Phishing expeditions

Back on April 6, I got this e-mail from Brian Spencer [security@fdic.com], claiming to be from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The only thing is, look at the domain: "fdic.com". It happens that the real FDIC is at "fdic.gov". I suppose that the e-mail was trying to start a dialog with the purpose of getting a bank account number, for fraudulant purposes.

In another case, I keep getting e-mails from a phisher, trying to get a certain account number. My son has a similar name to mine, and he actually has the account in question. I have probably received this same e-mail (with the usual misspellings, trying to get past spam blockers). It is laughable, in that case. The FDIC e-mail was more subtle, in that it was spelled correctly, and had FDIC in the domain name. It also made some false claim, trying to start a dialog. It is worse than the usual Nigerian scam, where there is this former Nigerian finance minister who is looking for someone in the US who has an account that he can transfer $60M. He will give a share to you. That scam is easy to recognize.

Ask John Kerry specifically how he would make things better

John Kerry has been blowing hot air about how badly things are being done by President Bush and this administration. He says that with him as president, things would be done better. The problem with him is clueless as to what to do that would make things better. Someone needs to start pressing him on this, so that the 90% of the people who aren't paying attention will know that John Kerry is blowing smoke. The smoke machines are at full throttle.

Qwest is a candidate for bankruptcy, but they are avoiding it

There is about $400,000 of debt for every employee at Qwest. They lost $300M in the first quarter of 2004. We estimate that their payroll for the same period was about $800M. Their interest expense was $397. They aren't going to fix this by laying off more people. Would have made money, without the debt service. They need to get rid of their debt, or reduce the cost. They can't keep losing money every quarter. How long before they are in bankruptcy? Why aren't they now? We also suspect that the board has resisted bankruptcy due to the influence of Philip Anschutz, majority stockholder.

The Proxomitron, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla

Today, I tried to fill out an online form for a consulting company. I didn't think anything about what I was doing, at first. I was using Mozilla with the Proxomitron enabled (the Proxomitron is a proxy server that primarily is used to block popups). I didn't get far. So, the first thing I did was to disable the Proxomitron. I didn't think about having to refresh the browser. A feature of using the Proxomitron is that it filters web pages to protect you against "bad stuff". The downside is that it often breaks dynamic forms that have scripting.

Even worse, some forms are designed for Internet Explorer 5.5 or better, only. I ended having to shut down the Proxomitron and use IE6.0. I was then able to fill out the form and submit it. I use Mozilla so much that I don't even think about the fact that there might be a problem. Fortunately, it is a minority of websites that use forms that are "IE only".

Just wait for the November election...

If you thought that the 2000 election in Florida was crazy, just wait for this November. My prediction is that the Democrats will not accept the outcome, if they lose. I don't know if it means riots, civil war, or what, but they will not accept a win by George Bush and the Republicans. It would mean war, essentially. It would be an attempt to overturn the Constitution.

Let's hope I am wrong. As it is, you are already seeing really outrageous things from the "mainstream media", insupport of their Democrat buddies. It is sad that the mainstream media is so biased, but it is just a fact of life. The silly thing is that they think they are not biased, or that it is just fine. I laughed when I heard Mara Liasson exclaim with surprise, when someone else on Brit Hume's panel mention NPR having a Liberal bias. I like her, but it was absurd to see her so blind to the bias.

I just tried an unsuccessful experiment: I broke Mozilla, "bigtime"

I thought it would be great to generate HTML from Microsoft Word 2000. I just saved as HTML, got the source and pasted it into Blogger. I then used Mozilla (what I am using 90% of the time), and it broke on the Word-generated HTML. I had to use an HTML editor to remove the Microsoft-only formatting, and then it worked in Mozilla.

I keep seeing flakey behavior in Mozilla. It seems to typical. Slashdot and MSNBC are breaking all the time. WFAA Large Radar, in Dallas also frequently breaks Mozilla.

My Search Engine Test

I read an article about search engines in today's Wall Street Journal on page B1 called "Study Questions Whether Google Really is Better", by Kevin J. Delaney. I decided to run an independent test of search engines, using my search criteria, looking for some specific material.

The search string used was: Hendrick de Raedt Swarte Leeuw.

Hendrick de Raedt was a Dutch captain in the First Anglo-Dutch War. The Swarte Leeuw was the name of his ship, which was provided by the Amsterdam Directors.

I was amazed to find that "Ask Jeeves" (ask.com) did the best, as it found two references. Google found only one of the two references. AllTheWeb, Altavista, Msn, Yahoo, Vivisimo, and Lycos didn't find either of the references.

Google: Google did not find the second reference!

