Hardware or Software?

Techdirt links to a story about a guy getting charged for putting a keystroke logger on a computer where he worked. Mike at Techdirt says this:

The interesting thing, though, is the only way they caught him was because he was fired from the company and asked another employee to remove the keystroke logger. In other words, it wasn’t any real detective work, but him telling someone. This means, if he hadn’t mentioned it, it’s likely this would have continued and no one would have noticed. It seems likely that things like keystroke loggers are becoming increasingly popular for those involved with corporate espionage – but it doesn’t seem like most companies do much to check if their computers are clean from such programs. [Emphasis mine]

Mike’s making an assumption, though. Here’s the text from the story:

A California man who prosecutors say planted an electronic bugging device on a computer at an insurance company was indicted on Tuesday on federal wiretapping charges in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind.

Larry Lee Ropp, a 46-year-old former insurance claims manager, is the first defendant charged with a federal crime for using a “keystroke logger,” which tracks the activities on a computer and feeds the information back to its owner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said.

Sounds like a hardware keystroke logger to me. What, you don’t know what a hardware keystroke logger is? Of course not, you’re not the Shidoshi of Paranoia. A hardware keystroke logger plugs in between the keyboard and the keyboard socket on the back of the PC. It looks like an adapter, but it’s got memory on it. Whatever you type goes into the memory and then to the computer, too. Bad guy comes along later, unplugs it, plugs it in on his computer, uses an escape key sequence, and copies the log onto his computer. You don’t have to break into the ‘hacked’ system to get it, and there are no software gotchas to deal with.

Also, it would explain why he needed someone to remove it from the PC, wot? Hey, buddy, just unplug my adapter I loaned to the secretary.

Learn your lesson, my students. Always look at the back of the PC before you start typing. I do.

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Try Again, Senator

Medicare’s going to run out of money by 2019, its trustees report. And as the sun sets, the whooperwill start shrieking out for the soul of the departing entitlement; only they’re understandably chirping at Bush:

In a conference call with reporters arranged by the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois blamed the Bush administration and its Medicare prescription drug bill for Medicare’s shortened solvency.

‘The Clinton administration and Democrats believed save Medicare first,’ Durbin said. ‘The Bush approach is save the special interests first. … This is not just about Medicare. It’s about the credibility of the Bush administration.’

So you see, Bush and our revered leaders have voted to add a drug benefit which redistributes wealth from workers to retirees, thus accelerating the decline of the entitlement. And Durbin cheeps about special interests.

You win, Senator. The elderly who receive more something for nothing are now a special interest. Those of us funding the free ride are a special interest. We, the citizens and electorate, are nothing but special interests fighting each other for your privileged dispensation or disbursement.

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Sell Me Another One

Jeff Jarvis spends a lot of time championing Howard Stern as some sort of Libertarian hero, I’d like to provide my own Stern Update Rebuke from something he said this morning.

Stern held up recent legislation from Charles Schumer as an example of proper legislation as opposed to bills cracking down on indeceny on the radio. Proper legislation, I guess, is overreaching legislation that does not particularly target Howard Stern.

This new bill makes gang murder a Federal crime and apparently adds a number of related offenses. Schumer’s out to Federalize crimes already covered by state statutes (I assume it’s still illegal to kill someone in New York) and adds another redundant layer of offenses that short-circuit double jeopardy protections of the Constitution.

This is good legislation because it’s specifically not bad for Howard Stern.

Behold your leader, minions, and worship.

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Steve Chapman Speaks

With his relatively orthodox libertarianism, I am surprised the blogosphere doesn’t hang on the Chicago Tribune‘s Steve Chapman’s every column (Mondays and Thursdays, kids). Here he is today on New York’s newly-unconstitutional vehicle confiscation law (registration required):

This is a small but important victory for the proposition that Americans should not be punished without a demonstration of guilt. It’s also a blow to the government’s habit of using law enforcement to snatch property for its own enrichment.

Word to power. Or power to word. Whichever one won’t flip the circuit breaker and make me tromp into the litter-cluttered dark of the basement in my bare feet.

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Equivalence

Actually, equivalence makes two things equal. This story about the death of the Hamas leader does not actually equivocate:

Sharon’s government has gone after militant leaders using Israeli helicopter gunships in a controversial policy that has resulted in a number of civilian casualties in addition to the deaths of senior figures in Hamas and other groups.

It’s controversial because of accidental civilian casualties. Attacks that target innocent bus riders or train riders or just people eating in a cafe or dancing in a nightclub–that’s an accepted, noncontroversial expression from an aggrieved people. They’re acceptable, but the Israeli policy is not. Thanks for dishing up the unwritten commentary with the facts, AP.

