Tuesday - June 17, 2008

On your marks, get set,

“With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before.”


Looks like the new version of the Firefox browser is ready to go. And they better have some major servers ready to handle to bandwidth loads. Join the hordes and get your tomorrow.

   Tuesday - June 03, 2008

May not be exactly the place for this but, it’s Tech and it’s interesting

It’s interesting for those like myself who aren’t too familiar with things on the geeky side.

It’s been months and I’m still struggling to understand HTML and various other Drew type stuff.
So anyway ... I stumbled on something I found in a computer magazine over here.  And btw, they really do have good pc mags here.

So, altho some may already know about this but since I only just found it, I’m to assume there might be others like myself finding things new in Tech that even I understand.

http://animoto.com/learn_more

Animoto dot com and it is awesome.  They have a free and a pay version and you can get a quick 60 second video and then see their blog with more info.

I suppose if you’re very much advanced with videos and photos and photo editing etc., maybe they’re too basic for ya.  Tell you what tho.  I’d love to buy stock if they had it (don’t know), that’s assuming I discover a gold mine or somethin.’

And then I found:

A company that it turns out is based in France.  I heard that groan guys but come on.  Neat software that’s free doesn’t have a nationality.
Specially if the audio is a lady with a cute accent that’s understandable.

http://www.vso-software.fr/products/image_resizer/

I suppose those with some experience already know about this too.  But I didn’t until I visited Animoto.  And they also offer ,

Convert between different graphic formats

Configurable compression/resolution ratio

Support file formats: Jpeg, gif, bmp, tiff etc

Support Digital Camera RAW formats: Canon .CR2, Nikon .NEF , .MRW Minolta

Handle single picture or batch mode

Customizable templates for renaming files

You can add your own watermark file

Reduce size photos perfect for web publishing/share photos by email
Integrate in windows explorer or works as a stand-alone application

Fast processing
Import directly from your memory cards

Save history of destination folder
Variable options and settings for advanced users

Multilingual support (available languages...)
Optimized for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista

I’m at the still learning and it’s damn hard stage so all this stuff impresses me.  Especially when I find I can understand some of it.
(except that damn HTML thingy. )

Finally ......  I discovered the Safari browser today. WOW! it is fast.  Now then, is there anyone out there using a Mac or Safari on a PC that can tell me
how the heck you get shortcuts on the toolbar for websites you visit often?  Like BMEWS?  Use Firefox or IE (which I’d rather not) and easy enuff to drag the link up there.  Not so in Safari.

   Friday - April 11, 2008

I sent an email

One email is a lonely thing.

Dear Cafe Press

Thank you for having someone go through your designs and deleting some of the pro-rape designs. Too bad you still have a rape-humor category. I hope that one gets cleaned out as well.

There is nothing funny about rape. Any designs you carry that imply such humor, or imply rape in any positive way, such as your “No means Yes” design, your “You can’t rape the willing” design, or your “Chloroform. It’s my move” design, should be removed.

I know that most of the designs are submitted by people who don’t work for Cafe Press. And I know that when you have tens of thousands of designs it gets hard to keep track of them. And I do consider myself to have a very broad sense of humor ... but these design cross the line from humor to psychosis. Please continue cleaning up this area.

I like Cafe Press, and I buy things from you once in a while, and I don’t want to see your business get a bad name. To that end I think you should continue acting in a socially responsible way. Just do it a bit faster.

Thank you.

To be fair, Cafe Press has deleted several of these designs. But the category has over 16,000 designs. And while some of the designs are gone, their thumbnails still remain. I am not pulling one of those Leftist “I don’t like what they say so let’s burn down the printshop” suppressions of free speech. But I am saying that sometimes a business needs a little reminder now and again to Do The Right Thing.

h/t to Safer Campus and to In Jennifer’s Head. And I’m pretty sure I got there from a commenter atRachel Lucas. And it’s out at The Lizard Queen and The Curvature. Blogswarm !!

   Wednesday - April 09, 2008

How much rope would it take?

Teen beaten to make video

Today’s big story is about another sick crime committed by utterly heartless and moronic teenagers. It’s all over the news. It’s the story about the beating Victoria Lindsay was subjected to. It’s not “another Girl Fight video” as some channels have reported. It’s attempted murder purely for kicks. And for video fame. I really don’t give a crap what the charges are, this was an attempt to kill, for a minute or two of fame on YouTube. The talking heads on television are saying this young high school girl was beaten even after she was unconsious. By her friends. That’s attempted murder. Murder One too, as it was a fully planned conspiracy on the 8 “children” who took part in it.

