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Report: computer malware hit five sites in Iran

From a report in the New York Times:

The Stuxnet software worm repeatedly sought to infect five industrial facilities in Iran over a 10-month period, a new report says, in what could be a clue into how it might have infected the Iranian uranium enrichment complex at Natanz.

The report, released Friday by Symantic, the Norton antivirus publishers, said there were three waves of attacks.

The team was able to chart the path of the infection because of an unusual feature in Stuxnet that recorded information on the location and type of each computer it infected which allowed the authors of Stuxnet to know if they had successfully reached their intended target.

By taking samples of Stuxnet they had collected from various computers, the researchers were able to build a model of the spread of the infection. They determined that 12,000 infections could be traced back to just five initial infection points.

More here.

WW11 Japanese mass grave on Iwo Jima

Japanese officials bow at a mass grave site on Iwo Jima island on Dec. 14, 2010 where the remains of Japanese soldiers, who died in the battle for Iwo Jima, have been discovered.

In a rare visit to Iwo Jima, now known in Japan as Ioto , Japan's Prime Minister offered prayers at two recently discovered mass grave sites and vowed to find the more than 12,000 fallen soldiers whose bodies have yet to be recovered from the remote island where some of World War II's fiercest fighting took place.

Eeek! Rat delays flight from Seattle to Denver

An Alaska Airlines jet was grounded after a rat was spotted running around the cabin Friday morning.

The rodent was discovered running around Flight 676 from Sea-Tac to Denver just before takeoff.

The plane immediately returned to the gate and passengers were put on a different plane, which left about 90 minutes later.

The plane has been taken out of service until an exterminator can make sure it's clean of rodents.

All rats without tickets will be taken off the plane.

Link

Giant penny made from 84,000 pennies

A single mom in Michigan turned 84,000 pennies into a priceless work of art.

After going through a difficult period in which she was forced to pinch pennies, Wander Martich decided to create this massive 1-cent piece, which was recently acquired by Ripley's Believe It or Not.


The giant penny measures 8 feet in diameter and weighs approximately 1,200 pounds.

Weird swim gear at London's Tooting Bec lido

Swimming at the Cold Water Championships isn't easy -- no bull.

Competitors put on wacky costumes, like these horns, before swimming laps in the frigid waters at the Tooting Bec lido in South London, England.

Reports indicate that the water was about 37 degrees during this year's event

Disable touchpad on your Toshiba laptop

Tired of dealing with a "flying curser" while typing a document? This happens when your thumbs drag across the touchpad as you type sending the curser to a different part of the document - sometimes several lines away from where you were typing.

Even if you use the touchpad for everything else, the "flying curser" will drive you bonkers while typing a document.

If you use a USB mouse instead of the touchpad, a way to disable the touchpad is even more important.

Here is how to accopmplish it on a Toshiba: press two function keys simultaneously - the FN and F9 keys.

To restore use of the touchpad press the same two keys simultaneously.

(FN is next to the CTRL key on the lower left of keyboard)

Air Show disaster

The pilot had no control over his aircraft at low level. It narrowly missed a crowd gathered for the air show before it slammed into four buildings.

One can only imagine the horror of the occupants inside the buildings.

For an amazing photo of the event click HERE.

Skiing moguls

Deborah Scanzio of Italy competes in the women's moguls finals at the freestyle skiing world championships at Deer Valley near Park City, Utah.

Bumpity bump bump…

Is Director of National Intelligence watching CNN to get his info?

Egyptian President Mubarak is out of power but where is he? Is he still in Cairo? At this point it is anyone's guess.

As Power Line's John Hinderaker writes:

Your guess, in fact, is probably as good as the CIA's. Based on recent revelations, it appears that the Director of National Intelligence (James Clapper - pictured below) is most likely watching CNN so that he can brief Congress on developments.

The Obama administration has gone out of its way to offer support for the Muslim Brotherhood's participation in the next government.

That is unpardonably obtuse, and if the administration has actually worked behind the scenes to support the ambitions of the Brotherhood, it is unpardonable, period.

Beyond that, the administration has put on a pathetic show throughout the Egyptian crisis. It has seemed that President Obama's principal object has been to give the appearance of being in the know and of having some control over events, when in fact the administration has generally been clueless and has been at best a bystander.

This accounts, I think, for the inconsistencies in the administration's position from day to day. As events shift, Obama shifts with them, like an irrelevant player who tries to get in front of a crowd so as to create the illusion that he is leading it.

This all reminds us of Jimmy Carter's handling of Iran.

As we have said before, Barack Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter even faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.

The Power Line report is here. Link here for our impression of Obama's clueless intel chief.

Mubarak resigns - Egyptian military now in power

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on after 29 years in power, bowing to a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. "The people ousted the president," chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.

The photo above shows anti-government protesters, and Egyptian soldiers on top of their vehicles, make traditional Muslim Friday prayers at the continuing demonstration in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, Egypt.

Link

Rolling tires in the snow

Firemen attend a cold-endurance training at the Changchun Culture Square in Changchun of Jilin Province, China.

The Al Gore - Keith Olbermann soap opera continues

More on the Keith Olbermann Al Gore connection from the Hollywood Reporter:

Less than 24 hours after Keith Olbermann (above left) anchored his last edition of Countdown on Jan. 21, Al Gore (above right) placed a call to his friend inviting him to join Current TV.

