Tuesday - September 11, 2012

we should never forget. never!

A quick squint around Commie Websites today, including SWP, and Unions etc cant find a single lefty website with anything to say about 9/11. There’s a surprise. See no evil.

RIP the fallen.
NFSE

Becki

H/T casualsunited blog

Posted by peiper     on 09/11/2012 at 05:24 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims • Terrorists •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

   Monday - September 10, 2012

Target Marketing

Food For Thought?

Wendy’s hamburger spokesmodel Morgan Smith Goodwin.

One more in a new era of comfortably adorable redheads out there in TV land selling us stuff.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2012 at 12:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Getting Positive

It means “pertaining to an anode or the phenomena in its vicinity”.

Outside of remembering that the anode is the Plus one, and a cathode is the Minus one in an old television set or an X-ray machine, or that it also means the plate if you’re into old-school tube radios, we don’t have much to do with anodes. But perhaps we ought to.

Because anodic also means “deliberately sacrificial”; the skeg underneath your motorboat is made out of zinc, and the electrolytic action of driving your boat over the water eats away the skeg before it eats away the metal propeller. It was made to be self-sacrificing. In a very similar way, your hot water heater has an anode in it too; it’s a cheap part and a new one every 4-5 years will extend the life of your heater quite a bit. And in their own way, bodyguards are anodic, as are soldiers, airbags in your car, and so forth. Anything that has the job of sacrificing itself to protect something else.

Plus it’s a good Scrabble word. Not all that high scoring but unusual enough to perhaps generate a challenge.

So where does this one come from Drew?  Why, from bridges of course. And from a bit of state pride.

I’ve been noticing these silver bridges from time to time. Or at least the silver joists, diaphragms, and floor beams underneath. And I figured they were galvanized steel. And I was probably wrong.

Galvanizing steel is a multi-step rust proofing process that deposits a layer of zinc. Originally this was a straight electrical process, but the term has for a long time also embraced the more effective hot dip process, in which a part made of steel or iron is dipped in molten zinc.  The zinc coating is anodic and will deplete itself before the ferrous metal will rust. Even if the coating is scratched through! Pretty awesome stuff ( recall the Simpsons episode with the “a world without zinc” scholastic film ).  But you can almost always spot actual dipped galvanized steel by its unusual and slightly mottled appearance, known as spangles ... and I wasn’t seeing this on the steel I was looking at. Everything was a uniform, even, gray.

Turns out what I’ve been seeing is “galvanic paint”, a sprayable coating made with zinc silicate, Zn₂SiO₄. The paint, often made by Dulux as a primer, is actually more sacrificial than standard galvanizing, and can be reapplied on site as necessary. And it does not have spangles. The stuff looks uniformly gray, and not at all thick like paint or even powder coating. If anything, it makes steel look like aluminum.

Neat. Or batshit boring, depending on your worldview. And the stuff comes from New Jersey. Mineralogists know this one as Willemite, and it comes from the mines in Franklin, Sterling Hill, and Paterson NJ. Ok, it also comes from Arizona, Namibia, and Belgium. And Greenland. But the stuff was discovered in NJ first. And what makes it a bit more interesting is that not only is it highly fluorescent, it’s also sometimes phosphorescent. Which could make for some trippy after dark bridge experiences if you happened to have a big enough black light with you, because you could make one glow in the dark a bit. Neater!

Ok, daily knowledge infusion over. Now back to our regularly scheduled cover of politics, injustice, Travelers, racism, whacked out leftists, and the pisslamic menace. And an occasional pretty girl to look at.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2012 at 09:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

I love The Fall

I meant to make this post 2 weeks ago when the leaves suddenly started to fall off the trees. Beats me why, it was still summer hot and muggy, and we haven’t been having too much lack of rain.

But today ... is fall. Thank you God.

It was just 58°F at dawn, and several hours later it has worked it’s way up to 63°F. The sun is brilliant in a clear blue sky. But what matters the most to me is that it is FINALLY dry outside.

FINALLY.

New Jersey is a damned swamp from late April until September. Muggy muggy muggy until you want to grab the world and give it a firm twist like a washcloth and try to wring out the excess moisture.