Lindsay has bruises, a concussion and damage to her left ear and eye, although her family said she is expected to recover.
,,,
The tape shows Lindsey being beaten and taunted as other teenagers shout in the background.

All suspects face charges for false imprisonment and battery. Three of them were charged with kidnapping because, the sheriff’s office said, they forced Lindsay into a car and drove her to another location after the beating.

The suspects were identified as 17-year-old Mercades Nichols, 17-year-old Brittini Hardcastle, 14-year-old April Cooper, 16-year-old Cara Murphy, 17-year-old Britney Mayes and 15-year-old Kayla Hassell. Zachary Ashley, 17, and Stephen Schumaker, 18, were identified by deputies as the lookouts.

The victim reported the attack after she was beaten so badly she had to be treated at the hospital. That’s when the sheriff’s office started looking into it and learned about the video. The sheriff calls it shocking, saying he’s never seen anything like it. It was a vicious attack all captured on home video inside a Polk County home. When 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay arrived at her friend’s house where she had been staying, six girls were waiting. Immediately, they started yelling and one girl began pummeling the victim. On the video, the girls can be heard encouraging the fight in the background, even taunting Lindsay to fight back, all while one of them held the camera. The victim’s family has said it was an elaborate plot to injure and embarrass Victoria Lindsay. Lindsay’s parents couldn’t believe their daughter had to endure the attack.

Police said Lindsay was attacked on March 30 by six teenage girls when she arrived at a friend’s home.  One of the girls struck her on the head several times and then slammed Lindsay’s head into a wall, knocking her unconscious, according to an arrest report.  Later, according to a clip of the video that was released by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the teens can be seen blocking a door and hitting her.

Two males, Ashley and Schumaker, allegedly acted as lookouts, police said.

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said the girls had such little regard for the consequences of their actions—while they were in the holding cell, one allegedly remarked to another, “I guess this means we won’t be going to the beach.”

Another asked, “Does this mean I’m going to miss cheerleading class?”

Principal Hatch says, in his 30-plus years working with kids, times are scarier now than ever before.  The girls told Polk deputies they were getting Tori back for talking trash about them on her MySpace page. Their plan—they say—was to stage the fight and post it on You Tube for revenge.

The trial should last about 7 minutes. The “alleged perpatrators” were so smart they videotaped the entire thing and then published it on YouTube. Game over. Guilty. Should these poor little kiddies who were just trying to embarass this girl, not really hurt anyone, be charged as adults? Without question. If you’re old enough to be in high school you’re old enough to know right from wrong. Even the two standing outside as lookouts, specifically put there to make sure the sound of screaming wasn’t too loud. Charge them with the real thing, conspiracy to commit murder, with a torture and kidnapping rider. Charge them all equally, find them all guilty. Then take them outside and hang them, and leave their bodies to rot in the wind. Film the whole thing. And put the video up on YouTube.

These “children” are complete and total failures as human beings. 3, 5, 10, 25 years in prison isn’t going to teach them a damn thing. They are soulless bastards without the slightest shred of compassion for another human being. I don’t give a flaming rat’s ass if they’re 14 or 45.

And for financial penalties? Now let’s turn things around and say that, because they were all under 21, the parents are fiscally responsible. Strip the parents of every last cent they have. Convert every asset they have to cash, right down to selling the clothes on their backs at a garage sale. And every penny goes to Victoria. Not a dime for the lawyers. Then throw the parents into solitary confinement for 3 years, with no human contact at all, no TV or radio, not even a book to read, so they have ample opportunity to focus on their utter failure as parents. Any other minor children these people have get thrown to Social Services forever.

   Thursday - April 03, 2008

Firefox 3 Beta 5 is available for download

Those hard working code monkeys at Mozilla have been testing and tweaking, and the latest version of the Firefox browser is available for download. This is still a Beta edition, which means it has some bugs, but only one of them is a “Sev 1” fatal error in a Windows environment. And that one only happens in a rare circumstantial combination. The other bugs are just minor annoyances, and are few in number. So, you can be impatient and get it now, or you can wait another month perhaps until the final release version comes out.

This version of Firefox is said to be much faster, more secure, and more stable than earlier versions. You can find it here.

