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Politics
Political Squabbling
My Solutions to Illegal Aliens
Apr 6th
Crossing the border is an illegal act, but that act is typically the only illegal intention of illegal border crossers. In other words, most of the illegal aliens streaming into the country are coming, not to rob banks, not to leech off of the welfare system, but to come to work for better wages and the hope for a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
Things must be tough at home in Mexico, Nicaragua and other Central American countries. Must be tough in South America too, since you never hear of Colombia complaining about illegal border crossings.
But the amount of illegal aliens in the country are indeed a problem, and one that is so big there are no easy answers. You can’t jail 11 million people. You cant easily deport that many either.
So what do you do?
First, stop the stream of new illegals. You must do this by making the risk of illegal border crossing too high. As it stands now, if they are caught, they are returned and they try again another time. If illegal aliens faced the risk of death, injury or longterm imprisonment, the risk would be so great that they would not cross.
But American law enforcement can’t really shoot to kill. That would be wrong, but it would be effective, and a quick solution. It might even start an international incident. Law enforcement can’t maim illegals either. There aren’t enough jails to hold them all either. So how do you go about increasing the risk?
You threaten the possibility of death by the assurance of capture. You bring home enough National Guard Troops and position them on the border where there is insignificant coverage. You capture any illegals entering the country. All captured illegals are fingerprinted and photographed and tracked by databases for ICE, or Immigration Customs Enforcement, part of Homeland Security.
You conscript them in the war on terror. Make all illegal males of fighting strength and age enlist in the army, and send them to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight against terrorists. Make them disarm IEDs. Make them corpsmen, cooks and support staff of the US Military. After six years of duty, they are eligible for US Citizenship, and America would welcome them into the country not only as fellow citizens, but as heroes. As soldiers, their immediate families would be allowed to remain in the US.
Men and women that cannot cut it as military conscripts can either be transported back across the border, or they will be pressed into service building the wall along the border to prevent other illegal crossers from coming into the country. When they are finished building the wall, they are sent back across the border.
If people are caught attempting to enter the country illegally twice, they are imprisoned for five years, mandatory, and then transported back across the border after their release.
The above steps should curtail new illegal immigrants from trying to enter the country by illegal border crossings. Now, the next step is to increase the risk of those illegal aliens that are already in the US to live here day to day.
You do this by easily allowing illegal immigrants to leave. If they turn themselves in, they get transport out of the country without being fingerprinted or photographed or charged with a crime for entering the country illegally. Its amnesty, but only if they actually leave the country.
Next, you increase the penalties for hiring illegal aliens. You give employers access to the social security database to verify social security numbers are authentic at the time of hiring.
Make it illegal to rent or sell property to anyone that is not authorized to live in the United States. Allow Realtors access to verify social security numbers to ensure authenticity.
Make it illegal to receive public services such as schooling and electricity without proper verification of authorization to live in the United States. Once the risk becomes so great that it is no longer worthwhile to live in the United States, the illegal aliens will agree to leave.
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Loading ...Stupid Hollywood Whores: Part 1- Sharon Stone
Mar 29th
Sharon Stone, who is pushing 50 and a new movie called “Basic Instinct 2,” has made a huge splash lately in the news headlines with stupid comments that highlight two things- Sharon Stone is Stupid, and, Sharon Stone is a whore.
As a reminder, Sharon Stone became famous for her first Basic Instinct movie, in which she spread her legs on camera and showed the world her hairy hatchet gash.
Its too bad that Sharon Stone’s basic instinct isn’t to keep her big yap shut.
To prove she’s stupid, consider Evidence A- her naive views on Peace in the Middle East, which she declares is just a “Breath Away.”
From Breitbart here:
A peaceful co-existence between the peoples of the Middle East is but a breath away, Hollywood star Sharon Stone said after a highly publicized visit to Israel.
“It feels to me that we have an opportunity … to choose understanding in a new way,” she told a press conference in Paris when asked about her trip.
“And it really is just a breath. It’s just an agreement that’s just a breath. We are not far apart. We can choose to have this alternative kind of growth that is a collective nuance of understanding.
“We are just that breath away from a peaceful co-existence.”
What a friggin genius! Why didn’t the rest of the World figure this out before her? She said these wonderful pearls of wisdom after she prayed at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, once again proving that you can visit Israel and come back with your head still attached.
If Sharon Stone were to go to Gaza City and spread her legs to show the Palestinians her Holy of Holies, and then return with her head still attached to her neck, then the world might believe that there is hope for Peace in the Middle East.
Evidence B: Hillary Clinton is a ‘babe’ with Sexual Power. From Human Events here:
Stone said, “I think Hillary Clinton is fantastic. But I think it’s too soon for her to run. (for president) This may sound odd, but a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power, and I don’t think people will accept that. It’s too threatening.”
The video of her making this statement, and I think I saw her drool a bit imagining Hillary naked, is here at Michelle Malkin’s site.
I know what people are thinking who have read this far- But Pat, her political views don’t make her a whore! No, but Evidence C suggests it quite well. From the Post Chronicle in the UK here:
Sharon Stone explains, “I was in the store the other day and I watched a young girl trying on clothes, showing her abdomen.” Her mother was trying to talk to her about not being inappropriately alluring.
I said, ‘Gee that would look much nicer with a camisole under.’ “Her mother walked away, and I said to the girl, ‘I’d like to give you a two-minute conversation about sex.’
“Young people talk to me about what to do if they’re being pressed for sex. I tell them (what I believe): oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. “If you’re in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job. I’m not embarrassed to tell them.”
Notice how she waited until after the mother walked away before she spouted this sage advice. If her mother was there, Stone would have been slapped in the face for saying such things. If I were to walk around the local Sears telling little girls that they should chug cock whenever they got a chance, you would see my picture on the local news! But Sharon Stone gets away with it because she thinks she is superior to the commoners.
Evidence suggests that Sharon Stone is a Stupid Hollywood Whore. My basic instinct is to save my money and avoid any movies where I would be forced to gaze at Stone’s gaping hole- her open mouth or any other orifice for that matter.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...The French are Sissies
Mar 28th
Yeah, I know, this is hardly headline news. Massive protests all over France today. It seems that someone tried to pass a law that it is okay to fire someone from a job in the first two years if that person is a slacker. Well, those gold bricker Frenchmen will have nothing to do with that! Viva la Revolution!
PARIS – Nationwide strikes disrupted airline, train and bus service, closed the Eiffel Tower and sent hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets across France on Tuesday as unions joined in solidarity with students angered by a new labor law.