Anglo-Dutch Wars
... Raedt) Hendrick de Raedt (as it was spelled in 1652-1653), commanded an Amsterdam
Directors' ship, the Swarte Leeuw: Captain Hendrick de Raedt Length: 130 feet ...
anglo-dutch-wars.blogspot.com/ archives/2003_11_01_anglo-dutch-wars_archive.html - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

Ask Jeeves (ask.com): Found both references

Anglo-Dutch Wars

1652 Hendrick de Raadt (Raedt) Hendrick de Raedt (as it was spelled in 1652-1653), commanded an Amsterdam Directors' ship, the Swarte Leeuw...

From:www.anglodutchwarsblog.com/Articles/Month200311/Week20031116.html

Anglo-Dutch Wars

Hendrick de Raedt Reference This is my translation of a note from ... Edam (Captain Barend Cramer) and the Swarte Leeuw (Captain Hendrik de...

From:www.anglodutchwarsblog.com/Articles/Month200312/Week20031201.html

 

 

AllTheWeb.com: Failed the test

No Web pages found that match your query.

Altavista.com: Failed the test

The search could not find either of the two references. The Advanced Search returned "We found 0 results. ".

Msn.com search: Failed the test

The search could not find either of the two references

Yahoo.com search: Failed the test

The search could not find either of the two references

Vivisimo.com clustered search: Failed the test

The search could not find either of the two references

 

Lycos.com ("Terra Lycos"): Failed the test

The search could not find either of the two references

The Democrats want us to lose in Iraq

The Democrats only seem to care about partisan advantage, so they, and their buddies in the press (most of the mainstream press) are trying to talk us into failure in Iraq. They don't care about the Iraqi people, the war on terror, our troops. All they can focus on is trying to defeat President Bush. Talk about total irresponsibility. I don't see what else you can call it.

John Kerry needs to be soundly beaten, just to shut these people up (to use the vernacular).

Paranoia: what the Democrats have and are teaching

I have enough problems with the pervasive paranoia among leftist Democrats, but I have even greater difficulty with it, when it has struck my own family. The paranoia generally affects Democrats view of President Bush. He is accused of all sorts of vile things. Then it affects their view of business and business people. In the last three years, there has been unbounded amounts of anti-business demagoguery. Untold abuses have been caused, including the prosecution of Martha Stewart, when a deal should have been cut.

The paranoia manifests itself in bizarre conspiracy theories that are taken to be absolute truth. In personal lives, the paranoia prevents people from making rational decisions. Real paranoia has struck several members of my family, so that it has poisoned the atmosphere for my mother's recovery, after a fall. Those of us who are not tied into the paranoia have little else to do, but allow it to play out, for the worse.

The Mozilla browser

I found several more sites that do not work with Mozilla browser, but do with Internet Explorer. I have a further complication, in that I am using the Proxomitron proxy server to block pop-ups and ads. If something is not working, the first thing I try is to disable Proxomitron. If that doesn't work, I switch to IE6.

I wanted to download the Gmax 3-D modeling tool from Discrete Products. When you click the link, it opens TurboSquid. With Mozilla, I was not put into the download page, but somewhere else. One problem I have seen is with links that don't work in Mozilla, and that was true in my adventures with Gmax, last night. I gave up and used IE and that worked, even with the Proxomitron enabled.

I've gone back to writing "morning pages"

I'm back to writing "morning pages" again, after a long hiatus. This seemed like the right time, now that I am back in a transitional period. I have found that when many things are in flux, that adding one or two more things doesn't really affect me that much. I started writing morning pages after my son had adopted the practice. I had kept it going for quite a while, and only stopped when other things seemed to overwhelm me. My son had stopped, as well, but he had already resumed writing.

For those not familiar with morning pages, they are a practice that Julia Cameron had taught and promoted, starting in the book, the Artist's Way. For myself, I found that I connected with a different book of hers, The Right to Write. I devoured that book, and then moved on to Natalie Goldberg's books (Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind Living The Writer's Life, and Thunder and Lightning. I have read all of her writing books. She leads an alternative lifestyle, and there are things about Natalie Goldberg that I can't relate with, but she has useful things to say about the practice of writing. I would recommend looking at what she has to say.

I could see Qwest having to declare bankruptcy before too long

Overall, I hope it doesn't need to happen, but from what I have seen and heard in the last week, I really wonder if Qwest won't be forced into bankruptcy. There is a real panic to cut costs, even a the cost of getting the job done (which has to be bad news). I would welcome being corrected on this, but how else would you explain letting much of their consulting staff go, after this next Friday? That is even though that consulting staff is working on key projects. The projects take the hit, to cut costs. If this keeps up, the company will crater on performance, alone.

My nasty theory, which occurred to me on Friday, is that Philip Anschutz is pressing them to not declare bankruptcy, as his ownership would be "zeroed out." He is presently the MAJORITY OWNER. You can tell a story (which may or may not be true, but sure seems likely) that he forcibly took over USWest with stock that was unreasonably inflated in price. The part that may or may not be true is whether Qwest was fairly valued at the time of the hostile takeover. That whole episode certainly soured the attitudes of longtime USWest employees. This has the possibility of being another ENRON-like situation, as I am sure that a lot of people lost money from their pension funds, when the Qwest stock price plummetted to its present level (under $4 per share).