   Friday - March 14, 2008

BMEWS is conspicuously absent

It’s amazing what can be found at Neal Boortz’s website…

Like this list of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs. Neal was upset that he wasn’t on the list. He was beaten out by Icanhascheezburger at #8.

#1 was the Huffington Post. What? BMEWS should be #1. Hell, I don’t recall ever visiting HuffPo. Why are they #1? Why is a site dedicated to felines at #8?

You can find the full list here.

   Saturday - February 23, 2008

use of Internet filtering is heating up in Europe

use of Internet filtering is heating up in Europe

Europe makes moves towards Internet censorshipMikael Ricknas

February 22, 2008 (IDG News Service) A debate over the use of Internet filtering is heating up in Europe. Privacy advocates and carriers are going head to head with authorities.

In Finland, programmer Matti Nikki is under investigation for publishing a secret list of domains that authorities had allegedly censored in an effort to stop the spread of child pornography. Nikki published his list to prove that the system was being abused, and was himself censored as a result. The Finnish chancellor of justice has received a complaint about how the police handled the matter.

The authorities distribute their list to the country’s 20 largest Internet service providers (ISP), which then block access to the sites. The rest of Finland’s 200 ISPs haven’t implemented the technology, so protection is far from complete.

The problem with filtering is that it is a very blunt tool, according to Swedish Internet activist Oscar Swartz.

“I have seen the list Nikki published, and it includes links to sites with regular pornography, so they shouldn’t be censored,” said Swartz.

The Finnish police force is aware of the problems with filtering.

“The technology we currently use works well with sites that only include child pornography. To filter sites with a mixture of content, we need to use other technologies as well,” said Lars Henriksson, chief superintendent at the National Bureau of Investigation.

Finland isn’t the only country where the temperature is rising. Danish authorities recently decided to block file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, after pressure from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Stockholm-based Tele2 AB decided to fight the court order. So far, it is the only ISP that has been ordered to shut off access to The Pirate Bay, but IFPI has plans to expand the blocking.

Other organizations are starting to show an interest in the use of filtering, including mobile network operators. They are banding together to combat the distribution of child pornography.

“We are here to tackle a very disturbing and damaging phenomenon,” said Craig Ehrlich, chairman of the GSM Association, a group of mobile network operators, launching the initiative at a conference in Barcelona, Spain, last week.

The use of emotional issues to justify the introduction or extension of censorship worries some.

“It’s easy to ignore the negative aspects of filtering and censorship when talking about something so universally disliked as child pornography,” said Swartz.

But state censorship proposals don’t stop there: European Union Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini called last September for ISPs to block access to Web sites hosting information about bomb-making, and U.K. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in January that she wanted action taken against sites that encouraged terrorism, including social networking sites.

Such actions could have wider consequences: “If the EU starts to filter sites related to piracy, terrorism and child pornography, it will have some serious effects on the freedom to communicate,” said Swartz.

http://tinyurl.com/2773lv

   Saturday - February 02, 2008

Crivens, Part III - Tis a heavy thing, tae be under a geas

As usual, Rachel Lucas weighs in with some fine writing and delivers a WAKE UP slapdown to the VRWC anti-McCain temper tantrum of this past week. As usual she gets linked from Instapundit, and as usual Bill Whittle provides a really insightful comment.

Damn, I am so jealous. I want to be an internet insider too. Maybe if I was a better writer, or could at least generate some original content. Oh well, I’m just getting started with this bloggy stuff, so give me time.

I had the thought last night that the rabid reaction to McCain this week was akin to the piercing of a boil that has been growing for a long time. A very long time. All the way back to the 1972 oil embargo and the USA “losing” the Vietnam War (after our troops won every single major engagement they fought in and Nixon gave us Peace With Honor and brought the troops home). Frustrations and disappointment with a government that kept moving to the left and acting weak. Living through the embarrassment of Carter and the hostage crisis and his malaise speech (written by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews). It’s been a tough lifetime to be a Conservative in.

Sure, things were looking up when Reagan was in office. But let’s not forget the reality - that the media hammered him 24/7. That his economic policies - Reaganomics - would never work. That he was driving the nation into irreversible debt. That he was bringing on Armageddon and was going to get us all killed in a nuclear holocaust. That old folks, poor folks, and minorities would be left to starve. That he hated gays and thought they deserved the AIDS epidemic. A huge part of the population thought he was nuts. I knew people who were thrilled when he was shot, after being in office only a couple months. The far left was unhinged then too. Yet the economy moved into high gear and he was reelected in 1984. It took the media and the pundits nearly two decades to realize that he was one of our greatest Presidents ever, two decades during which your pointing out this now accepted wisdom got you labeled as a crackpot. Even when the poor old man left this mortal coil, the newsies were just about bleeding through their eyes because they were forced to say something nice about him.