Tuesday’s strikes represented the first time that the unions had ordered walkouts in support of the student protests of the labor law, which would make it easier for companies to fire young workers.
Organizers estimated that 3 million people joined marches across the country claiming 700,000 in Paris alone. Police estimates were far lower.
Some of the marchers in Paris skirmished with each other, as union members armed with truncheons charged several dozen youths who tried to break into a lingerie store. Other demonstrators threw stones, traffic cones and other projectiles at riot police, who surged repeatedly into the crowds to make arrests.
I was watching the riots on Fox News and saw a bunch of French men and boys throwing things at the befuddled French Police, who were all wearing riot gear and wielding Lexan shields.
The police are in no danger. The French throw like girls.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...The Feds Reject Checkpoint Buyout of SourceFire
Mar 24th
The best firewall in the world is owned by an Israeli company, Checkpoint. Its more robust than Cisco Pix, easier to manage, more versatile, and it works with most other security products more easily than Cisco.
Snort, an open source Intrusion Detection System, was spun off into its own company, SourceFire, and it is still the best Intrusion Detection System around, bar none. Snort is very easy to use and you can write custom detection filters on the fly.
When you combine both the Checkpoint and Snort into a solution, your enterprise network is pretty secure.
But the Federal Government will not allow SourceFire to be sold to Checkpoint.
From the Register here:
A takeover bid by an Israeli firewall firm has become the latest victim of US security protectionism. Check Point Software has dropped its bid for US rival Sourcefire after objections from the FBI and Pentagon were heard by the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investments.
The Committee has also overseen the recent rumpus surrounding the Dubai carve-up of P&O, which would put Arab business in control of US ports.
Federal agency objections to the security software tie-up center on the implementation of Sourcefire’s anti-intrusion software ‘Snort’ by the Bureau and Department of Defense, AP reports. In private meetings between the panel and Check Point, FBI and Pentagon officials took exception to letting foreigners acquire the sensitive technology.
If the $225m deal had gone ahead as announced back in October, Check Point would have got the rights to all patents and source code. Check Point says the two companies will find ways round the roadblock.
I have worked all around the Federal IT space. The US Government does not use Checkpoint Products. Instead, they use outdated firewalls like old-timey Raptors or other kluged-together old DoD products. Most modern agencies use Pixes. Most of the DoD now uses Cisco products as well. But no Checkpoint Technology allowed. Checkpoint apparantly does not even compete for the Federal dollar for firewall security.
Why? Well, the exact reason is supposedly classified. Rumors have swirled for years that there is an insidious Israeli backdoor in the firewalls. Which may have been the case one day long ago, but the claims seem dubious to persist to this day. Properly managed, there is no way to hack into a Checkpoint Firewall. There are other attacks against the network, like a Denial of Service, DNS poisoning, etc, but unless you are an authorized IP address to manage the firewall, you will not break into it.
It is telling that the DoD and the FBI were the ones that testified that this deal should not go down between Checkpoint and Sourcefire. The fears are obvious, however- The United States is afraid, that should there be a cyberwar, they do not want to risk allowing the Israelis having the opportunity to have seeded their products with crippling code that could render American Enterprises and critical infrastructures inert.
But running enterprises with security products that are inferior, less durable and less resilient to attack is the greater risk.
American Protectionism wins again to America’s detriment.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...North Korean Atrocities
Mar 22nd
North Korea has the bomb. And they destroy children born with birth defects. And they sell their females into slavery in China. And the women, living in absolute poverty (of course, this IS Communism), whore themselves out for a handful of rice.
From Reuters here:
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday.
Ri Kwang-chol, who fled to the South last year, told a forum of rights activists that the practice of killing newborns was widespread but denied he himself took part in it.
“There are no people with physical defects in North Korea,” Ri told members of the New Right Union, which groups local activists and North Korean refugees.
He said babies born with physical disabilities were killed in infancy in hospitals or in homes and were quickly buried.
The practice is encouraged by the state, Ri said, as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered “different.”
Mun Hyon-ok said women from her hometown in the northern region of North Korea bordering China were taken by a ring of human traffickers and probably ended up in China.
“And there are women who are selling themselves for a handful of rice,” she told the forum.
North Korea has called itself a people’s paradise and said criticism of its human rights was motivated by a goal of toppling the leadership of Kim Jong-il.
Yet somehow, the international Human Rights groups focus on Guantanamo Bay, where we keep terrorist suspects imprisoned in relative luxury, and they say that we must end this practice. Other groups will blame the US for North Korea’s misery because of UN sanctions. Both ideas are merely anti-American sentiment.
But North Korea remains a threat because of their nuclear weapons program. But their army is likely too hungry to march or fight, and the citizenry cannot long support a military because of the abject poverty created by Communism.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Bush Lays the Smackdown on Helen Thomas
Mar 21st
President Bush told the Troll reporter, Helen Thomas, exactly why he invaded Iraq, even after Helen so rudely tried to interrupt him with her misleading Moonbat questions.
Thanks to Drudge for providing the transcript.
Helen Thomas, who in January grumbled that President Bush was a “coward” for not calling on her at a press conference, today was granted a question for the first time in several years. The doyenne of the White House press corps, who once called Bush the worst president in U.S. history, seized her chance with gusto, essentially debating Bush instead of questioning him. Here’s the transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: Helen. After that brilliant performance at the Grid Iron, I am — (laughter.)
Q: You’re going to be sorry. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let me take it back. (Laughter.)
Q: I’d like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet — your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth — what was your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil — quest for oil, it hasn’t been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise — in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist — is that — I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect –
Q: Everything –
THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.
Q: — everything I’ve heard –
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it’s just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We — when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I’m never going to forget it. And I’m never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Part of that meant to make sure that we didn’t allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that’s why I went into Iraq — hold on for a second –
Q: They didn’t do anything to you, or to our country.
THE PRESIDENT: Look — excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That’s where al Qaeda trained –
Q: I’m talking about Iraq –
THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That’s where — Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That’s where they trained. That’s where they plotted. That’s where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That’s why I went to the Security Council; that’s why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences –
Q: — go to war –
THE PRESIDENT: — and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.
Q: Thank you, sir. Secretary Rumsfeld — (laughter.)
Q: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re welcome. (Laughter.) I didn’t really regret it. I kind of semi-regretted it. (Laughter.)
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Sucks to be Cuban
Mar 21st
The game born in America has been adopted by the World. Full details are here.
