Hey, Canadians are nicer than us Yanks, amirite?

Canadian town bans marriage between non-vacinated couples.

And a quick note for you hosers from the Great White North: before yammering on about how awful our (private) healthcare system is, please explain the following:

Charlie Gard

Alfie Evans

Oliver Cameron

Ashya King

Nota bene: these cases are from Britain, the Mother Country.  The Canadian health system (whatever it is called) is explicitly modeled on Britains National Health System (NHS) which has assumed almost cult-like status in Britain.

Britain.  You know: the land where Great Britain used to be.

So all you Canuk Hosers can just shut right up about how awesome your "Health Care" system is..  Yeah, ours may still be swirling the drain, but yours was flushed long ago.  After all, we are all still Citizens of the Republic (for now), but you are Subjects of the Crown.

Except for Glen Filthie.  He's reloading and sharpening bayonets.  Glen, come on down to Florida.  The air still smells of Freedom.

This post has the tag "Statist Pricks" because, well, you know.

Quote of the Day: Southwest Pilots "Sick-in" edition

This quote (and the post it is from) makes no mention of the pilots, and was written from the point of view of the working man.  But it explains clearly what is going on (you'll have to read the whole thing to see how this applies to pilots as well):

I think that in retrospect, the decision to lock down entire societies to stop the coronavirus will end up in the history books as one of the most spectacular blunders ever committed by a ruling class. Partly, of course, the lockdowns didn’t work—look at graphs of case numbers over time from places that locked down vs. places that didn’t, and you’ll find that locking down societies and putting millions of people out of work didn’t do a thing to change the size and duration of the outbreak. Partly, the economic damage inflicted by the lockdowns would have taken years to heal even if the global industrial economy wasn’t already choking on excessive debt and running short of a galaxy of crucial raw materials. But there’s more to it than that.

If you want people to put up patiently with long hours of drudgery at miserably low wages, subject to wretched conditions and humiliating policies, so that their self-proclaimed betters can enjoy lifestyles they will never be able to share, it’s a really bad idea to make them stop work and give them a good long period of solitude, in which they can think about what they want out of life and how little of it they’re getting from the role you want them to play. It’s an especially bad idea to do it so that they have no way of knowing when, or if, they will ever be allowed to return to their former lives, thus forcing them to look for other options in order to stay fed, clothed, housed, and the like.

Like I said, no mention of the pilots.  But when a corporation makes you merely one of the factors of production, you had damn well better be replaceable or they have a problem bigger than they think.

This is an outstanding post from The Blogger Formerly Known As The Archdruid.  I cannot recommend this more highly.  The Revolution will not be televised, but it sure as shootin' will be blogged.

Dad Joke CXIII

Why do scuba divers roll backwards off the boat?

Because if they rolled forwards, they'd still be in the boat. 

Back now

Been traveling.  Oof.

Blogging to resume today. 

Vmroom!

Seen last night:

1964 GTO.  What caught me was the three carbs on the 389 V8.  The owner basically took it down to bare metal and built it back up again, and he did a nice job.

This is the car that started the Muscle craze.  Basically, John DeLorean took their second gen Tempest chassis and dropped a big block Bonneville engine into it.  Pontiac initially planned a production run of 5000; they actually sold 32000.

 

Dad Joke CXII

Why are people in the Czech Republic so sensible?

They are very Praguematic. 

On the Internet nobody can tell if you're a dog

Politeness is a sign of dignity, not of subservience.

- Theodore Roosevelt 

But everybody can tell if you're an asshole.

Divemedic posted his stance on the vaccine: get it if you think it's right for you, don't get it if you don't think it's right for you.  A more sensible position is hard to imagine.

And then The Internet appeared in his comments section, with SumD00d telling him he was wrong (well, I think that's what he said because the comment was fairly incomprehensible; hey, it's The Internet, amirite?).

And while the comment was moderately incoherent, the attitude of the commenter was anything but.  Commenter "Hedge" is an asshole.  He may (or may not) be a dog with a keyboard but he is unmistakably an asshole with one.

Sigh.

I am very grateful indeed that the commenters here are almost always respectful and intelligent - and the commenters on the Dad Jokes are funny as hell.  I almost never need to step in to tell folks to settle down and mind their manners - maybe only 2 or 3 times in the 13 years I've been here.

People think wrong when they think that the Internet gives them anonymity.  It doesn't.  It gives pseudonymity, which is not at all the same thing.  If you post under a pseudonym (like Hedge and I both do), you still develop a reputation.  Quite frankly, you can't comment anonymously here, so anything you say in the comments here will add to (or in rare cases detract from) your reputation.

Divemedic certainly doesn't need me to fight his fights, that's not the point of this post.  I love  comments and the two way (or multiple way) discussions we have here.  But I'm not going to tolerate Internet Assholes like Hedge here.  Cathedra mea, regula meae - my place, my rules..  If you don't like it, don't stop by.  This really isn't very hard.

It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. 

- Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom Of Life 

Dad Joke CXX

Why do Secret Agents get the best sleep? 

Because they're always under cover.

Security Smörgåsbord, vol. 13 no. 6

Google report: Government Geofence warrants up ten times in the last year:

POLICE AROUND THE country have drastically increased their use of geofence warrants, a widely criticized investigative technique that collects data from any user's device that was in a specified area within a certain time range, according to new figures shared by Google. Law enforcement has served geofence warrants to Google since 2016, but the company has detailed for the first time exactly how many it receives.

The report shows that requests have spiked dramatically in the past three years, rising as much as tenfold in some states. In California, law enforcement made 1,909 requests in 2020, compared to 209 in 2018. Similarly, geofence warrants in Florida leaped from 81 requests in 2018 to more than 800 last year. In Ohio, requests rose from seven to 400 in that same time.