1988 brought us George H.W. Bush and his “kinder and gentler nation” approach. Reagan-lite. 1991 seemed to be the peak of it all, with the decisive campaign in the Persian Gulf War. That was an amazing victory, but I remember screaming at my TV for them to finish the job and oust Hussein. Didn’t happen. After that it seemed like Mr. Bush just coasted along. He just wasn’t trying. And that brought us to the Clinton Years. Weakness followed weakness. And it became popular.

I’m not going to write about the Clintons. If you lived through it as a Conservative, then you know. Let’s just say that it wasn’t a happy time. And somehow, at the end, after all the scandals and disgraces and foolish policy, after all the dirty money schemes and corruption, we came to the 2000 election of Bush vs Gore. And the dishonorable fiasco of “chad”.

The past 7 years have been brutal. BDS on a daily basis. The War On Terror where “you’re either with us, or with the terrorists”, but we don’t seem to be fighting it that hard. Seriously. Yes, our troops are doing a superb job, and I love them for it. But they only go where they’re told to, and they do what they’re told to. From my Conservative viewpoint, the GWoT has been a rather weak willed affair. Remember Fallujah? “Fallujah delenda est”? I would have bombed the place flat in a day as an object lesson. Nope, that fight got put on hold for months. Until just after the next election. Amazing coincidence. Palestine? A weekend for the Marines, and it’s over. Forever. Nope. Instead we now have Condi doing her damnedest to give away the entire nation of Israel so that Bush II can have some kind of “peace legacy”. Like I said, there have been a lot of frustrations as everything has shifted to the left and the will of our leaders has leaked away. I’ll toss in the MSM, “fake but accurate”, bloggers in pajamas, and all the defeatist, treasonous diatribes by Harry Reid and Keith Olbermann and hundreds more like them. Theirs is the “popular wisdom” we’re up against every day. Being a Conservative has not been good for the blood pressure. Take it from me, I live in New Jersey. It really sucks being a Republican these days.

Now we come down to this election cycle. All of the Republican hoped-fors never even made it into the ring. Remember when we thought Colin Powell would make a wise, strong president? Remember when Condi came on the scene and we were all so very impressed by her intelligence and strengths? Neither one turned out to be what we thought. With no clear successor to Mr. Bush available, we went into this cycle (insanely early IMO, which only adds to the stress) with perhaps the biggest group of hopefuls ever. And at this point every single one of the real Conservatives has dropped out. Tancredo was for securing the borders but he turned out to be “a one note pony”. Hunter. Thompson. The other Thompson. All gone. Guiliani, gone. Huckabee, soon to fall off the edge and disappear. Ron Paul, who has some great ideas rattling around in his belfry but can’t express them without sounding unhinged. All the men we felt would stand up for What Is Right ... gone. It’s terrible. So we’re left with two choices: a left leaning RINO who might be crazy, who seems to have a huge amount of left wing money and staff, who has given us some of the worst legislation in modern history, and whom we do not at all believe has seen the light on illegal immigration. And then there’s oily Mitt Romney. Of the two, it looks to me like Mitt is “the lesser of two weevils” and that also adds to the frustration. I didn’t want to have to make that kind of choice this time. Not again. And now McCain, the current media darling, has opened up a modest lead in the primaries. One state. Which means, if you listen to the MSM and their Poll-A-Minute, that it’s all over, and he is the de facto nominee.

Horseshit.

But that horseshit may have been the pin that popped the balloon, the scalpel that lanced the boil. And all the puss and hot air has just burst out. We’ve all had our crazy moment now. Me too! Now I think we’re all feeling a bit better (I’m very glad that nobody is threatening to move to Canada. At least we’re not that stupid), so let’s get back to getting the job done. I’m going to push for Mitt now because I feel I have no other choice. He does have a lot of good qualities, and he has some good positions I can get behind. He isn’t perfect, but neither am I. So I’ll get on board.