Another reason why John Kerry shouldn't be President

I heard John Kerry's plan for dealing with gas prices. It really is two parts. The first is to release some of the national petroleum reserves. The second is to "do research for alternative energy sources" which will fill our needs (not) and create new jobs. The only problem is that we don't run our cars on wind or solar. What we need is the freedom to look for oil without restriction and to expand refineries. Between those, we would be able to survive. John Kerry is blowing wind. He doesn't have a clue as to what to do. His problem, besides lack of imagination, is that he can't say anything that would conflict with the views of the radical environmentalists. The radical environmentalists can be given the credit for our president condition.

Attitudes among Arabs, particularly

The basic problem between us and Islam, particularly the Arabs, but other people, as well, is that they have 11th Century attitudes, still. There is a silent culture that they don't speak about, because it is so bad, that creates shame and anger. It involves sexual abuse of children, rivalry between children, often born of different mothers, and the whole picture creates immense anger. The Saudi brand of Islam, Wahabbism, is particularly nasty. Because the Saudis have had lots of money, they have been exporting the disease to other countries, including the U.S. Thanks to people like Steven Schwartz, we are at least more aware of the issue.

Of course, September 11th was a big "wake up call". The problem is that our Democrat buddies don't seem to have gotten the call. That includes the big cahuna, John Kerry. The crowd at the Nation are even more clueless. The thing that drives me crazy is that these people might well take power.

Why doesn't John McCain declare himself as a Democrat and get it over with

The more I hear John McCain talk, the angrier I get. I greatly regret having voted for him in the 2000 primary, after seeing him in action for the last four years. The only thing he does right is to vote with the Republicans to organize the Senate.

Putting John McCain on the Democratic ticket would be tantamount to what the Democrats charged about the choice of Dick Cheney for the 2000 presidential race. At the time, they saw Cheney as providing almost a parent to George Bush. That is essentially what John McCain would be for John Kerry. The only problem with John McCain is that he is little better than Kerry.

Rumour has it that Qwest laid off about 400 IT people yesterday

The only thing we know for sure is that IT people were laid off from Qwest, yesterday. Oddly enough, the Rocky Mountain News didn't mention the fact, in any visible way. Rumour (only) had it that 400 people were affected. Sadly, Qwest shows signs of being in a downward spiral, which is extremely unfortunate, as there were and still are many good people working for the company. We can thank Philip Anschutz and Joe Nacchio for this situation. It is unclear if Dick Notebaert can rescue the company or not.

Sarin in Iraq and the mainstream media

The biggest splash that the Sarin found in Iraq has been in William Safire's column in the New York Times. Otherwise, the story has been buried, as it hurts the Democrats' war against President Bush. It is hard to maintain the "Bush Lied" story line when inconvenient facts arise, such as the Sarin and mustard gas found in improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

The sad fact is that in the current environment, we can't rely on the liberal mainstream media to provide news coverage, as they are selectively editing the news to fit their agenda. They are the real practitioners of "Pseudo-Journalism".

WMD's

I hate the term "WMD". It is a Clintonism that replaced the traditional term "NBC" weapons. The NBC stood for "Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical" weapons. The term was widely used for decades, until the Clinton administration, when "WMD" took its place.

Now, the people who read the Nation and would secretly like to vote for Ralph Nader, are hoping against hope that the report that a shell with Sarin nerve agent was found, will be proved to be false. If it is true, it would upset their fantasy world view. Their world view is based on what they wish was true: President Bush "stole" the 2000 election; the 2002 election never happened, and if it did, it was an anomoly; we should never have invaded Iraq to overturn Saddam's murderous regime; "Bush lied" about WMD's in Iraq; and John Kerry is the best candidate for President. We could go on and on, adding things like "9/11 happened because we supported Israel, not the Palestinians", "It's all about oil" (Afghanistan and Iraq), and the like.

Colin Powell "chewed out the Arabs"

I was glad to see that Colin Powell spoke strongly about the Arab governments not being strong enough in their condemnation of the killing of Nick Berg.

Apparently, there was a scene on Meet the Press. I wish I had seen it. Tim Russert was trying to do a "hit" on Colin Powell, and he didn't allow it. I hope it is true, as it is time someone stands up to this guy (and all the others).

John S. McCain, Jr.

Apparently, John McCain has told John Kerry and the Democrats that he won't be John Kerry's Vice Presidential candidate. John McCain reportedly told them that he likes being in the Senate, is still a Republican, and is supporting the President. The Democrats have had their hopes up that they still might persuade John McCain to take the leap, as their guy has so many negatives. Now, he is going to have to win on his own merits, if this news is correct.

