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Thursday, May 09, 2002
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Reason Cited for Ousting of Terror Inquiry's Director. The Congressional panel looking into Sept. 11 forced its director out after he did not tell it of a staff member's security problem. By James Risen. [New York Times: National]
If we learned nothing else from 50 of cold war spying, we should at least have learned that the most serious breaches are always close to the source.
So far “Homeland Security” has been a bad joke. Forget the massive intelligence failure that led to 9/11, between government mailings still going out to dead hijackers - who, BTW, it turns out we knew all about before the fact, but never got around to doing anything about - comical security breaches at airports, terrible handling of the anthrax threat, the failure, despite the dedication of billions in military resources, to capture or kill one man, it leads one to think clowns are running this circus.
Either these guys are the most inept bunch of bozos to ever run a government or they have a conflicting agenda. Maybe a bit of both. Considering the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, we sure are buddy-buddy with ‘em. Just last week Shrub had the prince out for barbecue at the ranch in Crawford.
They made a deal. The Saudis would handle the Palestinians. Bush would handle the Israelis. Sounds reasonable.
Only one problem. While the Saudis, being the major source of funding for the Palestinians, carry more than a little clout, the Israelis would ignore Bush were he to strip naked, douse himself with kerosene and self immolate in the middle of the Knesset while playing “Give peace a chance,” on the hammer dulcimer, dancing a Lindy and farting in harmony.
Cheers,
Dusty
11:32:24 PM 
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Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate. Weblogs being the trend du jour, Macromedia attempts what may be a new type of marketing strategy: getting bloggers to push its products. By Farhad Manjoo. [Wired News]
There’s been a lot of discussion about this in the blogging community. Some think this is no more than transparent corporate shilling. I tend to agree more with Dave Winer. I think blogging can be a boon to real, constructive, useful to the end user corporate communications.
In fact, I’m setting up blogs for my orthopedic surgeon and my general practitioner to help them stay in better communication with their patients while saving time and money. They can easily post information to many patients at once as well as implementing a kind of triage system for patient communications that will be more efficient than the current system of layers of flappers.
Most of the stuff that comes through the blog can likely be handled by a reference to a FAQ, a link or a quick note from a nurse. But important communications can easily be escalated as needed.
Eventually we hope to expand the medical blog concept to a full function, secure medical information management and dissemination site where both patients and doctors can quickly and easily access medical records, billing and insurance information, prescription records, treatment regimens, appointments, etc.
Of course, security is the major limiting factor at the moment. There are lots of tools we could use, but they won’t work if unsophisticated users won’t use them. We’re looking at a number of user friendly verification schemes, but we’re open to suggestions. Very open to suggestions.
Cheers,
Dusty
11:12:51 PM
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Bush's California Energy Stance Faulted. Two prominent Californians accused the Bush administration of failing to heed their suspicions that more than just market forces were to blame for the state's electricity crisis last year. By Don Van Natta Jr.. [New York Times: Politics]
So, gee, ya think maybe, just maybe, Shrub’s California energy policy was a tad bit flawed?
Bush to Enron: “Hey, you guys aren’t doing anything wrong, right?”
Enron to Bush: “Heck no, not little ol’ us.”
Bush to Enron: “Well all right, then. Carry on.”
Now that it’s been exposed that his best buddies and corporate masters at Enron in point of fact did illegally manipulate prices and supplies during California’s energy crisis, why is it we’re not throwing the thieving asshole out of the People’s House?
Cheers,
Dusty
10:45:59 PM
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Where Schnitzel Meets Ahi Tuna for a Beer. Berghoff, a Chicago restaurant since 1898, lives in two ages; its owners strive to balance the two. By Stephen Kinzer. [New York Times: Dining and Wine]
Ah, the Berghoff. I remember it fondly. When I was a kid this was one of the places my parents would take me as a treat after a day downtown, which was always a treat, anyway.
