January, 2011 archive
Facebook Frolics 0
El Reg takes a look at Facebook’s current security practices.
It’s conclusion: Somewhere between non-existent and lousy:
Facebook may talk a good game but a quick search (viewable only if logged into Facebook and safe providing you don’t click on the links) shows hundreds of victims have installed a rogue app that falsely promises the ability to “see who has viewed your profile”.
Facebook ought to have someone searching for such scams and stamping them out, something that isn’t happening as yet. “Often I see these scams spreading for days on end, with no obvious action taken by Facebook,” Cluley said.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Florida Republicans want to encourage politeness by further allowing folks to pack heat on campus and forbidding adoption agencies and doctors, including psychiatrists, from asking clients about gun ownership.
Daniel Ruth comments in the St. Petersburg Times; follow the link for the full article:
If you think Evers’ First Amendment assault on the doctor-patient privilege has about as much chance at passage as Jared Loughner merely getting probation for his alleged role in the Arizona shootings, well, don’t be so hasty.
(snip)
By the standards imposed by Evers, R-Lock & Load, a psychiatrist treating a patient for depression would be barred from determining if the patient owns a weapon, or even making a note about it. A doctor prescribing medication that may induce mental side effects could be precluded from asking if the patient owns a weapon — and, again, prevented from adding a notation to the patient file.
The blatant political pandering aside, this is not about hunting, nor target shooting, or nor even self-defense.
Nor is it in any way about a “well-regulated militia” (or a “well-regulated” anything).
Guns are to gunnuttery as shoes are to foot fetishism–objects of compulsive, unrestrained, unreasoned desire.
No Depths Too Deep 0
That’s why Gessler, a Republican, says he is going to be moonlighting as a lawyer for his old law firm – a firm known for representing clients on elections and campaign law issues, the very areas Gessler is now charged with policing as secretary of state.
So, why did he run for the damned job?
He’s a member of the same party that thinks public employee salaries and pensions are too high and must be destroyed.
Words fail me.
Via Balloon Juice.
Dustbiters 0
My friend had cataract surgery yesterday (when seems to have gone very well) so I missed the FDIC’s weekly celebration of responsible fiscals and universe masters.
Don’t look for these responsible fiscals. They ain’t mastering universes no more:
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United Western Bank, Denver, Colorado
The Bank of Asheville, Asheville, North Carolina
Bait and Stitch 0
From the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it files:
Gwen Haden says a surgeon at a Nevada VA hospital shorted her by 50 cubic centimeters. She is asking for $150,000 in damages.
In November 2009, Haden underwent elective breast augmentation surgery at Mike O’Callaghan Federal Hospital, near Las Vegas. She says in the suit she paid $1,850 for the surgery plus $800 for 300cc implants.
ConsTEAtutional Amendments 0
Leonard Boasberg, writing at the Philadelphia Inquirer, wonders why, if teabaggers so revere the Constitution, they are so eager to amend it. A nugget:
The so-called “repeal amendment,” if approved – which, fortunately, seems unlikely – would allow the repeal of any act of Congress or federal regulation by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states. Legislators in 12 states have come out in favor of this nutty idea, as have Virginia’s attorney general, Kenneth Cuccinelli, and the new majority leader in the House, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.
(snip)
Instead of reading the Constitution aloud, the Republican members of Congress might do better to read the Federalist Papers, written by Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to explain and defend the Constitution to the then-disunited states. In Federalist No. 34, Hamilton countered those who objected to the idea that the laws of the United States would be the supreme law of the land.
“But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme?” he asked, and answered: “It is evident they would amount to nothing.”
Like phony preachers who wave the Bible while stuffing their pockets from the offertory, they like only the parts they like and so there!
Terrorism in Idaho 0
The story of the very real bomb that was in Spokane is getting far less play than the story of the underwear bomb that fizzled. One wonders why.
Meanwhile, the Rude One is so outraged at the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King Day parade that he cannot even bring himself to be profane, at least not to his usual standards of profanity which often keep me from quoting him directly.
Excerpt below the fold.
Back Alleys 0
Glomarization points out why the back alleys are coming back.
When Chickens Come Home To Roost 0
RSPCA inspectors say they want to speak to the two men who approached the restaurant in Bermuda Park, Nuneaton, on a moped on Tuesday evening.
The RSPCA wants to talk to the two men about their abandonment of the chicken. The chicken is up for adoption.
