The Daily Brief

Wait .. a what? SMB vulnerability?  As in directory shares between windows computers?  Whoops!

If you take a peek over at the National Vulnerability Database, we can see this article Here is the overview:

Buffer underflow in Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2 and SP3, Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, Vista Gold and SP1, and Server 2008 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a Server Message Block (SMB) request that contains a filename with a crafted length, aka “SMB Buffer Underflow Vulnerability.”

This means this vulnerability could be exploited to create a worm. Further it means if one PC gets infected on your network, then quickly all of them will.

After doing some more research it seems there is already an exploit in the wild – it is set to “go off” during the Thanksgiving holiday here in the states.

Aw – that’s okay Microsoft.  I wasn’t planning on getting any actual work done today.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Well dang ..

Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain.

I expect – any day now – a chorus of outrage from the Usual Suspects about how money is buying an election and kvetching about how money is ruining the race and how it just ain’t fair.

Any day ..

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

John Scalzi

Dear Republican Party:

You’re aware that to the rest of us, your transparently insincere whining about voter fraud every time you’re about to get your ass handed to you in an election makes you look like that second place runner who mysteriously gets a leg cramp as soon as it’s clear he’s got no chance to win the race, right?

AP

(Ohio) Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.

200,000 potential fraudulent registrations.  In one state.  That’s a pretty serious mysterious leg cramp, all-righty.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

As I’ve written before, economics is something of a black box to me. You’ve got your gozinatas and your gozoutas and beyond that .. well that’s why you have experts who can explain the hard words to dummies like me.

But when guys at the Wall Street Journal explain it in 9th grade English, I can understand it: Obama’s Tax Cuts aren’t and in the end we’ll get screwed.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

• A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to “make work pay” that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.
• A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.
• A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).
• A “savings” tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.
• An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.
• A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.
• A “clean car” tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

It’s harnessing Boxer to the plow until the day he’s sent off to the ‘hospital’ and rendered for parts.

You, me and about 90% of the people reading this are Boxer, and that ain’t no shit.

George Fuckin’ Orwell knew his stuff, that’s for damn sure.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The real lesson from Trooper Gate? 

You can use a taser on your kid, shoot game out of season while on duty, drink while on duty, treat your wife like a speed bag … and keep your job as a law enforcement officer.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Hawkfist wrote . . .

I find it hard to care about Bill Ayers, but if we’re going to dredge up the past, lets look at Palin and her sense of “Our America”

Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

Now – if Michelle Obama had belonged to an equivalent organization, imagine how the GOP would howl in outrage!

I’m not ‘the GOP’, I’m just this guy.  But he’s right – caring about what Michelle Obama did back when would be lame. 

Now about Senator Obama’s membership in an organization called the ‘New Party’ in 1996 … that might be another kettle of fish, hunh?

The ‘New Party’ was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist ‘New Party’ was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations “fusion” reform platform as unconstitutional.

For all of me – it’s not terribly damning.  We all make mistakes: you own up to them, you say “well I done messed up” and you move on.  Redemption, forgiveness – that’s what its about.

After allegations surfaced in early summer over the ‘New Party’s’ endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and ‘New Party’ then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA’s New Party.

Unless you’re not fessing up to your mistakes.  Then the rest of us might be forgiven for wondering what is going on inside your brain-housing group.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Senator Obama: Vote for me – you’ll get a tax break plus we’ll stick it to those no good dirty rich folks.

You ever try to get a job from a poor person?

from http://flickr.com/photos/livenature/256934977/

Yeah.  Good luck with that.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

There is one nice thing about providing tech support over the phone for your family . . .

Put the CD in then ..

It is in.

.. shutdown the computer . .

You mean turn it off

.. yes turn it off, count to three turn it on

I’m doing that

… and boot from the CD ..

How do you do that?

Shut up – I’m trying to tell you that.

They (or at least the Older Monkey) takes ‘shut up’ to mean ‘let me finish’ and doesn’t get all ‘he’s being rude and I must go have a hissy fit’.

Also .. thank God for my wife. My boys started the school day off with a spirited wrassling match in the living room: I can’t imagine what it would be like without her around to impart a civilizing influence.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Dear Government,

You’ve helped enough.  Please stop now.

r/s

America

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

For two points, read this article by Douglass Daniel of the Associated Press and determine if this is an opinion or analysis. Attention should be given to the lead paragraph(s) setting the tone for the article as explained in chapter three of your text. Appropriate definitions are given below to assist you.

WASHINGTON (AP) – By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Analysis – a-nal-y-sis.
3. a presentation, usually in writing, of the results of this process: The paper published an analysis of the political situation.

Opinion – o-pin-ion
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

They [1] keep going on .. and on and on .. about taxes and tax breaks for the middle-classes.