Yassin was viewed as an inspirational figure by his followers in the Gaza Strip (news – web sites) and West Bank. His death could spur violent protests not only in the Palestinian areas but in the wider Arab and Islamic world, where he was well-regarded as a symbol of the Palestinian battle for independence.

His death could spur violence. Why should it differ from his life?

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Is the Worm Turning?

As you might know, I’ve always said that one of the earmarks of a good downtown area is grocery stores. I haven’t determined if it’s a symptom, cause, or symbiosis that vital downtown areas with actual, you know, residents, have grocery stores. For much of my adult life, downtown St. Louis has been bereft of basic foodstuffs and residents. Now, however, the loft dwellers and homeless will have somewhere to shop, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Downtown bags two hungrily awaited groceries [sic].

Now, how about some housing that’s not provided by Larry Rice or that costs $300,000?

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Call Your Travel Agent

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story on the front page of its Travel and Leisure section entitled Angola sheds its image as nation’s bloodiest prison.

What does it say about the state of Louisiana, or the author’s view thereof, that the only attractions associated with Louisiana are plantation houses remade into bed-and-breakfasts and prison?

Please, don’t e-mail your responses. I’d rather not know what it means.

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Unions Outsource Television Production

Look, guys! Not only are the Evil Greedy Corporations sending jobs away, but so are the Nice, Defending-The-Little Guy Greedy Unions.

Philadelphia proved a little too real for The Real World.

After squabbling with local unions, the producers of the MTV series yesterday gave up on Philadelphia as the site of its 15th season. Taping was to begin in three weeks.

Wait a minute…. You don’t think…. The obstructionism and agitation of labor, organized or not, for overpriced wages might have a hand in all outsourcing, could it?

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Buck You, Senator Kohl

Millionaire Senator Herbert Kohl, D-Wisconsin, is starting to make “buy me an arena” noises in the city of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, which plays at the creaky 16-year-old Bradley Center:

The Bradley Center opened in the fall of 1988 and is one of the oldest and smallest arenas in the 29-team National Basketball Association, facts that Kohl conceded would be a surprise to most Milwaukeeans.

Despite its limitations, Kohl said, the building was in excellent shape.

Apparently, the board that runs the Bradley Center wants to make upgrades, but that’s not enough for the distinguished gentleman:

Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl said Tuesday that it did not make sense to spend $50 million to $100 million to remodel the Bradley Center and said the community would have to discuss in the future the need for a new arena.

The Democratic U.S. senator, noting that it had been a joy this season to own the team, said spending millions more to remodel the facility “would not extend its useful life.”

Rather, he said, the Bradley Center board ought to consider more modest upgrades to the building that will generate new revenue for the Bucks.

Give me more money, says Don Kohl. Generate revenue for me, he says. Here’s what he wants:

Kohl said the Bucks were interested in a new, eight-year lease with the Bradley Center – “A decent lease,” he said – that would include more revenue from concessions and suites and the possible addition of club seats.

A new decent lease? What exactly are the terms of the current lease?

The Bucks, who pay no rent at the Bradley Center, receive 27.5% of total gross receipts from concessions other than programs, merchandise, and food and beverage sales in the suites. The team also gets 13.7% of gross revenue from food and beverage sales from the suites at all Bradley Center events. In addition, the Bradley Center board paid about $2.1 million more in the fiscal year ending last June 30 to help the team financially.

That’s a johnking lease? What can the Bradley Center lease me for equivalent terms? Lord, love a duck.

    Then what?

    “After that, the community has to decide what to do with the NBA in Milwaukee,” Kohl said. Right now, he added, “The community is not in the mood to talk about a new facility.”

Hey, brah, I will talk about it. How about you use some of that wealth of yours to build your own heinzenjohnking arena, and then you can keep all the concessions and all the total gross receipts and you can rent it out to other production companies for when they want to bring Comcast on Ice to town.

What, Milwaukee might rebel against your enlightened entrepreneurship and its demands upon the city’s treasury? I mean, it’s been two years already since the taciturn community blew hundreds of millions of dollars building a free sports facility that stands empty even when the Brewers are playing in it. Maybe you better get a cush little cooling-off period before you start sniffing around for a public-private “partnership” where you’re the comedian and it’s the straight man.

I used to respect you, Senator, but no more. I only wish I could vote against you.

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Incoming Clue! Everybody Down!

Special message to Roger K. Miller, a newspaperman for many years and a freelance writer who penned this book review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for The Explainer, a collection from Slate.com. Mr. Miller, you finish your review with the following throw-away line:

  • Finally, the answer to one entry – “What Health Benefits Do Congressman Receive?” – raises another question that is, unfortunately, beyond the purview of the Explainer. Which is: Why don’t the rest of us have that?

