clearly about the Four Rules of gun safety. I'm posting part of it here - you can see the whole thing at the Tokyo Mauri web site.


Rule 1. Guns are always loaded. Note that rule 1 does not say "treat guns as if they were loaded", or "treat them as if they might be loaded". All guns are always loaded, until you verify that they are not. Always.

As the famous saying from the Russian firearms instructor goes: Ees gun. Ees not safe.

Violation of this rule is responsible for 100% of accidental injuries: "I thought it was unloaded" is no excuse. Of course it was loaded; that's the point.

This one is interesting, and is a variation of Rule 1 that you don't see often. There are a lot of people who freak out when they see a gun. These people are actually very tuned into Rule 1. I'm sure that the folks at Toyko Mauri put this in so that little Johnny doesn't have Officer Friendly put him face down and cuffed until everything gets sorted out; this is something worth thinking on for the folks who advocate Open Carry.

Rule 2: Never let the muzzle point at anything you're not willing to put a hole in. If the gun discharges (intentionally or non-intentionally), Mr. Bullet will go in the direction that the gun is pointing. Duh. Make sure it's not pointing any anything that doesn't need any holes.

You'll shoot your eye out with that is bad if it's Airsoft; it's really, really bad if it's a gun with live ammunition.

Rule 3: Keep your finger off the trigger until you have the target aligned in your sights. Guns don't just fire themselves, you know - the trigger is there as the ignition switch, so to speak. No finger on the ignition, no ignition. Simple, right?

Violation of this is said to be the cause of 60% of all negligent discharges.

Rule 4: Be sure of your target, and what lies beyond it. Mr. Bullet goes in the direction you point the gun, duh. If you're pointing it kinda sorta at the target, but absolutely at your neighbor's cat, Mr. Cat is in more danger than Mr. Target. If the cat is behind the target, then you're still fixin' to put a hole in him (blood comes out, air comes in, both are A Bad Thing). This, of course, is why ranges have big earthen berms or slanty armor plate behind the target area.

So, 4 simple rules that cover the bases and keep everyone safe. Any language, or none. Let's be safe out there.

Cathedral

No, this isn't about the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song. It's triggered by Hammer's post with the 1966 song "Winchester Cathedral". Winchester, and its cathedral are seriously cool.


Photo credit: Neil Alderney, via Flickr.

The crypt floods. In fact, the whole building was so unstable that the original bell tower collapsed, and things got so bad that the entire building was only saved by heroic efforts at the beginning of the 20th century. William Walker donned diving gear and hand-placed 25,000 bags of concrete on the foundation. In complete darkness. In 20 feet of water.

That's Sir William Walker, who was knighted for his efforts by a grateful King George.

There's been a cathedral on this site since the dark ages. Winchester was the seat of the ancient Wessex kings, and to this day you'll see "mortuary chests" that contain their bones. Of course, William the Conqueror put an end to Anglo-Saxon Britain in 1066. This building dates from soon after that, replacing the older cathedral structure, and was intended to impress (and cow) the populace.
Photo credit: Franz St., via Flickr.

It impresses. Most American visitors to Britain will visit Westminster Abbey, and maybe Salisbury Cathedral. Nothing wrong with them, but it's a crying shame to miss Winchester. It's the longest nave in the world.

We visited several cathedrals, that year we lived in Blighty: Canterbury, Chichester, St. Paul's, Salisbury, York. This was my favorite. Yes, I'm old enough to remember the song that Hammer posted. Yes, it played in the back of my head the first time we went there. We went back, because it's that impressive.


Photo credit: Neil Alderney, via Flickr. I have one almost identical to this, but haven't scanned it.

Winchester (the town) is worth spending some time in. It's an old Market Town, which (as explanation to both my American readers) is a big deal. It's not just that there's a farmer's market every Saturday; these were chartered by the King, and date back to at least the 13th century. They have elaborate structures called "Market Crosses" which look just like this.

It's a beautiful town, in a beautiful setting on the river Itchen. We should have (but didn't) go to the restaurant that was in the 15th century building. Alas, the children were too small, and Winchester was too far away from home to comfortably leave them with a baby sitter.

That was a great year, that one when we lived in England. It was too short, but we grabbed the opportunity to see the land. The kids were small, portable, and great travelers. Somewhere I have a picture of #1 Son in the pulpit of the cathedral, which deserves a post of its own.

Range hot

I finally got around to clearing out the junk in the basement today, and now we have an indoor Airsoft range. It only gives us 20 feet between muzzle and target, but you can't beat the drive time to get there.

And this will let me work on my technique. A Toyko Marui M1911A1 model gas blow-back airsoft pistol. It's freaky how every detail looks exactly like the real thing, even though the weight is clearly (and obviously) less.

