Kerfuffles

“If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on,” — Government official to Wall Street Journal.

New evidence has just been uncovered that cyberspies, likely from China and Russia, have penetrated the U.S. power grid and left behind spyware software that can be activated to disrupt America’s water, sewer and electricity infrastructure, FOX News confirmed today.

The “intrusions,” first reported by The Wall Street Journal, did not occur yesterday, but happened over the period of time when George W. Bush was in charge, a high-ranking government official from the Obama Regime stated. The breaches are “something that the Bush Administration failed to catch,” the official reminded FOX News. Barack Obama himself was asked by the American media if Americans should be concerned that the spyware that Mr. Obama inherited from George W. Bush could be activated during Obama’s reign to disrupt critical systems and make his administration appear inept.

“White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a written statement that President Obama takes the issue of cyber security ‘very seriously,’ but that the administration is not aware of any such ‘disruptions’ to the power grid. Cyber attacks are made all the time, however, industry continuously looks for and mitigates against such attacks and we are not aware of any disruptions to the power grid caused by deliberate cyber activity here in the United States.”

While the motivation for the breaches is not well understood, the electronic trail appears to lead to China and Russia. However, both of those nations deny involvement in state-sponsored cyperspying. Officials at both Washington embassies of China and Russia emphatically deny that any of their spies in the United States are certified as cyperspies.

The good news, according to The Wall Street Journal, is that the cyperspying espionage appeared pervasive across the country and did not target any particular ethnic group nor sexual persuasion. Indeed, government officials explained to the Journal, the cyberspying intrusions were detected by those same U.S. intelligence agencies, CIA, DIA, NSA, etcetera, that had been asleep at the wheel during the Bush administration, when “man-made disaster” pilots were flying American-made airplanes into American-made buildings.

“‘If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on,’ one official told the Journal.” That is why the Obama Administration has already sent a message to both China and Russia, promising that the Obama Nation will NEVER wage war against either of their nations. China, Russia, the rest of the world, and the American people need to be reassured that President Barack Obama will never be a President George W. Bush.

For the first time in hundreds of years, if ever, sea pirates have hijacked an American-flagged ship with American crew members aboard. Again, the Obama administration reminds us that this is just another of the many disasters that Barack Obama inherited from that war-mongering George W. Bush. The vessel was flying the American flag only because it had been contracted by the Bush Department of Defense to ship war supplies.

Satire is probably closer to the truth than any real news you can read in America.

Facebook Scams For Idiots

Facebook applications are mostly designed for idiots. When I first joined Facebook, because I love genealogy, I got involved with the Family Tree Application. It was so difficult to set up, entering all of my ancestors and relatives, that I have hesitated to delete it, as I have already done with most of the other applications I had set up. After doing all of that setting up, I cannot use the Family Tree App as it is more difficult to edit than it was to set up. Who has that much time to tinker?

The Facebook applications that I use that I find worthwhile, good and not idiotic are Stanza, Twitter, Photos, Portable Reading, Posted Items and Notes. Groups, Events, Picnik, WordPress and Gifts seem to be okay although I’ve not used them much.

I have come to despise all of those Facebook applications that come to you as “Invitations from your Friends.” You feel the need to honor your friends, so you respond. Then when you allow your “friends’ application” to access your information, the first thing it does is to go in and grab the names of all of your friends and mass spam them with the very same “Invitations from your Friends” that you just received. Only this time, your name is on it as the sender. I HATE, HATE, HATE them for doing that! Those applications that do not Mass Spam have a different ploy. You need to enter your cell phone number to get the response that they tell you is awaiting you from your friend. Once you give that information, then you are told that $9.95 will be charged to your cell phone. Oh cool! Well, I have been getting wiser and warier with these tricky FaceBook apps.

Back to the “Family Tree” application. I’m a genealogist, so I couldn’t resist. First mistake! It could be fun, but it is instead bogus. Everytime I go to edit it, there is a “flashing” message, such as today’s “You Have Two Secred Admirers. Click to Find Out Who They Are.” So, idiot that I am, I click. Next the Family Tree App wants to know whether I am male or female, before they give me the messages from my secret admirers. Next step, it will cost me $9.95 to retrieve each one of the “Secret Admirer Messages.” I’m only a little stupid - I’m not THAT stupid!

Oh FaceBook, Grow Up Before I Really Get Ticked and Leave You For Good!

There is something called Bumper Sticker Application at Facebook which I encountered only because it was advertised on the profile of a 13-year-old Facebook “friend” of mine. Browsing just two or three pages of Bumper Stickers I saw that many of them are inappropriate for public viewing.