Phhbtt.

If I cared about high taxes I would not have moved to Wisconsin, would I?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] You know .. they. Them.  The candidates.

A half-assed – but still valid – reason to vote for McCain .. because stuff like this is creepy and verging on evil.

The idea of a bunch of tots singing praises of the Dear Leader needs to be mocked until the adults in the room sheepisly admit that, yes, it’s really dumb to idolize a politician and program your children.

It’s like the 20th century didn’t even happen.  What in the f*** are you people thinking?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Update!

The first link is gone – but the song lives on!

And lyrics!

We’re gonna spread happiness
We’re gonna spread freedom
Obama’s gonna change it
Obama’s gonna lead ‘em

We’re gonna change it
And rearrange it
We’re gonna change the world.

Your representatives heard you when you demanded affordable housing, they heard you when you insisted that the programs were fine, and they have heard you when you insisted that Wall Street pay for it all by melting into a puddle of slag.

Yes, I know: simplistic. Also not everyone demanded all of that.  Still, this is Democracy and we get to live with our folly.  That includes your neighbor’s folly as well as your own.

If this gets real bad and fifty years from now historians look back and say ‘you know, if they’d voted ‘aye’ they could have saved themselves a whole lotta misery’, I hope the guys up on the barricade have the grace to feel like retards.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Real life provides better lines than fiction ever will.

Senator McCain: Long ramble about service, sacrifice, the suckitude of defeat.
Senator Obama: “Jim, let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet too. From, Sergeant, uh, uh, from the mother of, uh, Sergeant, Ryan David Jopek.”

He certainly does appear to be looking at his wrist for Sergeant Jopek’s name, doesn’t he?

Why is this a big deal?

The point of those bracelets is to remember the individual.  If you gotta look at the thing to recall the name, it sorta brings home the point that it’s there for political reasons, hunh? 

People in the military – and their families – are not blind to the reality that we’re an instrument of national policy [1].  But we prefer not to have that fact shoved into our faces by people who want to be the boss.

When President Obama pulls the trigger to invade Pakistan [2] we’d like to think he’s giving at least a passing thought to Joe Snuffy.

Not remembering the name of the guy you’ve said you would honor as an individual makes it hard to do that.

[1] War is a continuation of politics by other means – Clausewitz.

[3] Add to this Representative Steve Kagen’s promise to interfere with free markets outside the jurisdiction of the United States, Senator Obama’s plan to draft high school kids into national service and we might be forgiven for asking people: You won’t vote Republican because Bush was a war monger, an idiot, and a guy who is reviled by right-thinking people everywhere .. but compuslory service, a promise to roll panzers across recognized national borders ‘just because’ and plans to keep people from making money in their own country .. this is somehow better?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We warned him: The Palin-Rove machine will not tolerate dissent. 

He stepped up with courage and love for his country.  And now … the moose is gone but the message will live on.

From.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The Army tasks a brigade with a Homeland Security Mission.  Paul Watson – and 190 commentors-  promptly freak the f*** out and get their panties in a collective twist:

Ominously, the report states that, “The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

The unit would also be deployed to deal with hostile crowds of Americans in the aftermath of a massive economic depression, potential food riots and race riots, if one defines the term “crowd control” to match its reasonably applicable scenarios.

Calm down before you hurt yourself, please.

Stuff like this happens all the time – you just never notice.  Units get assignments like this like my Aunt Masie loads up on desert. It’s only news because of the novel command and control arrangement.

When you read about a battalion of Marines flying up to Yellowstone to help fight forest fires?  Secondary tasking.  The jarheads who deployed to support the National Guard in LA last time they had a riot?  Secondary tasking.  Those guys were already on call for that stuff and had a modest amount of training for the task.  Sometimes very modest but there you go.

And .. seriously.  So ‘they’ are planning an October Surprise.  What in the world is a brigade combat team going to do?  It’s a battalion of infantry, with guns and air support.  Call if 5,000 guys at the most.

It’s a big country.  If the entire place goes up in flame and smoke, a BCT is going to be a drop of water on a hot grill.

So the Army could send a brigade to take over … Tulsa.  And if they want Tulsa they can have it.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Professor Larry Sabato on what happens if the electoral college is tied, throwing the contest to the House.

Summary: it’s going to be a rannygazoo bigger than a three-ring circus featuring Siamese elephants joined at the trunk and a three-legged ringmaster. And an international embarrassment.

I don’t get that last. What in the world is embarrassing about a representative democracy operating according to the rules? Okay, yes, turmoil, dreaded turmoil. But that’s part of the fun and a result of the system being what it is.

Loosen up, Prof, get the popcorn out and enjoy the show.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Senator Obama: We’re for clean coal – it rocks.
Senator Biden: We sure are and it does!  What’s that sweetie? Oh wait, you’re a Green?  Aw man. Coal is the E-vil.  It’s bad.  Seriously.