The World Baseball Classic just wrapped up, and the Japanese Team really stuck it to Team Cuba, sending them back to their impoverished island nation with a score of 10 to 6, with 4 coffin nail runs coming from Japan in the 9th inning.
Cuba tried to rally a couple of times in the game, and kept sending in relief pitchers- Eight in all- just enough to give all of its Cuban fans a little bit of hope. Those fans, who gathered together in a public park in Havana- because they can’t afford televisions in the People’s paradise- saw their last hopes of anything resembling happiness crushed by the Japanese team.
During the game, ESPN accidentally caught sight of one of the many signs that declared “A free Cuba in Our Generation!,” but it cut quickly away to Japanese fans waving their rising sun flags in the crowd.
After the game, you could see men dressed in black, which one can only suppose were Cuban political officers, covering the dugout exits to ensure that no Cuban players tried to make a dash to freedom. The Cuban team would certainly have to go back to Cuba to be forced to apologize to the Cuban people for their heartbreaking performance on Monday night.
Congrats to Team Japan and to the Japanese people for a great win in a hard-fought baseball game. And Team Cuba- it sucks to be you.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...City Outlaws Use of Legal Product
Mar 18th
The town of Calabasas, California has outlawed the use of a perfectly legal product that has been in in American society for more than 200 years. The outlaw does not include, however, the ban on the sale of the product.
From ABC Los Angeles:
CALABASAS – Life will be a drag (Ha Ha, I love it when news writers try to be funny by using stupid puns) for smokers in the city of Calabasas starting today, when a strict ban on lighting up in most outdoor spaces takes effect.
The ban, perhaps the most comprehensive smoking ban in the United States, prohibits smoking in all public places at times when other people can be exposed to secondhand smoke.
The “Comprehensive Secondhand Smoke Control Ordinance” includes indoor and outdoor businesses, hotels, parks, sidewalks, restaurants and bars where people can be reasonably expected to congregate or meet, according to an announcement from the city of Calabasas.
People will still be allowed to smoke in their homes.
Mark my words, this sanctuary of smoking at home will not last for long. Why would anyone ban secondhand smoke if they will not have the guts to ban secondhand smoke from children and other non-smoking family members? As liberals, the city will of course claim that no one can smoke at home because it will be “bad for the CHILDREN!”
“The only exception is if your apartment, back yard or balcony is directly adjacent to a common area, such as a laundry room or pool,” the city announced in a list of frequently asked questions on its Web site.
Smokers who can’t or won’t kick the habit can still light up in public as long as they are “at least 20 feet away from any path of travel, doorway or place where people congregate.”
If someone complains, the smoker will have to extinguish the cigarette or move, according to the ordinance.
People violating the ban will be ticketed and possibly fined. The city said it expects to rely on warnings and citations but will consider more serious penalties for willful or repeat offenders.
So this law apparently has no teeth. What good is a ticket if there is no fine attached? Maybe you can use the ticket for toilet paper. In order for this law to be effective, you must have a penalty that is four times the cost of a typical assault and battery cost of punching someone in the face. Allow me to explain:
If I were a smoker (which I’m Not) and were charged with distributing second hand smoke, and someone told me I had to move or extinguish the cigarette, or else face the consequences of a non-fine ticket versus punching the nosy busy-body in the nose for a fifty dollar fine, I would be 25% inclined to assault my busy-body neighbor.
This translates to letting the asshole neighbor tell me to put out my cigarette 3 times. On the fourth time, I would rearrange his face, because it would be worth it. It would be worth it because for 50 bucks, I would be able to shut the mouth of a neighbor who did not have the common sense to move where my smoke was not bothering him. PLUS, the neighbor would be 75% disinclined to report such a stupid breach of public policy in the future.
If the fine were equal to the cost of the assault charge, every smoker would be inclined to get his or hers money’s worth from the fine. Lotsa people would be walking around with fat lips.
If the fine for public smoking were double of the fine of assault for a punch in the mouth, then citizens would only punch someone in the mouth every eight times that they were warned not to smoke around them.
Only when the fine became as steep as 200 dollars, or four times the typical fee of a punch in the mouth would the law become effective. That is the point that it would become economically painful to teach a busy-body neighbor a lesson about courtesy, and the smoker would realize that he would need the fine money to be able to buy more cigarettes.
Of course, second-hand smoking has never been proven to cause cancer or any other health risk. According to the New England Journal of Medicine:
studies were published in no less than the American Journal of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine. And, even using the same less-stringent methods as the EPA, they would have shown that passive smoke leads to no statistically significant increases in the risk of lung cancer.
You see, the whole impetus behind the banning of cigarette smoke is the fallacy that second hand smoke causes lung cancer, but statistically, this has never been proven. In fact, statistically, you could argue that any wife of a movie star that has suffered a debilitating spinal cord injury is 100% prone to death of lung cancer. That would be a true statement, according to this article: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-03-14-voa2.cfm
But it would not mean that the statement is correct. Dana Reeve did not smoke, and neither did Christopher Reeve. But Christopher Reeve was a celebrity that suffered a debilitating spinal cord injury. Did this injury therefore doom his wife to a grisly death of lung cancer? The statistics would say so if they were phrased correctly.
I propose to the smokers of Calabasas to stand up for your rights and punch busy-body neighbors who complain about your smoking square in the mouth. Statistics show that you may actually be saving their lives from attacks by Siberian Tigers.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Bruce Schneier is Wrong on Data Mining
Mar 9th
Bruce Schneier of counterpane considers himself an expert on all things related to computer security, and is the CTO of Counterpane, an Internet managed Security Services Provider that continues to struggle against its competitors in the space. Schneier believes that he is an imminently important person, and feels that his leftist agenda should be embraced by both the public and private sectors in American Society.
He once tried to claim that, because the government was running on a Microsoft Platform, it was a target of destruction to an as yet unknown threat that could bring down the whole “monoculture.” His opinions on the monoculture were seen for what it actually is, which is anti-Microsoft and anti-big business biases.
Schneier has no way of knowing whether or not the US has been successful in its pursuits of terrorism using data mining techniques, and in fact, any successes would be classified anyways. Now Schneier says that the government should stop trying to use computers to catch terrorists, because it just won’t work.
From Wired News Here:
In the post-9/11 world, there’s much focus on connecting the dots. Many believe data mining is the crystal ball that will enable us to uncover future terrorist plots. But even in the most wildly optimistic projections, data mining isn’t tenable for that purpose. We’re not trading privacy for security; we’re giving up privacy and getting no security in return.