Across all 50 states, geofence requests to Google increased from 941 in 2018 to 11,033 in 2020 and now make up more than 25 percent of all data requests the company receives from law enforcement.

This is bad juju from a privacy perspective.  Here's advice on how to avoid getting caught up in this.

New report on cyber security recommendations for K-12 systems.  This all seems pretty sensitive.  If you have kids in school, you might want to bring this to the School Board's attention.

IPv6 will give us better security!  IPv6 seems to be something - like fusion power - that's always "5 years away" ...

Google introduces auto-reset of permissions granted to unused apps.  This is an excellent idea, and one that Google seems to have implemented in a very user-friendly manner.  If you have apps that you never use, then it makes sense not to allow them to poke around on your device.  Well done, Google.  I'd like to see Apple do this for iOS as well.

Range Report: SIG Sauer P365

The Queen Of The World and I went shooting last weekend because we had this little beauty to break in:

The problem with Florida is that you don't often get a chance to wear a jacket, so a big 1911 isn't always the easiest to conceal handgun.  This pistol is tiny, and so can pretty much go anywhere with you.  Surprisingly (to me), it's chambered in 9mm (rather than .380 ACP) and can even handle +P loadings.  Even more surprising (to me) is that the recoil is very manageable.  It's actually fun to shoot despite its diminutive size.  SIG claims that the P354 has the lowest bore-axis ratio of any handgun currently manufactured.  I haven't checked this claim, but this pistol is not at all "snappy" in its recoil.

Maybe this was why it was the best selling handgun in America a couple years back.

So to the basics: Polymer?  Check.  Striker fired?  Check.  Double stack 10 round magazine?  Check.  Tritium sights?  Check.  All standard.

We did a couple of upgrades.  The grip is really short, and so I ordered some 15 round magazines which add about another inch to the length of the grip.  They didn't arrive in time for this review, so the shorter grip doesn't hurt shootability.

We also bought the SIG laser for this pistol.  You see that at the bottom of the picture here, right in front of the trigger guard.  It's pretty slick - it snapped right in and there's an activation button right where your hands go around the grip.  Grab the pistol and the laser comes on; put it down and it goes off.  Got to love SIG engineering.

The sights are superior.  Excellent sight picture, and the tritium dots are very visible in both bright and dim light.

This picture is a little off-center so you can see the laser dot.  The laser comes with an Allen Wrench that lets you adjust elevation and windage.  I got it mostly dialed in but need to take it back to the range to get it dead on at 7 yards.

Accuracy is fine - this is more accurate than I am.  There are some flyers from other targets on the page; all of the SIG's were on the color.  Heck, they'd better be with a laser and all.  The trigger is great, crisp break.

So what didn't I like?  Well, the magazines have really stiff springs - like I-could-only-load-5-rounds stiff.  This will work itself out over time.

The grip is really short.  The extended 15-round magazines should fix that.

And I'd like a manual safety.  That's personal preference,  SIG actually makes a variant with one to comply with Massachusetts regulations (spit) - the P365-MS.

Lastly, I do not look forward to the arguments with The Queen Of The World about whose gun this will be.  Alas, I think I know how that will play out ...

All in all, I can see why this is such a popular pistol.  The component systems are all mature: the striker system from P320, the recoil locking system dates to 1975 (!), and the Fire Control Unit is an updated version of the one from the P320.  These components have all been combined by engineers who kept an eye on the overall system, and blend together beautifully.

The standard disclaimer:

I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.

I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.

I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting.Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.

And oh yeah, shooting things is fun.

Yay, me

I guess I really am a gun guy.  The Queen Of The World got a sweet Sig P365.  Alas, we had no 9mm ammo, and the case I ordered hadn't arrived yet.

But in getting things sorted out for tomorrow's range day involved reorganizing things.  Lo and behold, I had 3 (!) 50 round boxes of 9mm.  No idea where that came from - maybe Ammoman brought it to the Southwest Florida blogshoot.

But I guess that you're officially a "gun guy" when you have ammo in calibers that you think you don't have any of.  And while my ammo hoard isn't quite up to this, it's big enough that I probably should do an inventory.

Oh, and the SIG laser for the 365 is about the coolest thing ever.  Took all of 2 minutes to install, and the laser comes on when you grip the gun.  I'll do a range report on this one.

Ah, gardening

Having grown up in Maine, potted plants were never much trouble.  Things grew slowly up there, so while it wasn't "plant it and forget it" it wasn't far off it.  Of course, now we're in the Gunshine State, and plants outgrow their pots in about a week.  I'm convinced that if you watch my Bird Of Paradise closely, you can see it grow. 

Yeah, yeah - I hear you say that I should get The Queen Of The World to stop dosing them with Miracle Grow.  You try stopping her.  I'll be the guy watching.  And eating popcorn.

And so today will involve plants, and pots, and potting soil (and Miracle Grow).  I wasn't made for all that.  There's a Country song about that.

Pretty Good Drinking Beer (Songwriter: Troy Jones):

I wasn't born for digging deep holes
I'm not made for paving long roads
I ain't cut out to climb high line poles
But I'm pretty good at drinking beer

I'm not the type to work in a bank
I'm no good at slapping on paint
Don't have a knack for making motors crank, no
But I'm pretty good at drinking beer

So hand me one more
That's what I'm here for
I'm built for having a ball
I love the nightlife
I love my Bud Light
I like 'em cold and tall

I ain't much for mowing thick grass
I'm too slow for workin' too fast
I don't do windows so honey don't ask
But I'm pretty good at drinking beer

A go getter maybe I'm not
I'm not known for doin' a lot
But I do my best work when the weather's hot
I'm pretty good at drinking beer

So hand me one more
That's what I'm here for
I'm built for having a ball
I love the nightlife
I love my Bud Light
I like 'em cold and tall

I wasn't born for digging deep holes
I'm not made for paving long roads
I ain't cut out to climb high line poles
But I'm pretty good at drinking beer
I'm pretty good at drinking beer

I have to say, though - having grown up in Maine I do love me some Bird Of Paradise flower.