I don't like how anti-business the Bush Justice Department is

I have a problem with the general trend of anti-business prosecutions that have been happening. The latest episode is the Justice Department's criminal investigation of Nortel. In the wave of demagoguing by the Democrats, in 2001 and 2002, that took place, bad legislation was passed. The latest was the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which only makes things worse. The sad thing is that the whole thing started simply as an attempt to damage President Bush, and it is having bad effects on business, and therefore, the economy. The whole prosecution of Martha Stewart, whatever her sins, was a mistake. At worst, she should have been fined.

If there were any issues, it was the whole moral tone set in the latter 1990's, where everything was smoke and mirrors, and bad behavior behind the scenes, from the President on down. I had a long talk with someone, last night, on this subject, and he is more incensed than even I am. So is anyone going to read this?

Nick Berg didn't do anything wrong, except be in the wrong place at the wrong time

I think that given what we currently know, the only thing Nick Berg did wrong was to be in a place where Zarqawi and his cohorts could put their hands on him. He was a dead man because he was an American and Jewish. Regardless of where Nick Berg's sympathies lie, the guys who killed him so brutally need to be hunted down. My perference is for them to be killed, but barring that, capture them and put them on trial (and then kill them).

The so-called anti-war movement

I hope that my assessment that Nick Berg was caught up with the wrong people, due to his anti-war sympathies is wrong. The reason why such as thing is plausible, is that the only war they are against, apparently, is that prosecuted by Western countries, especially the United States. The self-proclaimed "Anti-War Movement" was against invading Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. They didn't criticize Saddam's war against his own people, which resulted in hundreds of thousands in mass graves. Misguided "human shields" went to Iraq to try and keep Saddam in power.

Now, Nick Berg's parents blame the President and Secretary Rumsfeld for their son's death. What did they have to do with it? They are trying to rid Iraq of the people who killed their son. They are prosecuting a war against the Islamist terrorists who are killing people like their son, around the world.

Nick Berg

Nick Berg had an interesting history. He came from an "anti-war" family, and we can imagine that represented what he believed, as well. He had met Zacarias Moussaoui at the University of Oklahoma, and had let Moussaoui use his e-mail account for communication.

Nick Berg had found his way to Iraq, and seemed to have some sort of affinity for the people. He had a small problem, however, in that despite his sympathy for the Arab people (and seemingly, the cause of jihad), he was American and, even worse yet, Jewish. He was captured and brutally killed, despite his stand in the conflict. Nick Berg was warned to leave, but somehow felt like he needed to be there, perhaps because of his sympathies, and may have somehow felt he was furthering the anti-war cause.

Admittedly, this is highly speculative, and could well be mistaken, but there are too many coincidences.

The new Blogger, "Preview", and tables

I just added a post to one of my blogs that has some sophisticated HTML tables. I tried the "Preview" facility, to see how the tables appeared. I am sure that the old "Preview" did a credible job on these tables, but these now appear to be mangled. When viewed from either Internet Explorer 6.0 or Mozilla, the tables are just fine.

Admittedly, these tables "push the envelope", in that they started life in a Word document. I copied and pasted them into my WYSIWYG HTML editor. I then copied the HTML produced and pasted into Blogger. Then I clicked the "Preview" and was dismayed.

Global cooling: The Great Storm

As I have mentioned before, during a period of global cooling, a mini-iceage, there were a series of severe storms. Storms in August 1652 and early November 1653 affected the outcome of the First Anglo-Dutch War.

The storm in July 1652, in northern latitudes, scattered the main Dutch fleet, commanded by Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp. The Dutch fleet consisted of 92 warships, 1 supply ship, 7 fireships, and 3 galliots. They had sailed for the Shetlands, to meet a returning merchant fleet. The storm sank some ships and scattered the Dutch fleet. Admiral Tromp was relieved of his command, although he was later restored.

Late in 1653, there was another returning merchant fleet. Tromp had been dead for several months. The remaining fleet commander, Witte Corneliszoon De With was sent north, again, with about 45 warships set sail to meet a fleet of 490 merchant ships. Admiral De With had cautioned against such a mission, due to the weather dangers, but they were sent anyway. His second in command was the famous Michiel Adriaanszoon De Ruyter. They managed to avoid marauding English warships, and arrived off Norway. On the return voyage, they were devastated by an enormous storm. Just a short distance from safety, they were caught by the storm. On November 9 and 10, 1653, about 14 ships were destroyed by the storm off the Texel and the northwest coast. Some were overwhelmed by waves and foundered while others were driven ashore and wrecked.

While there are concerned about storms caused by global warming, there is at least as much to fear from storms caused by "global cooling".

CBS has blood on its hands

If we can believe the terrorists who killed Nick Berg, then CBS is responsible, largely, for rushing ahead and showing the prisoner abuse pictures. They could have done the story without the pictures, and only threatened to make them available. Instead, the showed them, because they thought it would do maximum damage to the President and his administration.

