Saturday, November 19, 2005

Mediacratic Transparent Ploy #732


Rather Dumb: A Top Tabloid Reporter Tells CBS How to Do News In keeping with the tradition of the Rathergate memos and Al Qaqaa, Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit notes the brouhaha stirred up by the usual Mediacratic suspects:

...Here is my theory about the strategy behind the Dems making so many statements in support of a pullout this week. They have heard President Bush say that after the country is stable and when more Iraqis are trained, we will begin reducing the number of troops. They know there will be another election next month and that Saddam’s trial is upcoming. They know there are more and more Iraqi troops and police being trained every day. They know that it is likely the number of U.S. troops will be gradually decreased possibly beginning as soon as early next year. The Democrats want to be able to take credit for being the force that moved the President to start bringing troops home from Iraq...


Exactly.

There may be a sucker born every minute, but not a sucker gullible enough to buy into the Mediacrats' unceasing litany of fabrications.

Rathergate. Al Qaqaa. Christmas in Cambodia. The CIA man and the magic hat. Joe Wilson's bifurcated stories.

Ahhhhhhhhh *sigh*. Doesn't that feel better?

The National Embarrassment Known in Some Circles As "Stansfield Turner"


The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and KerryThe national embarrassment known in some circles as "Stansfield Turner" resurfaced a couple of days ago. In a manner analogous to a plastic mole in the local carney's Whack-a-Mole game, Turner pops up from time to time, sprays some vitriole, and ducks back into a hidey-hole.

As Jimmy Carter's CIA Director (and doesn't that say just about everything you need to know?), Turner dismantled a huge portion of the organization. Not surprising, since he's also advocated dismantling the entire Agency.

Powerline observes:

It's interesting, isn't it, that for the last six months, the newspapers have breathlessly repeated the claim that the identification of a single non-covert desk employee of the CIA, Valerie Plame, somehow did great damage to American security interests. Well, if the neutralizing of a single "agent" is so newsworthy as to dominate the papers and the evening news for months, how about firing one-quarter of all the CIA agents -- the really covert ones, I mean -- in the world? Wouldn't that compromise our security to an almost unimaginable extent? How much publicity should that act of folly generate, in comparison to the meaningless Plame farce? And how much did it receive? That comparison speaks volumes about the agenda that drives mainstream journalism.


It behooves you, it goes without saying, to read the whole thing.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Who, Indeed?


There's times when I just read a blog-snippet and nearly snort coffee out of my nose.

The national print media:

Five newspapers owned by Tribune Co., including the company’s two flagship papers in Chicago and Los Angeles, said Wednesday they will cut jobs amid declining circulation and revenue.


{gulp}

What will become of liberal utopia?

Who will look after the children?

The children . . . .

Exactly


Rally
Rally Pics from Stupid Random Thoughts

Thursday, November 17, 2005

GOP Turncoats, part II


Andrew McCarthy's Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory is a must read.

...Last week’s 49-42 margin demonstrated that the votes were there to win. Nevertheless, the chamber has now reversed itself. By a vote of 84-14, the senators resolved Tuesday that the ultimate decision about who is properly considered an “enemy combatant,” should rest with federal judges, not our military commanders who actually confront the enemy in the life-and-death of the battlefield.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Senator Lindsey Graham chose to make common cause with Senate Democrats, led by Senator Carl Levin, who favor treating the people trying to annihilate us as if they were ordinary criminal defendants...


It takes all the mental gymnastics of a Sesame Street re-run to see how this will turn out. Each enemy combatant will challenge -- in the civilian court system -- various errors and omissions related to the military trials. This vote serves only to hamstring our fighting forces, who must now worry about law-enforcement procedure in addition to their day jobs.

And the terrorists are very likely cheering this unwelcome development.

Go ye and read of it, for it is good.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

An Embarrassing Paucity of Ideas


The invaluable James Taranto notes this stellar repartee between Tim Russert and Howard Dean on Sunday's Meet the Press:

Russert: What is the Democratic position on Iraq? Should we withdraw troops now? What do the Democrats stand for?

Dean: Tim, first of all, we don't control the House, the Senate or the White House. We have plenty of time to show Americans what our agenda is and we will long before the '06 elections.