UPDATE 2 October 13:54:  Note to self: do not buy any more pots with lips that overhang on the inside.  Had to cut one apart to get the plant out.  And I'm not sure what I'll do in 6 months - I got the biggest pots I could find at Lowe's and while they're not too small, I expect they might be in 6 months.

The End Game of Covid is socialized health care

So what's driving all the insanity behind the Virus From Hell*?

I mean, "Two Weeks to Flatten The Curve and Save Our Health Care System" has turned into doctors and nurses being fired because they haven't been vaccinated.  This, when Covid deaths are down something like 75% from a year ago when NO health care workers were vaccinated (because there was no vaccine).

So what gives?  How can The Powers That Be be so, well, incompetent?

They're not.  None of this is by accident.  Let me expand on a comment I left over at OldNFO's place:

Doctors and nurses are being fired, leading to an unknown (more accurately: unreported) staffing shortage.  The New York National Guard is being called out to fill in.  Interestingly, you have two chances if a NatGuard doc kills your loved one: slim, and none.  You can't sue the NatGuard.  You might have a better lawsuit against a hospital who just fired 30% of their workers right before your Loved One died of neglect.  Call Morgan and Morgan**, who no doubt will be happy to take your case.

So you sue the hospital, and the hospital is run into bankruptcy.  After all, you are only one of many grieving families who lost loved ones to this reckless management decision, amirite?

So riddle me this, Healthcare Man: what happens when 40% of the hospitals in this Republic shut down?  I mean, it will be a crisis, amirite?  Someone with have to do something, amirite?  And who is ready to do something in a crisis?

Yup.  The Fed.Gov.

They'll take over all these "failed Hospitals", and the Fed.Gov will finally have the socialized healthcare that they've always wanted.  And all it will take is thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousand?  millions?) of dead Americans.

The ancient Romans were said to make a land into a desert, and then call it peace.  I mean, there were no more folks opposing their rule after they had killed most of the folks, amirite?

The Fed.Gov will make a desert and then call it "health".  This is the end game.  Don't let a crisis go to waste.

* It's not The Virus From Hell.  You want to see a disease from Hell?  Here you go.

** They are an ambulance chasing Law Firm who carpet bomb the Florida airwaves with their commercials.

The coolest business card of all time

 It was Billy Gibbons':

What's weird is that I can't find a video of him playing with Clapton - and Clapton played with everybody.  To try to make it up to you, here he is playing with Joe Bonamassa, Dusty Hill, and Derek Trucks.

Dad Joke CXVIIII

I'm thinking about getting a new haircut but I need to mullet over first. 

Deal Alert: Remington 9mm $400/1000

Academy Sports has it in stock for the best price I've seen in a while.  Online only. 

SIG P365 Bleg

The Queen Of The World went out shopping and one of these followed her home:

 It's a classy gun but hey - she's a classy lady, amirite?

So here's the question: any thoughts on a magazine extender?  The pinky finger just barely fits, and the palm is half hanging loose on the other side.  Having something that would drop down a bit would make it easier to grep.

Dad Joke CXVIII

Why are skeletons so calm?

Nothing gets under their skin.

80 years

The 1941 baseball season ended on this day, with Boston's Ted Williams closing the season with a .406 batting average.  It's the last time that a player batted .400 over a complete season.

A perennial question is which record is more unbreakable: Williams' .406 average or DiMagio's 56 game hitting streak.  Both are subject to Umpires expanding or contracting the strike zone; a hitting streak can be kept alive pretty easily via this.  Not so much the batting average.

There's an old story about this.  A young pitcher was facing Williams.  His first pitch was called a ball, even though he thought he had found the strike zone.  The second pitch fared no better.  Frustrated, the pitcher complained to the Umpire.  The Umpire replied, "Son when it's a strike, Mr. Williams will let you know."

So you teach High School kids to build Battlebots. What do you do for an encore?

Teach 'em cryptography.  Coolest. Teacher. Ever. 

For an encore, get some CNC machines and build an Enigma machine.

Dad Joke CXVII

Where can you buy chicken broth in bulk?

The stock market. 

Sunday, Puppy Sunday

Long time friend Libertyman emailed this:

 Wolfgang gave a bark of laughter at this.

Dad Joke CXVI

Golf is the only sport where sub-par performance is ideal. 

Randoms

Yargb has a bunch of paintings of battles.  I expect a bunch of all y'all will appreciate them.  I'd add the famous mosaic of Alexander the Great at Pompeii to it.

T-Bolt explains why we don't have passenger trains in this country, and why we have the world's best freight rail system.

Robert Graham on how not to get caught in the Fed's Geofence requests to the courts.  This is good info on how to reduce your susceptibility to cell phone tracking by the Fed.Gov.

It seems that the FBI had the decryption key to some pretty nasty ransomeware that hit a lot of companies, but kept it secret because they had some sort of "operation" going on.  Thanks a million, guys.

Dad Joke CXVI

What do you call a shy bee?

A mumblebee. 

Yeah, this about sums it up

 

(via)

Good on ya, Cobber

Interesting things are afoot down under.  The Oz.Gov is revealing itself to be even more incompetent than the US Fed.Gov.  Adam Piggott writes of the doings over the weekend:

Melbourne now holds the dubious distinction of being the most locked down city in the world. A condition that rests entirely with its rabid Marxist leader, known locally as Dictator Dan or Chairman Dan. But finally one group has stood up to the takeover. Construction industry workers, colloquially known as tradies in Australia, have today finally shown the backbone that has been missing down under for so long.

