Year: 2007

Accused Hacker Gets Appeal To Law Lords

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The Law Lords are a committee of the House of Lords in the UK, and they function as the court of last appeal there.

They have accepted the appeal of Gary McKinnon, the blithering idiot who broke into Pentagon computers looking for UFOs.

While I have little affection for McKinnon, who, the law under which he is to be extradited is a farce. It requires no showing of proof, and no guarantees of due process, so he could be sent directly to Gitmo.

The law Lords agreed to hear arguments that US authorities acted in an “oppressive” and “arbitrary” manner during plea bargaining negotiations, for example by allegedly threatening McKinnon over the loss of rights to serve part of his sentence in the UK unless he submitted to voluntary extradition.

This is the problem with this US-UK agreement. It’s being misused.

It’s intended for terrorists, but its first use was for a group of bankers engaging in white collar crime, and now it’s being used to attempt a plea bargain.

This is why you have limits prosecutorial power.

That being said, one thing is certain, McKinnon is not the biggest idiot involved in all of this:

The 41-year-old has said he gained access to military networks – using a Perl script to search for default passwords – but describes himself as a bumbling amateur motivated by curiosity about evidence of UFOs rather than a cyberterrorist.

The people, hopefully now unemployed, who did not change their default passwords probably need help cutting their steak.

Another 911 is Inevitable, What Next?

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It’s a statistical certainty. When looking at the current “thwarted terrorist attacks”, it’s apparrent that what our state security apparatus is catching are not hardened trained terrorists, but rather fanboy terrorist wannabees.

Even so, if we were to have a competent anti-terrorist effort, another successful attack is inevitable. No defense is one hundred percent.

This is the question that Marty Kaplan asks:

But no more than King Canute could stop the tide, no more than a Big One in California can be prevented, no more than the hundred thousand people who will die in accidents this year will evade their untimely ends, an act of domestic terrorism is inevitable. What counts is how we think about it right now, how we prepare today for when it happens tomorrow, and how we handle it — politically, emotionally, morally — when, as it must, it occurs.

Is there any doubt that the Bush administration, and its dead-ender allies in the Republican Party and the media, will use an act of domestic terrorism as a fresh opportunity to further demonize their political opponents and further compromise the Constitution? Will they truly be able to resist the temptations of martial law, emergency powers, and the phony prerogatives of the unitary executive in wartime? In Britain, in Israel, in Spain, in Ireland, we have seen political leaders decline the invitation to demagoguery that domestic terrorism has offered, and instead to put violence in perspective, to refuse to compromise reason and democracy, to summon their citizens to remain themselves rather than become their enemies. When the unthinkable happens to us again, will the politicians who pissed away the unity following 9/11 in the sands of Iraq have the moral wherewithal to remind us that no matter how grief-stricken we may be, the sky has not fallen and the republic has not failed?

If I could manage to be smarter about risk than I usually am, I would worry less about the possibility of terrorism, and more about the probability that the same chickenhawks who exploited it before to sell us on war without end, will exploit it again to sing the virtues of temporary fascism.

We know that the Bush and his Evil Minions™ are incompetent, and that their code places power and personal loyalty above everything else.

Even if we grant them that they have some limits, and that they won’t let a terrorist attack happen for political gain, and I DON’T grant them the benefit of the doubt, we know that another attack will happen, and that they will use this as an excuse to consolidate political advantage.

How do we deal with this fact?

Another Mortgage Lender Bites The Dust

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It appears that American Home Mortgage will shut down Today. It’s lenders have made margin calls, and it has no money left.

This is not a subprime lender. This is an Alt-A lender.

American Home specializes in Alt-A mortgages, an alternative for A-rated borrowers who can’t satisfy all the terms for a regular “prime” mortgage. Founded in 1988 by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Strauss, the company became the 20th- largest Alt-A lender by 2006, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance. IndyMac Bancorp Inc. ranked first.

This is not the first lender to go under, you can see the accellerating rate of mortgage lender failures at the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter.

Blu-Ray May Have a Chance in the Format Wars

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History has shown that the adult entertainment industry leads the consumer electronics field in adopting new technologies.

It led the adoption of VCRs, it was probably the deciding factor in the VHS/Betamax format war, and popularized DVDs.

Well, it appears that, Blu-Ray is the format of choice for Japanese porn (HD-DVD is the format of choice in the US).

This is significant change of direction for Sony, who created Blu-Ray, as they have typically been very aggressively using licenses to keep erotica out of their formats.

