Secure software more than just a pipedream

Remember that Conficker computer worm they warned us about. It was to devastate computers on April Fool’s Day?

A CNET report says that after the Conficker worm scare and Microsoft patching multiple additional software vulnerabilities last week, it might be reasonable to assume the bad guys are winning the battle to get control over Internet-connected computers.

That's not necessarily the case. Developers are increasingly equipped with tools to shore up their products and vendors are collaborating in unprecedented ways to not only close holes in software, but also make sure they aren't in there in the first place, according to security experts.

"Conficker did far less damage in 2009 than it would have done in 2003," said Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IOActive. "Windows used to be a lot easier to blow up."

More of the story here.

Latest budget tightening: hardly a dimes worth of difference!

The latest fiscal tightening by the Obama administration is like cutting the budget with a pen knife.

It’s like asking a family that spends $40,000 a year to cut $2 out of its annual budget.


The report at the link below has another great analogy:

Cut a latte or two out of your annual budget and you've just done as much belt-tightening as President Barack Obama asked of his Cabinet on Monday.


Obama made his push for frugality the subject of his first Cabinet meeting, ensuring it would command the capital's attention. It also set off outbursts of mental math and scribbled calculations as political friend and foe tried to figure out its impact.

The bottom line: Not much.

Trying to get his Cabinet to save $100 million is laughable compared to the Obama $3,550,000,000,000 budget.

Link

Young mad hatter at cricket game

South African cricket fan looks on during the final ODI cricket series between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. South Africa won by 61 runs.

Sen. Dodd 2010 re-election in doubt

A report at the link below says that Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (pictured) received early campaign donations from just five residents in his state. He had to go outside Connecticut for the bulk of the $600,000 he raised from individuals in the first three months of the year.

The fundraising, reported in the Connecticut Post, foretells a tough fight ahead for the power-wielding Democrat in the 2010 race. Recent poll numbers have shown Dodd's approval ratings at historic lows,

Rob Simmons, a Republican former congressman who says he'll challenge Dodd next year, used the Dodd fundraising report as a fundraising pitch of his own. He sent out a campaign e-mail Friday urging his supporters to help show Dodd what a "real grassroots campaign" looks like.

More of the story here.

Tea Parties prompt a cabinet budget cut

The first formal Cabinet meeting is being held just days after a series of Tea Party demonstrations across the country in which protesters challenged the administration over it's massive spending.

A senior administration officials says Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

The move would cut $100,000,000 from a $3,550,000,000,000 budget. A mere drop in the bucket.

The official previewed Topic A for Monday's Cabinet meeting on grounds of anonymity because it will be a private session. He said Obama will be reminding Cabinet members that financially-pressed families are looking to the government to spend their money wisely.

In the last three months the federal government has thrown money around as if it came from a Parker Brothers Monopoly game!

Link

A designer cover up for hospital gowns

The first time I was a patient in the intensive care unit at a local hospital it didn't take long to learn why they refer to the Intensive Care Unit as ICU.

One look at that short bareback gown they gave me to wear and I knew exactly why they call it ICU.

Federal law prevents hospitals from revealing information on a patient, but hospital gowns occasionally allow a patient to reveal too much of themselves.

A North Carolina State University design team is coming to the rescue as they are at work to end the issue of partial physical disclosure.

It's not the first time someone has tried to conceal what is sometimes exposed because of the gown's flimsy fabric and loose tie in the open back.

But North Carolina State textile design professor Traci Lamar has the financial backing and research to develop a restyled garment that could finally be practical for hospitals across the country.

Lamar has been working on a solution since November 2006. Researchers hope to have the product ready for market in about two years.

Link

Obama’s car czar named in SEC probe

When has an administration started with so many problems. It almost appears that to qualify for service in the Obama administration one needs to be politically or financially corrupt - or both.

From the report at the link below:

In March, Steven Rattner (pictured), the leader of the Obama administration's auto task force, was the man who sat face to face with General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner at a Treasury Department meeting and fired him.

Now it's Rattner's turn in the hot seat.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday night that Rattner was involved with payments at the center of an investigation into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund.

For the Obama administration, the revelation of Rattner's involvement in the deal is likely to cause a political headache at a time when the president is set to decide on the ultimate fate of General Motors and Chrysler, the car companies that are living on government bailout money and facing a strict timetable to reconstitute their businesses.

The Wall Street Journal said that Rattner disclosed the pending investigation during the vetting process of the presidential transition.

That will raise uncomfortable comparisons to Treasury's top official, Secretary Timothy Geithner, who failed to correctly pay his taxes, but was nonetheless supported for the position by President Barack Obama in the face of stiff criticism at the time.

The culture of corruption in the Obama administration remains alive and well.

