This will probably fire up some of the True Believers out there:
"Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise - Symantec
Reuters
Tuesday, March 22, 2005; 8:16 PM
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hacker attacks on Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh OS X operating system, thought by many who use the Mac to be virtually immune to attack, are on the rise, according to a report from anti-virus software vendor Symantec Corp."
While Symantec didn't release details of how they came to that conclusion, it should come as little surprise. As Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds said in the article
All these platforms have vulnerabilities - it's a fact of life ... The truth of the matter is that Mac is only a couple percentage points of (computer) shipments so it's not an interesting target.
Apparently the anti-virus company believes that strong sales for the new mini-Mac, which seems to be targeted to Windows users considering their next computer, could make things worse by increasing the number of Macs operated by "less-savvy users." They expect "the number of vulnerabilities can be expected to increase, as will malicious activity that targets them."
Now, before anyone blows a gasket, let's review a couple points. First technically-aware users will agree that the Free-BDS based OS X base is significantly more secure than today's Windows XP base. Which is a shame, really, since the Windows NT base was originally a very secure and powerful OS. Alas, Microsoft made it more "user friendly" in such a ways that damaged security.
Second, "more secure" doesn't mean "invulnerable," even though more than a few Mac-heads have a bad habit of saying things like "now that I own a Mac, I don't have to worry about trojans, viruses, or anything!" Um, no. You just have a lot less to worry about.
Third, while Symantec said it had documented 37 "high-vulnerabilities" in the past year in OS X, they have "almost always" been acknowleged and patched by Apple.
Finally, let's recall that selling anti-virus and other prophylactic applications is how Symantec makes money. Does this mean they're lying? Hardly. But I'm sure they wouldn't mind the extra income. :)
Bottom line: OS X still has a substantial lead over Windows XP in security, but it isn't invulnerable. No operating system is. And it is fairly easy to establish good habits while using XP to avoid 99% of the hacker/virus threat out there. Using Mozilla/Firefox is an excellent start. Just remember that no hardware or software solution is worry-free.
Me, I'd love to see the mini-Macs take off, if for no other reason to watch Redmond sphincters collectively tighten. They might even restore real security to their flagship operating system.
Heck, I wish I had the money to get a mini, but not right now. It would be great to plop it down next to my Athlon WinXP machine and my Thunderbird Win2000 system to see how it compares. The Apple networking is supposed to work very well with Windows nets these days.
Can't sleep from the anti-flu narcotics in my system (funny, they're supposed to help you sleep), so I'll mention a new guy on the block, who was nice enough leave a kind comment about my blog. :) Besides, Greyhawk has been mentioning him, and he looked interesting.
Why not run on over and visit 365 and a Wake Up, run by a California Army National Guard officer currently in Iraq, who goes by the call thunder6. He writes some good stuff.
Greyhawk recommends this post about checkpoints and journalists. A good choice.
Me, I like his description of ice in desert:
Today a thunderstorm rumbled through Baghdad and showered the FOB with gumball size hail. A couple of the troops armored up and waded into the storm, reveling in the raw display of nature’s power. The fat frozen raindrops scuttled off the armor plates like miniature billiards, sheathing the troops in the open with what looked like icy halos. It was as surreal an experience as any I had experienced here in Iraq. So much for the desert being as dry as a bone. Iraq has turned out to be a lot different from my expectations, and the differences run far deeper then the climate.
If that doesn't do it for you, try his (rather short) explanation why anyone smart would ever want to be a soldier. His answer:
I spoke from experience, and I spoke from the heart. I told him about the misery of feeling my feet rot in the swamps of Florida during ranger school. I told him about getting stuck in knee deep mud during a blinding deluge in Germany. I talked about having to pull my frozen finger off the trigger while riding through the Balkan winter. I talked about the string of missed birthdays, holidays and weddings I never had the opportunity to celebrate. And I told him about living in the sun stoked furnace that was Kuwait in the summer. I purged all the collective misery of my decade in the service. Having finished my impromptu confession I paused for a long moment, letting SPC Frances absorb the full weight of my response.As the silence stretched like a teardrop waiting to fall I broke the silence and told him that I would do it all over again. His face contorted into a mask of disbelief, his jaw drooping slightly from the strain of following this verbal about-face. His lips shaped the word “Why?” but there was no breath to give it voice.
Before answering him I told him about how part of my heart chipped off when I looked into a mass grave in Bosnia. How for days after my dreams were clouded with an image of the very earth opening a yawning pit to engulf the dead, only to choke on their numbers and leave them on the surface half swallowed. I talked about countries where famine and disease left people whose bodies left shadows that gave the illusion you were looking at a photographic negative of a skeleton. About places where the only rule of law was the brutal and unswerving laws of physics and ballistics and the only peace one could hope for was the grave. And the story that did not need telling, the story of our ongoing struggle with insurgents who revel in the misery and deaths they cause our forces and the Iraqis.
