Friday, August 11, 2006

Dry Bones on Lebanese situation


This would be even more funny if it weren't so true.

posted by mailgeek @ 2:14 PM 0 comments

Microsoft Security Oopsy.... I lost count

If you are a techno-geek, go read this one from Computerworld. Then go buy an Intel Mac and Parallels, download Solaris 10 and you are set :-)

No, my employer did not nor did my friends at Apple put me up to that. I am just very happy with my new laptop situation and thought I would share.

posted by mailgeek @ 2:09 PM 0 comments

For those of you who forgot

The Facts about Isreal is a great post by Tammy Bruce with some of the pertinant tidbits some people like to ignore. Yes, it is one sided. I happen to be of the opinion that there is a right and a wrong side on this issue. No, I don't want all the Arabs in Gaza or the West Bank summarily executed and I am pretty sure Tammy doesn't either. The world gave the Jews back their homeland and we just want people to let them live there in peace.

posted by mailgeek @ 2:03 PM 0 comments

Stewart settles

For all the folks who thought that dear sweet Martha was only persecuted because she was a successful business woman and "THEMAN" was out to get her, consider this.

CEOs worth millions of dollars do not settle for just short of the maximum punishment possible on SEC charges and agree not to be a public officer for 5 years lightly. This is especially true with charges that are actually quite hard to prove. I therefore submit that I conclude that they had her dead to rights.

Technically, this is not an admission of guilt of a crime. Technically, anyway. It is worth noting that the rules of evidence in an SEC trial are substantially different than a traditional criminal trial. Saying that you are not guilty because the rules of evidence in a criminal court are quite restrictive for the prosecutor is a claim that rings hollow in my ears.

posted by mailgeek @ 1:53 PM 0 comments

Egyptian Students Missing

Does anybody think that maybe this story is somehow related (directly or indirectly) to the liquid airline bombers?

posted by mailgeek @ 1:51 PM 0 comments

Joe Lieberman and the fate of the donkey

I intended to write a big long post on this when I had a few minutes and then I ran across Ann Coulter's piece this week. I can't top it so I'll just point to it. I am quite seriously considering writing Senator Lieberman a check which is sad because I don't agree with him on much and have never lived in Connecticut. That said, Lamont is an anti-semitic empty suit and we have enough utter embarrassments in the US Senate.

There are three paragraphs that just have to be plucked out both for their humor and their pointed truth of the situation. Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing.
Gandy's support for Lamont must have been a particularly bitter pill for Lieberman to swallow, inasmuch as he has long belonged to the world's smallest organization solely to satisfy bloodthirsty feminists like Gandy's Orthodox Jews for Partial-Birth Abortion. (OJFPBA has just slightly more members than GBRFC, "Gay Black Republicans for Choice.")

.......

By contrast, Democrats were nearly split, with only 46 percent agreeing that America is generally a fair and decent country, and with 37 percent saying America is not a generally fair and decent country. Only 48 percent of Democrats said they thought that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

Democrats constantly complain that the nation has never been so divided, but consider that half of them think the statement that America is a good country is a divisive remark.

posted by mailgeek @ 1:41 PM 0 comments

Airline Security Vent, part 27

As you all know I do a fair bit of domestic flying so I have followed this latest revelation and the various government's responses closely. First I will acknowledge the great work done by the various intelligence and security folks around the world who managed to stop this group of 20+ IslamoNazis from blowing up a bunch of jumbo jets full of people. We now believe that at least part of the information used to track this plan down was the President's "terrorist surveillance program", once again proving that the whole kerfuffle over that program should now be officially over. We know that the Pakistan government helped which shows that they at least want us to think they are our allies. This is all goodness and light.

All of that said, what is airline travel going to look like in September or December? At the moment US airlines are not allowing any liquids on the planes and the Brits are not allowing much beyond your wallet and meds to travel with you on the plane. Yep, that's right, if I do a trip to Heathrow tomorrow for business I will have to put my $500 cell phone, my $400 iPod, and my $3000 laptop in the hands of the ever gentile and trustworthy "luggage gorillas" on the way back. Anybody see a little problem with this as a practical matter?

As another bit of info, consider that I rarely check a bag at all. I don't have official statistics but I would guess that on a Monday morning (the height of domestic travel here) well more than half of the travelers have not checked a bag. Do we believe the TSA can magically double or triple the number of checked bags screened and do it well with no notice? Are you serious?

I am not complaining about the now. The security folks are doing the only things they think they can and in the very short term this will be accepted by the traveling public. We will push off the trips we can and hope it doesn't last long. We will bitch in the Admiral's Club and the hotel bar but we will tolerate it...... for a little while.

Let's now compare a round trip flight to Tel Aviv on the world's most terrorist targeted airline to a country in the middle of a shooting war with a simple NY-London business trip. On my return from the war zone I will be allowed to carry my laptop and cell phone, my water bottle and my shaving kit on the plane with me. Furthermore they will HAND me a large sharp metal serrated steak knife to eat my dinner with.

Why? Any smart street cop will tell you that stuff isn't dangerous. Some people are dangerous and when you take away their guns they resort to knives and garottes and kitchen bombs. After seeing no substantial fall in violent crime after being very diligent about their gun bans England is now banning knives. It is insanity if you ask me. You get rid of crime by getting rid of criminals not by getting rid of stuff.

We have to start figuring out who the bad guys are and keeping them off of the planes and let the rest of us do business and pay taxes. The airlines need to rise up and start a marketing campaign that they be allowed to hire private security firms that will handle airport security with TSA oversight and be allowed to do it right. The frustrating thing about all of this is that it isn't a new, unsolved problem. Israel solved decades ago. We and Europeans are just to politically correct and/or stupid to model our airline security program after one that we know works.

There, I feel better.

posted by mailgeek @ 1:12 PM 0 comments