The promise of data mining is compelling, and convinces many. But it’s wrong. We’re not going to find terrorist plots through systems like this, and we’re going to waste valuable resources chasing down false alarms. To understand why, we have to look at the economics of the system.
This is the first mistake Schneier makes- looking at security as an economic calculation. What is the monetary value of preventing terrorism? Is it measured in costs of lives? How about costs in economic loss? 9/11 almost caused an economic meltdown on Wall Street by using 15 stooges and some box cutters.
And it is clear that Schneier subscribes to the leftist idea that privacy, which is not defined as a freedom anywhere in the constitution, is more valuable than any exposure of privacy in efforts to fight terrorism.
Security is always a trade-off, and for a system to be worthwhile, the advantages have to be greater than the disadvantages. A national security data-mining program is going to find some percentage of real attacks and some percentage of false alarms. If the benefits of finding and stopping those attacks outweigh the cost — in money, liberties, etc. — then the system is a good one. If not, you’d be better off spending that capital elsewhere.
Data mining works best when you’re searching for a well-defined profile, a reasonable number of attacks per year and a low cost of false alarms. Credit-card fraud is one of data mining’s success stories: all credit-card companies mine their transaction databases for data for spending patterns that indicate a stolen card.
Terrorist plots are different. There is no well-defined profile and attacks are very rare. Taken together, these facts mean that data-mining systems won’t uncover any terrorist plots until they are very accurate, and that even very accurate systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless.
To reduce both those numbers, you need a well-defined profile. And that’s a problem when it comes to terrorism. In hindsight, it was really easy to connect the 9/11 dots and point to the warning signs, but it’s much harder before the fact. Certainly, many terrorist plots share common warning signs, but each is unique, as well. The better you can define what you’re looking for, the better your results will be. Data mining for terrorist plots will be sloppy, and it’ll be hard to find anything useful.
This is exactly the sort of thing we saw with the NSA’s eavesdropping program: the New York Times reported that the computers spat out thousands of tips per month. Every one of them turned out to be a false alarm.
And the cost was enormous — not just for the FBI agents running around chasing dead-end leads instead of doing things that might actually make us safer, but also the cost in civil liberties. The fundamental freedoms that make our country the envy of the world are valuable, and not something that we should throw away lightly.
This is Schneier’s second mistake, letting his political bias show. He claims that the NSA program was eavesdropping at a cost to American’s fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. He neglects outright to say that the NSA program was listening in on phone calls to known terrorists and known telephone numbers uncovered during counter-terrorism investigations. And again, he claims that the civil liberties and freedoms are more valuable than all of the economic loss, not to mention the value of the lives of 3000 Americans on 9/11.
Finding terrorism plots is not a problem that lends itself to data mining. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and throwing more hay on the pile doesn’t make that problem any easier. We’d be far better off putting people in charge of investigating potential plots and letting them direct the computers, instead of putting the computers in charge and letting them decide who should be investigated.
He uses “too many false positives” as the reasoning behind discontinuing efforts in this direction. Which is also disingenuous considering his role in managing systems that spit out millions of false positives per year.
Bruce knows that you adapt systems constantly to narrow false positives by applying intelligent filters, using human analysis and counter-intelligence. To claim that such a trick is impossible to perform, not worth the effort, or ultimately valueless when American LIVES are at stake would be dishonest of him. And if you are a customer of his, you would have to wonder if he cares so little about your own security should you fall under a cyber attack.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Hillary at the State of the Union
Mar 8th
I watched the State of the Union address with a few friends of mine over beers, and I remembered how dour and angry Hillary looked at times whenever the camera panned to her for a reaction to some of the President’s statements on social security, the USA Patriot Act and others. Here is a funny clip that demonstrates this expression. Thanks to my buddy Jim for forwarding this to me!
Click the photo the see the video.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Barbra Streisand is Stupid Liar
Mar 7th
Oh Barb, why don’t you stick to portraying lovable annoying retired Jewish Mothers as you did in Meet the Fockers? You were funny then. And despite your years intervening between that movie and your last paying gig on the silver screen, you still showed you had what it takes to be in a movie.
But you should really leave the blogging and political rants to those with enough intelligence to locate the spell check feature of their Word-Processing Program.
Barbra Streisand is an idiotic dolt who has the gumption to accuse our President of being unintelligent because he had a C average in Yale. Babs never went beyond the 12th grade. Judging from her unedited rant that appeared on her website last week, its Babs that is the dumber of the two, and she clearly shows an inability to spell words with more than three syllables. Not knowing how to spell is not a crime, but pretending to be a publisher of opinion on the Internet without knowing how to use a spell checking program should be.
From the NY Daily News here:
Drudge spells it out for Barbra
Songstress Barbra Streisand spells her first name funny, and that’s her prerogative. But right-leaning cybergossip Matt Drudge ? who delights in tormenting Streisand for errors on her political blog, www.barbrastreisand.com ? believes the Democratic diva desperately needs spell-check.
Drudgereport.com yesterday gloated: “Barbra Streisand has launched a new spelling error-ridden dispatch on the Internet ? a dispatch that mocks President Bush for being a C student!”
Drudge reported that in an anti-Bush diatribe, “Streisand flubs 11 words, a personal record.” Among the errors: “Irag,” “curruption,” “dictatoriship,” “warrented” and, yes, “desperatly.”
Yesterday, a couple of hours after Lowdown alerted the Streisand camp to Drudge’s spelling feint, her online polemic was corrected. And Streisand’s PR rep, Dick Guttman, sheepishly explained: “The errors ? are regrettable and have resulted in a change in how the actress’ own contributions to the blog will be posted.” He blamed the mistakes on the company that operates Streisand’s Web site: “The errors occurred in that entity’s typing of the original dictated material. Henceforth, Ms. Streisand’s office will post her essays directly.”
Drudge quipped: “Ah, the perils of Internet journalism!”
Barbra Streisand lied about how this occurred. She wants the public to think that she is not an idiot, but blames her own webmaster or web hosting company for mistakes in translating dictated material?! Dictated means spoken word, specifically into either a recording device or to a secretary that still practices the dying art of dictation, which is a shorthand scrawl that is fast to write and accurate in its copy.
If Babs used a recording device, it means that she sat down, wrote her thoughts (hopefully) into note cards or onto a legal pad, and read those notes aloud to the recording device. Then she had to get the the recorded data to her webmaster for translation. The webmaster would await the fedex package (or maybe UPS?), unwrap the tape or similar recorded media, listen to it, and pause the tape every few seconds so the webmaster could write it up on a computer file for eventual upload to the website.
