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Random Friday Night Thoughts

Here we go again...kids in bed...wife scrapbooking....idle mind....
  • Now that the White House has released a picture from last month's NYC flyby, do you think someone will teach them how to photoshop.  The picture has all sorts of possibilities.
  • Microsoft - it is okay to allow people to see the extensions that they have on their computer.
  • 2 interesting stories about botnets.  One is a research paper about gathering 70 GB worth of data from 180k machines in a 10 day period.  The other is from Brian Krebs' Security Fix blog in the Washington Post about a botnet that was being monitored when the command to kill the operating system on the victim machines was sent to 100,000 machines.  The people monitoring don't know why the command was sent.
  • Remember to patch your Adobe Acrobat next week.  I believe they have had their 3rd 0-day exploit of the year.  Foxit Reader looks pretty good right about now......I think Adobe might be leading in the 0-day race with Microsoft for the time being.
  • Bank Stress Tests - about what I expected.  Easy enough to have some pass, with others given a fairly easy route to add capital to their balance sheets.  I believe I had said earlier that the "worst" case was not that inconceivable....I wonder what will happen as the commercial real estate market continues to collapse, and the increased defaults on those credit cards that many people have.  If we hit 10% unemployment (fairly likely), the U6 underemployment number will likely be in the 17-18% range.  Not very promising for those companies.  I think people will get weaned off of the credit cards for a long time after this recession ends and a likely slow recovery takes over.
  • Today's unemployment numbers would have been far worse if the Federal government had not started hiring temporary workers for the 2010 census.

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Cinco de Mayo

All you have to do is read the news to see some disconcerting stories, and that is just just from our Federal Government:
  • New cyberbullying law being drafted - possible attack on first amendment rights.  http://tr.im/kAYK
  • Bank stress tests due out Thursday...nearly 2 weeks after the banks found out their results....how bad can it be?  Reports of 10+ needing more capital to weather a financial storm, at worst case, 11 out of 12 largest bank (Chase seems to be the only one that might be safe).  Watch for the report after 4 pm on Thursday.
  • Report of large database breach in Virginia, including a supposed threat of a $10 million extortion. - http://tr.im/kB2U

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Random thoughts for a Friday night?

Some random thoughts that have come up while hanging around the house one Friday night:
  • With Justice Souter retiring, we get all sorts of names as possible replacements.  One name that I heard on TV tonight was former President Bill Clinton.  Wouldn't that be the judicial equivalent of putting John Dillinger in charge of the FDIC?
  • Though I doubt this will happen, will President Obama nominate someone who will interpret the Constitution primarily, and not try to be a legislator from the bench.
  • The White House has its own Twitter account @whitehouse.  Does this mean we can tweet the President with ideas to improve the country?  Or will it be spin doctoring in 140 characters or less?
  • Why does it feel we are not getting a full story with regards to the swine...(errrr, I mean the A/H1N1) flu?  We have the WHO saying that there are only about 330 confirmed cases, but they have raised the pandemic level to 5 (out of 6), and the attributed death toll by the WHO is low.  Something just does not seem to add up.
  • Which virus will end up getting more hype - Swine Flu or Conficker?
  • Why is Ashton Kutcher the top person followed on Twitter?  I thought he was just Demi Moore's boy toy husband.
  • Looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek movie.  Hope it turns out at good as the previews and hype seem to portray it.
  • Favorite conspiracy theory podcast - No Agenda.  Adam Curry is just full of them, with John C. Dvorak trying to rein him in.
  • Interesting new video podcast - Fox's Freedom Watch.  Online program with Judge Andrew Napolitano as the host.  Chock full of Libertarian-mined individuals, and free market economists.  The show brings up some scary instances of attacks on people's liberty in the name on security.
  • I love this time of year in Florida.  Not too hot, cool evenings, and lots of sun.  Perfect golfing weather.

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Late night tv commercials

Before turning off the tube tonight, I get a kick out of some the commercials that are G4 on Saturday night. It is obvious that they are geared for geeks that have little to no love life. I think the target is 3 Extenze commercials per hour. :) Time to turn it off and listen to an audio book (the current one is The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb).

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What is Earth Day?

Why do we need an Earth Day? Shouldn't responsible management of the environment be something we endeavor for on a regular basis? It is interesting to note that there are more and more of these awareness events continue to happen, the crazier and crazier I think they become. Think about how much trash is generated at one of these events.  Even if it recycled/recycleable, there is energy used in reprocessing the material, along with the manpower to clean it up, protect the attendees, and the energy wasted to get to one of these events.  We won't even get into the coincidence/fact the the first Earth Day is on the 100th anniversary of Vladmir Lenin's date of birth.  Take that fact with a grain when you celebrate Earth Day. The Earth Hour is even more ridiculous.  They ask you to turn off non-essential lights, etc for an hour at the end of March.  Define what might be non-essential, especially for a house getting 3 children ready for bed.  You might get more energy savings if you do it during the daylight hours, and encourage people to do outdoor activities in celebration.  It may not be as visible to people, but more that likely better for people and the environment. It is good to be a steward of the environment, but please don't tell me what is socially acceptable to do to leave a better place for my children and grandchildren, nor legislatate or dictate to me the "religion" of ecology.

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Freedom in 21st Century?

A disturbing trend seems to be continuing under the Obama administration (and started under the  Bush era, but with only different "targets"), what is perceived as personal liberties.  A story coming out of the St. Louis Airport on April 2nd and the individual working for the Campaign for Liberty group.  He was detained and "interrogated" by the TSA agent because he asked whether or not he had to answer the agent as to the source of money he was carrying (which is later disclosed as from book sales from the Campaign for Liberty event in Missouri).  The TSA were getting frustrated and unprofessional with the simple question from if he had to legally answer the question.  He was threatened to be taken to the DEA and police just because he did not feel the need to disclose the source of $4700 he was carrying with him on the plane.  Link to the audio here. On the day before the nationwide "tea parties" indicating a willingness to take back control of our government through fiscal responsibility and liited government, this DHS report indicates how DHS is concerned about right wing "extremists"...no threats yet, but the following interesting definition:
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.  It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Finally, Texas's legislature reminds us of one of the Bill of Rights - the 10th Amendment.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
We have lost that Amendment throughout the years as the federal government has continued to grow.

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Latest book "read"

I have been "reading" a book over this holiday weekend (well, actually listed to the audiobook) called One Second After by William R. Forstchen.  It is a story about 3 EMP's being detonated over strategically placed locations in the atmosphere, and the aftermath viewed from one small North Carolina town.  Though my more liberal friends might be turned off by the foreword written by Newt Gingrich, I thought the book was well written and thought provoking.  Scenes from the book reminded me of one of my favorite shows that is no longer on the air "Jericho" and its post-apocolyptic visions. Nicole was listening to parts of it in the van and was enjoying it as well.  Interesting read if you have about $18 floating around (and, if listening to the audio version, 13 1/2 hours of your time).

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