Russert: But there's no Democratic plan on Social Security. There's no Democratic plan on the deficit problem. There's no specifics. They say, "Well, we want a strong Social Security. We want to reduce the deficit. We want health care for everyone," but there's no plan how to pay for it.

Dean: Right now it's not our job to give out specifics.


Yes. That's. The Chairman. Of the Democratic Party.

Sometimes I think it's the gryoscopic energy of FDR, JFK, and Harry Truman spinning in their graves that keeps the Earth aligned on its axis *.

* Hat tip: Mass Backwards. Submitted to The Political Teen's Open Trackbacks.

Those crazy, whacky 'experts'


Headline: Weather experts see mild winter
Arkansas Democrat Gazette - November 15, 2005
Old Man Winter is expected to be kind to Arkansans this year, officials with the National Weather Service said Monday...

Headline: Storms, high wind batter state ahead of cold front
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette - November 16, 2005
Tornado warnings were issued during the afternoon for the northeast, east and southeast Arkansas counties of Greene, St. Francis...

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

World's second largest oil field running dry?


Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World EconomyI have no idea as to its reliability, but AMEinfo (a Middle East Finance and Econonmy website) is reporting that Kuwait's biggest oil-field is beginning to run out of oil. If true, the world's second largest field, may be a discomiting reminder of Hubbert's "Peak Oil".

The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field's 30 to 40 years of life, Chairman Farouk Al Zanki told Bloomberg. He said that engineers had tried to maintain 1.9 million barrels per day but that 1.7 million is the optimum rate...

...it is surely a landmark moment when the world's second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait's proven oil reserves. This is also not what forecasters are currently assuming.


That 'ruh roh' sound you just heard is the collective exhale from a hundred thousand Hummer owners.

In the meantime, the Alaska drilling initiative known as ANWR remains in limbo due to some GOP turncoats. Courtesy Hugh Hewitt, four GOP Representatives who are reported anti-ANWR and pro-Saudi-dependence... and who are vulnerable in next year's election cycle: Gerlach, Reichert, Shays, and Simmons.

If you assume ANWR is the size of a football field, then the area affected by drilling is a postage stamp-sized region. Charles Krauthammer observes:

For decades we've been dithering over drilling in a tiny part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Look, I too love the caribou. They are sweet, picturesque and reputedly harmless. But dire predictions about the devastation that Prudhoe Bay oil development would visit upon the caribou proved false. They have thrived... Let's get serious. We live at the edge of oil shortages and in perpetual vulnerability to oil blackmail. We have soldiers dying in the oil fields of the Middle East, yet we leave untouched the largest untapped oil field in North America so that Lower-48ers can enjoy an image of pristine Arctic purity. This is an indulgence bordering on decadence... The same logic applies to refineries. We have not built a new one since 1976. Gasoline doesn't grow on trees. The U.S. refining industry operates at 96 percent capacity. That is unsustainable...

With these simple steps, we could within a decade finally escape the oil noose. But don't hold your breath. The Senate just loved its little oil-executive inquisition. The House Wednesday night stripped out the ANWR drilling provision. And there is not a single national politician who dares propose raising gas taxes by even a penny. We are criminally unserious about energy independence and we will pay the price.


For lack of a better word: indeed.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Just In Time for the Holidays: New Toys!


Toys from AmazonThe National Geographic reports that a new patent has been granted for an Anti-gravity device. And, since it employs a perpetual motion machine, it's gotta be good! I have no idea what our beloved Patent Office has been doing of late, and from all appearances, neither do they.

Filed in the 'Fun with Linux' folder: GadgetTrail has published a do-it-yourself Caller ID Spoofing package. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies:

Spoofing Caller ID using a NuFone account certainly violates their Terms of Service and will probably get your account suspended or terminated. There may also be other legal issues with spoofing Caller ID, but I’m not a lawyer.


I'll be on the lookout for more new toys during this extended pre-holiday season!

Rockefeller & Wallace


How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann CoulterThis weekend, Jay Rockefeller -- a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the march to war -- appeared on an interview show with Chris Wallace. His attempts to hold the "Bush lied" party line were, as you might expect, laughable.