How about referring to women with the “H” or “WH” word? Even worse, how about referring to your mother that way? How about all kinds of sexual innuendo, some even gross, and glorification of various sexual fantasies? How about vulgar language that is NOT allowed on public radio and TV, such as the “F” word and other four letter words? How about Bumper Stickers that think it hilarious to describe various private bodily functions? And of course, a banner encouraging Pot Smoking, is just what our young people need to see.

Since Facebook thinks that this is appropriate for 13-year-olds, I think I will go back and see what other gems I may uncover there before I get grossed out again. I think parents need to be warned about Facebook.

Of course, Bumper Stickers has its own warning about inappropriateness:

What can I do about offensive stickers? If you see an offensive sticker, click on the image. On the next page, click on the “flag this sticker as offensive” link. We will review and take down stickers that are flagged as offensive by enough people.

Jolly Good! The Bumper Stickers I mentioned above, have obviously ALL passed the “Facebook Seal of Approval” as not enough people have flagged them as “offensive.” That certainly reveals much about Facebook. And, since 7 million Facebook users actively use and love these Bumper Stickers, it says much about them and our society.

I have been noticing that most of the people who have fallen for the CNN Email Virus are liberals and Dems. Makes sense. It must have been created by some mean-spirited Republican, so as to ensnare only those on the dark side of the political spectrum. For a while last week I was getting twenty-five or fifty of them a day. I immediately viewed them with suspicion when I saw the message that read something like this: “You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN News Alerts. To unsubscribe click this link.” I knew there was no way I had ever subscribed to anything from CNN, so those emails got deleted pronto. Unfortunately, for the liberals and Dems who accepted them as legitimate emails from CNN, they ended up with malware and viruses on their computers. However, from what I’ve read, the hoax seems to have begun in Belgium, so I don’t know why Euros would give a whiff about Liberals and Conservatives in America.

CNN Top 10 Email Virus

CNN Daily Top 10 Malware

Please be aware of the following fraudulent and dangerous email supposedly from CNN. This has just recently started within the past week. I am receiving dozens of these a day, and although I have not clicked on any of the links, I have had to delete my email account from my computer. I now only fetch my mail on the Internet. This story has been verified at TruthOrFiction.com which follows:

Email Offers Links To The CNN Top 10 Stories-Virus!

Summary of the eRumor:
A message appears to be from CNN and shows links to videos linked to the top 10 CNN stories.

The Truth:
This email is a virus that began circulating August 6, 2008.

The email includes graphics that appear to be from CNN and claims to be talking about the Top 10 stories as well as offering links to videos about them.

If you click any of the links, however, a message appears telling you that you do not have the correct version of Flash Player as well as a box you can click to download it.

That click, however, does not download Flash Player, it connects you to a web site that can infect your computer with malware. Security experts are still trying to pin down what code is downloaded to your computer, but it could be the type that connects your computer as part of a massive network of home and business computers that are used to send out similar fake emails, spam, or to try to harvest personal and financial information.

One frustration was that when you clicked the link and got the phony Flash Player warning, you could not get out of it, even if you chose “cancel.”

Samples that we have gotten were titled “Top 10″ when in fact 20 stories are listed.

One security company estimated that more than 1,000 hacked web sites are hosting the fake Flash Player program.

Adobe.com, the makers of Flash Player, warned not to download Flash Player from any source other than Adobe.com.

I have just discovered that Facebook does not allow PageOnce to access it. This is after I have just recently opened accounts at both sites. I have my entire Internet world on PageOnce — except for Facebook. Facebook has blocked PageOnce. I thought that Facebook was a “social” application? How sociable is it for Facebook to not allow me to include my Facebook account on my PageOnce page? The entire world is there, except for Facebook. Apparently, Facebook is not keeping up with technology, always a bad sign. Facebook seems to be already losing it. There has got to be a better social site.

I was at the “Official Google Photos Blog” (News, Tips and Tricks from the Picasa Team at Google) and read the following blog post about backing up photographs:

“Sleep soundly: Back up your photos”
Thursday, March 13, 2008 8:31 PM
Posted by Mark Muse, Consumer Operations Strategist

The good news is that Picasa makes it easy to back up your memories. You can always upload your photos to Picasa Web Albums - choose ‘Slowest upload - largest size’ in the upload dialogue box to secure your photos in full resolution.

The BAD NEWS is that the above statment is FALSE. I know a thing or two about Picasa Web Albums. I have written extensively about them on the Internet. I subscribed to them since they were first made available and uploaded thousands of my photographs there. Let me warn you that the above advice is very wrong. “Your photos in full resolution” are NOT “SECURE” at Picasa Web Albums. Mine have all been lost. What I have left are drastically reduced images that are of little value to me. Go see for yourself what are left of the thousands of 2-3 MB each photographs that I uploaded with the “Slowest Upload.” Oh yes, they originally uploaded fine and I was able to download the original sizes — UNTIL one day in October or November of 2007, when unbeknownst to me, GOOGLE reduced them all, each and every one!