As I finished I noticed my mouth was dry and I had to take a long draw of water before continuing. When I slaked my thirst I told SPC Frances to close his eyes and I would tell him why. As he closed his eyes I told him to imagine his young wife, his beautiful infant daughter and the future he wanted for them. He paused a moment and a smile slowly creased his face. As he looked up I caught his eyes and told him a simple truth. I told him that the thin line that separates the two realities isn’t a line on a map or the signature block on a document filled with hollow proclamations. The dividing line between the two kingdoms is a long line of soldiers. And that is why I’m proud to call myself a soldier. Its not about a lack of options, or the size of my paycheck. Its about what kind of world I want to leave for my children if I am lucky enough to be a father.
The man can write...
UPDATE: Almost forgot. Check out his photo section, too. Great stuff.
Ok. I've had it. Literally.
I spent nearly a month (mid-Janurary thru mid-February) hacking my way through the last bout of flu, and I lost my voice for two weeks in the bargain.
Now I have it AGAIN, and I am not amused.
I can now officially announce that having the flu sucks.
Goodnight, and thanks for watching!
If you don't know what Gunners Palace is yet, drop on by Mudville and read this. After you're done, read a review by Andrew Watkins, a D.C. resident and "military guy."
Everyone, and I mean everyone should see this movie. As everyone has been saying: it's not pro-war, nor is it anti-war. It's about the young men in the 2-3 Field Artillery.
You can get more information about the movie, and even sign up for the movie's newsletter, at www.gunnerpalace.com.
It is, alas, not showing in Ohio yet, but here's the latest list of theaters:
Berkeley, CA Shattuck 8 Cinemas
Campbell, CA Camera 7 Cinemas
Encino, CA Laemmle Town Center 5
Irvine, CA EDWD University Town Center 6
Long Beach, CA UA Long Beach Movies (Marketplace) 6
Los Angeles, CA Laemmle's Sunset 5
Monterey, CA TLX Osio Cinema
Palm Desert, CA Flagship Cinemas Palme d'Or
Palo Alto, CA Century Theatres Palo Alto Square 2
Pasadena, CA Laemmle Playhouse 7
Pleasant Hill, CA Century Theatres
Rolling Hills Estates, CA The Avenues Stadium
San Francisco, CA Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema
San Diego, CA Hillcrest Cinemas
San Rafael, CA Rafael Film Center
Santa Monica, CA Laemmle's Monica 4
Denver, CO Mayan Theatre
New Haven, CT LTS York Square Cinema 3
Washington, DC Landmark E-Street Cinema
Atlanta, GA Midtown Art Cinema
Chicago, IL Century Centre Cinemas
Evanston, IL CENT Evanston 18
Cambridge, MA Landmark Kendall Square
Silver Spring, MD AFI Silver Theater
Montclair, NJ Clairidge Triplex
Red Bank, NJ Red Bank Art Cinema
New York, NY Angelika Film Center
New York, NY AMC Empire 25
Brooklyn, NY BAM Rose 4 Cinemas
Manhasset, NY Manhasset Theater
Pleasantville, NY Jacob Burns Film Center
White Plains, NY Cinema 100 Twin
Dallas, TX Angelika Film Center Dallas
Houston, TX Landmark Greenway 3
Plano, TX Angelika Film Center Plano
Arlington, VA Loews Shirlington 7
Seattle, WA Metro Cinemas &
Seattle, WA Meridian Cinemas
Well, it's Andrew Cory's birthday as I write this, so drop on over to the thread at Dean's World and wish him happy birthday.
His preferred present would be y'all linking to his blog, Punning Pundit, so why not do that too?
So Happy Birthday, Andrew, and yer on the bloglist here, too, even if you are a squishy, "reality-based" lib'rul. :) Hope you like the wrapping paper I picked out.
I'll make it simple on y'all.
Some war stories will never make the nightly news...
400 American soldiers carry out their mission from a bombed-out pleasure palace once owned by Saddam Hussein. This is their story.
Like I said: Go here. Read this. Then go watch the movie: Gunner Palace.
Tip o' the hat to John of Argghhh! for the heads-up.
Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters points out that Senator "white nigger" Byrd has tried to paint the Bush administration as Nazis, because they want to change the Senate committee rule on cloture.
What's that? Simple. The minority party can block, indefinitely, a committee approval or disapproval of a presidential candidate by keeping that nominee approval in committee. How? By talking. And talking. And more talking. And, by not sending the nominee for an approval vote to the full Senate. In other words, they can shove the nomination in a hole, and ignore it, unless 60 out of 100 senators approve a move to a full vote on the nominee. That's a cloture. And how many times has one party (or the other) had that kind of super-majority in the Senate? And that's the problem...
The Democrats have been dancing around this for a couple of years, now, and the bottom line is that the minority party is keeping certain Bush nominees from getting a simple, for-the-record, up or down vote.