At 1159pm this Wednesday evening, all construction workers in Victoria need to be jabbed or they will be banned from traveling for their work. The largest of the construction unions in Victoria is the CFMEU. It is also the most powerful and militant union in the entire country. Today on the streets of Melbourne outside its large office, its members gathered to demand that the union boss, John Setka, stand up to the Victorian government on their behalf.

The Union management are, as you'd expect, as corrupt and incompetent as Dictator Dan, and blew them off.  When that happened, the tradies stormed their union HQ and trashed the place.  Well done, Mates!

Well, that was the cue for the Gov to dial the "Incompetent" meter up to 11.  They shut down all building construction for 14 days, "for public health" of course.  Now riddle me this, Big Gov Man: you have tens of thousands of really pissed off construction workers that you've just basically told to go sit quietly in the corner for a couple weeks.  What happens next?

What happens next is, well, what anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have seen coming from a mile away.  So yeah, the Oz.Gov was taken completely by surprise:

On Tuesday in Melbourne, authorities were forced to confront this blazing public anger as protesters executed an "extremely dangerous maneuver" by marching onto a busy freeway and blocking traffic in a tactic that some Americans might remember from last summer's BLM protests inspired by the killing of George Floyd.

Thousands converged on the city for a second consecutive day on Tuesday, with shocking footage capturing dozens moving onto the West Gate Freeway into the path of cars. Traffic on the freeway, which is the busiest stretch of highway in Australia, was forced to a standstill in both directions as police tried to disperse the crowd.

Footage circulating on social media showed protesters tossing glass bottles and flares toward police, while some approached officers with their hands up, chanting "you serve us".

Other chants that were reported included "Every day!"  Enjoy your lockdown, Dan.

One last thing: these are big, strong construction workers, not 70 year old grandmothers or 12 year old kids.  I expect that any of the Melbourne PoPo that try the same thing on them can expect a righteous beat down.

I look forward to an interesting fortnight down under.

Dad Joke CXV

A travel agent told me he could get me a free trip to Egypt if I could get five other people to sign up, too.  It sounded like a pyramid scheme. 

Dad Joke CXIV

What superpower do you get when you become a parent?

Supervision.

The wit and wisdom of Joe Biden

 

Seen on gab.ai.

Alternatives to College

Insty has been banging the drum lately on how young men are increasingly avoiding College.  You can't really blame them as it's a pretty hostile environment for men, and saddles most graduates with ruinous amounts of student debt.

But if you're bright, motivated, and hard working, there's a path to a six figure salary that will literally cost you only a few thousand dollars - plus a lot of self study time spent.  First, let's talk about the target and the opportunity.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics just published a study that highlights the fastest growing job fields through 2030:

That highlighted line?  Internet Security.  The good news?  Nobody cares where you went to school for your security degree, or even that you have a security degree.  What they care about are industry certifications.  You get the cert, you're in like flint.

Now there's a lot involved with getting the cert, 'natch.  I posted about this repeatedly over the years.  This is a good starting point, and from there you can click through to here which has a fairly detailed set of things to do, and here which is similar but different to the Borepatch Method.

In a nutshell, you can get a Cisco CCNA Exam Prep book for small money, read on your own in your evenings and spare time, take mock tests to make sure that you understand the material, and then take the real cert class for something like $1500.  This will qualify you for an entry level IT job, probably around $50k/year.  You continue with the next level higher certification, doing exactly the same as above.  When you get that you'll qualify for a higher paying job.

You'll get to the point where you're getting certified on ASA Firewall or the like, and then you're an Information Security Analysts.  With the cert, you apply for one of those BLS jobs.

They key, you have to spend a lot of your own time on this in self-study.  That's a pain, but you save all that dough you'd be spending on the Dirty Commies at the University.  Plus you don't have to put up with all the "Be less White and Male" nonsense that they'd make you take (and pay for).

I got an email recently from a reader who had read some of those old posts of mine (thanks, C.H.!).  He had found himself in a frustrating job and took this path.  How he's working in a Security Operations Center and pretty happy at where he got himself.

It's been a while since I'd posted this sort of thing, but this seems like a good time to remind our younger Gentlemen Readers (or our Old Fart readers who have sons or nephews) that there is an alternative to the College Mill.

Those cats were fast as lightening

Daily Time Waster posted this:

 It made me think of this:

But everything will be awesome when the Government runs your health care

 Biden orders HHS to cut of shipments of covid medicine to southern states.  But it's all good with socialized medicine, amirite?

Fed.Gov: Summer of 2021 was hotter than the Summer of 1936

This may seem like an innocuous statement, but this all actually encapsulates the Climate Bullshit perfectly.  First, the government's statement:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed in a new report that the average temperature during this summer for the contiguous U.S. was hotter than the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

The meteorological summer between June 1 to Sept. 1 averaged 74F for the U.S., or 2.6 degrees warmer than the long-term average. NOAA said, "this technically exceeds the record heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl Summer, but the difference is extremely small (less than 0.01 of a degree F)."

Remember the Dust Bowl?  John Steinbeck and Henry Fonda sort of made it memorable:

1936 is the year of record heat in the United States.  There's a reason that the midwest dried up and blew away that summer:

You want to see a real heat wave?  Look at July 1936.  Eleven States set high temperature records that stand to this day.  That Wikipedia page is a little shifty on this, trying to hide the decline in record temperatures.  You'll see an asterisk next to South Dakota, which the Wiki page says means Also on earlier date or dates in that state.  So what was that earlier date for South Dakota?  July 1936.

Oh, and three more States set high temperature records the next month, August 1936.  That makes 14 out of the 50 States suffered record high temperatures in the summer of 1936. That's almost 30% of the States.