If Babs used an aging secretary who still practiced the fading art of shorthand dictation, then the secretary would then have to drive to deliver the dictation to the webmaster so the secretary could translate it for the webmaster, and again, the webmaster would take frequent pauses to write down all of Babs’ missives. Or, the secretary could mail it to another secretary who had the ability to read shorthand, and that person would read it to the webmaster. Or miraculously, the webmaster could read shorthand, but the odds of that are very slim.
You may be able to see at this point that this is a great expenditure of effort to translate a dictated message from Babs. Wouldn’t it be easier for Babs to just use a computer and email the text to her webmaster? Is Babs trying to create the impression that she has neither the intellect nor the need to operate a computer? Does she still live in a 1970′s lifestyle where computers are not allowed in her home?
Of course not. Babs wrote this piece electronically and emailed it to her Webmaster, who performed a simple copy and paste to put it up on the website. Babs should learn to use the spell check before she goes off accusing others of being stupid. How do I know she has a computer? Logic dictates it, but there is other proof. She sued an internet webmaster several years ago because he was documenting coastal erosion in California, and he posted a picture of her estate. She would only know about this if she had a computer or access to a computer.
What the heck, its a pretty house, I will post it here too.
Maybe someone will reply with a Google Earth photo of her home as well. Or is she currently trying to sue to shut down Google because you can see her house on it?
So Babs is lying about the error being due to typing a translation. And if she has access to a computer to post her diatribes directly as Guttman claims above, what is the need to dictate anything? Liar Liar, Babs.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...EnvironMENTALism is a Hoot
Feb 21st
A new movie is set to debut next month called Hoot. Hoot is about a Montana boy who relocates to South Florida, and proceeds to get picked on at school. He then befriends a homeless and perpetually shirtless kid who shows the Montana boy that there are owls living on a vacant lot that is scheduled to be turned into “Mother Paula’s All American Pancake House.”
Watch the trailer for this movie here:
This movie appears to be an environmental zealot’s dream. You have all of the elements- a homely, big-boned unattractive tomboy, a cute adorable homeless boy who is so tanned, he never wears a shirt, a crusade against corporate expansionism, bully cops who are also stupid, cute little fuzzy owls and greedy land developers. Yeah! DOWN WITH THE MAN!!
The premise of the movie is that only the homeless boy knows that the owls, which happen to be endangered, are on the empty lot. Rather than getting adults involved and following the proscribed process of getting a court injunction, the homeless boy urges his friends to break all the rules and think like an outlaw, because “There is nothing to stop them from bulldozing one coast to another.” Although it does not show it, I can presume that there is much vandalism involved in the youthful eco-terroristic antics.
Including the part about standing in front of a bulldozer. Hmm… Funny that the site is intended to be a Pancake House. I wonder if the restaurant will serve Rachel Corrie pancakes? For those that don’t know, Rachel is considered a martyr among the extreme left for throwing herself under an Israeli bulldozer to protect a Palestinian terrorist’s hideout.
And what is with this scrawny sunken-chested boy? Are the movie’s makers trying to stir the yearnings of underaged girls with a mixture of lust and eco-terrorism? I wonder if they will sit in a drum circle and sing Kumbaya?
The movie is based on a book by Carl Hiassen, whom I enjoy as an author. Many of his books highlight dangers to the Florida ecosystem, and the stories come off without being so preachy. I really enjoyed Skinny Dip, for instance. But this trailer makes it seem that environmental message is the theme of the movie, and the leftist stereotyping of business, police, and government play equally large roles as well.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Kook Hacker Fights Extradition With Kook Lawyers
Feb 14th
A British Hacker, dope smoker, and conspiracy theorist who hacked into US military and scientific computers in a vain effort to locate evidence of UFO coverups is fighting extradition to the United States. To do this, he hired lawyers that are helping known terrorists that are held in Guantanimo Bay to fight his extradition based upon fears that he will be held without parole in Cuba and threatened with torture.
From Reuters here:
LONDON (Reuters) – A British
computer enthusiasthacker accused by the U.S. government of the world’s “biggest military hack of all time” began a court fight against extradition to the United States on Tuesday.Gary Mckinnon was arrested last June following charges by U.S. prosecutors that he illegally accessed 97 government computers — including Pentagon, U.S. army and navy and NASA systems.
Prosecutors say he hacked into sensitive networks over a one-year period from February 2002 and caused $700,000 worth of damage, after crippling U.S. defense systems in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
If found guilty, Mckinnon could face up to $1.75 million in fines and 60 years in jail.
Mckinnon’s lawyers say he might be prosecuted under military law if he were sent to the United States and could be subjected to “special administrative measures” such as solitary confinement and other tactics to persuade him to plead guilty.
He could even face the prospect of being sent to Guantanamo Bay with no chance of parole, they say.
Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in London is expected to hear from Clive Stafford-Smith, a human rights lawyer who acts on behalf of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
Mckinnon — whose hacking name was Solo — admits gaining access to U.S. government computers but denies he caused any damage. His supporters say the U.S. government should be grateful to him for highlighting its security shortcomings.
U.S. prosecutors say there is no evidence Mckinnon downloaded classified information or forwarded files to foreign governments.
One of the allegations relates to McKinnon deleting files from computers at a U.S. naval station during a critical time following the September 11, attacks, rendering the base’s network of computers inoperable.
This article paints the hacker in the nicest of ways, letting the reader think that perhaps, the man is actually innocent. He’s not. He bragged about his exploits to a UK newspaper. He admitted his guilt. At the time that the article came out, another UK based security team analyzed the article in the newspaper in which McKinnon bragged about his elite skillz- that article is here:
It would seem Gary “Uber Hacker” McKinnon is not so “Uber” after all. After reading his interview on Spy.org.uk it has come to our attention that his technical knowledge and indeed, mental state, is not all that it should be.
But then again, if you are as high from smoking cannabis as Gary Mckinnon seems to delight in telling everyone he was when perpetrating the alleged US Military hacks, then there is really no telling what you’d do.
The interview is embarrassing for anyone remotely technically inclined to read more or less from the outset but becomes almost farcical toward the end:
Jon Ronson, the reporter for the Guardian asks “The Americans have a secret spaceship?”
“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.” Replies Mckinnon.
Despite all this forbidden knowledge Gary still does strenuously deny the US justice departments charge that he caused the “US military district of Washington” to become “inoperable”. Well, once, he admits, but only once, he inadvertently pressed the wrong button and may have deleted some government files.