And now all that’s gone, and in general it stays gone until the cold November rains come, heralding winter and generally making Thanksgiving a gray and chilling affair.

The weather wienies are reporting that it’s 70% relative humidity outside. That’s nice to hear, but fairly meaningless unless you remember your Earth Science from high school. Relative humidity means the amount of water vapor in the air (per unit volume) compared to how much water vapor that there could be in the air, for this temperature and pressure.

The thing is, as the temperature goes up, the air can hold more water. As the pressure increases, the atmosphere can hold more water as well. But it’s the ABSOLUTE numbers that allow you to compare apples to apples, and the absolute humidity is not often mentioned on the TV weather report.

Luckily, you can calculate your own, right here. Unless you know the current local air pressure, use a “standard atmosphere” which is 14.7psi or 101325 Pascals. Enter your numbers, select what you want converted to what, choose your settings, then click the red arrow.

And what does this neat little tool tell us? It tells us that the absolute humidity for my current conditions is 9.97gm of water per cubic meter of air. And that on a muggy NJ summer day, 85%RH at 92°F, the absolute humidity is 30.97 grams of water per cubic meter of air. More than 3 times as much. Heck, even 70%RH at 82°F is twice as much.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2012 at 09:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

skool daze, skool daze. best days of their lives?

There’s a damn good reason for referring to the PM as conservative lite.
Thing is, in order to gain votes, the cons now have to go out and agree to things really not too conservative, in order to prove that cons can be all inclusive and loving, touchy feely ppl too. 

Really doesn’t affect me truthfully.  At my age, I won’t get to see how it all plays out in the end although from what we see happening today, my guess is the world will continue operating upside down for a good while to come.

And it does all start in schools you know.  Get em while they’re very young and fill those empty heads with left wing crap and what ya get is diversity, multicultural, claptrap and steve and adam tying the knot. Legally.  What the hell. 
I don’t even know if there’s a reason to care anymore. 

BUT!

Now this is something else entirely unless I missed something.
This reads like what it appears to be.  A teacher could be FORCED into endorsing
something alien to his or her core beliefs. 
I suppose another argument could go, well what if a core belief of some teacher honestly held, was Communism or National Socialism or an approval of slavery.

We live in a world where it all depends on what you mean by ‘is.’

Teachers ‘face sack’ for refusing to endorse gay marriage

Teachers who refuse to endorse gay marriage in the classroom could face the sack under controversial Government reforms, a legal expert has warned.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

Schools will be within their statutory rights to dismiss staff that wilfully fail to use stories or textbooks promoting same-sex weddings, it is claimed.
Aidan O’Neill, a senior QC and expert on religious freedom and human rights, also warned that parents who object to gay marriage being taught to their children will have no right to withdraw their child from lessons.
In a report, he said that any decision to redefine marriage would have far-reaching consequences for schools, hospitals, foster carers and public buildings.
The most serious impact is likely to be felt in the church where vicars and priests conducting religious marriage ceremonies could be taken to court for refusing to carry out a gay wedding, he said.
The conclusions – in legal advice commissioned by the Coalition for Marriage – comes amid continuing fall-out over Government plans to tear up the centuries-old law on marriage.

Please note that the article, which continues at this link, doesn’t absolutely claim this WILL happen, but only that it could lead to this result.
Somehow, I don’t see authorities being in a position to disallow parents from pulling their kids out of a school and sending them to another.
Which of course would be far easier for those who can afford it.  The article is interesting mostly because it looks like this is the way the world is moving. Not just here in Britain.

Posted by peiper     on 09/10/2012 at 08:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • DIVERSITY BS • Gay Gay Gay! •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

compensation culture. the gift that keep on screwing and brits do not thank us for it.

Gee. And to think we couldda sued.

Back in the dark ages when I was around 11 or 12, I ambushed my best friend in school. Little boy high jinks and horseplay. I snuck up and shouted boo or some such kid foolishness, scared the heck out of him and he immediately gave chase, both of us laughing our heads off running down a school corridor. I had books in my right hand and ran full tilt towards one of two doors with my left hand outstretched to open the one closed door.  A couple of other kids were coming in through the open door so I took the closed one never thinking it would have been locked.  Well it was and boy did that hurt. Broke my forearm I did, while my best pal was doubled over in hysterics as he thought it was too funny. I guess it was.