NOAA (the Fed.Gov's weather bureau) said that this summer was hotter than that.  Oooooh kaaaaay.  So riddle me this, WeatherMan: how many States set temperature records this summer?  One.  Washington State set a record high on June 29.

Not fourteen.

So how does NOAA get off saying that 2021 was hotter than 1936?  Data adjustments:

The data have two components: the raw measurements themselves, and a set of adjustments.

Adjustments are made for a bunch of reasons: time of observation adjustments (you didn't take a reading at exactly the same time each day), environmental changes, weather station site relocations, urbanization, etc.

An interesting question is how much of the 20th century's temperature change is due to adjustments? As it turns out, the answer is all of it.

This chart shows the before-adjustment and after-adjustment temperatures for the 20th century, super imposed. All of the warming is due to adjustments, rather than raw data.  Almost all of the adjustments are for readings after 1970.

Take a look at the blue (unadjusted) line in the middle of the chart.  You know, at the peak.  That's the Dust Bowl heat wave of 1936.  Now look at the far right, how the data shift down (unadjusted) and up (adjusted).

How do you make 2021 hotter than 1936?  Change the data.  Older temperatures are adjusted downwards, and newer temperatures are adjusted upwards.  Presto - Global Warming Climate Change Climate Emergency!

Now all of this is no doubt full of Science® and all that, but if you get a whiff of bullshit, you're not the only one. You know what data don't get adjusted? Records. 1936 set 14 records, 2021 set only a single one.

That's some righteous Science®, right there. But hey, no doubt Climate Scientists are well compensated for their work, if they produce the Approved Results.

Security Smörgåsbord, vol. 13 no. 5

Report: Direct patient safety risk posed by infusion pump vulnerability exploit

A group of five vulnerabilities in the B. Braun Infusomat Space Large Volume Pump could allow an attacker to modify system configurations in standby mode and deliver an unexpected dose of medication to patients without any need for authentication, according to a new report from McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research.

I've been posting about the security problems in medical devices for going on a decade now.  It's interesting to see major security research players start to issue advisories about these.  Hopefully the FDA expedites these sort of security updates.

DEFCON: Internet of Things random number generators stink

In a DEF CON talk officially released on Saturday (many of this year's talks were pre-recorded and available to stream before their scheduled time) Dan Petro and Allan Cecil, both of Bishop Fox, outline systemic problems with hardware random number generators. That creates systemic problems for the devices that obtain random numbers directly from hardware random number generators.

"One of our top-line takeaways is that this process of talking to hardware RNG [random number generators] directly is just untenable. It's far too complicated on so many levels, to the point where it should really be considered like writing cryptographic code, where it is just too unsafe to do on your own," Petro told SC Media.

You might wonder what the heck a random number generator is and why you need a good one.  Basically, all of the encryption in use today depends on cypher computations starting with as close to truly random numbers as possible.  If the "random number" used are not really random - or worse, if they are predictable - than a Bad Guy could decrypt your communications, masquerade as you (well, as your TV), and do all the bad things to you that encryption is supposed to prevent.  Home computers (and cell phones) don't have this problem because they invest in good random number generation circuitry.  IoT devices are so inexpensive that this isn't done.  Probably having unpatched high risk security vulnerabilities in these devices is worse, but this is just another reason why there isn't much security at all in these pieces of junk.

Firefox 91 has new privacy features

Firefox is still around?  Who knew?  They blew any credibility on user privacy when they ditched Brendan Eich to include RIAA tracking features.

The most secure browser is ... Microsoft?

Microsoft has announced that the Edge Vulnerability Research team is experimenting with a new feature dubbed "Super Duper Secure Mode" and designed to bring security improvements without significant performance losses.

When enabled, the new Microsoft Edge Super Duper Secure Mode will remove Just-In-Time Compilation (JIT) from the V8 processing pipeline, reducing the attack surface threat actors can use to hack into Edge users' systems.

...

Based on CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) data collected since 2019, around 45% of vulnerabilities found in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine were related to the JIT engine, more than half of all 'in the wild' Chrome exploits abusing JIT bugs.

"This reduction of attack surface has potential to significantly improve user security; it would remove roughly half of the V8 bugs that must be fixed," explained Johnathan Norman, Microsoft Edge Vulnerability Research Lead.

That's a neat piece of security work.  And I love "Super Duper Secure Mode".  It reminds me of Tesla's "Ludicrous Mode" which is shamelessly stolen from Spaceballs.

 Google to block old Android phones starting September 27

Google has started emailing users of very old Android devices to tell them it's time to say goodbye.

Starting September 27, devices running Android 2.3.7 and lower will no longer be able to log in to Google services, effectively killing a big portion of the on-rails Android experience. As Google puts it in an official community post, "If you sign in to your device after September 27, you may get username or password errors when you try to use Google products and services like Gmail, YouTube, and Maps."

Android is one of the most cloud-based operating systems ever. Especially in older versions, many included apps and services were tied to your Google login, and if that stops working, a large chunk of your phone is bricked. While Android can update many core components without shipping a full system update today, Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread, released around 10 years ago, was not so modular.

This is actually a Good Thing.  Android has a lot of security holes and there are no updates coming for these 10 year old systems.  If you got 10 years out of your phone, it's really in your best (security) interest to update.

US Government Agencies score low on cyber security

In the "Federal Cybersecurity: America's Data Still At Risk" report, the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs graded the departments of State, Transportation, Education, and the Social Security Administration a "D" for cybersecurity. The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services each received a "C." The highest grade for cybersecurity, a "B," went to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Among the major issues, several agencies, including the State Department, did not deactivate former employees' accounts, allowing access for extended periods of time after the workers left government service.