I went to the place where I was directed from the “Official Google Photos Blog” to ask for help and there was a post from an “Official” at Google claiming to want to help if there was: “Something Broken in Picasa Web Albums?” That incredulous statement blew my mind. I could not help myself from ranting:

I have been trying to get help for My Picasa Web Albums that stopped working when I paid for my second year in November 2007. I made repeated emails to Google and repeated postings at help groups. NOTHING!!!!

I have had to stop using Picasa Web Albums for my photos and I went back to Flickr. I don’t like it at all that Picasa started making my photographs smaller when I upload or download them, since I am a PAYING customer. I am not a newby - I have been using Flickr for years and Picasa Web Albums since the beginning.

http://barneykin.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/picasa/

http://barneykin.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/picasa-web-albums-changed/

http://barneykin.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/picasa-web-albums-discovery/

http://barneykin.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/goodbye-picasa-web-albums/

http://picasaweb.google.com/barneykin/PicasaWebAlbumsNotWorking

http://picasaweb.google.com/barneykin/20080106TEST

http://flickr.com/photos/neddy/sets/72157603674842746/

With apologies to Johnny Ray’s “Cry” …

If your sweetheart leaves you for an older man,
It’s no secret you’ll feel better if you slam … her.
When waking from a bad dream,
Don’t you sometimes think it’s real?
But it’s only false emotions that you feel.

If your heartaches seem to hang around too long,
And your blues keep getting bluer with each song,
Remember hope can be found at the end of your hand.
So pour your vengeance into an e-mail and click “SEND.”

Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Olen Butler, has found the Internet way of dealing with a broken heart. When his wife, Elizabeth Dewberry, left him to join the Ted Turner Collection, he poured his feelings into an e-mail and sent it only to his university’s department. They would need to know the details of the break-up of his marriage. The thoughtful academics and young students should be warned that marrying a woman young enough to be one’s daughter is no guarantee that she will NOT leave you for a grandfather surrogate. It’s not so evil, as before clicking “SEND”, he showed the e-mail to his weepy wife who weepingly agreed that the world needed to know all the personal details of her twelve year marriage to him, plus her sexual and medical history from childhood onward. It was not like he disclosed her social security number or anything bad like that.

HI ALL - FROM BOB (PS - Forward this e-mail to everyone you know. If you need more details, just write me.)

Rumors will soon be swirling around the department, so I want to tell the full and nuanced story to the five of you among the graduate students and ask that you clarify the issues for any of your fellow grad students who ask. This sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly. You can feel free to use any part or all of this email to do so. I really appreciate your help.

Put down your cup of coffee or you might spill it.

Elizabeth is leaving me for Ted Turner.

She and I will remain the best of friends. She also knows about, endorses, and even encourages that I tell this much detail of the story:
She has spoken openly in her work and in her public life of the fact that she was molested by her grandfather from an early age, a molestation that was known and tacitly condoned by her radically Evangelical Christian parents. She then went into a decade-long abusive marriage. I met her when she was in a terminally desperate state from this lifetime of abuse, and we married and we truly loved each other.

I was able to help her a great deal. She says I saved her life. But de facto therapy as the initial foundation of a marriage eventually sucks the life out of a relationship. And it is very common for a woman to be drawn to men who remind them of their childhood abusers. Ted is such a man, though fortunately, he is far from being abusive. From all that I can tell, he is kind to her, loyal, considerate, and devoted to his family, and perhaps, therefore, he can redeem some things for her.

Further, Elizabeth has never been able to step out of the shadow of the Pulitzer. As you know-and she knows-I have been an avid admirer and supporter of her work. Everyone has heard me proclaim my sincere high regard for her as an artist. I often did this publicly. But she has published two brilliant novels since she’s been with me and neither has gotten anywhere near the recognition that they richly deserve. That made it harder and harder for her to live with the ongoing praise and opportunity that flows to a Pulitzer winner. Not because of jealousy. She has always been very happy for me. But the multitude of small reflections of regard that came my way inevitably threw a spotlight on the absence of those expressions of regard for her. She felt as if she was failing as a writer.

Then, in March, she nearly died from an intestinal blockage in Argentina while on a trip with Ted. The trauma of that led her further to profoundly question her own identity. It became clear to her that the only way she can truly find herself is by making this change in her life.

She will not be Ted’s only girlfriend. Ted is permanently and avowedly non-monogamous. But though he has several girlfriends, it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly and he gives them his absolute support when he does. And Elizabeth’s leaving me is as much about the three weeks a month she is alone as it is about the week a month she is with Ted. She will find her own space and her own light in which to create the great works of art she is destined to create.