What they did was to further undercut the mission to fight terrorism and to bring peace and stability to Iraq. That task is challenging enough, without the inflamatory pictures being shown.

Thrust back into the contract IT job market

With just a little trepidation, I have been adjusting to being thrown back into the IT consulting job market. There have been signs that the market might be improving. After all, my friend who had been unemployed for 1-1/2 years had started work, a few weeks ago. There have been many calls and e-mails about opportunities. The question is, how it will all play out.

If there is an interview, will it be a good one, or will the interviewer have just gotten off a flying saucer. I had one of those, a few days ago, and it was unnerving. You start to doubt your sanity and employability, even though neither is in doubt.

I was appalled at the speech by the L A Times' editors speech

Apparently, John Carroll, the editor of the Los Angeles Times, doesn't approve any journalism that is not biased to the left. Therefore, anyone who doesn't have those biases is doing "pseudo-journalism". He was obviously referring to people like Fox News and the Washington Times.

We already knew about the L A Times from their attempted bashing of Arnold Schwarznegger, during the recall and election for governor. Given that, we shouldn't be surprised at Mr. Carroll's speech.

Typically, such people won't admit to bias. Therefore, there is no liberal media, to their mind. NPR isn't "liberal talk radio" and CNN isn't the "Clinton News Network".

My graphics project for the day

I created a belated custom Mother's Day card to send home. My wife is out of town, so I sent it to get there on Tuesday afternoon.

Play for the best possible outcome, given what is happening

A strategy for life, that I have learned through hard experience, is to assess your situation, the possibilities, and position yourself to get the best possible outcome. The outcome may not be good, but when your life seems to be "falling apart", set yourself up to get through it. That means:

Conserve money

Only spend what is needed to keep your finances from going into default (if there are the resources)

Draw upon all resources that you might have to meet your bottom-line needs.

Keep obligations to the minimum. If you have a lease that ending, see what can be done to keep your moveout date flexible, without incurring multi-month obligations

If you can make something yourself, for less, rather than buying it, do it.

Even when things are looking grim, keep a good balance on your checking account, so that you know what resources you have.

Knowing how much money you have, plan out as far as it will go, how you will spend it. That allows you to make choices about what is really important.

A slice of life

When I read some of Lynndie England's story, it reminded me of being a Lieutenant and then Lieutenant-Commander in the Naval Reserves. There were many good people, often not being directed well. I never saw any problems, but there was one guy whose life was like a soap opera. This was the guy who worked as a consultant in the DC area who had a wife, children, and a pregnant girl friend.

I read about how Lynndie England was five months pregnant wth this other reservist's child. Then I saw the pictures of her with the Iraqi on a leash and her smoking and pointing. I could see that her life, too, was a soap opera. You can't count on someone like that to make good decisions.

The current media orgy over the abuse in Iraq

The Democrats may be scoring points on the President and Secretary Rumsfeld, but they are also damaging the country. We don't have to show every damaging tape or picture to the world, just because we have them and it damage the President.

Not only the military police Guardmen who did bad things should be punished, but those who set up this operation need to be called to account. The whole concept was counter to what we should have been doing.

Now, I'm getting spam from the Democrats

A recent feature is that I am on a Democrat email list, and am getting spam. It is spam, as it is not something that I solicited. I thought Democrats were "agin" spam, I didn't know they were getting into the business.

I imagine that the Democrats won't have much to say about high gas prices

I would guess that the Democrats will be reluctant to demogogue gas prices and $40 per barrel oil. The reason being it would cause people to ask why we can't do more exploring and drilling for oil, and why "certain places" are out-of-bounds. They have also said that $1.50 per gallon gas was "too cheap", and that we need to add a big tax on gas to discourage use.

Of course, people with low incomes would feel the pain the most. They might ask why we can tap all of our potential oil resources, so we don't depend on the Middle East. The reason is Democratic politics, of course, and they don't want to call attention to that fact, just now.

The "bad guys" seem to be winning on every front

The impression that I am getting from the press is that people who are "bad guys" are winning on every front, whether in Iraq, Congress, or American politics, in general. The people I like and respect seem to be in full retreat. I hope that they can find a place to stand and fight (rhetorically).

It would be wrong to call Brandon Mayfield a "recent convert to Islam"

It turns out that Brandon Mayfield, the lawyer in the Portland case, converted to Islam in 1989. He was a former Army officer. Michael J. Totten speculated if he might have been involved in a bomb found on light rail, in his city. Brandon Mayfield's fingerprints turned up on a bag of detonators in Madrid. I wonder what else he has been doing. In the current political climate, we may not be able to find out, until something happens.

An odd topic: Objects and block structured programming languages

The subject of blocks, in Java, came up in conversation, when I was asked about their use in implementing SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit: native widgets). The concept of blocks derives originally from ALGOL 60. The family of languages that are derived from that incorporate them. You could even argue that C falls into that family, although it uses a different syntax (that now used in Java).