My mom’s reaction was, it served you right, and that was the end of it.

Except for my best friend who never let me forget and every once in a while would start to giggle at weird times which naturally set me off too.

For all that we have today to make our lives better, there is much that’s lacking and making things far more complicated then they need to be.

The article I ran across in the morning Telegraph is one of too many examples that tell me I’m right. Wish it weren’t so.

Compensation culture ‘putting curbs on school trips’

Growing numbers of schools are banning playground games and class trips as “ambulance chasing” solicitors swamp head teachers with compensation claims, according to research.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

The education system is being gripped by “excessive risk-aversion” because of concerns that schools will be sued if children are injured, it was claimed.

A study published by the Centre for Policy Studies warned that millions of pounds was being spent by schools and local authorities every year settling legal challenges.

It emerged that one council in Derbyshire was forced to pay £40,000 after a pupil broke a leg on a school trip. A further £30,000 was handed to a family in Cornwall after a pupil off a bench, £25,000 was paid out in Knowsley when a child fell out of a tree, a student in Medway was awarded £13,000 after being hit by a falling goalpost and £14,150 was paid out to a Plymouth pupil when a test tube shattered during a science experiment.

The study said the pay-outs underlined the extent to which the compensation culture was now “ingrained in the national psyche as a warped form of normal behaviour”.

Kent University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, which carried out the study, said litigation was “bleeding the health and education services dry”.

Payouts by the NHS Litigation Authority alone have trebled in the last decade to £911m in 2010/11. The organisation’s potential liabilities now stand at £16.8bn, it emerged.

Professor Frank Furedi, the study’s co-author, said: “The increasing fear of litigation is extremely damaging to the professionalism of doctors, nurses and teachers. It erodes professional autonomy, stifles innovation, leads to defensive practices in both hospitals and schools and encourages greater bureaucracy.

“‘Best practice’ is now defined as having checked all the boxes in a quality assurance form rather than doing what is best for the patient or pupil.”

The report quoted a 2010 study that revealed as many as 10 children a week are securing pay-outs after suing schools and local councils for injuries picked up in classrooms, sports fields and playgrounds. In total, some £2.25m was awarded in just 12 months.

Researchers criticised a rise in the number of “bizarre and costly” claims made against schools.

In Doncaster, a pupil won £3,000 after suffering cuts from rose bushes, £2,500 was handed to a child in Bradford injured while cutting up fruit and in Brighton a £7,000 pay-out was made when a pupil fell through the roof of an air raid shelter after climbing to retrieve a ball.

The study – The Social Cost of Litigation – said that pay-outs have led to “excessive risk-aversion within schools”, particularly at a time of austerity when public money is already being squeezed.

“This has taken the form of banning playground games, or restricting school trips: to the point where some teachers have been taking their pupils on ‘trips’ in the school playground because of litigation fears,” said the report.

Prof Furedi called for new curbs to be placed on the “culture of litigation and litigation avoidance” in Britain.

“We need to look beyond ambulance-chasers and greedy lawyers to the cultural conditions that have allowed litigious sentiments to flourish as common sense,” he said. “In particular, we need to challenge the expectation that professional ‘best practice’ in the public sector should be measured by the absence of complaints or litigation.”

telegraph

Posted by peiper     on 09/10/2012 at 05:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - September 09, 2012

ATF Avoids The Law

The Obama administration is making it easier for bureaucrats to take away guns without offering the accused any realistic due process. In a final rule published last week, the Justice Department granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authority to “seize and administratively forfeit property involved in controlled-substance abuses.” That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.

It’s a dangerous extension of the civil-forfeiture doctrine, a surreal legal fiction in which the seized property — not a person — is put on trial. This allows prosecutors to dispense with pesky constitutional rights, which conveniently don’t apply to inanimate objects. In this looking-glass world, the owner is effectively guilty until proved innocent and has the burden of proving otherwise. Anyone falsely accused will never see his property again unless he succeeds in an expensive uphill legal battle.