The range is rigged with an old bedsheet hanging down from the rafters. The target goes in front of the sheet, and you're good to go. And accessorized with a lovely floral motif!

I'll admit, it's not like the real thing. However, I'll be able to work on my grip and flash sight picture for sure. I'll also be able to watch Col. Jeff Cooper's tapes and then head down to the range for ten minutes to practice, and then repeat. Can't do that at the real range.

And #1 Son will use it in his local Airsoft league, so it's made of win all around.

UPDATE 17 May 2009 13:36: There seems to be consensus in the comments that this lets you get some worthwhile practice, inexpensively and in the comfort of your own home. There's also a thread at The High Road about how these are being used in Force-on-Force training exercises. Pretty cool.

On this day in history

Charles Elmer Hires invented the first commercial Root Beer. Along with New England's Moxie and Detroit's Vernor's Ginger Ale, it's the oldest soft drink.

It's a classic story of American entrepreneurialism. He first tasted a home brew root beer on his honeymoon in 1875. By the next year, he had a recipe that he introduced commercially. Initially sold as a powder in packets, by 1884 he had developed a syrup, a keg-based shipping system, and a fountain dispenser.

I'm actually old enough to remember going downtown to the drug store, which still had an old fashioned soda fountain counter. They had root beer syrup, which they'd squirt in the glass and then fill with fizzy water. Sic transit gloria mundi.

In other historical news, on this day in 1918, Congress passed and the President signed the Sedition Act of 1918, making it a criminal offense to criticize the government. Fortunately, there was an enlightened Democratic Party majority in power then, so it wasn't abused to throw gobs of people in jail or anything. Oh, wait.

But with today's Democratic Party majority, something like that would never happen. Oh, wait.

And lastly, on this day in 1836, Edgar Allen Poe married his 13 year old cousin. Who did he think he was - Jerry Lee Lewis?

Collin Raye - That's My Story

Men really are from Mars, and Women really are from Venus. Or something like that.

Fortunately, there's a Country Music song for this situation. Collin Raye had a string of 4 platinum albums in the 1990s, including That's My Story. What's interesting is that when the song was released, it peaked at #6 on the country charts - pretty good, but not great. But what it lacked in initial impact, it's made up for with staying power: you'll hear this song regularly on the radio today. I

The video is fun, too. There is a video that came out with the song, but it's a bit uninteresting. This video was made my (probably) a teenager. Maybe it's the memory of the kids and their Dragonball Z show, but I like it. And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.



That's My Story (songwriters: Lee Roy Parnell, Tony Hasselden)

I came in as the sun came up.
She glared at me over her coffee cup.
She said, "Where you been?"
So I thought real hard and said,
"I fell asleep in that hammock in the yard."
She said, "You don't know it boy, but you just blew it."
And I said, "Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it."

That's my story.
Oh, that's my story.
Well, I ain't got a witness, and I can't prove it,
but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I got that deer-in-the-headlight look.
She read my face like the cover of a book and said,
"Don't expect me to believe all that static,
'cause just last week I threw that hammock in the attic."
My skin got so thin so you could see right through it,
and I stuttered, "Well that's my story and I'm stickin t-t-to it."

That's my story.
Well, that's my story.
I ain't got a witness, and I can't prove it,
but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

You know the time comes when a wise man knows
the best thing that he can do is just look her in the eye
and beg for mercy and face the bitter truth.

Honey, me and the boys played cards all night.
There wasn't no hanky-panky, not a woman in sight.
I know I should called, and baby I'm really sorry,
but get a cellular phone and then you won't have to worry.
You know how much I love ya, darling, and I'm ready to prove it.
And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That's my story,
oh, that's my story.
Well I ain't got a witness and ya know I can't prove it.
But that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

You know I ain't gonna do a thing darling unless you approve it.
And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Hey you! Patch your computer!

Yes, you.

I told you last week that there was a security hole in Adobe's Acrobat Reader, and that this was being actively exploited in the wild. Well, Adobe has a patch available. You really, really want to get this.

Windows users, get it here.

Mac users, go here.

Linux fanboys, you're no different. Getcher patch over here.

PDF is everywhere, and this will silently whack you. So take a couple minutes and exercise your click-fu, because this one won't come via Windows Update. Folks who work in IT should get this pushed out to your users.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

In other news about the Department of Homeland Security, it seems that they've built a very large Disaster Recovery Center (a Data Center: that's a big computer centers, for you non IT folks). It's for use in the event of a disaster. All in all, a good part of a Disaster Recovery Plan. Well done, all.

Except ...