Blocks define a scope for named items. The names could be for variables, types, procedures, or functions. You can nest blocks within larger scopes. The nested blocks provide a further restriction on a set of names, while inheriting the names from the enclosing scopes.

Objects are analogous to blocks. A superclass defines a set of names. They include static or class variables, procedures, and functions. In objects, methods that are "void" are equivalent to procedures. Functions are equivalent to methods that return values.

Subclasses define restricted scopes while inheriting the names in the enclosing scopes defined by superclasses. In a Pascal-like language, you may not have copies of the same block that defines a set of names. In a language like Scheme, you can. Conceptually, there is little difference between Scheme and ALGOL. Scheme was inspired by the ALGOL concept, so it should not be surprising. In object-oriented languages, the ordinary mode of operation is to have those copies, in the form of instances of a "class". A class being, in the context, a block that defines a set of names. In Java, an "inner class" is simply a nested block.

I'm not sure where this will lead, but I have been thinking about programming language design and implementation. You might ask why there would be need for "yet another programming language". Don't we have too many, already? The answer is that over the last 50 years or so, we have benefitted by people going off and designing new programming languages. Some never become widely used while others may take a long time to find acceptance. A few, like Ada and Java, become the latest fad. Rigjt now, the enduring fad is object-oriented programming languages. Twenty years ago, the latest fad was block structured languages.

There are some odd connections between Leftist politics and the Islamists

This latest story about the Pacific Northwest lawyer for the "Portland Seven" being arrested for the Madrid training bombings points out a strange trend. I don't understand what is appealing to Leftists about Islam. On the face, it would be incompatible. The only connection that I can see is the rise in Anti-Semitism in Leftist political circles, worldwide. Otherwise, my concept of the Leftist lifestyle, and choices they make, seem to be at odds with Islam.

There is also the odd connection between "Radical Islam" and homosexuality. Two prominent cases are Mohammed Atta and John Walker Lindh. I would have said that Islam was incompatible with homosexuality. That still seems to true. John Walker Lindh, though, was recruited to Islam through the homosexual connection. Of course, John Walker Lindh is a hero to the "Radical Left" , so there is another connection.

Democrats are putting partisan politics over the welfare of the country

The Democrats are so anxious to beat the President and Republicans, they are ready to compromise the security of the country. The Army found out about the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners on January 13, 2004 and an investigation was started. An announcement was made on January 16th to the press. Charges were filed in March. The photos were leaked in the last week, to the great detriment of the country. The leak was made for simple partisan advantage, even though it was made at the great detriment to our position in the world.

It's bad stuff, but it is what I have been thinking for some time

I saw something on the Focus on the Family website, earlier today, that talked about evidence that sounds to me like Terry Schiavo is the victim of a failed murder attempt. She was said to have injuries consistent with a beating, when he became disabled. I had thought that this might be the case, although it is hard to know, without a criminal investigation, this much time since the event. My immediate reaction is to wonder if this is the motivation behind what has been happening, recently: namely, to finish the job.

My wife was paid to teach students that were worse off than Terry Schiavo

In the mid-1990's, in Texas, the school district felt obligated by Federal law to have my wife teach severely and profoundly handicapped students, several of whom were less aware than Terry Schiavo, in Florida. My main concern about her situation is her husband's behavior in recent years. She has become an impediment to his lifestyle. Why doesn't he just divorce her and be done with it? Why is he so intent on having her killed? That is harsh, but that is how is efforts come across. Why can't he just turn her over to her parents and be done with it? Why kill her? Since when did we start condoning euthanasia on "defectives", Nazi style?

K9: Bayesian Spam Filter

It has been a long time since I reported on my experience with the K9 statistical (Bayesian) spam filter. These are the stats as of 5 minutes ago:

 

Total number of emails processed	10,784
Number of Good emails processed	908
Number of Spam emails processed	9,876
Number of emails re-classified to Good	89
Number of emails re-classified to Spam	13
Percentage emails misidentified as Spam	0.83%
Percentage emails misidentified as Good	0.12%

 

Needless to say, I am very happy with the product. It works and it is free. Yes, it is pretty bad how much spam I receive. That is one of the hazards of a openly published email address.

John O'Neil voted for Hubert Humphrey

I was interested to read John O'Neil's story from the early 1970's. I had assumed that he was a Republican, but that is not the case. The group of Swift boat veterans that had a press conference did not do it for partisan reasons, although our Democratic friends will say that was the case. Apparently, they were serious that this was just about John Kerry, not about politics. They just wanted to voice their opinion that John Kerry was not fit to be the commander-in-chief. The Kerry spin machine is in motion to counteract the resulting bad press, however well-deserved.