Such seizures are common in drug cases, which sometimes can ensnare people who have done nothing wrong.

Law enforcement agencies love civil forfeiture because it’s extremely lucrative. The Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund had $2.8 billion in booty in 2011, according to a January audit. Seizing guns from purported criminals is nothing new; Justice destroyed or kept 11,355 guns last year, returning just 396 to innocent owners. The new ATF rule undoubtedly is designed to ramp up the gun-grabbing because, as the rule justification claims, “The nexus between drug trafficking and firearm violence is well established.”

The main problem is that civil forfeiture creates a perverse profit motive, leaving bureaucrats with strong incentives to abuse a process that doesn’t sufficiently protect those who may be wrongly accused. Criminal forfeiture is more appropriate because it’s tied to a conviction in a court with the option of a jury trial and evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/09/2012 at 10:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Jack Booted Thugs •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Saturday - September 08, 2012

History On An I Beam

Yes, it’s a picture of a bit of a local bridge. One built in 1901 by the Dover Boiler Works actually. Just one of the dozens of pony Pratts we have around here. But that’s not important.

What is important is the company name. The people who built the steel that this bridge was made from. Jones & Laughlin. The extra “S” is for Steel Corporation.  Abbreviations were different in those days.

So what?



Jones & Laughlin had a steel mill out in western Pennsylvania, in Aliquippa. At the height of the Great Depression, 10 of their employees at that plant tried to unionize. J & L fired them.  The men sued.

The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where the justices ( at this time leveraged [co-opted] by FDR’s threat to add 3 or more robes to the bench until things started going his way ) decided that the new National Labor Relations Board Act of 1935 (aka the Wagner Act) was indeed constitutional, and by it the federal government had the ability to regulate IN STATE ACTIONS under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause -

which until this time had been known as the INTERSTATE Commerce Clause and had always been treated as such. But the SCOTUS upheld Wagner, Jones & Laughlin lost, and we have had an ever expanding, ever more powerful, ever more expensive federal government ever since, and we are now at the point where the latest generation of those same Supremes have decided that it is right and proper for the feds to regulate interstate commerce even when none exists: the Obamacare decision and the Court’s blanket statement that the power of the federal government to tax is unlimited ... not a line of that crap would have been possible if those judges back in 1935 would have stood up to the Democrat Tyrant just a little longer, and thrown NLRB vs Jones & Laughlin out and the Wagner Act along with it, as was (and still IS) right and proper.

History is all around you if you pay attention. Sometimes just noticing the words on a piece of steel can bring it all back.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/08/2012 at 11:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • History • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

sad, sad when even the aussies experience the rot. what hope is there?

I don’t know if it makes the Brits feel any better knowing that folks in distant lands react as stupidly when it comes to gremlins.

I am referring to how authorities treat with vermin like this.  Nicely, nicely of course.
Must not do anything to even remotely suggest his human/ civil rights are not protected.  No matter what he does.  No matter how much abuse he causes.
No matter how much he costs the public purse.
Must make nicey, nice.

Don’t you just HATE bastards like this and even more, bang ur head against a wall in frustration with authorities that let things go this far.

Of course, the bad guy knows the rules and he also knows what he can get away with. Which in this case, is apparently a hell of a lot.
And that’s a bit of a surprise too because this story has its origin in;

AUSTRALIA !

See? We are all of us so used to stereotypes.  Cos once upon a time they were a lot closer to the reality then they are these days. Or so it seems.
Good grief.  AUSTRALIA?
Who’d a thunk it?  I always thought of those guys as super tuff and no nonsense at the risk of life and limb.
If the left can bring this to the Aussies, is there any hope for the rest of us?

Take a look.

Abusive expat murderer causing deportation havoc in Australia

Australia may have to charter a plane at a cost of up to $1 million (£650,000) to fly a British murderer, Keith David Herring, to London.

By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney

(source) Saturday Telegraph

The murderer spat on passengers, ripped a telephone from the seat of a plane and tried to urinate in the aisle during two attempts to fly him on commercial airlines.

