Tuesday - August 23, 2005

Ask Professor Peabody

Question: Where does the word MAYDAY come from and what does it mean?

Professor Peabody: Mayday is a distress call, derived from the French word “m’aidez” meaning “help me” .

Send your questions to Professor Peabody. All mysteries solved. Sorry, but access to the WAYBACK machine is strictly limited to official time travelers like Sherman and the Professor. Rocky and Bullwinkle need not apply. That is all.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/23/2005 at 06:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
• Comments (16) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Another Security Breach

Every time I read a story about another security breach and the theft of personal information on people I want to strangle someone. As an Oracle database administrator (DBA) in my “day job”, it is my personal responsibility to maintain these vast databases of information, keep them running smoothly and make sure they’re accessible as well as containing valid data.

A large part of my work is spent on security. There are a myriad of tools available to a DBA to monitor access as well as restrict that same access to only those who have a “need to know”. Over the last few decades, I have done a considerable amount of contract work for the Department Of Defense and a large part of that work involved setting up security fences around critical data.

The one major problem I usually encounter is some applications development group or member of management who whines and cries because they (1) don’t feel like changing their password every ninety days, (2) don’t like having to use a password that is at least eight characters and contains at least one alpha, one numeric and one special character, or (3) don’t understand why writing their password on a piece of paper and taping it to the bottom of their keyboard is a bad idea.

Yes, the biggest problem a DBA faces, where security is concerned, is STOOPID USERS. It’s not the script-kiddy out there surfing the internet or the hacker in Bulgaria that gives me the most grief. It’s the idjits within my own organization who cause me the most headaches. That applies to any organization out there, not just to me and my IT shop. That is why I am dead set against a national ID card or ntaional database of personal and private information on all citizens. As long as people remain stupid any database can be broken into. We don’t need a better database or a better security scheme. We need a better human.

Today’s ridiculous security breach comes to us courtesy of the US Air Force and involves the stolen personnel records of about half of the officer corps ....

Hacker Steals Air Force Officers’ Personal Information

(WASHINGTON POST)—Social Security numbers, birth dates and other private data on roughly 33,000 Air Force officers—about half the branch’s officer corps—were stolen from a military computer database, the service informed its personnel late last week. Officials of the Air Force Personnel Center, based at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, said the intrusion occurred sometime in May or June, apparently by someone who used a legitimate user’s log-in information to gain access to the system.

The exposed data did not include financial records, but contained such personal information as marital status, number of children and academic records. No incidents of identity fraud have been tied to the theft, the military said, but officers were warned that Social Security numbers could be used to get other private data. Affected Air Force personnel were advised to monitor their credit reports closely.

The theft is the latest in a spate of data breaches over the past two years involving government agencies, universities, commercial firms and data brokers, resulting in the exposure of tens of millions of consumers to potential fraud. The Air Force information was contained in an online system designed to help officers manage their assignments and careers. The Air Force detected the breach after “we determined that there was one individual who was reviewing a lot of these records . . . it was very uncharacteristic,” Maj. Gen. Anthony F. Przybyslawski said in an interview.

The incident is being investigated by both military and civilian law-enforcement agencies. “We are conducting a wall-to-wall review of our personnel-related data systems to maximize the security of the systems,” Przybyslawski wrote in a letter on Friday to Air Force personnel. He wrote that the career-management system was shut down when the intrusion was discovered, but that personnel were not immediately notified pending an initial investigation.

The system was restored with enhanced security, the letter said, adding that “identity theft and other fraudulent uses of our resources steal from our operational budgets.” John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, said the breach is part of a persistent problem with cyber-security that the Pentagon has been unable to overcome. While Pike said the military has a strong record of protecting classified information related to its mission, it has had less success guarding sensitive data about its people. “They have historically done much better at protecting operational systems than at protecting administrative systems,” Pike said.

The problem, he said, is that the Pentagon doesn’t make security for those systems a top priority. “Robust security can be expensive, and it can be annoying to implement,” he said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/23/2005 at 05:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Military •  
• Comments (26) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Freedom Of Speech, Abridged Version

The MOOS-Lims are up in arms over being characterized in a derogatory manner. They recently forced a radio station in Washington, DC (WMAL - an ABC affiliate) to fire talk show host Michael Graham for his remarks about Islam ....

Michael Graham’s suspension by management at ABC Radio’s WMAL/Washington for recent on-air comments in which he characterized Islam as a terrorist organization has turned into a permanent furlough for the controversial midday talker. The Council on American-Islamic Relations have continued to denounce Graham’s comments as “hate-filled” and have called for the talk host’s ouster ever since he made the comments on his program in late July.