Eating low carb costs more

Yes, eating low carb costs more. I have been largely following a low carb diet for 5 years. Even only "sort of following a low-carb diet is expensive. Meat is more expensive then high-carb foods. After all, you could live (kind of) on boxed macaroni and cheese, supplemented by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The Swift boat veterans

I heard some of what John Kerry's former commanding officer said, yesterday, and I am not surprised that the mainstream media is ignoring the event. There was a group of about 200 Swift boat veterans who had served in Viet Nam with John Kerry. It had to be galling to Senator Kerry, just to know the event happened, as he has been trumpeting his service in Viet Nam as sign of his superiority over the President.

I now understand why John Kerry doesn't want to release all of his records about his naval service in Viet Nam. There are pieces that are not flattering, or may even be damaging. The story is covered on World Net Daily. I was glad that I was able to hear the actual audio, as I was hearing the actual story from the source.

Qwest's earnings report puts events into perspective

The contrast between Qwest's performance in the first quarter of 2003 and that from 2004 is very stark. They went from a small profit to a substantial loss, in a year's time. I can even understand the push on long distance, as they are desperate to get revenue from any source, even if it is ephemeral. For example, I only use wireless for long distance, so I am not a potential customer. For my local phone service, I use my T-Mobile phone. I have a local line, but it is only so that I can have DSL. I have a phone hooked to it, simply because it is more convenient to dial the toll free number for my credit union and interact with their system by a regulary phone that it is by wireless phone.

Since late last year, the employment situation has steadily deteriorated. They have good people who have been dedeicated employees, but it can only undermine loyalty, when the only talk is of layoffs and outsourcing. We can understand the reason, but it can only undercut the business. You would think that present management will have only a limited time to fix the cashflow mismatch, or they will be gone. The company will not vanish, but they may have only to be acquired or to go through bankruptcy. A year ago, it looked like bankruptcy was averted, but maybe it is still a possibility. They can only hope that they will be acquired (are SBC's tentacles that long?).

An odd feature of this Compaq machine

A feature of this otherwise "hot" Compaq machine is that it will "hang" for some seconds. My theory is that it is doing a big page swap, but that is only a guess. The machine has a 1.8GHz P4 with one GB of RAM. It has a small (for these days) hard drive. It is just 20GB. The OS is Windows XP Professional. This happens to be one of those very small footprint machines, where the "box" is approximately 13in x 15in x 4in.

I suppose that another possibility is that the hard disk is slow, affected swapping. Typically, I have WebLogic 8.1 running, have the Eclipse IDE open, as well as Outlook and Mozilla, and use a lot of resources. However, I experienced the "hang" with only 365MB of memory used. Does anyone have a theory?

Senator Kerry's new ad campaign

Apparently, the goal of Senator Kerry's new ad campaign is to show him as a "Center-Right" candidate who is strong on national defense and pro-business. The campaign apparently assumes that no one knows anything about him, so that I can say whatever he wants, and people will accept that as the truth. The technical term for it is "tacking right". I suppose that he will try to get to the right of President Clinton, in this portrayal.

We didn't do anything to deserve September 11th

I keep coming back to this point. We were attacked on September 11th, not for anything we did, but because of who we are. We are liberal-minded. We educate our women and allow them to work. We don't require them to wear a burka. We allow homosexuals and we protect them through laws. We allow freedom of worship or the freedom to be an atheist. We don't enforce the Sharia law.

Spain didn't do anything, either, to warrant terrorist attack on March 11th. Their main transgression was to drive the Moors out of Spain, finally, in 1492. What can they do to make up for that? The only other thing that they did was to take part, for a short while, in the fight against the Islamists who would destroy us.

There are some topics that are very sensitive

I heard that Senator Kerry spent two tours of duty in Viet Nam. I was mystified that only amounted to four months, in combat. My younger brother, on the other hand, was in the North, within sight of Khe Sanh much of the time. He was a young marine private and then lance corporal. He was there for one 11 month tour, and then came back for another six months.

I have never really heard the details. I cannot do it justice. I just hope that I have come close enough on the big picture. My bother is six foot-six inches tall. His natural weight is about 235. When he came back from Viet Nam, he was about 175 pounds (or about that). They whole time, they were "speeding", as you hardly dared to sleep. One time, their hill was overrun (he was in the artillery), and they were in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. They killed and were killed or wounded. It is not something that you will forget anytime soon.

The war and the battle left many scars. I was in the Navy, at the time when my brother returned from Viet Nam. I admired his courage and fortitude to have returned from a very harrowing time. I spent the remainder of the Viet Nam war in various schools, until I was commissioned as an Ensign in the Navy. My brother was an inspiration to me. I really didn't understand just how traumatic the whole experience had been, but I resented when I saw someone on television talking about how our troops had been commiitting atrocites in Viet Nam. I only recently realized who that person was.

All my active service as a naval officer was in the Cold War. I spent the summer of 1976 involved with working up the crew and air wing, getting ready to deploy to the Mediterranean. After a month in port, we were off. We sailed with our task group, heading for Rota, Spain.