“What did you do then?” asks Ronson.
“I thought, ‘Ooh, bloody hell’ ” Mckinnon says.
Way to go. Oh yes, be careful with the buttons. You never know what you’ll do; perhaps delete some important UFO files so you have absolutely no evidence of any of your unbelievable claims when you are inevitably caught and publicly convicted of military grade ‘hacking’ by a superpower you were, by your admitted actions alone, clearly trying to subvert by stealing secrets from; surely you’d keep evidence, surely that would be the point. No. Gary has forgotten all the details. Gary the ‘uber hacker’.
Aside from which it’s always a good idea to deny charges but then admit to them later in interviews, that s a sure fire way to help your case.
Gary was caught in November 2002. He says it was inevitable, in retrospect, because he was “getting a bit sloppy“. He pauses. “I’d never have envisaged this happening to myself, but I did get a bit megalomaniacal as well.
According to The Guardian’s interview government agencies found Gary in the end because he’d used his own email address to download a “hacking program” called Remotely Anywhere.
Remotely Anywhere is a remote system administration tool. Not a “hacking program”.
“God knows why I used my real email address,” McKinnon later says. “I suppose it means I’m not a secretive, sophisticated, checking-myself-every-step-of-the-way type of hacker.” Quite.
So the US government have caught the biggest hacker of all time?
Biggest, or stupidest?
The original Guardian Story is here, which details how McKinnon was a complete stoner loser. It contains nuggets like the following:
And so, for the next seven years, on and off, Gary sat in his girlfriend’s aunt’s house, a joint in the ashtray and a can of Foster’s next to the mouse pad, and he snooped. From time to time, some Nasa scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would see his cursor move for no apparent reason. On those occasions, Gary’s connection would be abruptly cut. This would never fail to freak out the then-stoned Gary.
“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”
“Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?”
“I guess so,” says Gary.
“What were the ship names?”
“I can’t remember,” says Gary. “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”
He quit his job as a systems administrator for a small business, “which hugely pissed off my girlfriend Tamsin. It was the last straw. She dumped me and started seeing this other bloke because I was such a selfish waste of space. Poor Tamsin. And she was the one paying the phone bill because I didn’t have a job. We were still living together. God, have you ever tried living with someone after you’ve split up? It’s bad.”
So it seems that the US Government wants to bring this idiot to our shores to stand trial. If he is convicted, it will just pile on to what has already seemed like a pretty miserable life. It couldn’t happen to a better kook.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Katrina Victims Trapped by Blizzard of ’06
Feb 13th
As millions began the week by shovelling snow off their sidewalks, some families, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and now trapped by the snows of the blizzard of 2006, began their week with a call for Federal aid that never showed up.
“We called the Red Cross and FEMA, asking for a helicopter ride or a snowblower, and they flat-out refused our requests!” exclaimed Sharonda Brown, former resident of New Orleans.
“Families are stranded in their homes with no way to get out,” said an angry Kanye West during a break while he was shooting a new mucic video that depicted him as Jesus Christ. “This is clearly George Bush’s fault.”
Out of the three dozen families that had been relocated to suburban Washington DC hotels and shelters, only one family had a snow shovel that could be used to get them down their driveway and to freedom. “We come from the south. We have never seen no snow like this,” said LeBron Washington, a former resident of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. “Now I’m stranded in this house, with no way to get to the store or even to the Bus Stop so I can go look for work.”
There were early reports of cannibalism, rape and at least one beheading in the homes of the trapped victims, but these reports have not been substantiated.
The Bush Administration, despite knowing about the pending snow storm for two days, failed to deploy a single Homeland Security Specialist to dig these Katrina victims from their snowy tombs.
The office of Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff declined comment. It is not kown at this time whether or not Democrat Senators will call for hearings, although House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi commented, “This is just the latest proof that this administration is filled with scandal and cronyism.”
Pelosi then called for an immediate cash assistance grant to those victims stranded by the 2006 blizzard in the amount of Two Thousand dollars.
All is not lost for those families trapped and suffering due to the neglect of the Bush Administration and its mismanagement of the Blizzard Crisis of 2006. Sean Penn recently purchased one dozen Huskies from PetSmart, and is currently working on building a hand-made dog sled. “If I can manage to get these dogs and this sled on an airplane, I will fly to Washington and mush these dogs to the rescue of George Bush’s victims,” he quietly averred.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Mayor Nagin to Sell New Orleans Back to French
Feb 6th
Well, almost. Despite all of the money pouring into New Orleans to fix the city that is below sea level, Mayor Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin is telling foreign governments that they should help out by fixing up whole neighborhoods. From Reuters here:
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.
Nagin, who has hosted a steady stream of foreign dignitaries since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, says he may seek international assistance because U.S. aid has not been sufficient to get the city back on its feet.
“I know we had a little disappointment earlier with some signals we’re getting from Washington but the international community may be able to fill the gap,” Nagin said when a delegation of French government and business officials passed through on Friday to explore potential business partnerships.
Jordan’s King Abdullah also visited New Orleans on Friday and Nagin said he would encourage foreign interests to help redevelop some of the areas hardest hit by the storm.
“France can take Treme. The king of Jordan can take the Lower Ninth Ward,” he said, referring to two of the city’s neighborhoods.
The Bush administration has pledged billions of dollars to Katrina victims but five months after the storm, New Orleans remains largely in ruins.
Nagin said his message to President George W. Bush would be that the federal government needs to refocus on the devastated area.
“We need your undivided attention over the next six months,” he said. “We need backup. We need for you to make the words that you spoke in Jackson Square a reality.”
Nagin was referring to the president’s September 15 address to the nation from New Orleans, in which he pledged “we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes” to rebuild.
French Transport Minister Dominique Perben, leading the French delegation to a city that was founded by France in 1718, said, “This catastrophe has deeply upset the French people and the French government.”
France, Perben said through a translator, “wants to be a long-term partner for Louisiana and New Orleans.”
So after buying New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory from France, Nagin is set to give a portion of it back to France in exchange for aid and the chance to make President Bush look like he doesnt care about blacks, the NO Saints, or whoever else still lives down there. But what makes Nagin think that King Abdullah would want the crappy 9th Ward?