In a statement released by Graham regarding his firing, the talk host said, “The First Amendment and I have been evicted from ABC Radio in Washington, DC. It appears that ABC Radio has caved to an organization that condemns Talk radio hosts like me but has never condemned Hamas, Hezbollah and wouldn’t specifically condemn Al Qaeda for three months after 9/11. As a fan of Talk radio, I find it absolutely outrageous that pressure from a special interest group like CAIR can result in the abandonment of free speech and open discourse on a talk radio show.”

In a related story, another Arab group forced the on-line version of Roget’s Thesaurus to pull its listing for “Arab” because of what they considered “derogatory synonyms” ....

An online thesaurus struck a listing Monday for the word “Arab” after Arab-American groups complained the entry listed derogatory synonyms. The entry, which appeared on thesaurus.com, listed the word as a noun meaning “beggar,” and gave 16 pejorative synonyms including “homeless person” and “welfare bum.”

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee contacted the synonym book’s online publisher Friday to complain about the entry; the American Arab Forum also criticized the listing on Monday. “I looked it up and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, which is based in Paterson.

Several hours after Roget’s Thesaurus was called by The Associated Press, all entries for “Arab” had been pulled from the site. Barbara Ann Kipfer, editor of the third edition of Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, said the entry had likely been on the site for years, but never made it into printed versions of the thesaurus. “We’re simply going to take it out,” she said on Monday. “The last thing you want with a thesaurus is to offend anyone.”

All I have to say about these two stories can be summed up in another entry in Roget’s Thesaurus ....

Main Entry:	MORON
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	stupid
Synonyms:	addle-pate, ass, blockhead, bonehead, boob, cretin, dimwit, dingbat, dolt, dope, dork, dumbbell, dumbo, dummy, dunce, dunderhead, fool, goose, halfwit, idiot, ignoramus, imbecile, lamebrain, loony, loser, lunkhead, mental defective, muttonhead, nerd, numskull, retard, simp, simpleton, stoop, stupid, tomfool, zany
Source:	Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1)

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/23/2005 at 04:37 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Fast Food

Cox & Forkum

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/23/2005 at 04:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Media-Bias •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - August 22, 2005

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

Just for those of you out there who are old enough to remember “Camp Granada” ....

Dear Mom & Dad,

Our Scoutmaster told us to write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and are worried. We are okay. Only one of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Adam when it happened. Oh yes, please call Adam’s mother and tell her he is okay. He can’t write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search and rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found Adam in the dark if it hadn’t been for the lightning. Scoutmaster Keith got mad at Adam for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Adam said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn’t hear him.

Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas will blow up?  The wet wood didn’t burn, but one of the tents did and also some of our clothes. Matthew is going to look weird until his! hair grows back.

We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Keith gets the bus fixed. It wasn’t his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked okay when we left. Scoutmaster Keith said that with a bus that old you have to expect something to break down; that’s probably why he can’t get insurance. We think it’s a neat bus. He doesn’t care if we get it dirty, and if it’s hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the fenders. It gets pretty hot with 45 people in a bus. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Keith is a neat guy. Don’t worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Jesse how to drive on the mountain roads where there isn’t any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks. This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Keith wouldn’t let me because I can’t swim, and Adam was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Keith isn’t crabby like some scout masters. He didn’t even get mad about us not wearing life jackets. He has to spend a lot of time working on the bus so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.

Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Andrew dived into the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Steven and I threw up, but Scoutmaster Keith said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with food they ate in prison. I’m so glad he got out and became our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time. By the way, what is a pedal file?

I have to go now. We are going to town to mail our letters and buy some more beer. Don’t worry about anything. We are fine.

Love,
Christopher

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 04:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Announcement: Something New

I have decided to branch out in my blogging. This blog site has been in operation for nearly two years now and I’m having a great time, as I hope all of you are too. Like all people with a busy mind however, I am starting to feel a little constrained by the format I created here (with help from a former partner who is off on his own blog now). After much consideration, I finally set out to create a new venue for my thoughts and writings.

The format here has served us all well. I grab news items on a daily basis and give you my opinion in a brief paragraph or two and turn it over to you to chew over and discuss (and sometimes cuss) among yourselves. Some of the directions you folks go off in with your comments is simply amazing to me at times.