Here’s your FREE CLUE!

The rest of us don’t get job benefits for jobs we don’t have. For instance, you don’t get my salary, my health and dental plan, my free, confidential counseling, my 401k match, nor my opportunity to participate in the employee stock purchase plan (ESPP). Hey, you don’t get invited to the Christmas party, either. You know why? Because you don’t work there!

I get your ill-placed point, though. The government should provide all benefits to all people, regardless of their employment situation, personal ability, or drive to succeed. That’s a nice story, Brody I notice you’ve stopped stuttering.

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Query

A Robert J. Samuelson column in the Washington Post about The Future of the Welfare State (registration required) triggered a thought. When Samuelson says:

But Europe relies heavily on a sales tax — the “value-added tax” — that, in theory, falls on consumption and not investment or work effort.

I think, you know, some people want to introduce a national sales tax, or consumption tax, in these United States to replace the income tax. I hadn’t given much thought to the stupidity of the consumption tax, but here’s my epiphany:

A consumption/sales tax rewards people like Scrooge McDuck who throw all their moneys into savings and vaults but don’t purchase things, which keeps the economy going. Of course, when Scrooge McDuck dies, the inheritance tax kicks in and the heirs get less than the sum of Scrooge’s savings, which they can save or spend (with applicable consumption taxation). Holy cow, Taxman!

Perhaps less taxes would spur the economies. But less taxes means less government dole, and how can one get elected with the latter?

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Inspirational

Via The Meatriarchy, we see government largesse funding an artiste who mocks religion:

How about a performance artist who:

“suspended himself naked, filled his mouth with his own blood and assumed the lotus position. In Liaison Inter-Urbain he dug a shallow grave, inserted a vial of blood into his anus and contorted himself so that the blood flowed into his mouth.”

I think governments should pay good cash money only to artists who pry out their own eyes with spoons and hang upside down from trees to gain true knowledge. Put that on my 1040 form; I’d check the box to depopulate artists who suck in more ways than one.

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A Nickel’s Worth of Free Advice

The St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association has commissioned a highly-paid professional to come up with some suggestions about improving the business environment in St. Louis, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The consultant offers a couple of suggestions as well as a couple of head pats for what this charming provincial little city on the frontier is doing right.

To summarize:

Those assets include affordable living, a renowned medical school and several unique cultural and historical amenities such as Forest Park, he said.

That’s the head pat. This metro area of two million people has cheap housing, a medical school, and “unique” amenities like Forest Park. That sounds more like Columbia, Missouri.

The biggest drawbacks?

  • Often, however, talented workers leave the region because its corporate culture stifles entrepreneurs and leaves little opportunity for up-and-coming, creative employees, Kotkin said.
  • But in order to compete effectively with cities like Kansas City and Minneapolis, the region must first address several obstacles, including “standoffish attitudes toward outsiders, as well as a legacy of racial divisiveness,” Kotkin said.

Uh huh. Neckties too tight, xenophobia, and racism. Platitudes, platitudes, and more platitudes for $75,000. I think I want to start a company called PlATTITUDES! and get in on this racket.

Here’s my nickel’s worth of free advice, St. Louis (and I address the city because no one else in the country understands the extreme difference between the city of St. Louis and the rest of us in St. Louis County):

  • Elevate the level of the elected officials in St. Louis. Let’s face it, if they’re peeing in trashcans during debates or pouring a pitcher of water on the adversaries as directed by the voices in your head, they’re not governing, and they’re only serving as trivial punchlines. This is what people from around the country see in your city.
  • Instead of world-class, tax-funded sports facilities for football, baseball, hockey, basketball, la crosse, volley ball, arena football, soccer, and tournament bridge, how about some world-class roads instead of the cheese graters you have downtown? I don’t have an off-road vehicle. And I don’t go downtown.
  • Hey, how about some tax cuts? I mean, I don’t live or work in the city because I don’t want to pay the one percent of vig the city taxes off of my earnings to pay for commissions that recommend world-class sports facilities and then paying for luxury boxes in said sports facilities for said commissions into perpetuity.
  • Hey, has the state removed the accreditation for your schools yet?

Hey, my advice’s free, and it’s better than the stuff assembled as a discussion of the $75,000 answer:

Some ideas already have been developed by a group of young professionals assembled by the RCGA to discuss the report. Those ideas include creating a system to welcome new workers to the area, devising a mentoring process to link executives with younger workers and establishing an annual entrepreneur contest.

That’s what you get when you assemble young professionals whose neckties are too tight.

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Keep Perspective

Via the Ranting Professor, I came across a bit in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (registration required, but go ahead and tell them you’re Bud Selig) about how the coastal upperclass media types view members of their audiences who are not from those silly little states across which you can drive in an hour.