And if this is indeed a Chocolate City, maybe the Swiss will help out the city by supplying some fine nougat to the French Quarter. What with all of the chocolate and nuts, some nougat injection would turn the place into a giant Snickers Bar.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...EFF: Endangering National Security
Feb 2nd
Well, our friends at EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are back again and still trying to endanger the lives of Americans. First, they tried to stop airports from asking for people’s identification. Now they are suing AT&T to attempt to force them to stop allowing the NSA to use their data to track down terrorists and persons with ties to Al-Queda within the United States. From Information Week here:
A group that
claims to protect electronic freedoms is suing a private telecommunications company in a class action lawsuit that claims the company gave the National Security Agency direct access to massive amounts of communications data.“The government did not act alone and is not acting alone,” lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a complaint filed against AT&T Tuesday. “The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal spying program.”
The suit claims that the NSA program is illegal, that AT&T serves many millions of customers contacting people in foreign countries through their long distance and Internet services and that it appears AT&T has been giving direct access to customers’ personal and protected data at least since 2001.
The complaint, filed in the Northern District of California on behalf of an unknown number of customers nationwide and in the Sunshine State, alleges that the company’s conduct violates several federal competition and privacy rules as well as First and Fourth Amendment rights.
The program is not illegal. And I am very happy that our government and the US corporations are working together to fight the minions of Mohommed and their evil intentions to destroy Americans. EFF is playing a dangerous game here with the lives of US citizens, and I predict a loss in the lawsuit. I also think that they are dangerously close to violating the rules of operating their non-profit organization by engaging in obvious political actions.
Its also cute that the EFF tries to associate the AT&T logo with the Death Star. I wonder if Lucasfilm gave them permission to use that image? Oh well, I stole the logo from EFF’s site without their permission. I’m sure that’s okay, because the EFF believes that information should be free.
See also this post.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Liberal Loses; Airport ID Checks Constitutional
Jan 27th
The 9th Circus Circuit Court of Appeals got it right today. They told a Liberal Activist, and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation that yes, you need an ID to fly, and NO, it does not violate any contitutional rights against unreasonable searches or any supposed “right to travel.” From the AP here in WAPO:
SAN FRANCISCO — An appeals court on Thursday dismissed a legal challenge to federal airport regulations requiring passengers to show identification before they board planes.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims by Libertarian activist and millionaire John Gilmore that the policy constituted an illegal search and violated his right to travel freely.
After reviewing the government’s identification policy in private, a unanimous three-judge panel said the policy was not overly intrusive. The review was done in private for security reasons.
The court said Gilmore could leave the airport if he didn’t want to show his ID and had other ways to get around besides air travel. It also rejected assertions that the act of showing identification was an illegal search of Gilmore, who made his millions as a founding employee of Sun Microsystems.
He said government regulations should be disclosed in writing to the public. While millions of passengers willingly show their IDs at airports, Simpich said there is no way to know whether the regulations call for impermissible searches because the government, and the court, won’t make them public.
The court rejected the argument, saying airport signs and airline workers give adequate notice that an ID is required.
The court noted that the secret regulations allow passengers to fly without providing an ID if they submit to searches. The court dismissed assertions that such searches are unreasonable.
Justice Department lawyer Joshua Waldman argued that demanding identification “promotes the right to travel by protecting everyone’s safety.”
Gilmore is a classic elitist propellor-head. He can postulate right-sounding reasons why the government should not be involved in copyright protections, cell phone tracking, and even airport identification, but he ignores the real practical dangers of threats against Americans. Had the ruling gone the other way (and who knows with the 9th?), Gilmore would be responsible for removing a first line of defense against terrorists on American soil by allowing unrestricted air travel to all. And no, not everyone is allowed to travel freely, nor should they be.
Just because Gilmore is anti-government does not mean that he is a Libertarian as the article suggests. His stance on drug legalization, copyright protection by copyright holders, and even simple behavior as a netizen corrals him squarely into the Liberal Elitist group. Rules do not apply to him, he is smarter than everyone else, and there is a perfect digital utopia out there, and dammit, he is going to bring it about, regardless of his impact on other peoples’ safety and rights.
On the other hand, the case does reveal that you can fly Naked.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Fidel Throws Up Flags to Protest Blinky Sign
Jan 27th
Old Fidel hasn’t been this worked up since his last baseball team defected. You see, the United States Interests Office, located on the 5th floor of the embassy of Switzerland in Havana, Cuba, has been running a blinky light scrolling marquee sign with quotes from Abe Lincoln, Martin Luter King jr, and Anti-Commie Polish Prez Lech Walesa. Such information about freedom cannot be tolerated, so Fidel ordered all of his peasants to march in front of the mission (some reports say a million people took place in the march, but I doubt this claim since Cuba lacks the ability to move that many people). I wrote about this here.
Since this display of Fidel’s ability to make his peasants march failed to stifle the blinky sign, Fidel threw another tantrum and decided to work 24 hours a day to erect a series of tightly packed tall flagpoles that he hopes will shield the poor commie peasants from the injurious impact of the sweet, blinky words of freedom.
ABC News has part of the story here-
Cuban President Fidel Castro, after marching more than a million people by the building earlier this week, has ordered construction workers to extend an open-air stage in front of the mission right up to within yards of the gate. He plans to mount huge flags on the stage to block the ticker from view, a construction ministry source said.
The stage is called the anti-imperialist tribunal and was built during the tug of war between the United States and Cuba to have shipwreck victim Elian Gonzalez returned to his father from Miami. The venue is currently used for political and cultural events.
Cuba plans for the flags to fly by Saturday, the birthday of the country’s founding father, Jose Marti, leader of the Caribbean island’s independence war against Spain.
“We have five days to do this job, working 24 hours a day,” a construction worker said on Tuesday when Cuban flag-sporting bulldozers and other heavy construction equipment began ripping up half of the U.S. diplomatic mission’s parking lot.
Castro has waxed furious over the electronic sign, which he charges is a gross provocation aimed at torpedoing already fragile bilateral relations.
“It is clear when they decided to do this outrageous act and they could not have had in mind anything but a provocation to destroy fragile relations,” Castro said Wednesday while visiting the construction site.
Castro charged the Bush administration had turned the Interests Section into a command post to “organize and direct the counterrevolution” and funnel money and supplies to his opponents.
The Chicago Tribune has more about the quotes here:
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent,” the quote by Lincoln read.
Also passing slowly on the 5-foot high ticker, which is on the building’s fifth floor and is illuminated only at night, is a quote by French philosopher Voltaire that reads, “Man is free in the moment he wishes to be free.”
And what do the Cuban’s think? Well, whatever they think, they refuse to say, much less give their name for fear of being identified as a counter-revolutionary- Again, from the Tribune,
Few Cubans say they have seen the ticker because island officials have blocked off traffic around the U.S. Interests Section building in recent days.