A contract was quickly hammered out. But it was Gore who convinced Olbermann to join the network, say sources. The former vice president and co-founder of Current was a fan of Countdown where he had also been a guest in the past.

Current averaged 18,000 homes in primetime for fourth quarter 2010, lower than any other network measured by Nielsen.

From one commenter:

18,000?

That would be 11,000 people that fell asleep and rolled over on the remote control, 6,000 small children that were looking for Sponge Bob and just dropped the remote, 560 people in homes where they just turned on the TV and accidentally got this channel, 424 people with a really bad home work assignment, 15 people that work for Al Gore, and then there is Al himself.

Link

Clueless Intel chief retreats from Muslim Brotherhood secular claim

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (pictured) is backing away from comments he made Thursday calling Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular."

A spokesman for Mr. Clapper quickly tried to explain away the gaff.

In these dangerous times a mistake of this magnitude by the National Intelligence Director can't be explained away.

In actual fact the Muslim Brotherhood uses the slogan, "Islam is the answer," and generally advocates for government in accordance with Islamic principles.

Link

Massive federal study shows no electronics fault in Toyota vehicles

Lawmakers who made a lot of noise last year about alleged deadly malfunctions in Toyota vehicles didn’t have much to say on Wednesday as a clear winner has emerged in the federal government vs. Toyota fight. The winner is Toyota.

Shown above is a Toyota Venza crossover.

The federal government has been on a year-long vendetta against Toyota but the feds came up short.

The Obama administration is down on Toyota for two reasons. First, Toyota is the number one competitor to Government Motors alias General Motors. Second, many Toyotas are built in non-union plants.

An intensive 10 month investigation into possible causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars found no fault with the automaker's electronic throttle control systems, the Department of Transportation announced Tuesday.

So far there are three known causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles: improperly installed floor mats, sticky pedals, and driver error.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "We enlisted the best and brightest engineers to study Toyota's electronics systems, and the verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas."

If the feds had found electronic problems in their massive federal study Toyota would have been forced to recall nearly every vehicle produced in the last several years nearly bankrupting the company.

"We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America's foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Toyota's chief quality officer Steve St. Angelo said in a company statement.

Link

Labor Unions may be losing strength in economic hard times

A report at the link below asks:

Is big labor losing muscle amid economic hard times?

Labor unions staged just 11 major work stoppages throughout the country in 2010, the second mildest spate of such strikes or lockouts in more than 60 years amid one of the toughest job markets in American history.

At a time when large amounts of unemployed Americans are searching for jobs, is not good time for organized labor to demand better compensation or working conditions.

Link

Child labor

A seven-year-old girl holds her tools after finishing her work of breaking coal in a brick factory for the day on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan.

Hotmail now has disposable e-mail addresses

Microsoft's Hotmail service has added a new feature that lets you use an e-mail alias completely separate from your regular e-mail address that funnels directly into your main Hotmail account.

In true Microsoft style, the feature is impossible to find but if you hover over the "Inbox" link in Hotmail, a little gear icon will appear and you can create a new alias that way.

Aside from all the weird, tasteless, mind-numbingly awful stuff you can now secretly subscribe to, Microsoft's blog post points out a more mundane use.

Let's say you're in the market for a new car. There are a bunch of websites that will email you price quotes, sales alerts, etc. During your car search, these messages are helpful, but once you're done, they become clutter that can be difficult to stop. By using an alias on these websites instead of your main email address, you can avoid this. And when you're done, just turn the alias off, ensuring future unwanted messages that are sent to that alias don't land in your inbox.

Link here and here.

ObamaCare - what could go wrong?

From a reader comment posted in our local newspaper:

ObamaCare was written mostly behind closed doors by a committee whose chairman didn't understand it and rammed through by a former Speaker of the House who said they had to pass the 2,000+ page bill so they would know what was in it.

Forced through the Senate at midnight on a weekend by lawmakers who hadn't read it, signed by a President who was a smoker, overseen by an obese Surgeon General, funded by a Secretary of the Treasury who hadn't paid his taxes when he got the job and financed by a country nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

AL Gore and MSNBC in a brawl

There is an LA Times report at the link below titled, Al Gore and MSNBC get in shoving match after Keith Olbermann's move to Current TV.

Al Gore, the Nobel laureate beloved by many liberals for his passionate espousal of environmental causes, has gotten into a dust-up with MSNBC, the cable-TV home of liberal opinion.

The fracas started Tuesday after Gore and other officials of Current TV, the network founded in 2005, announced they had nabbed former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to lead a new nightly program starting later this spring. Olbermann will also become chief news officer of the low-rated Current, which has about 60 million subscribers in the U.S.

Hinting at the potential Current has despite its low viewership, the former vice president declared during a phone call with reporters, "We have more subscribers today than MSNBC had when Keith Olbermann began working for them" in 2003.

And so the mudslinging goes. Maybe we will pop some popcorn if this continues - the fight could get quite entertaining.

As one commenter wrote, get ready to be amused by the two biggest clowns in the 'news' industry -- the only thing missing is Chris Matthews and a dancing chimp on a rope.

It's coming down to IMSNBC and Al Gore fighting over what's left for them in the bottom of the barrel.

Link