Link

Stephen Hawking hospitalized: very ill

Scientist and author Stephen Hawking (pictured) is "very ill" and has been hospitalized, according to Cambridge University, where he is a professor.

Stephen Hawking is one of the world's most famous physicists. He is also a cosmologist, astronomer, and mathematician.

Cambridge University said the 67-year-old is "comfortable" and will stay overnight at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.

Wheelchair-bound Hawking is perhaps most famous for "A Brief History of Time" which explored the origins of the universe in layman's terms, is considered a modern classic.

Hawking has Lou Gehrig's Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS), which is usually fatal after three years. Hawking has survived for more than 40 years since his diagnosis.

The disease has left him paralyzed -- he is able to move only a few fingers on one hand. Hawking is completely dependent on others or technology for virtually everything -- bathing, dressing, eating, even speech.

He uses a speech synthesizer with an American accent.

Link

Public is catching on to warming scam

John Hinderaker at Power Line says (first link below):

In recent months, a key trend in American public opinion has emerged: voters are catching on to the global warming scam.

It's hard to say why this is happening; certainly not because news coverage has gotten any more unbiased or scientifically accurate. Nevertheless, somehow the word is getting out: the alarmists are all wet.

Hinderaker references a Rasmussen Reports survey (second link below) that shows that just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe that humans have anything to do with climate change. Instead, they said climate change was due to long-term planetary trends.

(click on cartoon to enlarge)

This is the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.

Link here and here.

Instructor was drunk during driving lesson

A 53-year-old man from Salem, Massachusetts was convicted of operating under the influence while giving a driving lesson from the passenger seat of a car.

Although the driving instructor was not behind the wheel during the lesson, prosecutors say he was in control of the passenger side brakes in the specially-fitted car and also moved the wheel during the lesson.

The instructor claimed he was not drunk during the lesson.

Link

Don’t read this if you have a plane ticket and hate snakes

In scenes reminiscent of the cult horror movie Snakes on a Plane, four baby pythons escaped on a passenger plane in Australia leading to a prolonged search of the aircraft.

The photo shows a Stimson’s python about the size of the snakes on the Qantas plane.

Twelve non-venomous Stimson's pythons were being transported on a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne on Tuesday. They were in the plane's cargo area in a bag inside a plastic foam box , which was studded with air holes.

When the flight landed, it was discovered that four snakes had escaped from the package, a Qantas spokeswoman said. It is not known where the snakes got to during the flight, or if there were any chance encounters with passengers, but it would appear there were no altercations either in the toilet cubicles or in the plane's main cabin.

Unlike the cult movie, airline staff were not forced to shoot out windows to blow the snakes out the cockpit. Instead they fumigated the entire plane to make sure the snakes did not re-emerge on another flight.

In the very unlikely event the snakes survived, they could grow up to one meter long, making them undoubtedly easier to find.

Stimson's pythons live in western and central Australia in arid, woodland and rocky areas.

Although they are not poisonous, the small snake, which is not endangered, shares attributes with larger variations of the species, such as coiling around its prey and squeezing until suffocation.

Link

Another dumb celebrity quote…

Shaquille O'Neal was asked by Sports Illustrated whether he had visited the Parthenon during his visit to Greece in 1994.

The Shaq replied, “I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we went to.”

Did Google Street View catch a burglar?

This action picture showed up on Google Street View.


Is he a burglar or just someone wanting a gymnastics workout. He’ll probably tell the cops he locked himself out the house.

FOX News ratings surge on protest coverage

Number of viewers from 8:00 to 11:00 PM April 15

FOX News - Bill O’Reilly 3,980,000
FOX News - Sean Hannity 3,239,000
FOX News - Greta Van Susteren 2,947,000
FOX News - Glenn Beck 2,740,000
FOX News - Bret Baier 2,401,000
FOX News - Shephard Smith 2,185,000
MSNBC - Keith Olbermann 1,499,000
CNN Headline News - Nancy Grace 1,336,000
CNN - Larry King 1,292,000
MSNBC - Rachel Maddow 1,149,000
CNN - Anderson Cooper 1,021,000

Jetstar Airways charged overweight passenger for two seats

An Australian passenger says she was forced to pay for two seats after Jetstar Airways said she was overweight.

Jetstar made her book and pay for a second seat for other people's comfort because of her size.

Jetstar’s ruling seemed to make sense until the plus-size passenger found that the two seats she was forced to pay for were not adjoining seats. How could she possibly occupy seats across the isle from each other?