It seems that someone thought that it would be the shizzle Flippity Floppity Floop to build it on the Gulf Coast. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Except that they didn't plan for hurricanes.

The Homeland Security Department set up a huge data center on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2006 without considering protections against hurricanes, power outages and perimeter security threats, according to a new report from DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?


Sigh.

The "Only Ones" Secure enough ...

Suppose, for the sake or argument, that you were to access some computers being used in a hush-hush investigation of some Hollywood bigwigs. Big names. Names that might be interesting to the Tabloids.

And just for the sake of argument, suppose that you played bigshot to your girlfriend/boyfriend - maybe an actor/actress; you know, just to impress her/him. Suppose (just of the sake of argument, of course) that she/he blabbed to a Hollywood private detective, and so word got back to the lawyers.

What do you think would happen to you? Well, if you lived in Ohio, the court would probably convict you of hacking. After all, they convicted some poor sod of hacking after he uploaded nude pics of himself on his employer's computer.

However, if you happened to be employed by the FBI, you'd get a slap on the wrist:

A former FBI agent was sentenced on Thursday to one year of probation for using the bureau's computers to dig up information on Hollywood executives involved in a prominent wiretapping case.

The former agent, Mark Rossini, was not working on the wiretapping case against Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and was not authorized to look up the files.

...

Rossini admitted in court documents that he gave the files to a woman with whom he was in a close personal relationship -- she was not named, but he was dating movie actress Linda Fiorentino -- and she passed them on to an attorney for Pellicano.

Computer hacking laws are for the little people, it seems.

In other Fed.Gov security news, it seems that hackers breached Homeland Security's computers that are used to share sensitive information with state and local governments.

The intrusion into the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) was confirmed to Federal Computer Week by Harry McDavid, the chief information officer for DHS’ Office of Operations Coordination and Planning. McDavid said the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team reported an intrusion into the system in late March. The initial hack was brief and limited, and it was followed by a more extensive hack in early April, McDavid said.

I'd snark that it was probably a Hollywood private dick, but security is a thankless task, and the DHS systems probably weren't much worse than 90% of the Fed.Gov's systems.

It writes itself, doesn't it?

Joe Biden: “My dog is smarter than Bo, his dog.”

Barack Obama: "My dog Bo is smarter than him."


I'm here all week. Try the veal.

Hat tip: The Corner.

Work is so cutting into my blogging time ...

Annual sales kickoff meeting at Internet Security Startup company. This 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM stuff is starting to look suspiciously like actual work ...

Hopefully normal blogging will start again tomorrow.

Maybe he'll only be here until the weather turns ...

Thanks, it'll be faster if I walk ...

Seems that it will take 18 hours to take the train from Kettering, UK to London (a distance of 295 miles). Which brings several thoughts to mind:

1. Yeah, I had a car like that once, too. A Renault ... [/snark]

2. In 18 hours, you can drive from Boston to St. Louis. 1100 miles. People who think that we should make our government look like European governments should think about this.

3. For both my European readers, that's like driving from Berlin to Barcelona. Except half of the way is on autobahn, so it'd probably only take 12 hours.

4. When a private company messes up, you hear the usual suspects tisk-tisking. I'm sure that the same folks will suggest scaling back on the UK.gov's "disastrous adventure" in public transport in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

But UK readers should not despair:

The reason for this madness is, as you've probably guessed, the traditional bank holiday weekend engineering works. Mercifully, East Midlands Trains said it was laying on an alternative service from Kettering via Leicester and Peterborough (three hours, two minutes), but that tickets weren't yet available.

No word as to whether tickets will go on sale before the train departs.

Ohio Prosecutors: not exactly 13117

They seem to have a very odd view of "hacking":

A US court has turned down an appeal from a man convicted of computer hacking offences for using a workplace computer to post nude pictures of himself onto a swingers website.

Details at the link, but it seems the gentleman in question used the following, elite hacker skillz: he used his browser to upload a picture.

Anti-Hacking laws. Srlsy.

Mark Rasch, a former federal prosecutor of computer crimes turned computer security consultant, said it would have been better to fire Wolf than drag him through the courts. "His uploading of nude pictures is certainly inappropriate and something he could be terminated for, but it was perfectly legal," Rasch told Wired. "When you use the heavy hand of the criminal law to prosecute inappropriate behavior, it’s just an abuse of the criminal statutes."

Well yeah. Cue P.J. O'Rourke: giving money and power to the government is like giving booze and car keys to teenagers.

"You're perfectly safe ..."

"... you have armed guards."

Seems to me that this statement has an internal contradiction.

Fortunately, I can't go to Lagos, Nigeria after all. The company's insurance doesn't cover kidnapping, even if you had guards.