They still don’t “get” it. The disks have to be produced in Taiwan, and reimported, but they appear to be having at least a bit of a clue now.

Still, despite the head start, HD DVD isn’t exactly taking the porn industry by storm. Several U.S. companies interviewed earlier this year have not made good on their plans to release titles in HD DVD, while Blu-ray Disc appears to be gaining ground with its new initiative to work with Japanese adult film makers. The result could be a shift in Blu-ray’s favor. U.S. adult film makers said they would use whatever makes sense, and only favored HD DVD early on because the format is less expensive to make movies with and they received extensive help from HD DVD backers.

A friendlier face from the Blu-ray Disc camp appears to be working with Japan’s porn industry. Perhaps it could work in the U.S. as well.

Why The US is Hated

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This article by Mohsin Hamid gives an excellent picture of the lack of concern in both the American policy apparatus and the American public to the tremendous damage that is done by American policies towards people and institutions who are NOT the target of these operations.

He is in a unique position to understand this, having spent his time from ages 6-9 in the US before moving back to Lahore, Pakistan, and then returning to the US for college.

…

For another, growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s let me see firsthand the devastating effects that the best of U.S. intentions can have.

…

But there is another major reason for anti-Americanism: the accreted residue of many years of U.S. foreign policies. These policies are unknown to most Americans.

They form only minor footnotes in U.S. history. But they are the chapter titles of the histories of other countries, where they have had enormous consequences.

America’s strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.

He moved back to Pakistan just as the civil war that Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brezinski bought* was ramping up, and he saw the effects:

  • “Kalashnikov assault rifles from those camps began to flood the streets of Lahore, setting in motion a crime wave that put an end to my days of pedaling unsupervised through the streets.”
  • Zia began an ongoing attempt to Islamize Pakistan and thus make it a more fertile breeding ground for the anti-Soviet jihad.
  • Public female dance performances were banned, female newscasters were told to cover their heads and laws undermining women’s rights were passed.
  • Secular politicians, academics and journalists were intimidated, imprisoned and worse.
  • The angry groups of bearded men who began enforcing their own morality codes became a fact of life.
  • An explosion in cheap Heroine, and hence addiction and associated problems, as a result of it being Mujahideen’s primary revenue source for their activities.

He makes the very wise commnet, “Simply because America has — often for what seemed good reasons at the time — intervened to shape the destinies of other countries and then, as a nation, forgotten those interventions.”

The Taliban and al Queida are a result of both our policies in the Afghan civil war, and then our ignoring the mess that we made.

*It’s clear that the Afghan civil war was a product of American to create it. While there was always banditry in Afghan countryside, Brezinski, with Carter’s approval paid money to, and armed those bandits, with the hope of creating, and embroiling the Soviets in, a Vietnam Style civil war.

It worked all too well, and given that this was about half a decade from the fall of Saigon, they both had to know the suffering and death that this would create.

The Sordid Tale of the JASSM is now Well into the Twilight Zone

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You know the deal. The missile’s unit cost has doubled from about $400K t about 800K, and it has a 42% failure rate. There are suggestions that it be replaced by equivalent european systems, like the the MBDA Storm Shadow or Taurus KEPD 350.

Congress and the military have not yet done this out of concern for pork and lucrative consulting gigs industrial base.

Well, now we have Boeing calling for it to get the opportunity to manufacture it, because they can do better than Lockheed.

It certainly would be hard for them to do worse.

Criminally Incompetent Greenspan Has Given Us This Meltdown

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Well, first we have Steven Pearlstein’s (WaPo Business Columnist) comments about recent events.

It’s not just about subprime mortgages anymore.

The turmoil we’re witnessing in global financial markets is nothing less than the popping of an enormous credit bubble that built up over the past five years, artificially inflating the market prices of stocks, bonds and real estate. It created a bonanza for Wall Street investment houses and private-equity funds and fueled the longest and strongest period of global economic growth in modern history.

While this characterization is generally accurate, it is FAR too limited.

I would refer you to an analysis of Greenspan’s tenure in the European Tribune post which is in turned based on an editorial from the Financial Times (subscription, which I do not have, required) calling Greenspan a “a serial inflationist, willing to slash interest rates to bail out investors who should not need rescuing from themselves”, while doing his best to keep wages low.

Such is to be expected for one who was a confidant of Ayn Rand. For her, wage earners are weak people, and the indivicualist capitalists are all that is good in society.