You just know the guys running the war room at Obama for President’s Global Headquarters cringe when they watch ol’ Loose Lips on the news.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I had no idea that the Cowboys had so many large holes playing for them on the offensive line.

‘I looked up and .. I saw a hole. And I stopped for a second – I didn’t know we had any of those playing for us.‘

Good job, Cowboys.  Packers … well y’all showed up for the game and gosh darn it, you tried hard. Yes, of course we’ll stop for dilly bars on the way home.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We’ve committed to a re-commitment ceremony. We’ve settled on a style that fits us, the monkeys are thrilled with the formal wear we’ve settled on ..

Kilts! And bagpipes!

That’s my daughter. She is fifteen.

Oh … my … gawd you people are freaks! I’m the only normal person here!

Phht: Kilts are cool. And it’s not bagpipes plural – just a recording [1] that I’m mulling over for the set [2] you play when you’re getting ready for the show to start.

Nothing set in stone – and we’ve got a year to nail this sucker down.

Anyway – she’s my coolth gauge.  When she goes high and to the right, I know that I’m spot on.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] I like this one too.  The opening is a bit .. heavy .. for an intimate gathering, perhaps.

[2] The themes that run through the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack really hit me in the gut.  Redemption, Reunification … hey it’s a re-commitment ceremony, right?

Is it the training or do they bring that attitude to the service, fully formed?

Sugary Sweetness (YouTube Video)

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

If You Like Michigan’s Economy, You’ll Love Obama’s

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise
them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to
know something about the “infamous” top 1% of income tax filers: In
order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of
dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals
rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich,
it isn’t the Rockefellers they’re talking about; it’s the companies
where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax
filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise
the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that
provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will
also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the
Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers
ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out
of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the
savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a
credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the
end of his first term. Mr. Obama’s program offers no hope, or even a
promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing
federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the
corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers
the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would
dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the
role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort
abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama
programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to
determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio
and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In
an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that
have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have
it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to
spare the nation from a similar fate.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Senator Obama: John McCain doesn’t know how to use a computer or send email.  How out of touch can you be?

Mary Leonard: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.

Senator Obama: Whoops.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

One minute on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgMWhrCzbdk

Steve Perry

Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine. Look at her face. She had no clue what he was talking about. He fed her enough so she could vamp, and she did, but she still didn’t know.

I think she got it. What I see a lot of subtle errors in communication between the two.

You know where the confusion comes from? She’s being interviewed by a guy who patronizing her. Which is never fun. And she’s got enough steel to return the favor with the contempt it deserves.

Win or loose in November, the Press is in for an interesting time with this lady.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Senator Barack Obama: “Now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.”

I’m sure they will. As long as they don’t work for the staff of … Senator Barack Obama.

Obama’s 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Thus, Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397.

Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.

Stay classy, Senator.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Have you people lost whatever passes for common sense in your teeny-tiny brain housing group?

The Church of St. James the Great in Dursley, Gloucestershire has a new curate. She like lager, the Sex Pistols and wears hot pants and biker boots to church.

Which isn’t, really, a problem. The Anglican’s have so many, many problems that a priest wearing hot pants is like an inch of snow at the North Pole.

The problem is something that was only noted in passing.

Miss Denno moved to the town with her partner Joel and their two young children last month to take up her new role.

An unmarried priest.  With a partner.  And two young children.  For the love o’ Pete ..  what?  Oh. She is married, as other articles are at great pains to point out.

Well, that’s okay then.  Carry on, Anglicans.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Jonathan Freedland: The world’s verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for.

Well, golly, if the world yearns for Barack Obama they can damn well invite him to run for office there. Although somehow I doubt the son of an African would even be in the running for the top job in, say, England.

Perhaps I’m wrong. But England has plenty o’ black people. Have there been any in slots comparable to Secretary of State, let alone in the running for Prime Minister?

But the headline is not the only bit o’ nonsense.

She (Governor Palin) even seems to have claimed “per diem” allowances – taxpayers’ money meant for out-of-town travel – when she was staying in her own house.

We have this thing called research.  Doing a modest amount of this is revealing.  Her own house is in Wasilla.  The state capitol is in Juneau.  The distance between the two is what is commonly called ‘a whole bunch’ – call it 600 miles.

Per diem is used to offset additonal expenses incurred living away from home. It’s pretty common – I’m surprised Mr. Freedland seems unfamiliar with the concept – which is usually the case when an author wraps something in scare quotes.  Perhaps he needs to talk with his HR rep at the Guardian – I suspect he’s earned some during his travels for his employer and might be owed some money.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.