Yummy bits:

Questions are not being asked. Meanings are not being interpreted. Certain neighborhoods are not being visited. Certain lives are not being explored in a meaningful way. And, through the prosecution of basic journalism, agendas are being set that do not reflect the way the other half, without the bulging 401ks, lives.

For instance, how many people on air or in print came from families that had walked a picket line? How many know how to bait a hook or gut a deer? (I’m bad at both.) How many have felt the economic insecurity that stalks the working poor? (And I’m not talking about the few weeks at college on the Ramen noodles diet.)

How many have had real experience with the criminal justice system, who have had home visits from social workers, who have scrambled to call the probation office, who know the awful taste of government cheese?

My feeling about the growing social distance was reinforced most personally during the investment of Wisconsin by the national press. I traveled with the Howard Dean camp, and there saw again how the elite media outlets employ people who, when they dip into smaller places away from Dupont Circle in Washington or the Lower East Side in New York, treat it as some sort of anthropological adventure.

It’s not just the media who do this; it’s any condescending person who thinks that New York, D.C., or Boston is the center of the whole universe, not just the condescender’s. By the same token, we must remember, too, that our Midwestern experience is not the end-all be-all, even if it’s down to earth and touch with physical reality. As individuals, we should keep some open minds toward all kinds of experience, even if it’s Ivy League education; just recognize that each experience offers perspective which might provide insight into different situations. It’s always a good idea to mix a cleric in with your fighters and magic user when you go dungeon-crawling.

And another point: USDA cheese doesn’t taste awful. It tastes like cheese.

Thank you, that is all.

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They Gave A Demonstration, But No One Came

A mother whose daughter was killed by a drag racer wants vengance to deter future teenagers from acting stupid:

The mother of accident victim Megan Landholt urged a stiff prison sentence for a teenage street racer who pleaded guilty Monday in the collision that killed her daughter in south St. Louis County last year.

Barbara Landholt said she wanted to make an example of the driver. She told Judge David Lee Vincent III that Jeremy Ketchum “and people like him cannot go on and think that this is not a big deal. We have a chance to set an example here. A message has to be sent to the drivers of these cars.”

I don’t want to knock this woman’s pain, but kids getting into their cars on Saturday nights don’t read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or their court dockets to keep up with the consequences of their actions. They don’t think about their actions, much less the consequences. Automobile accidents, death? That happens in another school district every couple of years.

So putting the guy who killed your daughter in prison for a long or short time won’t do much for the greater good, and it probably won’t save another daughter from a drag racer, drunk driver, or cell-phone yakker. It will, quite frankly, end the life of another, albeit dumber, kid, and maybe that’s just retribution. Iit’s not, however, an example since not many are paying attention.

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Vote Mom for Unfree Markets

Gee, Thanks, Mom, for sending me this unenlightened e-mail forward:

>A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it’s a free market.
>
>
>A toy company can outsource to a Chinese subcontractor and claim it’s a free market.
>
>
>A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it’s a free market.
>
>
>We can buy HP Printers made in Mexico. We can buy shirts made in Bangladesh.
>
>
>We can purchase almost anything we want from many different countries BUT, heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their prescription drugs from a
>Canadian (Or Mexico) pharmacy. That’s called un-American!
>
>
>And you think the pharmaceutical companies don’t have a powerful lobby?

File this under When AOL Members Vote!

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Protest Too Much

So Jean Boutros Boutrous Aristide claims says U.S. forces kidnapped him because they wanted him out of power. United States officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Scott McClellan have issued denials. How stupid is that?

A more appropriate response would be for Donald Rumsfeld to stand behind a podium and say, with all appropriate hand gestures:

Question: Did the United States Special Forces kidnap Jean-Boutros-Boutros Aristide?

Rumsfeld: You need to ask yourself this question instead: Do you think that the United States armed forces and their special forces have enough technology and expertise to perform an operation of this nature. Look at Aristide. One day, he’s the unpopular ruler of an oppressed country, and then suddenly he wakes up in the savannah with just the clothes on his back and a cell phone with which to call everyone he knows to complain, to ask for cab fare home, or to plead for some anti-lion underwear. Do you think that the special forces within our country can insert into hostile territory, infiltrate a tyrant’s security, tranquilize or otherwise stun him, extract him, fly him half way around the world in a matter of hours, and deposit him into an environment that is both alien and hostile to him. Do you imagine Iranian clerics shocked to find themselves nuzzled by caribou in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or Fidel Castro coming to alone on a road on the Isle of Wight, or Kim Jong-Il awakening one night in a Philadelphia crack house, surrounded by gang bangers. What, do you think Aristide’s departure was a trial run of some sort? Are you all planning to be the next Tom Clancy with these plots?

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