This is where Mr. Pearlman is wrong. This has not been going on for 5 years, but closer to 20 years, since Alan Greenspan flooded the market with liquidity to bail out those who were caught in the 1987.

In fact, it’s deeper than that, as evidenced by his bailout of Long Term Capital Management, where a less lucrative market driven buyout was sabotaged.

Alan Greenspan was the most enthusiastic cheerleader of bailouts for investors, while aggressively working to knock the pins out from stability and protections of ordinary people.

If something big went wrong, he would open the money tsunami, and if something went smaller went wrong, he would arrange for private bailouts.

He has created an economy with very little risk, and the high liquidity has produced very in the way of reasonable returns for conventional financial instruments.

In so doing, he has created a situation where insane levels of risk have become ordinary, and so more people have taken these risks.

Needless there a number of other people bear responsibility, Jimmy Carter, who started the rollback of Depression era regulations, Reagan who accelerated it to alarming (savings and loan debacle) levels, and both Bush I and Clinton have been instrumental in deregulating the economy to a dangerous degree.

That being said, when the meltdown occurs in the next few years, it will be Greenspan, whose policies are most responsible for these problems, who gets the lions share of the blame.

Johnah Goldberg Calls for Return To Jim Crow Laws

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Jonah Goldberg, the second most egregious example of hepotism taken to extremeshas an editorial in the Los Angeles Times in which he calls for a return to Jim Crow era voter qualification tests.

He asks, “Why not test people about the basic functions of government? Immigrants have to pass a test to vote; why not all citizens?”

Well, given that Fox News watchers are the least informed news consumers out there, this could benefit Democrats.

So let’s ask some basic questions of citizens:

  • Which Branch of government has the exclusive right to delcare war?
  • Give conditions in which executive privilege do not apply.
  • How does the 13th amendment effect the powers of the states?
  • Who appoints federal judges?
  • Who appoints Ambassadors?
  • Who appoints Cabinet Members?

Here re the answers: Senate, almost all of them (at least from the rulings from the Clinton days), that all rights in the constitution apply to the states too, Senate, Senate, Senate

The president does not appoint these folks, he nominates them, the senate appoints them.

Seriously the only person stupider than Goldberg is the idiot who suggest that he write OP/Eds for the LA Times.

Anatomy of a Collapse: Bear Stears

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It’s clear to me that Bear Stearns is complete toast.

They have just halted redemptions on a third hedge fund. This fund had less than “0.5 percent of its assets in securities linked to loans to subprime borrowers”.

People are losing confidence in the market, and in Bear Stearns in particular.

My prediction: in one year, Bear Stearns will cease to exist. It will either be forced to liquidate, or it will be bought out in a fire sale. I’ve already written a post dated blog post for August 1, 2008 (it’s a year short, but 2008 is a leap year, so it’s 365 days, and August 1 is a nice round date).

Eating Our Seed Corn: The Minnesota Bridge Collapse

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In staring at the rubble that was a bridge on CNN today, the question is “why?”

Speaking strictly as an engineer, I can say that there was either a point load, or a tensile load (the strength of ceramics over time in tension is zero) leading to a failure.

That misses the big picture.

The big picture is that at least since the 1970s, the United States has created prosperity, or the illusion of prosperity, through eating its seed corn.

Eating one’s seed corn is a metaphor. It refers to a farmer eating seed that is reserved for planting the next year. It feeds his belly now, but creates a disaster the next season.

Through the systematic dismantling of protections on things workers rights and speculative investments, along with literally running infrastructure constructed over 40 years ago into the ground, we have created a little pop.

Things seem fine, but at some point, the poper must be paid.

Equal Opportunity Bigots: Republican Evangelicals Hate BOTH Catholics and Mormons

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As much as I hate to agree with a group of bigots like Donohue’s Catholic league, and as much as I would like to feel a little bit of Schadenfreude about this as a Jew who has been routinely slandered by him and his little hate group, I have to agree with him here.

The Catholic bashing letter sent by the incredibly aptly named Huckabee Supporter Reverend Rude saying, “Huckabee is an evangelical. He has not learned how to speak to evangelicals; i.e. Bush 41 & 43. He is one of us. I know Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s. I don’t if this fact is widely known among evangelicals who are supporting Brownback“.

It would appear that Tim Rude got his ordination from a cereal box, and his sense of right and wrong from either Father Coughlin or William Donohue himself.

It would be nice to dismiss him as just a crank supporter, but he is more than that. He is a campaign volunteer.