WALLACE: ...You didn't get the Presidential Daily Brief or the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. You got the National Intelligence Estimate. But the Silberman Commission, a Presidential commission that looked into this, did get copies of those briefs, and they say that they were, if anything, even more alarmist, even less nuanced than the intelligence you saw, and yet you, not the President, said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat...

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: I don't know, because I never get to see, nor does Pat, the Presidential Daily Brief...

WALLACE: But you voted, sir, and aren't you responsible for your vote?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No.

WALLACE: You're not?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. I'm responsible for my vote, but I'd appreciate it if you'd get serious about this subject...


John at Powerline captions this exchange perfectly: "A pathetic performance by Rockefeller, but the fact is that the Dems' theory makes no sense, and can't withstand scrutiny by any well-informed observer."

Not Ready for Prime Time

Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) Explained


The inimitable Dr. Sanity (linkage courtesy Instapundit) describes the disorder known as BDS. Net net: there's a not-so-fine-line between genius and insanity. And that line is the vast gulf between the Realists and the Mediacrats.

The number of things that Bush has been blamed for in this world since 9/11 (even acts of God like Tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters) is the stuff of major comedy. You name the horrible event, and he is identified as the etiologic agent.

He is blamed when he does something (anything) and he is blamed when he does nothing. He is blamed for things that ocurred even before he was President, as well as everything that has happened since. He is blamed for things he says; and for things he doesn't say.***

This psychological defense mechanism is referred to as "displacement".

The purpose of displacement is to avoid having to cope with the actual reality. Instead, by using displacement, an individual is able to still experience his or her anger, but it is directed at a less threatening target than the real cause. In this way, the individual does not have to be responsible for the consequences of his/her anger and feels more safe--even though that is not the case.

This explains the remarkable and sometimes lunatic appeasement of [religious extremists] by so many governments and around the world, while they trash the US and particularly Bush. It explains why there is more emphasis on protecting the "rights" of terrorists, rather than holding them accountable for their actions (their actions, by the way, are also Bush's fault, according to those in the throes of BDS). Our soldiers in Iraq are being killed because of Bush--not because of terrorist intent and behavior. Terrorist activity itself is blamed on Bush no matter where it occurs.

It isn't even a stretch of the imagination for some to blame 9/11 on Bush. This is the insane "logic" of most psychological defense mechanisms. They temporarily spare you from the painful reality around you and give you the illusion that you are still in control.

This is exactly the illusion/delusion circulating in the minds of many of the Bush Haters. They want desperately to forget that there is a tidal wave of terror reverberating around the world and to pretend that everything is America's and Bush's fault. If that is true, then they will still be in control of events.


In my finest imitation of Glenn Reynolds: Heh. Indeed.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Tech Tidbits: November's Fifteen-yard Penalties


Check out the comments on this item!The Register reports that the first Sony Trojan has been spotted. Sony's insidious DRM technology, uncovered and reported by Sysinternals guru Mark Russinovich, employs classic rootkit techniques to disguise itself and -- as a free bonus -- ruin your PC if you try to remove it.

Sony-BMG's rootkit DRM technology masks files whose filenames start with "$sys$". A newly-discovered variant of of the Breplibot Trojan takes advantage of this to drop the file "$sys$drv.exe" in the Windows system directory.


The line at the courthouse for filing class-action lawsuits probably looks like the queue for Epcot's new "Escape from Paris" ride.

Whoever said "any publicity is good publicity" is busy formulating a new phrase after Sony's debacle.

I received an email, which purports to be from Equifax, offering some credit-reporting services. Actually, I think it's legit, but since it violates all of my personal rules for email marketing, I marked it as spam in my filter. Here are a few of the yellow flags I threw:

  • Impersonating a valid domain name: okay, you're a financial institution. What's the first thing you do when you send email? How about use your real domain name as the from email address? Instead, these geniuses are using equifax-mail.com as the reply domain. Since rule #1 of the anti-phishing guide is to avoid domain names that don't exactly match that of the institution, I'm throwing a yellow flag.

  • Impersonating a valid domain name #2: Run your mouse over the link that these neurosurgeons want you to click on. It's http://equifaxmktg.com/equifax/10000/.... Once again, it doesn't match up with the institution's real domain name.

  • No security on the link: the URL above is plaintext, not SSL. Another yellow flag.