Link

How to fix the economy

Obama admin vs. wisdom of Thomas Jefferson

Below are a few Thomas Jefferson quotes that we should ponder as we see our country starting down the slippery slope towards Socialism:

"Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
Thomas Jefferson

And finally, an analogy that has become more prophetic with each generation:

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."
Thomas Jefferson

Thoughts on the April 15 tea parties

The Wall Street Journal estimated there were about 2,000 Tea Parties around the country. Hard to really tell since many were organized quickly at the last minute. Below is a Google map of the Tea Party locations.


A few Lucianne comments follow:

Attendees were respectfully angry with more government and less liberty. It was not what CNN and MSNBC would have us believe. Anderson Cooper, who usually doesn’t know what to say without a script in his teleprompter, mocked the participants.

When Cooper was asked why the protestors were not ranting and raving, all he could say was “they can’t talk with tea bags in their mouths.”

Cooper’s comment spoke volumes about the mentality of the personalities appearing on CNN.

It was truly a grass roots movement carried out by people making posters on their kitchen tables with no mass-produced signs that are typically handed out at rallies by unions or political parties. Most were posterboard and magic marker on a yardstick.

Signs included: Spread my Work Ethic, Not my Wealth and Stop the War on Success. A child held a sign saying: Please don’t redistribute my video games!.

Left-wing liberals and main-stream media are puzzled and disturbed because there is no clear 'leader' of this movement - no conservative politician to blame. Whenever a local politician spoke the comments were not “anti-Obama.” It was “anti-federal spending and big government and the resultant higher taxes to pay for it all.”

What frightens the administration is this is truly a movement of the American people that must be stopped.

In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano introduced James Carville (pictured) today as the new Right Wing Extremism Threat Assessment Czar.

"Dr. Carville has an unparalleled understanding of the danger the right poses to President Obama’s vision of America," Napolitano said. "He will work with AG Holder and Democratic Attorneys General across the country to ferret out and expose subversion masquerading as dissent."

So, who are these people the administration calls “extremists masquerading as dissenters?”

They are “rank and file” America. Folks that get up early, send their kids off to school and go to their jobs every day. They pay their bills, provide for their families and pay their taxes.

When the Vietnam War protestors began, their numbers were small at first but continued to grow as the movement gained momentum. This movement may do the same.

Jesus removed prior to Obama speech per White House request

When Mr. Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday, several folks noticed something was missing - Jesus.

It was an ancient monogram -- the letters IHS -- that symbolizes the name of Jesus.

Amidst all of the American flags, presidential seals and teleprompters, the name Jesus had to be covered before Mr. Obama would give his speech at Georgetown University.

The White House asked that Georgetown University cover the symbol of Jesus before the Obama speech

Other similar symbols around the room were not covered. The one that the White House wanted covered was behind the podium and would be seen in photos of Obama during the speech.

A spokesperson for the university said: "I can’t imagine, as the bishops’ university and the national university of the Catholic Church, that we would ever cover up our religious art or signage for any reason."

Will main stream media news outlets cover this story? No, they can’t take time to cover a story about Barack Hussein Obama insisting on removing the name of Jesus prior to a speech.

ABC News is more interested in showing videos on their on-line news pages of Troopers testifying in the Palin probe, even though that story was non-news when it happened over six-month’s ago.

CNN and NBC are more interested in giving us the poop (pun intended) on the White House dog.

Link

Football icon John Madden calls it quits

NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol announced that John Madden (pictured), Hall of Fame coach and the most honored broadcaster in sports television history, has decided to retire from broadcasting.

Madden issued the following statement this morning:

"It’s time. I’m 73 years old. My 50th wedding anniversary is this fall. I have two great sons and their families and my five grandchildren are at an age now when they know when I’m home and, more importantly, when I’m not…”

Since he left coaching in 1979, the former Oakland Raider coach has worked as an analyst for all four broadcast networks. His "Madden NFL Football" is the top-selling sports video game of all time.

John Madden quick facts:

A 21st-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958.

Became the youngest coach in the history of the AFL in 1969 at the age of 33.

Signed four-year broadcast contract in 1994 for $32 million, which was more than any NFL player was making at the time.

Afraid to fly, he travels about 80,000 miles per year in the Madden Cruiser, an $800,000 fully equipped bus, complete with kitchen, queen bed, office and sauna. Two of his Madden Cruiser busses are shown below. He hasn’t stepped on a plane since 1979.

Authored five books that have made the New York Times best-seller list.

His NFL video game is one of the all-time top sellers.

Has a masters degree in education from Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University).

Named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Two of the Madden Cruiser's he has used over the years are shown below. They are 45-foot luxury rolling command post's, with high-speed Internet access, multiple TVs, a navigation system, cell phones and a fax - all in satellite contact with the outside world.






The photo above shows Oakland Raiders coach John Madden and his quarterback Daryle Lamonica during a game against the Washington Redskins in October, 1970.

Link here and here.