However, I am missing something. I also want to write regular editorial pieces, based not on current news events but on whole concepts, movements and ideas that affect all of us. In order to accomplish this, I have created another blog site just for that purpose. It is called .... “Voyages Of The ArgoKnot”.

The site is still under construction and probably will be for a few more weeks. It is an entirely different format from here. There will be one post daily, an editorial piece to challenge your sensibilities. Comments are open. Stop by and pay me a visit if you get time. Give “Plato” a piece of your mind while you’re there. Click on the banner below to begin your voyage ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 11:45 AM   
Filed Under: •   
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Obituary: Thanks For The Music

(BBC)—Synthesiser pioneer Dr Robert Moog has died at his North Carolina home aged 71, four months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Born in the New York district of Queens, his instruments were used by The Beatles and The Doors among others. Dr Moog built his first electronic instrument - a theremin - aged 14 and made the MiniMoog, “the first compact, easy-to-use synthesiser”, in 1964. He won the Polar prize, Sweden’s “music Nobel prize”, in 2001.

It was Wendy Carlos’ 1968 Grammy award-winning album, Switched-On Bach, which brought Dr Moog to prominence. Carlos played renditions of Johann Sebastian Bach compositions on a Moog analogue synthesiser, making electronic music popular and Dr Moog a household name. Before long many musicians and groups, including the Doors, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, were using Moog synthesisers.

The Moog sound fell out of favour in the early 1970s, however, but Dr Moog remained a respected musical figure. In recent years many musicians, including Brian Eno, Frank Zappa, The Cure, Fatboy Slim and Stereolab have kept the Moog sound alive, even as analogue synthesisers were superseded by digital instruments. Dr Moog had received both radiation treatment and chemotherapy to help combat his brain disease. He left a wife, Ileana, and five children.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 08:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Music •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Saddam Loves Palestine

Here is the text of a letter which Saddam Hussein purportedly sent to a Jordanian via the International Committee of the Red Cross earlier this week, as translated from the Arabic ....

My greetings to the Arab people of brotherly Jordan and to whoever asks about us in our dignified and glorified nation; my soul and my existence is to be sacrificed for our precious Palestine and our beloved, patient and suffering Iraq.

Life is meaningless without the considerations of faith, love and inherited history in our nation.

It is not much for a man to support his nation with his soul and all he commands because it deserves it since it has given us life in the name of God and allowed us to inherit the best.

My brother, love your people, love Palestine, love your nation, long live Palestine.

Awwwwww. Don’t you feel sad for this poor little fellow? He’s just a poor, down-on-his-luck, mass-murdering dictator and nobody understands him .. but he has love in his heart. Ain’t that sweet?

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 07:07 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Sex Offenders Are Offended Over Ban

As a reaction to sex offenders and pedophiles raping and murdering children, many towns and states across the country are voting to establish sex offender free zones. Now the sex offenders, with assistance from civil liberties attorneys, are saying their rights are being infringed ....

MIDDLE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP)—Sex offender Steven Elwell thought he had paid his debt to society. He lost his job as a teacher and served a year in prison for having sex with a 16-year-old female student. Now, after three years on the outside, Elwell wants to move his wife and two children into a bigger home. They must find a house, though, that’s not encompassed by sex offender-free zones being established by communities across New Jersey. At least four towns ban sex offenders from living near schools, parks and playgrounds and others are considering similar restrictions. At least 14 states have such laws.

“We’re outgrowing our house fairly quick,” said Elwell, 34. “If we have to move, we’ll have to find a map, get a plot of land and figure out where (the pedophile-free zone) doesn’t reach.” Elwell, who now makes his living owning a pizzeria, doesn’t expect sympathy. But he argues the ordinances are too broad, providing a false sense of security at the expense of ex-cons already kept on a tight leash by Megan’s Law, the pioneering New Jersey sex offender registry law. A growing number of critics agree with him.

Restricting where sex offenders can live is misdirected and may be unconstitutional, say civil liberties advocates, defense attorneys and experts in the field. “These laws have absolutely nothing to do with the protection of children and everything to do with scare tactics, cheap political points and an anti-intellectualism that is driving public policy today,” said John S. Furlong, a defense attorney who brought the first court challenge to Megan’s Law . Megan’s Law was enacted in response to the 1994 slaying of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a sex offender who lived across the street from her. The law prompted dozens of other states to pass similar laws, requiring released sex offenders to register with police and for residents of the neighborhood to be notified.