Why? Because the nominees are too conservative. They're not "bad" or "incompetent" judges, nor have they been accused (much less convicted) of any crime. Heck, the worst accusation against some of them is that they're "too religious." -Um, hold on a sec, while I go warn George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and FDR...-
The Dems have been piously reassuing everyone that they're just making sure that only the best of the best will become federal judges, but that's dishonest. If any given senator has a problem with any given nominee, then they may vote "no" on that nomination. That's not the problem. The problem is that the Democrats in the Senate are trying to avoid the vote completely.
My guess is that they hope Bush will become tired of pushing for the people he really wants, and nominate people acceptable to the Democrats. AKA the people who have lost the last three general elections in this country, and are now (quite officially) a minority party. Which is the real problem These people want influence that they haven't earned at the ballot box.
The Republians have the Senate; they have the House, and they have the White House. That gives them the right to nominate judges, and (reasonably) expect them to be approved. Now if one of the nominees turned out to be genuinely unacceptable (say, for joining the KKK, or cheating on his wife; but I digress...), then the Democrats have an obligation to turn said nominee down. No worries there. But if there is no real reason to reject a given candidate, they should say so, then turn the vote over to the full Senate.
That's the really dishonest part of Byrd's speech. Not the part where he compares the Bush administration to Nazis, (and where have we heard that before?) No, the dishonest part is where Byrd won't admit that his part is, in fact, blocking the proper function of the United States government.
You see, the controversy about cloture votes isn't in any definable, or citable book of rules or laws. I can promise you it isn't the Constitution.
No, it's a custom; a guideline, rather than a law. That's where the current controversy of the "nuclear option" (i.e. changing House rules) comes in. And -to the chagrin of the Democrats- some of us remember what the Honorable Thomas B. Reed accomplished a century ago.
...Who is Thomas B. Reed, you ask? Why, only the most influential Republican between Lincoln and Reagan, I have to say. You have heard of Reed, indirectly. One of his colleagues in the House once pretentiously quoted Henry Clay to the effect that he "would rather be right than president." Reed retorted “the gentleman will never be either.”
Another Reed saying is that "All the wisdom in the world consists in shouting with the majority," while his "A statesman is a politician who is dead," is a modern classic.
In any case, back in 1890 one of the traditions of the House was the silent (or disappearing) quorum. To quote Barbara Tuchman, from her excellent The Proud Tower:
The system Speaker Reed had decided to challenge was know as the silent -or disappearing- quorum. It was a practice whereby the minority party could prevent any legislation obnoxious to it by refusing a quorum, that is, by demanding a roll call and then remaining silent when their names were called. Since the rules prescribes that a member's presence was established only by a viva voce reply to the roll, and since it required a majority of the whole to constitue a quorum, the silent filibuster could effectively stop the House from doing business.
As you can see, this could be a very effective tool to prevent the House from doing any business at all. How did House Speaker Reed deal with this conundrum?
Very simply: by counting those present, as present, whether or not they acknowledged the roll call. Democrat "ex-Speaker Carlisle let it be known that any legislation enacted by a quorum which had not been established by a 'recorded vote' would be taken to be court as unconstitutional."
Does any of this ring a bell, yet?
In 1890 the Committe on Elections awarded a contested seat in West Virginia to the Republicans. The Democrats immediately asked for a quorum, and proceeded to their time-tested method of refusing to answer the roll call, in order to obstruct business. 163 men responded as "present" for the call; 166 were needed for a quorum. Their plan -to not conduct business as usual- would succeed.
Or would it? Instead of calling the roll again, Speaker Reed announced "The Chair directs the Clerk to record the names of the following members present and refusing to vote," followed by the names of those representatives who remained silent.
In one of the few appropriate times to invoke this adjective, pandemonium broke loose. Republicans loudly cheered and applauded, while Democrats screamed their objections. Representative McCreary (D - KY) exclaimed: "I deny your right. Mr. Speaker, to count me as present, and I desire to read from the parliamentary law on the subject."
Reed quietly gazed at McCreary, and asked "The Chair is making a statement of the fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?"
Um. Ouch.
For the next four days, Democrats would employ every tactic they could think of, to no avail. And every time they tried to invoke the silent quorum, Reed would serenely list those present and not responding, then declare that a quorum existed to do business.
Finally, well, I'll let Ms. Tuchman describe it:
Now the Democrats, changing their strategy, decided to absent themselves in actuality, counting on the inability of the Republicans to round up a quorum of themselves alone. As one by one the Democrats slipped out, Reed, divining their intention, ordered the doors locked. At once there followed a mad scramble to get out before the next vote. Losing "all sense of personal or official dignity," Democrats hid under desks and behind screens. Representative Kilgore of Texas, kicking open a locked door to make his escape, made "Kilgore's Kick" the delight of cartoonists....
Five years later Theodore Roosevelt wrote that in destroying the silent filibuster, Reed's reform was of "far greater permanent importance" than any piece of legislation it brought to enactment at the time.
Radioblogger has a concisely excellent summary of some of the constitutional points of interest on this...