Maybe the Cloud will help.  These Agencies can't buy cloud services that are not security approved (FedRAMP).  Most of these issues are covered under that certification. 

Dad Joke CXIII

When I was a kid my neighbors hired me to clean up the leaves in their yard.  I was really raking it in. 

You got no stinking security

OldNFO posted a great video showing just how easy it is for someone to get your info.  The video is a live demo from Defcon, so you know it's good.

Yeah, he posted this a while back - I've been pretty busy.  And the video itself is from a few years ago, so it's not like you're any later.

And yes, I need to post more security stuff.

Dad Joke CXII

Did you hear about the three holes in the ground?

Well, well, well. 

Optimism on a solemn day

All the cool kids are posting uplifting things today, and so I'll jump in. 

I've posted repeatedly about America as Fall-Of-The-Roman-Empire/Republic before.  It's looked pretty bleak for a while, not being able to figure out how the Next Big American Thing will come into being.  It's looked like that process will be really blood soaked.

But maybe not.  I've also posted before about Curtis Yarvin, who blogged under the nom de blog Mencious Moldbug.  It was ten years ago that I wrote about him in an uberpost titled The Fifth American Republic.  It has perhaps the best opening paragraph I've ever written:

Barack Obama is a communist.  That's a low schoolyard insult, even though it's true, but it doesn't matter.  You see, Mitt Romney is also a commie.  No, this isn't yet another Mitt Romney rant.  All of our political establishment are commies, and have been for a long time.

Glen Filthie found a Tucker Carlson interview with Yarvin.  It's quite something - Tucker is a much better interviewer than I had known (I don't watch much - or any - political TV) and Tucker allows Yarvin great big huge uninterrupted blocks of time to explain his philosophy of how America is ruled by an oligarchy, why the oligarchy is decentralized, how the US Government has evolved over time (with a shout out to his original post that I blogged about ten years back), how the periodic evolutions come to be needed as the system slowly degrades, and how this explains why we lost in Afghanistan.

He ends with a discussion of the end of the Roman Republic and how that could plausibly happen here without the rivers of blood.  This is a very long and very thoughtful interview that left me feeling much better about this Republic's chances than I have in a long, long time.

Go watch this.  I cannot recommend this too highly.  You might want to read my old uberpost as an introduction first, because it will set the stage for much of what Yarvin describes.  Yarvin is a first rate intellect and you will end up smarter when you're done.

Quote of the Day - Everything They Have Told You Is A Lie edition

This post by Adam Piggott is simply unimprovable.  RTWT, but this is a taste:

And really, they’re just profiting off modern man’s shallow desire to live just one more day no matter what the cost. That’s why they’re trying to jab 12 year olds with this toxic crap so the old fucks can live just one more day, it’s all I’ve got, hey, did you see my boat and my Porsche and the ski lodge?

Everything they have told you is a lie. Don’t take their pills, don’t take their jabs, don’t follow their dietary recommendations, don’t do their exercise routines, don’t take 0.7 glasses of wine per day while you have your 1.2 kids, don’t listen to their music recommendations, or their reading material, or watch their evil films, don’t do any of it. Don’t be a boring shitless bastard that does just what he’s told and then has the sheer stupidity to try and lecture those of us who haven’t fallen for the crap and are trying with some very small success to wake you all the fuck up.

Awesome. 

Dad Joke CXI

Has it really been almost a month since I've posted one of these?

What's the most dangerous variety of cheese?  Sharp cheddar.

Good thing it's not fresh fruit ...

 

The Ghosts of Waco look down and smile

White House to withdraw Chipman nomination to lead ATF. 

The downfall of Czar Nicholas and the American Deep State

Big Country has a must-read post up.  Go read it now, then come back for my thoughts.  In it he lays out evidence that there is a three way power struggle going on between the Intelligence Community, the Pentagon, and the White House.  Peter adds some thoughts as well.

It reminds me of the last few years of Tsarist Russia: a war that was going poorly, indecisive leadership at the top that had no real idea what the citizens of the realm actually thought, and a fabulously corrupt and incompetent set of ministers who were more interested in looting the treasury than, you know, running their ministry.

And as to that last item, take a look at Joe Biden's cabinet (courtesy of J.Kb at Miguel's place).  It's deja vu all over again.  The last thing on any of these folk's mind is good governance.

And so, to BCE's post at the top.  The Biden Administration sure as shootin' ain't where the smart money is going to bet.  And so, on to the second of the three he calls out, the Dot Mil.  There are huge problems in our military, the biggest I've seen since the Vietnam days.  In a very disturbing way, the pathology is very similar: the senior officers give commands to a sullen and hostile enlisted force.  Back in the dark days of the '70s we had flag officers like Zumwalt (Navy) and Creech (TAC) who were able to reinstil discipline.  It sure doesn't look like the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon are up to Zumwalt's (or Creech's) level.

And so I don't think that the smart money will bet on the Dot Mil, either.

So the Last Org Standing likely will be the Intel Community.  Heck, they already successfully overthrew a previous President, and guaranteed they have dirt on most of the players in Washington (Generals Petraeus and Flynn could not be reached for comment).

There really are only two questions.  First, how long will this take to play out?  The longer it goes on, the more damage the Republic takes (both externally and internally).  I can't say I'm optimistic that this will get sorted out soon.

Second, the Intel Community will want to rule from the shadows.  They are not Front Men - the acronym of one of the Three Letter Agencies was said to be "Never Say Anything".  Quite frankly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the perfect empty suits for the Intel Community to stand up as "leaders" of the Republic - as they did last November.  The folks at Langley must be steaming mad that Biden isn't staying in his lane.  How this will play out is unknown, but unlikely to be pleasant for Joe, "Doctor" Jill, or Kamala.