Herring, 66, who is notorious for his extraordinary displays of anger and abuse, is due to be deported after spending two decades in jail for murdering his wife in 1989.

Despite a long criminal history in Britain – reportedly involving 70 offences including assault, grievous bodily harm, dishonesty, and biting off the ear of a prison guard – Herring was granted a visa in Australia in 1988, a year before he murdered his Philippines-born wife, Juiletta Herring, a nurse whom he married in England in 1986.

He had concealed his criminal record, which was not picked up by Australian authorities.

During his trial, Herring reportedly exposed himself, abused the prosecutor – calling him a “fat slug” – and leapt from the dock in an attempt to strangle the judge, whom he called a “silly old devil”.

He was convicted in 1995 and received a 22-year sentence, as well as a 2-and-a-half year sentence for contempt of court.

Australian authorities have been seeking to deport Herring since his release from prison in June. However, two attempts to fly him home from Sydney airport failed this week.

On Wednesday, he was removed from a Qantas plane by three security guards and an immigration authority after abusing crew and vandalising the plane.

The following day, he was removed from a Thai Airways plane after similar behaviour.

“He misbehaved in a range of ways and a decision was made by the department in consultation with the airline that we didn’t want to risk any incidents with passengers and crew, so we took him off,” an immigration official said.

Authorities are seeking the “most cost-effective” way to transport him but have already wasted the cost of ten airfares for Herring and officials. The immigration department may have to charter a plane and is also considering booking a row or rows of seats.

Herring is currently being held in an immigration detention centre in Sydney.

He was found guilty in 1991 of drowning his 38-year-old wife after claiming he found her body floating in their backyard swimming pool after he returned from a date with his lover.

Herring’s wild courtroom antics – which followed an incident in the committal hearing when he undid his fly and exposed himself – were described by the trial judge as the worst he had ever seen.

“Mrs Herring’s death was planned and premeditated,” the court found. “It was carried out in a cold-blooded manner. Since then, (Herring) has sought to cover his foul deed by lies, feigned grief and every device and scheme which his fertile mind could conjure up.”

During a recent phone interview, Herring admitted for the first time that he committed the murder.

“I caused a death. I paid my time,” Herring told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

“The rooms are dirty, the areas we live in are dirty. I have heart conditions. I am waiting for an operation.”

Immigration officials said Herring’s stubbornness had delayed his deportation but would not prevent it.

“The department is continuing to examine options for the removal of this client at the earliest opportunity and in the most cost-effective way,” a spokesman said. “Misbehaviour in no way deters the department.”

“The department is continuing to examine options for the removal of this client”
A “client?” This ass wipe is a client?
Give me strength.

Posted by peiper     on 09/08/2012 at 10:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Politically Correct B.S. •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

I Thought Reagan Broke Up This Union?

Two federal agency supervisors allegedly warned employees earlier this year that a Republican takeover in Washington could threaten their jobs—comments that some workers apparently took as guidance on “how to vote” and that one group claims may have violated federal law.

Nonprofit watchdog Cause of Action wrote a letter Wednesday asking the Department of Transportation’s inspector general to launch a probe into the incident, involving senior officials with the Federal Aviation Administration. The incident occurred in May during a meeting at the FAA’s Seattle office, according to the letter.

Emails obtained by FoxNews.com show one FAA employee recalling what John Hickey, deputy associate administrator for aviation safety, said at the meeting.

“I would not be able to quote Mr. Hickey (sic) exact words but what I took out of it was, if the conservative (Republicans) gain control of congress then the FAA could be looking (at) as much as a 15% cut in budget and we (may) be looking at furloughs. If the liberal Democrats take control of congress then we would be looking at a flat budget,” the email said. “In short if the Republicans win office our jobs may be (affected) ... if the Democrats win office then our jobs would not be (affected).”

The recipient of that email then relayed the account, and others, to apparent higher-ups at the FAA. He said, “there seems to be some energy within the office as a reaction to Mr. Hickey’s, inappropriate at best, comments and more than a few employees took umbrage that a person in such an elevated position in the agency would make those remarks.