If Governor Huckabee is serious about disavowing this, he needs to take two steps:

  • Kick the person off the campaign immediately.
  • Get this person to publicly apologize.
  • State clearly that no speeches or political events will be held at the Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights.

Small F#$%ing World, But I’d Hate to Paint It.

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I was in the lunch line today, waiting to wrap my food, and the guy ahead of me was having problem with cling wrap. (have to wrap the food if you leave the cafeteria)

I made a comment about the stuff being the bane of everyone’s life, and he looks up, and goes “Matthew Saroff!!!“

It was Scott Campanella, who ran member services for ages at Arisia*. He’s also at BD, but he works at a different building in the industrial park.

Small bloody world.

I think that we’ve both picked up a bit of weight (I KNOW I have), and he’s gotten all the hair that I’ve lost (that picture in the profile is 28 years old).

On a note of meta, I’ll be changing the blog address today, to something a bit more mnemonically friendly (i.e. NOT misspelling the word “forty” ). I’ve already figured out how to autoforward from this addy.

I’m working on this, so posting will be light.

*Arisia is a science fiction convention in Boston that I founded in the early 1990s, I ran the first two.

My Wife is a Member of ZOG, and I Didn’t Even Get a F$#@ing T-shirt

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My wife got a fund solicitation from AIPAC today. I haven’t gotten anything.

I’m feeling so left out. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be a member of the Zionist Occupation Government?

But it’s not like I’d give those morons money. They have their tongue so far up GW Bush’s ass, they can taste his tonsils, and this guy would sell Israel down the river in a minute for Prince Bandar.

Bush Flouts Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Laws

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The single most likely place on earth, and George W. Bush is handing nuclear technology to the Indian government so that he can throw some money toward some of his contributors.

Didn’t we invade Iraq on the suspicion that Saddam was doing what George Bush is doing now?

Let’s see:

  • They are refusing to release the text of the agreement.
  • India still refuses to sign the NNPT.
  • The agreement is vague enough that the Indians claim no restrictions on nuclear weapons.
  • Bush added a signing statement telling congress to go pound sand.

When do we invade the white house with the 82nd Airborne?

Seriously, what has Bush not screwed up beyond all recognition in the past 6+ years?

Very Light Jet Mfg Makes Teeny Jet

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Eclipse, whose Eclipse 500 very light jet pretty much launched the segment has unveils a single engine teeny weenie jet prototype.

I think that this is Eclipse hedging its bets. It has a lot of orders, but from air-taxi services, which are an unproven business model, so it could be left with egg on its face.

I think that this may be bet hedging. It’s a bit small for air-taxi services, but as a personal jet it seems about the right size, with a 1+3 cabin, as opposed to the 500’s 1+5 cabin.

Swift Engineering of San Clemente, California was contracted to assist with the design and build the ECJ in slightly over six months.

“Swift Engineering has been a tremendous partner, and was instrumental in taking this new aircraft from design to flight test so rapidly,” says Raburn.

Six months is very impressive. My guess would be that this is a product of their experience with friction stir welding, which among other things, allows dissimilar materials to be welded, which has largely been responsible for the low cost of the Eclipse 500.

Remember, Always Wear Seat Belts…If Nothing Else

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Here we have the story of a head on collision with a happy….relatively death free ending.

Collision involved naked couple

Investigators think that alcohol was a factor in a head-on collision in Comal County on July 18 in which two victims were pulled from their car naked.

“The only thing they had on was the radio . . . and their seat belts,” Department of Public Safety Cpl. Rick Alvarez said.

On the evening of July 18, Lisa Marie Bishop, 25, of Austin was driving north on FM 1102 north of New Braunfels when she went around a curve and swerved into the southbound lane, crashing head-on to a truck driven by Juan Montoya, 49, of New Braunfels, Alvarez said.

Montoya was not injured. Bishop sustained injuries that were not life-threatening, but her passenger, 26-year-old Robert Rydeen of Austin, was airlifted to San Antonio and was in stable condition Monday, officials said.

Bishop told investigators that she and Rydeen had been at Schlitterbahn Waterpark and had removed their wet clothes for the drive home, Alvarez said. Investigators found some wet clothes in the car as well as evidence of alcohol consumption.

Alvarez said that in his 13 1/2 years as a DPS trooper, he had never before investigated a crash involving nude drivers.

“But she’s from Austin,” he said, “and I figure Austin folks are a little different.”

You think?????