Czar Nicholas came to a bad end in a basement in Yekaterinburg, along with his entire family.  Will our Checkists go this route to let the rest of Washington know they need to stay in their lanes, or will there still be more subtlety?  The nation wonders.

Quote of the Day - The Collapse of the Elite edition

The first 8 months of this year has well and truly shown that the technocratic elite are well and truly out of gas: 

The managerial class increasingly appears as a sort of funhouse mirror inversion of the doomed russian nobility of the late tsarist era; they no longer know how to run a country and only seem to parasitize on the body politic while giving almost nothing of value in return. In tsarist Russia, the nobility proved increasingly incapable of winning Russia’s wars or running its ministries, making their legitimating narratives proclaiming them to possess some natural-born right and capacity for rulership increasingly impossible to believe in. In modern America, it is the meritocrats who now openly lack any merit or ability to rule, quickly undermining the ability of the average person to believe in the very foundational claims behind the managerial order. And by what right does the collective of non-divine kings rule? To borrow from Schmitt: by the same right as the collective of stupid and ignorant technocrats. In other words, by virtue of simply not having been replaced yet. Nothing more.

I find it very likely that most future historians will put the date of the real beginning of the collapse of the current political and geopolitical order right here, right now, at the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This is an exceptionally insightful post, and I strongly encourage you to go read the whole thing.  Found via the Arch Druid, who has some similar thinking that is also worth your time.

It's not done yet

Suicide Bombers target crowds in tight places.  Your only choice (defensively) is to disperse the crowds -  instead of one airport, ply from ten.  The Biden administration has precluded this - Baghram is now under Taliban control and the only airport for hundreds of miles is Kabul.  And so the crowds can't disperse.

And the US military can't outsource crowd control security, either.  Anyone who could handle this is trying to get on a flight out.  So our Marines will be on the front lines for the next five days.

Sitting ducks.

I wish I could put into words how angry I am right now.

UPDATE 26 August 2021: Yeah, this angry:

Yeah, that angry.

Don't trust Twitter

Twitter is asshole.  Pro tip: when your Twitter app asks you this, click "Don't Allow".

Here's a better Pro tip: delete the Twitter app from your phone because that bad boy is spying on you, and it looks like it wants to spy on everyone who lives with you. 

The loss from Afghanistan

OldAFSarge describes it.  It is impossible to excerpt.  Go, read.

Remember. 

*Updated to add link

Don't ever change, National Review

National Review, 2016:

National Review, 2021: Something is wrong with the President.

By "President" they mean Joe Biden, natch.  Sorry, neocons - your should have known than there was an expiration date when you started hanging with the Cool Progressive Kidz.  Sorry for your luck and all your broken Middle East War dreams ...

Apropos nothing

My parents were strong supporters of the Democratic Party and so we grew up with a fair amount of Democratic Party hagiography - stories of past great people to inspire the masses in the party.  For example, we heard often about how poor Harry Truman was pennyless when he left office and was only saved from penury when Congress passed an act giving a generous pension to former Presidents.

Alas, it seems it was all a crock, and Truman was a big fat liar.

Dad Joke CX

Long time commenter and friend in Real Life Libertyman sends this one in:

I stayed up late las night reading old magazines.  I woke up this morning with back issues. 

No more Juan Restrepos

I must gently disagree with my co-blogger and brother-from-another-mother ASM826.  This is not the time to send in more Marines to a lost cause in Afghanistan.  We don't need more dead marines like Juan Restrepo.

Yes, this is Jimmy Carter 2.0.  Yes, this administration is going to cause the death of many of our former allies (and their families).  No, none of this is worth a single Marine's life.

This is the end of a bi-partisan f**k-up that goes back to George W. Bush and Colin Powell and runs through Barack Obama and John F. Kerry to Slow Joe Biden and whichever intellectual midget is SecState today.  If Trump were still in the Oval office then the withdrawal likely would have been better handled, but the Democratic Party is clearly not about good governance these days.

The thing for everyone to remember is when the next GOP critter plants his butt in the chair behind the Resolute Desk - assuming there will ever be another free election in this Republic - and when the next terrorist strike hits New York City: remember this day.  Adam Piggott sums the war up well:

The war in Afghanistan, which from the very beginning existed for no tangible military or political reasons, was a complete success for those that waged it. They rolled the dice and got twenty years. That’s twenty years of unmitigated profit in arms sales, corporate fees, expert consulting and every other aspect of the cost of running an expensive war and pretend nation building exercise in an alien land half a world away. And the poppies, don’t forget the poppies. The lucrative narcotics trade was completely taken over by the CIA and its proxies, a war on drugs indeed but not the kind of war that Nixon originally promised.

No more blood for lost causes, or to get four star Generals seats on General Dynamic's Board of Directors.

And remember Juan Restrepo.

Lions, led by donkeys

This was said about the British Tommies at the Somme.

A century later, nothing has changed with the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon.

There are no words that describe the waste and the futility.

 

Turn, turn, turn 6.0

This is the best that I've made so far:

I really like this purple poplar wood, although this was much darker than the last ones - the dust from sanding was essentially black.  Gosh - variations in natural products!  Who'd a thunk it?

My skill is also developing.  I started this but had to stop it (ran out of time that day).  It was a mess - big jagged chunks broken off the lip, horrible ridges inside and out.  I was able to fix all of that, and I think it came out pretty nice.

One thing that was striking was how you get tiny droplets of water splashed all over your face when you turn green wood.  This was very green and basically soaking wet which I think led me to make the mistakes I made that first day.  It was a lot easier a week later when it had dried out a bit.  But that led to a different problem:

See the cracks on the rim at eleven o'clock and four o'clock?  Yup, unfinished wet wood shrinks and cracks as it dries.  There's a powder/epoxy product that my teacher says I can fix this with, which will continue my learning experience.  Hey, that's what it's all about, amirite?