“My understanding is that more than one employee’s perception was that Mr. Hickey was essentially telling them how to vote if they wanted to keep their job,” he wrote.

An FAA spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that the agency would cooperate with any review.

“The FAA takes Hatch Act violation allegations very seriously and will cooperate fully with any review of the allegations,” the spokesman said.

Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, called the alleged incident an “egregious abuse of power for political gain.”

“These career employees were led to believe their jobs were at risk if their political support did not line up with the agenda of the administration,” he said.

Fear tactics are as old as the Democrats. Every election, always. We always hear the same nonsense. Oh, those evil Rethuglicans are gonna starve the old folks, take all their medicine, and leave granny by the side of the lonely road to die! And then they’ll close all the schools and torture the non-white children! And then they’ll bring back slavery! And make abortion illegal!!!!!

What a load of crap. But some IDIOT let unions into government some time ago, and this kind of thing is classic union behavior. Thug-ism. Vote dis way or da union sez you’ll lose ya job. 

Governments, like unions, are a kind of parasitic life form. Both need to be weeded back severely on a regular basis, like kudzu and vinca.

I know ... let’s gather a really useful statistic. Let’s find the total number of Democrats and Republicans and Others working for government, from the very top on down. I’ll bet you a bag of carrots and a tube of caulk that the D’s are at least 65% of the total, if not 75 or even 80%. Sure, go ahead and break it down by department. You’ll probably find a lot more R’s in the military, and perhaps one or two other agencies. But overall? The rank and file and their immediate 4 levels of bosses? She-it. Let’s also include state and local government in the tallies so you can get the millions of teachers and social workers, and I bet the overall statistic is 78% D. And that’s why the country if F’ed up.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/08/2012 at 08:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - September 07, 2012

Local WTH

The Hunterdon Developmental Center is having a fireworks display. Right now. I have no idea why. They do this several times a year. No one knows a thing about it, and then one night ... fooop ... BOOM! Oooh, Aaah! Boom! Boom!

Maybe it’s a Back To School thing. A new semester of learning. They do another display at some point in the dead of winter, and another one in the late Spring. Back to School, new semester, end of term? That could explain things.

The good news here is that we have a nearly picture perfect view right out the front window. Just a single tree gets in the way. But if we go outside and down the road a few dozen yards, the view is perfect.

Strange world around here sometimes.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/07/2012 at 08:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Not a problem…

No, this is not, strictly speaking, a chess problem. This is from the 1987 Dayton Chess Club Championship. I was White playing against Tony Mantia (rated 2000+) My rating at the time was a ‘lowly’ 1700+. I was outrated. This was before computers that were strong enough to beat even a newbie. It’s Black to move. Tony sealed his move at this point. (I wonder how many chess afficionados even remember the ‘sealed move’?) I took the game home and spent my free time for a week trying to find the draw. I’m down a pawn, but I also have the outside passed pawn. Black has to keep an eye on that. I couldn’t find a win for Black. In fact, in every variation I explored, Black lost if he tried to win! Well, you be the judge. Black to move…

For those who care, I called Tony just before the next round started. We agreed ‘drawn without resumption’.

Posted by Christopher     on 09/07/2012 at 01:31 PM   
Filed Under: • CHESS •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

malware and the daily mail who apparently do not care

FIRST !!

A WARNING to any of our readers going to the Daily Mail (UK) for stories.

Be very careful.

Last night I hit upon a couple of very interesting and bizarre articles at the Daily Mail. Nothing new really except the extent of the insanity, which had been carried to new heights.  For example, how’s this for really bizarre writ bold in huge letters.

A judge told a burglar that he thought it took great courage to burgle someone’s home, and gave him another chance to go straight.  Judge told said burglar that he wouldn’t have the nerve the burglar did.  The defendant btw, started his career at the age of 10.
Is that bizarre enough?
Well naturally I want to share that kind of story in all its insanity.
BUT ….

One or two strange things started happening when I started doing a copy/paste thing.
I was reminded of an old Red Buttons song of the late 50’s.  I think it was the 50s.
“Strange Things Are Happening.” But ole Red was a comic and the strange things I was seeing weren’t funny.