The Berghoff is about as Chicago as a Chicago institution gets. For example, originally a brewery that only turned to food to survive prohibition, The Berghoff owns Chicago Liquor License Number 1, the very first license granted after repeal. The day after. Some say it’s the first license granted anywhere after repeal. But I’ll leave that argument to others.
It’s been around forever, but it still looks and smells much the same through the years. Oh, maybe a little less schnitzel and cigar smell these days, but somehow it retains a comfortable, familiar odor as well as an almost unchanging ambiance. It wasn’t that long ago that the Berghoff featured a men’s only bar.
In recent years they’ve survived by marketing heavily to the business lunch crowd and moving away from the traditional German fair. They also market their house brand beer regionally, though it’s actually brewed by the Joseph Huber Company.
At one point the Berghoff grew so popular their kitchens stretched for an entire block under State St. They lost that space during the construction of the new library and State Street Mall, but apparently they’ve found other digs for their massive kitchen
By no means is the Berghoff a great restaurant, or, in a town full of top notch eateries of all descriptions, even a particularly good restaurant. But it is a classic that never disappoints.
Sure, there are better German restaurants in Chicago, but there’s only one Berghoff. I highly recommend lunch at the Berghoff the next time you find yourself hungry in the Loop.
Cheers,
Dusty
10:33:32 PM
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The pop-up ad campaign from hell. It's the latest in Web marketing innovation: Hijacked Web surfers, exploited Web browser vulnerabilities and malicious spyware all wrapped up together. [Salon.com]
In today’s world of violated privacy, nefarious Web snooping and questionable marketing tactics, very little surprises me anymore. But this is fucking unbelievable. I hope the shit-eating asswipes at “IntelliTech,” the apparent perpetrators of this backdoor Trojan, are prosecuted to the full extent of the law for this almost unbelievable bit of malware.
What’s truly amazing is these pond scum assholes actually installed a Trojan that checks if a user is running a firewall, then disables any firewall it may find. This only by viewing a Web page users were hijacked to in the first.
The individual to whom the offending domain is registered, Frank Biggot, apparently had no knowledge of the backdoor until he received a call from Salon. Upon learning of the backdoor, he immediately resigned from IntelliTech and, through his attorney, William W. Block of Beverly Hills, released information on the IntelliTech executives Biggot believes approved the placing of the Trojan.
Looks like Frank got blind-sided pretty good on this one. I hope he gets to some of his evil bosses’ money before they spend it all on defense attorneys.
Cheers,
Dusty
10:11:50 PM
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"Doubly infected" computer virus packs nasty surprise. Klez, the most widespread computer virus of recent months, has itself been infected by an older, more destructive virus [New Scientist]
Man, am I getting sick of saying this. But apparently some of you out there in Net-land just aren’t listening. So, let me rephrase…
GET A DECENT FUCKING ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM AND KEEP IT UPDATED. DO IT. DO IT NOW. THAT IS ALL.
Cheers,
Dusty
8:26:32 PM
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Justice Dept. Reverses Policy on Meaning of Second Amendment. The Justice Dept. told the Supreme Court on Monday that the Constitution "protects the rights of individuals" to own firearms. By Linda Greenhouse. [New York Times: Politics]
It’s really hard to say who the bigger asshole is: Ted Olson or John Ashcroft. Which part of, “A well regulated militia being necessary…,” are these idiots too fucking stupid to understand?
You’d think the cognitive dissonance of arguing for an individual right to keep and bear arms while simultaneously saying that right is inherently limited would make their silly heads explode.
Oh, wait. It’s just another Bush administration payoff to a giant special interest, in this case, the N-fucking-RA.
Cheers,
Dusty
8:24:26 PM
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Undetectable 'son of cookie' system wins grant. It knows where you're surfing, right now [The Register]
You can bet this and similar technologies will start popping up in spyware hidden in all sorts of apps. It’s never been more important to use programs like AdAware and run a good firewall.
Cheers,
Dusty
1:18:38 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Dusty Rhodes.
Last update: 6/28/2002; 10:30:46 PM.
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