But as I said, I'm pretty pleased with this one.  If you scroll back through all of these you can see a definite progression of skill.  Yay, me!

What are your chances of dying from Covid?

Well, more specifically, how do you calculate your risk of dying from Covid?  Aesop has an outstanding overview of the latest actual medical info that you will need.  He approaches this from a "to vax or not to vax, that is the question" perspective but this is a fine breakdown of the cost/benefit calculation process.

The only thing that I would like to see is case fatality rates broken down by age and by co-morbidity presence, but The Powers That Be are not making it at all easy to get data on any of this.  Quite frankly, it looks like TPTB are actively trying to prevent citizens from making rational cost/benefit decisions based on their own current state of health, which makes you wonder what their motivations are.

How smoking can improve your firearms safety

Srlsy.  Well, smoking adverts. This is genius.

Apologies for the lack of posting.  Things are insanely busy, and by the end of the day I'm pretty wiped out.  The Queen Of The World has taken a hankering to "Downton Abby" on Netflix, and I've been enjoying it with her.  Until last night when Matthew was killed off (spoiler alert!).  It seems that ratings tanked after this; maybe people watched it because it was good escapist fun, and when you start killing off your most likable characters it's less fun?

But go read T-Bolt's suggestion.  It will horrify all the Right Sort of People®.

Charles Wolcott - Cat on a hot tin roof theme

So I had a birthday.  I resolve to remain ageless.

And "ageless" is a pretty good description of the 1958 film Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with blockbuster performances by Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and a spectacular performance from Burl Ives as "Big Daddy" Prolitt - who celebrates a birthday in this film.  He had a birthday, I had a birthday.  Elizabeth Taylor is smoking hot, The Queen Of The World is smoking hot.  It's summer in the south in the film, it's summer in the south here.

That's about as far as the similarities go.

The performances overshadowed the musical score by Charles Wolcott which is a real shame because the music matches the mood so very well.  The Oscar that year for music went to André Previn's score for Gigi.  Sure, it's pretty and all, but the music here is no slouch.

Bootnote: It's impossible to post music from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof without also posting this.  Take it away, Brian Setzer ...

Happy Birthday to me (and Dad Joke CX)

It's always nice to be 39 again.

And so to the Dad Joke: What does a turtle do on his birthday?

He shell-a-brates! 

Dad Joke CIX

What kind of shoes do Ninjas wear?

Sneakers. 

Afraid of the 'Rona? Take up smoking

Seriously.  Quite frankly, I didn't expect that. Maybe smoking is healthy after all ...

UPDATE 5 August 2021 14:49:  It seems that Bear Bussjaeger posted data confirming this last December (!!!).  It seems an interesting media blackout that word just isn't getting around.  But the data are the data, and this looks legit.

Dad Joke CVIII

What do you call a bush that does scientific experiments?

A Chemistree.

(Extra crazy bonus points for those who recognize the bristlecone pine as a key contributor here) 

Security Smorgasbord, vol. 13 no. 4

This Security Smorgasbord now has more snark!

Congress catches up to Borepatch from 2009, holds hearings on Power Grid security:

The lack of adequate security features in critical electrical grid equipment - including high-power transformers - that's made in other nations poses a serious U.S. cybersecurity threat, according to federal officials who testified at a Congressional hearing this week. Supply chain vulnerabilities could result in a grid takedown by nation-state actors and a lengthy recovery period, they said.

Prediction: nothing happens because the $1.2T "Infrastructure" bill is about funding Democratic Party clients, not providing reliable infrastructure.

The top 30 security exploits, per the NSA, UK NCSC, Australian, CSC, and the FBI.  Given the recent news about FBI assets formenting all sorts of plots that didn't exist before, you have to wonder if they're behind some of the Black Hat rings too.

"Swatting" perpetrator sentenced to 5 years in prison after victim dies.  Enjoy your time in jail, jerk.  "Swatting" is when some jerk sends a spoofed 911 call to the victim's local Po-po to get an armed response.  Victims of this sometimes die, either shot by the first responders or in this case from a heart attack.  This spoofing should be getting harder to do now.

D-Link issues fix for home WiFi routers:

D-Link has issued a firmware hotfix to address multiple vulnerabilities in the DIR-3040 AC3000-based wireless internet router.

Following successful exploitation, they can let attackers execute arbitrary code on unpatched routers, gain access to sensitive information or crash the routers after triggering a denial of service state.

The DIR-3040 security flaws discovered and reported by Cisco Talos security researcher Dave McDaniel include hardcoded passwords, command injection, and information disclosure bugs.

Hardcoded passwords.  Top Men, right there.  Top.  Men.  This is why we can't have nice things on the Internet.

Cell phone encryption was intentionally weakened:

A weakness in the algorithm used to encrypt cellphone data in the 1990s and 2000s allowed hackers to spy on some internet traffic, according to a new research paper.

The paper has sent shockwaves through the encryption community because of what it implies: The researchers believe that the mathematical probability of the weakness being introduced on accident is extremely low. Thus, they speculate that a weakness was intentionally put into the algorithm. After the paper was published, the group that designed the algorithm confirmed this was the case.

Ah, the Bad Old Days of export control'ed crypto.  Good thing that that would never happen now, amirite?

Dad Joke CVII

They used to charge you 25 cents to fill your car tires with air.  Now they charge $1.50.  That's inflation. 

Charlie Chaplin - Theme from Limelight

Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous of the 20th Century actors.  Yes, he was a commie bastard (back when that was said seriously, rather than as an insult), but he was groundbreaking as an actor and as a director.  What's interesting is that he was also a composer, writing the music for all of his films.  He won the 1973 Oscar for best original composition for this piece.