False links to nonexistent articles, ads that were not originated by the DM.
And so I deleted everything I had copied and ran some anti malware and AV and the usual stuff you do when you find creepy things on your pc.

So I wrote to the tech dept. at the Daily Mail, sent them a screen shot earlier today and never heard a word back.

Here’s just a portion of the screen shot. I especially was nervous about those registry entries.

So being the nervous type when it comes to this stuff, I contacted my AV people at ESET UK.
And got this reply.
Interesting. Don’t ya think?

Good Morning,

Yes we noticed a few weeks ago that the Daily Mail and Guardian websites (we did notify them but they seem to not have done much about it) had been hit with Malware within their Advertising Networks. Having looked at the MalwareBytes screenshot you have attached most of the entries are to do with Tool Bars that you have inadvertently installed (either by yourself or someone else) and they have written references into your registry. I assume you got Malwarebytes to remove those entries so you should be ok. If you would like I am happy to check your machine over for you if necessary (to give you peace of mind) so if you would like to take me up on that offer then please supply me with a telephone contact number for yourself. I will then attempt to contact you and will arrange to remotely connect to your machine where I will be happy to check things over for you. I will await your response. 

http://www.eset.co.uk

Posted by peiper     on 09/07/2012 at 11:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Computers and Cyberspace •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

hate being on time when others aren’t.

I believe it’s fair to say that not one person reading this has not felt pain of some kind in their lifetime.  Some perhaps more then others.
So I will not write at any length about my wife’s pain right now but want to tell you about a misadventure that occurred this week.

My wife has had a back curse (it’s been beyond a problem for a long time) and has managed to hold up pretty well.  Ask her how she feels and she will without hesitation tell you, “terrific.” Of course more often then not I remind her, “Jenn, you lie like a rug.”

So along with the damn shingles thing and the ensuing maddening itch, behind her right eye and right side of head, she’s been on pain meds for the back and with no success whatever.  Morphine apparently is quite selective in who it wants to help, and it most assuredly does not want to help her.  Of course her doctor is very well aware of the condition and all the pills being taken on a daily basis.

About a week ago her doctor called her in for another exam.  Used to be the docs in the practice we go to were bang on time with appointments, unless an emergency called them away.  But generally over here, they do not double and triple book as is done in the states.  At least they didn’t use to.

Her appointment was for 11:40 in the morning and as is our habit, we will go to extremes to be on time.  And early whenever we can.  So we’re there about 8 minutes early and there’s the wife in the waiting room, and she suggests to me that I might want to take the time as we seem to have plenty, to go downstairs to the shops and pick up a few wanted items and my magazine which I keep threatening to subscribe to but haven’t.  This I did and took about 15 minutes doing it and went back only to find that she still had not been called in.  Not the worst thing that can happen.  Unless you’re hurting a lot.  She was finally called at 12.  Doctor said she wanted the wife to have a blood test as perhaps there was something else going on we needed to be aware of.  Nothing specific now but she felt a blood test should be done, and said she’s set things in motion, we wouldn’t need the usual paperwork.  Make an appointment to see the Phlebotomist who comes in 2wice a week, or just go to the hosp. where they do that with no appointments, but the wait can be longer depending on how busy they get.  It’s one of those pick a number things and you’re called when your number shows on the board.  Well, due to how bad the wife was feeling, I suggested she make an appointment at the offices we were in and go home immediately. Which we did.

The blood test was scheduled for 11:50 in the morning yesterday. As usual we were on time.  Unfortunately the vampire wasn’t, and it was 12:05 before the wife was called in.  And out she came a minute later.  Quick blood test?  Nope.

The nurse taking blood samples had no record of a doctor’s request for my wife’s blood test in her computer, and since my wife had no paperwork, she hadn’t a clue as to what sort of test was needed.

My wife’s doctor, who has in the past shown a slight problem with paperwork, apparently forgot to enter any information with a test request.

Oh yeah, the good doctor is on holiday at the moment.
She left for a week or so on the day before the scheduled test.

So now we wait. Again.  And will go through the whole damn procedure.  Again.

Posted by peiper     on 09/07/2012 at 10:50 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •  
• Comments (3) • 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