I will keep my house. I will keep my dogs and cats. I will keep virtually everything. She is being characteristically generous about that. But I will lose Elizabeth. And that is very sad. But the loss has been happening through many years of our shared struggle to make her whole. In that, I’ve done all I can do, as has she. I wish her the best. I ask you not to think ill of her in any way.

Elizabeth and I will now conduct ourselves as if this is public knowledge. So as I suggested at the outset, you need not keep this to yourself, if the occasion arises to speak of it to someone. This is best anyway, since I am not up to the task of telling this story over and over.

I have a high regard and affection for the students in our program. I hope this will help them sort out this rather intense story in an appropriate way.
Best,
Bob Butler

As you know, MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING, and it will compensate poor little Elizabeth for those twelve years she endured living in the shadow of “MY” Pulitzer. RB

I want my iPhone and I want it now! But I really don’t want to stand in line for hours nor to pay two or three times its listed price. I think I will wait until September and buy the second generation. That sounds like a good idea. It is to be made by Quanta Computer, as opposed to today’s iPhone which is manufactured by Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company). Since Quanta is presently the world’s largest contract notebook PC manufacturer, perhaps the next iPhone will have more features and or more memory. Hope springs eternal, you know, however no one really knows if there is a second generation coming in September. Just remember that the past is prologue and that AppleInsider thinks it is so.

Reports (rumors?) suggest that Quanta will be shipping five million of their version of iPhone in September and that it will be similar in function to today’s iPhones from Foxconn but with a different outer design for different markets, whatever that means. Perhaps Quanta will be making their iPhone for European markets which have a much longer wait for Apple’s new toy. Or perhaps Quanta will be adding more memory to the September iPhone – like say 16Gb or even 32Gb. The big question if that is the case is will I be willing and able to pay the price of all that flash memory?

When I ordered my new notebook computer, I had quite a choice to make as the recently released Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista, is available in various editions. Which would be the best for me, I had no idea. So I requested the techie on the telephone to choose whichever would suit me by telling him how I use my computer. However, all he wanted to know was the state where I lived. Virginia - of course, so …? So …, when my new notebook arrived in the mail, I unpacked it and plugged it in.

Immediately, up popped “Winders Vister RED”

“Hey thar! We hyar at Microsof’ haf created a noo addishun of our sof’ware jest fo’ yo’uns. Eff’n y’all kin read, y’all will recernize th’ Red State EDITION by th’ unique openin’ screen which reads WINDERS VISTER RED, wif a backgroun’ pitcher of Waylon an’ Willie superimposed on a Mason jar of moonshine. Thar haf been a few other necessity an’ wo’thwhile changes sech as:”

• The Recycle Bin is now labeled “Outhouse“
• My Computer is called “This Dern Contraption“
• Dial Up Networking is called “Good Ol’ Boys“
• Control Panel is known as “The Dashboard“
• Hard Drive is referred to as “4-Wheel Drive“
• CDs and DVDs are “Them li’l ol’ plastic thang-a-ma-bobs“
• Instead of an error message, “Duct Tape” pops up

I noticed there were other “CHANGES IN TERMINOLOGY” in this Microsoft WINDERS VISTER” Red State EDITION“:

• Cancel…………stopdat
• Reset…………..try’er agin
• Yes……………..yep
• No………………this dog don’t hunt
• Find……………hunt fer it
• Go to………….over yonder
• Back…………..back yonder
• Help…………..hep me out y’here
• Stop…………..kwitit (WHOA!)
• Start…………..crank’er up
• Settings……..settins
• Programs……stuff wot duz stuff
• Documents…stuff ah done did

There was included a special NOTE from “Billy Bob Gates” himself:

Th’ RED STATE EDITION does not reckanize capital letters o’ punckuashun marks. We have included some ‘foolpoff - easy to use’ programs jest fer all o’ y’all, thet is exclusive t’ “WINDERS VISTER RED“:

• Typoriter…………………….. a word processing program
• Kellerin’ Book………………a graphics program
• Cyferin’ Ma’sheen………..calculator
• Outhouse Paper…………..notepad
• Inner-net……………………..Microsoft explorer 7.0
• Pitchers………………………a graphics viewer

“Yo’ may view a sample of th’ Internet as translated by “Winders Vister RED State Edishun” by clickin’ HERE. Ah varmintally hope this hyar he’ps all y’all becomin’ mo’e computer iliterate!
~~Signed “CEO an’ FOUNDER, Billy Bob “Git ‘er done!” GATES

I had heard that those folks at Microsoft were liberals, but is this any way to treat a paying customer? Now I ask you, do you suppose that Al-gore of Tennessee, the inventor of the Internet, got the same Winders Vister “RED State Edition” on his new computer too? Probably not. He’s a MAC kinda guy. Maybe thar’s a lesson y’here.