And if Super Tuesday turns out to be All Johnny, All The Time, then I’ll have another conniption, but only for a short while because I can see it coming. Then I’ll join the (gag) Straight Talk Express and do what I can. Because, whatever else may be wrong with him, John McCain will not cave on the War on Terror, and those two on the other side - the Socialist and the Anti-Christ - will. Every other issue we can survive, work around, and correct later on. We can not give in to the islamofascists, ever. And that alone will make me vote for McCain if I have to in November.

   Tuesday - June 19, 2007

Good Deal If You Can Get It

Looks like American Telephone and Telegraph may give you a deal if you’re in the right area.

AT&T Quietly Offers $10 DSL Plan

NEW YORK—Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, cheaper than any advertised plan.

The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by San Antonio-based AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December.

The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed Monday. Local phone service and a one-year contract are required. The modem is free.

The plan was not mentioned in a Friday news release about AT&T’s DSL plans, and is slightly hidden on the AT&T Web site. A page describing DSL options doesn’t mention it, but clicking a link for “Term contract plans” reveals it. It’s also presented to customers who go into the application process, Coe said.

If you’re in one of the 22 markets where this is available, it would be worthwile to check it out.

Another helpful tip from your crack BMEWS staff.

   Monday - May 14, 2007

Members Blog

I finished putting the final touches on our Members Blog over the weekend. The Barking Moonbat Recon Patrol site is becoming pretty active with new member posts so I decided I better get around to putting links to their posts here. Over there in the right sidebar there is now a realtime listing of the last ten posts over at Recon Patrol - along with the poster’s name. Give it a try. They’re taking a big load off of me here by digging up more strange lunacy than I could ever keep track of alone.

Be sure and bookmark the site. It also has RSS and Atom feeds for quick tracking of what’s going on. BTW, if any of the other members out there want to join the posters and start blogging over there, drop me a line at “allan ‘at’ barking-moonbat.com” or leave something in the comments here. If any of you requested posting privileges when I set this up a few weeks ago and I somehow dropped the ball, give me a nudge and I’ll make sure you’re added and send you instructions on how to post.

This is for registered members here only. If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at blogging but didn’t want the hassle of setting up a site and trying to maintain a schedule for posting every day, this is your chance. No pressure, just post when you want about whatever you want. I generally leave the posters to post whatever they want. (within reason, of course).

This is an experiment and an attempt to do something new in the blogosphere. Technically speaking, the Recon Patrol is just a subdomain of BMEWS (bark.barking-moonbat.com). I hope you find it interesting and decide to participate. Click on the logo below to go directly to the Recon Patrol site or choose one of the post links in the right sidebar. Drop some comments on the posters and let’s see what happens.

   Thursday - May 10, 2007

Blogging, Part II

   Wednesday - May 09, 2007

Blogging, Part I

   Wednesday - April 25, 2007

The Case Of The Hateful Ham Sandwich

SOMEBODY ALERT THE MILITARY! We have sixth graders offending Muslims with ham sandwiches. The little freak actually placed a ham sandwich on a table at lunch time where Muslim kids from Somalia were sitting. Arrest that little criminal! How dare he offend Muslims? Have him arrested now or better yet shoot him on sight. We will not tolerate this kind of insensitivity toward our Muslim overlords. Praise Allah!

No, I’m not kidding. This really happened ....

(There is an excellent editorial on this matter by Sher Zieve at Family Security Matters)

Police Investigate Possible Hate Crime At Lewiston School
LEWISTON, MAINE (WCHS-TV) - 4/19/2007 1:51:22 PM



Lewiston police are investigating as a possible hate crime an incident in which a ham steak was placed in a bag where a group of Somali students were sitting. Such an incident would be offensive to Somalis, who are Muslims and consider pork unclean.

A Lewiston Middle School student was suspended after the incident, which happened April 11th. Superintendent Leon Levesque says the incident’s being treated seriously and police are investigating.

The incident recalled one last summer in which a man rolled a pig’s head into a mosque in Lewiston, which has a large Somali population. The courts later ordered the man to stay away from the mosque.

   Monday - April 23, 2007

Recon Patrol Status Report

What are our reconnaissance scouts coming up with at the BMEWS Recon Patrol blog? Let’s find out ....



“Sometimes non-verbal communication is best” -by- Grumpy Old Ham

“At least Obama is not Afraid to speak the Truth” -by- Infinity

“Pretty much Sums these Idiots up….” -by- Infinity (this post includes a cool “Motorvator")

“Just Remember..” -by- Infinity

“Finally made it” -by- John C

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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:

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