We had a quick evening ashore, and we were off, again, heading East. I was on the bridge at dawn, as we sailed past Gibraltar. I can't say that I even remember what it looked like. But I was on the bridge, quite busy, as Junior Officer of the Watch. I'm not even sure why I was there, as later, I spent all "Special Sea and Anchor" details in CIC.

I didn't explicity say this, but I was on an aircraft carrier. My ship was so old, they we did everything manually. No NTDS for us. I tracked ship with grease pencil on the scope face and drew in pencil on maneuvering board paper.

Being on a warship is not safe. We lost five men on the cruise. The most traumatic was when I was on the bridge in early evening (as I recall) and we heard that a plane was down. The airgroup commander had seen the A7 go into a flat spin, and then vanish. As soon as we got the word, we headed for the site at high speed. We spent the night looking for wreckage with search lights. All they ever found was a battered helmet.

Probably the next significant even, for me, was the "Iran Hostage Rescue Attempt" on April 24-25, 1980. I had to look up the dates, as I did not remember when it was. The main thing I remember is being dressed in my winter uniform with black shirt and trousers, with a tie. I had my Lieutenant bars on my collar and my Surface Warfare Officer pin and ribbons on my shirt. I had taken my son to the "Rec Center" for swimming practice. A retired Navy Captain cleaned the pool for the team. This was in Virginia Beach. The Captain broke the news to me that we had sent men into the desert in Iran, to try and rescue the hostages, and it had gone terribly wrong. I must admit that I went home and wept.

Much later, I met a black, former serviceman, selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners in 1988, who had been in that desert. He was in Marine Recon, and he said that it was terribly disorganized, as the different branches of service had radios that wouldn't intercommunicate, and the whole operation was a terrible disaster.

This ex-Marine had also been in Lebanon, in 1982, before anyone knew they were there. To my mind, he was typical of the bravery and dedication that I had seen in others who I had seen, and some with whom I had the privilege of serving.

For myself, I was just there, even though it was in the Cold War. We weren't fighting anyone. I heard about other's fighting, and was certainly in some danger, as anyone on board ship lead a dangerous life. When I was first Electrical Officer and then A-Division Officer on the USS Nashville, we heard about the young Engineering officer who was scalded to death by steam. He double knit uniform melted on him.

Many of those I served with on the Nashville in 1977-1979 were off Lebanon in the early 1980's (apparently, 1983). I later ran into a Second Class Machinists Mate who worked for me in A-Division, and he told me the story of when ran the landing craft back and forth from land performing an evacuation.

I get very angry when I see the so-called anti-war crowd protesting. Are they against freeing the people of Afghanistan and Iraq from terrible governements? Are they in favor of regimes that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and dumped them in mass graves? All I can say is "give me a break".

What is actually happening in Fallujah is strange but interesting

Despite what you might have read or heard in the mainstream media, there is something odd happening in Fallujah. One thing that has not happened is that the Marines have given up and left, although you might think so, from what we are being told in many places. Instead, the Marines are still around, but they are giving the former Saddam general and his battalion a little bit of responsibility to see how they do. If it works out, they will get more, and more of these units will be formed.

This is more of a political move than a military one. It is part of a move to give the governance and maintenance of security an Iraqi face. Presumably, they have vetted these guys (the Iraqis) and they passed.

I hope we have a Retief working behind the scenes in Iraq

All too often, the U.S. State Department comes across like they are all like Ambassadors GrossBlunder, Longspoon, Straphanger, Colonel Underknuckle, and others. Even someone like Mr. Magnan would be an improvement. It is really great that our State Department is staffed by the Corps Diplomatique Terresteriene (search for it in Google, if you are not familiar with them).

John Kerry and the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War

John Kerry's involvement with the November 1971 meeting of the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, that took place in Kansas City, surfaced again, in conversation. What I came away with is that not very many people know about this incident. It is mostly floating around the Blogosphere. All you have to do to get up to speed, however, is to give this search string to Google: "John Kerry November 1971" and click "Search".

The curious thing is that John Kerry had denied being at this meeting, at first. Reportedly, he had quit, when they talked about assassinating pro-war senators. Why didn't he just say that? It was a reasonable thing to say, and reflects pretty well upon him.

I hope what is happening at Fallujah turns out to be a great idea

Most amateur conservative military strategists would say that the Marines should have gone into Fallujah, as they were only facing about 1500 Saddam loyalist troops. There would have been a good bit of destruction, as we use the same tactics as the Israelis. We don't go in doors, we bust through one wall into another. We are probably also using "sensors" that allow us to view through the wall (I have finally seen, in the open press, that we are using such things).

It is hard to imagine that sending in one of Saddam's generals, with a 1000 troops, will root out the enemy, but I am willing to see this through (as if we have any choice). We can only hope that the people there, on the ground, and our "elite team of diplomats" (members of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne?), know the situation better than we do.