Even before that, Cuban officials prohibited vehicles from stopping in front of the Interests Section, a modernist building on the Malecon, Havana’s sweeping seaside boulevard.
“You have to drive fast on the Malecon, and it was impossible to read,” said Llanes, a Havana taxi driver who refused to give her last name out of fear of being identified.
And not everyone thinks this is a good idea for the US Mission to do this. Who opposes it? Why a Jimmy Carter-era Democrat, of course! Again from the Trib-
But Wayne Smith, the former top U.S. diplomat in Cuba during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, said the sign would only further aggravate relations between Cuba and the United States.
“Instead of tackling real issues they are doing this,” said Smith. “It’s theater of the absurd.”
Theater of the absurd? I like it. Castro is terrified by the red blinky lights. And the folks running the US Mission are COOL.
“Thanks for the info” goes to Michelle Malkin and the Babalu Blog.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Bush Rigs Camera; Misses Troll Reporter
Jan 26th
President Bush held a news conference today and seemed very disappointed that a camera he had rigged to fall on the head of annoying reporter and wrinkled troll, Helen Thomas, failed. It was a dissapointing Wile E. Coyote moment. He played it off well though, using humor to hide his frustration at missing his attempt to “conk” the Troll on the head. From the AP here:
WASHINGTON – President Bush’s first news conference of the year was just a camera strap away from becoming hazardous to reporters.
As the president began his opening statement, a camera that the news service AFP had hung from the ceiling dropped and nearly fell on the heads below. It was caught by its strap, and Bush stopped and looked at it dangling precariously.
“Are you wearing your helmets?” he joked to reporters sitting in the White House briefing room.
Bush was full of quips during the 45-minute news conference, poking fun at the media and deflecting some of the heat when questioning got intense.
Yes, Bush acknowledged, he had his picture taken with admitted criminal Jack Abramoff.
“Having my picture taken with someone doesn’t mean that I’m a friend with him or know him very well,” he said. “I’ve had my picture taken with you at holiday parties.”
Helen Thomas was snubbed by the President during the press conference, even though she raised her hand and went “Ooh! Ooh!” I’m certain the president snubbed her because she is always stuck on stupid. She asks the same dumbass questions over and over again, and she has the annoying habit of looking like a bitter old troll. Maybe she should go back to living under a nearby bridge and harrassing billy goats.
This is from Drudge-
President Bush today again avoided taking a question from White House doyenne Helen Thomas during his 45-minute press conference, even though he took questions from every reporter around her front-row, center seat.
“He’s a coward,” Thomas said afterward. “He’s supposed to be this macho guy. He’ll take on Osama bin Laden, but he won’t take me on.”
Thomas, who worked as the UPI White House reporter for 57 years and is now a columnist, raised her hand every time the president was concluding an answer to a reporter’s question, but he never called on her.
She had a few questions in mind, though. “I wanted to ask about Iraq: ‘You said you didn’t go in for oil or for Israel or for WMDs. so why did you go in?’”
She also had another question at the ready, just in case, this one about the president’s contention that a 28-year-old wiretapping law known as FISA is out of date, which prompted him to order the National Security Agency to conduct a secret electronic surveillance program that Democrats contend is illegal.
“You keep saying it’s a 1978 law, but the Constitution 200 years old. Is that out of date, too?”
Afterward, Thomas sat sullenly in her chair in the White House press work area, huddled in her leopard-print winter coat.
Aww… The Troll’s feelings were hurt. Even though the UPI folded up and locked its doors years ago, Helen still remains. And if you think I’m being mean about calling the old battleax a troll, take a look at this. One photo is a model for a Troll from the Lord of the Rings Movie. The other is Helen Thomas. Can you pick out the real woman?
Update: The Political Teen has a video of the news conference here.
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(No Ratings Yet. Rate It!) Loading ...Castro Leads Protest Against a Blinky Sign
Jan 24th
Cigar smoking tyrants can’t stand free information, especially when it is in the form of red blinky lights that scroll across a ticker-type screen.? So he buses in thousands of people and makes them walk along the street and call Americans “cockroaches”, and those protesters better comply too, if they know what’s good for them.?
?
From Reuters, here:
HAVANA (Reuters) – President Fidel Castro sent hundreds of thousands of Cuban marchers past the U.S. mission in Havana on Tuesday to protest a five-foot-high (1.5- meter) ticker that streams news and human rights messages across its windows.
Castro accused the Bush administration of “perfidious” provocation of a new crisis between Havana and Washington.
As he climbed the podium to send off the march, the U.S. ticker flashed “Conservatives win elections in Canada” and other headlines in bright red letters behind him and in full view of the marchers.
The headlines were followed by quotes from Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that toppled Poland’s communist government and led to the collapse of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.
“They have turned on the display. How brave the cockroaches are. Little Bush must have sent the order,” an angry Castro said.
The communist leader, who turns 80 in August, was dressed in his trademark military fatigues, but did not join the march past the U.S. mission on Havana’s Malecon seafront, as he has in previous protests.
“The government of the United States … is planning to force a rupture in the current minimum diplomatic links with Cuba. The gross provocations by its Interests Section in Havana can have no other purpose,” Castro said in his speech.
The ticker began displaying messages across 25 windows of its fifth floor on January 16 when it flashed “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up” from U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s famed 1963 speech.
Shortly before the march kicked off, President Fidel Castro addressed the people to point out that the island?s response to US provocations would be ?entirely peaceful, but we shall strike back with all the strength of our moral fortitude.?
U.S. diplomats said the display is aimed at breaking the “information blockade” or censorship in a country where the media is state-run.
An earlier version of this story reported about how all of the thousands of protesters got there, which was by bus, and it also mentioned that there were supposedly 1.4 million cubans involved in the March.? I think they must have Million Man March syndrome (the main symptom is to lie about your number of attendees), because there aren’t enough buses on the whole island to hold 1.4 million people.?
And I like how he vows to use “Peaceful” responses to the outrageous attack of free information!? Oh No!? We Americans are powerless against “Peaceful Responses!”? Castro can make thousands of citizens walk down the street because he got pissed off.? Wow, that sure shows US!
Also, the people HAD to march if they wanted to eat and not be put on an enemies list.? I wonder if Elian Gonzalez got to attend this little rally?? Also, the sign announced that the US was going to allow Cuba to play baseball in the World Baseball Classic, which the Cuban government has not announced to its citizens.? The reason Cuba doesn’t want its people to know about the games?? Maybe because it doesnt want more defections.? See more about the game here.
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