High profile cases such as the slaying of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in Florida, allegedly by a sex offender who lived near her home, have prompted lawmakers nationwide to begin establishing “buffer zones” around places where children congregate. Concerns about the constitutionality of the bans have not stopped the passage of the laws, in part because of political pressure. “It’s pretty tough, if someone introduces an ordinance like this, to vote no,” said Joseph Scarpelli, mayor of Brick, which adopted its ordinance Aug. 1. The ordinance added bus stops to the list of locations off limits to offenders and included a 2,500-foot buffer zone. With more than 2,000 school bus stops in the town, the measure effectively bars sex offenders from living anywhere in Brick.

State Attorney General Peter Harvey has said he expects court challenges to the ordinances, although none has been filed. For now, Elwell is working at his pizzeria, attending support group meetings for sex offenders and answering to his state-appointed community supervision officer. Elwell said he plans to file a civil suit challenging the constitutionality of one or more of the laws targeting sex offenders, which he says unfairly lump all sex offenders together. “I see this as adult peer pressure,” he said. “Like high school kids drinking alcohol, all these towns are seeing what other towns are doing and doing it.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 06:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (11) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Long Distance Call

_{Jim Day, The Las Vegas Review Journal, Nevada}

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/22/2005 at 06:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - August 21, 2005

Dumbest Crook Of The Day

Speaking of dumb crooks (see below), who woulda thunk that breaking into and robbing a store in Britain would be so stupid? Well, most anyone with an IQ higher than their shoe size would realize right off the bat that a store selling closed-circuit television cameras would probably not be a good place for a heist. Today’s idjit criminal was caught on no fewer than eight separate surveillance cameras and images show the man from every single angle ....

(SKY NEWS)— A hooded man has been dubbed Britain’s thickest thief after stealing from a CCTV shop. The man was caught on eight separate surveillance cameras as he targeted the shop in Manchester and stole a laptop computer worth £700. He chose to raid the store despite numerous signs around the store warning that closed circuit television cameras were in operation.

CCTV images show the man from every single angle - one frame shows him handling a door, which forensic experts believe will provide them with a perfect set of fingerprints. There are even pictures of him looking through the shop window half an hour earlier, jumping up to get a better look. Owner of the shop, David Arathoon, 54, has said the thief’s actions are proving “the biggest boost to business imaginable”.

He said: “I didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed, and in the end I did both.” Mr Arathoon told the Daily Star: “Frame by frame, cameras filmed him around the shop. The stupidity to think stealing from a CCTV shop is a good idea is astonishing.” Manchester Police have said they will collect any evidence.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/21/2005 at 10:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Sunday Funnies

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/21/2005 at 10:27 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Photoshop/Caption Contest

It’s the “Dog Days Of Summer” and what better way to put the Dawgs back into the Dog Days than with a Photoshop/Caption contest? Especially when it involves our favorite Lefty Lunatic Waffle-Man, Senator John “F’ing” Kerry. The following photo comes from a news story out of Seattle today in which Kerry explains that Dummycraps have all the answers and Republicans are “nasty and partisan”. Yeah, right! Anyway, here is your chance to achieve immortality by putting words into Kerry’s mouth (or anyone else in the picture). Let the games begin ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/21/2005 at 10:07 AM   
Filed Under: •   
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

NASA Will Give It Another Try

The space shuttle Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center a few minutes ago atop a 747. NASA announced that it will launch another shuttle mission in March, 2006 and Discovery will be the vehicle for STS-121 ....

The Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery has successfully landed at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., today. Discovery, left Barksdale AFB, La., at about 7:20 a.m. EDT and arrived at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Brevard County residents were able to see the shuttle riding atop the modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as it circled for a landing.

NASA announced that the next Space Shuttle mission, STS-121, is now targeted for March 2006. This will be the second test flight to the International Space Station in the Shuttle Return to Flight series. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Associate Administrator for Space Operations William Gerstenmaeir made the announcement at a briefing on August 18th.

“We are giving ourselves what we hope is plenty of time to evaluate where we are,” said Administrator Griffin. “We don’t see the tasks remaining before us being as difficult as the path behind us.”

A pair of “Tiger Teams” continues to investigate the External Tank foam loss during Discovery’s launch on July 26. Gerstenmaier says the teams have identified the major areas of concern and are making good progress on dealing with the problems.

Discovery will be used for STS-121 instead of Atlantis, putting NASA in a better position for future missions to the Space Station. Atlantis will fly the following mission, STS-115, carrying Space Station truss segments which are too heavy to be carried by Discovery. By changing the lineup, the program won’t have to fly back to back missions with Atlantis, as was previously scheduled.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/21/2005 at 09:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner