Posts Tagged ‘reality’

Rosie was wrong Steele can melt

Posted: March 2, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

Or at least he can melt down when asked about conservatives.

On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”

You know I left the democratic party when I perceived that believing Catholics are apparently racist bigoted homophobes who oppress women.

If Mr. Steele thinks that as a conservative who agrees with Rush is not welcome either I’m sure I can find somewhere else to go. And if the RNC site blog is any indication if I do I wouldn’t be lonely at all.

Ask and before your post is done you receive:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

Not really sounding much like a party leader, but its still early and there is time to recover. Watch for the left to pounce with glee. That is the point when we will find out if Steele is a leader or no.

Update: Why was this a big deal? This is from Rush’s statement on the matter:

My parents taught me when I was growing up that you always stood behind people who defended you, you never abandoned people who stood up for you and who defended you against assault. Michael Steele was a candidate for the Senate in Maryland. Michael Steele was on this program, he got airtime on this program to attempt to refute the lies being told about him by Michael J. Fox in those famous ads way back when that were also run against Jim Talent in Missouri. I personally took time to defend Michael Steele and to rip the substance of those ads, had him on the show. I went after Chuck Schumer when Chuck Schumer’s former employee stole Michael Steele’s private credit record information and released it. When I went to Washington a couple years ago for a personal appearance from my station there, WMAL, WMAL arranged for a number of dignitaries to meet me backstage. One of them was Michael Steele, who thanked me very much for coming to his defense. Something’s happened. Now I’m just an entertainer and now I am ugly and my program is incendiary.

Any Sicilian knows you stick by those who stick by you.

Update 2: Hot air is divided. Or at least Allahpundit is.

Ok lets talk porn…

Posted: March 2, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, oddities, opinion/news, tech
Tags: , , ,

Now that I have your attention…

I was thinking of this post concerning file sharing and how it has been a pain to persuade people off of these sites. Mostly due to free music and porn.

I can’t tell you how many systems I’ve worked on that were loaded with porn or with explicit icons on the desktop. I’ve actually had to tell explain the risk difference between stuff you will download with limewire or torrents and “good” porn sites that have subscription walls and do not want to infect you because they want you to be paying your $10 or $20 or whatever a month to keep looking.

These are tough economic times as my own job search has shown. With this in mind consider old but very relevant article:

“The contributors, or amateur porn models, they target are between the age of 18 and 24.

“Often struggling students, young single mothers, or just underpaid young women.

“So they come to a site that seemingly offers them an opportunity to make money while expressing themselves as sexual beings in an environment they are told is pro-female and that their creations will be viewed exclusively by members.

Now many of those sites do have subscription walls for their material just like many songs have copy protection and we all know how that works out. Once that file is downloaded by a member and put on a torrent or on a system with any file sharing poof the wall is gone.

Do you remember this exchange from the Magnificent Seven:

Chris: Harry tells me you faced bigger odds during the Travis County war.
O’Reilly: Well, they paid me six hundred dollars for that one.
Vin: He said you got that Selena thing cleared up in less than a month.
O’Reilly: Paid me eight hundred dollars for that one.
Vin: You cost a lot.
O’Reilly: Yeah. That’s right, I cost a lot.
Chris: The offer is twenty dollars.
[O’Reilly keeps chopping wood. Chris and Vin turn to leave.]
O’Reilly: Twenty dollars? Right now, that’s a lot.

Consider this for a moment (content warning):
(more…)

A dangerous wish for the left

Posted: March 1, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , ,

All over the net we see the left celebrating the idea that Rush Limbaugh has a higher profile:

Politico:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel charged Sunday that conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Emanuel, speaking in deliberately soothing tones, told anchor Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Limbaugh has been up front about “praying for failure” by President Obama.


Washington Monthly:

It’s a strategy with all kinds of appeal. Limbaugh is not exactly a respected public figure (drug-addled shock-jock who’s actively rooting for America’s decline), but Republicans continue to hold him in high regard. With that in mind, Democrats and Limbaugh, oddly enough, have the same goal: convince the general public that he’s the ostensible head of the Republican Party.

Greg Sargent:

Top Democratic operatives are planning a stepped up campaign to promote Rush Limbaugh as the public face of the GOP — an effort that will include recruiting Dem governors to make this case on talk shows, getting elected officials to pen Op eds arguing it, and running more ads pushing it, a senior Democratic operative says.

Key leadership staff in the House and Senate, and in all the political committees, have been encouraged by senior Dem operatives to push this message wherever possible, the operative says.

“I’m encouraging everybody to go out and say this,” Paul Begala, the well-known Dem strategist, just told me by phone. “I’m hot for this. Let’s get this out every way we can.”

All this talk is foolish. Combine the Democratic party’s efforts with CNN’s decision to broadcast the entire Rush Broadcast adds up to a lot of people who will actually be exposed to not the caricature of Rush Limbaugh that the media creates but the actual person with actual ideas and belief and the ability to articulate them (Andrew Sullivan not withstanding).

Since Rush also very leery of phony ambush journalism he is able to deliver a tight message when he appears as a guest on various shows.

As our democratic friends seem to have forgotten 1994 lets point out that a person doesn’t become the most popular radio host in history and remain so for two decades without being able to communicate. CNN’s attempt to turn the speech into something it wasn’t isn’t effective when people have actually seen it.

Combine his skills with the likely result of the Obama policies and I suspect we will see conservatives with a lot more seats in 2010 and maybe even a different result in 2012.

The most expensive .99 cent songs ever

Posted: March 1, 2009 by datechguy in tech
Tags: ,

Slashdot reports that our modern blackberry president has the same issues that a lot of other p2p users do:

A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama’s helicopter, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported Saturday.

Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.

Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: “We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president’s helicopter.”

And how did they manage to get it? One guess:

Someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, not realizing the potential problems, Boback said.

“When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive,” Boback said.

I’ve been arguing for years that saving .99 cents on a song is a lot less expensive than the risks you take.

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