Archive for January, 2009

Today’s morning Joe thoughts (semi liveblog)

Posted: January 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Joe is really hitting the Sanjay Gupta appointment as a gag. I don’t see the problem with it. A lot of it is just communication and he certainly qualifies as a communicator and as a doctor.

Have you noticed that it is apparently no longer racist to say Barack Hussein Obama? I personally don’t think it ever was.

I’m not a huge fan of Al Franken for the senate and I do have a soft spot for him due to his works with the USO, but I don’t see the point of hitting him for comedy clips that he did. He is a comedian what do you expect?

Update: Apparently on the Today Show this isn’t true.

7:38 a.m. The NBC middle east reporter seemed tongue tied when Joe questioned the anti-Israel line.

7:42 a.m Joe just asked Dan Rather why the press doesn’t care or get involved when the rockets are firing but only when Israel hits back. Rather agreed saying that for some reason it doesn’t rate a story and said he doesn’t understand why. Barnicle correctly pointed out that this is used as a distraction by dictators.

Is it just me or is Mika kind of quiet today?

8:07 a.m. When Martin Indyk was asked why Hamas fired rockets at Israel, the subject of Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel never came up in his reasoning. Hamas has never needed a reason to kill Jews.

Oh boy More Ice

Posted: January 7, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff
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You know after schools that were closed from the 11th-the 23rd last month the last thing we needed was more ice.

However we will be getting ice all day today. Lets see if the replacement power lines hold up.

The only bright side is that presumably all the trees that were not going to make it have already come down with the last storm.

Until didn’t cover itself with glory last month, lets see what happens.

At this rate the kids will be in school till July.

Tactics 101

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in war
Tags: , ,

Via the Muqata.

Understand the war with one image

Palestinians vs Israelis in one image

Official spyware?

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, tech
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There has been a lot of loose talk over the years of civil liberties being eroded but this looks like the real thing:

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The quietly part really bothers me almost as much as the without a warrant

The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

That is an incredible surrender of sovereignty.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect’s computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or “malware”. If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect’s home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network.

That is interesting, would it be made illegal for makers of anti-spyware software to block or stop this stuff?

The idea that this can be done without an explicit vote in Parliament is disgusting. Regardless of your opinion of the patriot act in the US the Congress passed it out of both houses and the president did sign it. This is being done without the consent of the people at all.

The actual story is here. Via insty & samizdata.net

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