  • Sorry, Equifax. Figure out how to spam me with emails that actually look legit and I might take a gander.

    Throw another flag at Sony, this time for their DRM uninstaller. On his blog, Mark Russinovich notes that Sony's uninstall process is eerily hostile:

    # There is no way for customers to find the patch from Sony BMG’s main web page
    # The patch decloaks in an unsafe manner that can crash Windows, despite my warning to the First 4 Internet developers
    # Access to the uninstaller is gated by two forms and an ActiveX control
    # The uninstaller is locked to a single computer, preventing deployment in a corporation


    I've got a bunch of 'ous' words I want to use. Outrageous. Egregious. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. The sky is turning dark purple for Sony, as a hailstorm of lawsuits and civil actions is ready to cut loose.

    Throw a five-yard illegal formation flag at eBay. They've emblazoned their site with really cool Java Technology icons (subtitled, "Powered by Sun"). But techno-geeks note (courtesy of Netcraft) that Microsoft's IIS is running on a bunch of their boxes. Better yet, lots of their URLs indicate that they're still running ISAPI extensions to power critical functions:

    http://cgi4.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ForgotYourPasswordShow...

    http://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ReturnUserEmail...

    Plus, according to Netcraft, the main eBay sites are still running Windows and IIS. C'mon, eBay, I want to see the logos of the technologies that really run the site! Anyone have a spare copy of Photoshop? I have a really neat 'Powered by ISAPI' logo in mind...

    How much is your blog worth?



    My blog is worth $19,194.36.
    How much is your blog worth?

    Saturday, November 12, 2005

    The Mediacrats: "We're Gullible Pawns"


    In light of the mediacrats' ludicrous assertions that President Bush "lied" to Congress, Major E writes to the PowerLine bloggers:

    I served as a WMD analyst working directly with the national WMD experts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory during the run-up to the Iraq War.

    Based on that experience, I can assure you that the intelligence community told the Bush Administration that Saddam did indeed have active WMD programs. If people disagree with Bush's policy and want to argue that we would be better off if Saddam's tyranny still ruled the day and that the votes of the 10 million Iraqi Shia, Sunni, and Kurds who accepted a constitution for a new, democratic Iraq do not really mean that much after all then, fine, let's debate that. But the "lies and deception" smear campaign against the President is completely without merit.


    Read between the lines: the mediacrats are telling the world that they're gullible pawns, which should disqualify them from, say, a mayorship in a mid-sized city. And, it goes without saying: if they're that easily hypnotized, they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the helm of international diplomacy. They're likely to get 'confused'.

    (submitted to Wizbang's Carnival of Trackbacks)

    Headline: "Palestinians Stunned by Suicide Blast"


    Interesting quote -- in the aftermath of the Jordanian suicide bombing -- from a resident of Amman:

    "Oh my God, oh my God! Is it possible that Arabs are killing Arabs, Muslims killing Muslims?"


    Guess their subscription to the Baghdad newspaper lapsed.

    MassBackwards expounds on his theory:

    No doubt, this was the work of some disgruntled Baptists, or perhaps a gang of down-on-their-luck Episcopalians, or maybe some royally p*ssed off Lutherans, or a radical Amish fringe group, or...

    Friday, November 11, 2005

    Message to the Administration: Play Offense


    I've been meaning to mention Stephen Hayes' recent Weekly Standard article. It is chock full of insights regarding the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report (you know, the one that said 'Iraq is... expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs'), Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, and a cast of thousands.

    Hayes alludes to a set of documents in Qatar, listed in a database called 'HARMONY', which were produced by Hussein's Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). The titles are fascinating:

    Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan

    Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government (Nov. 2000)

    Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals

    Order from Saddam to present $25,000 to Palestinian Suicide Bombers' Families

    IIS Reports from Embassy in Paris: Plan to Influence French Stance in UN Security Council

    IIS Report on How French Campaigns are Financed

    Improvised Explosive Devices Plan

    Ricin research and improvement

    There are thousands of similar documents. Many have already been authenticated and most are unclassified. That's worth repeating: Most are unclassified.

    Of course, nothing is more important than winning on the ground in Iraq. Demonstrating that we are killing terrorists and making steady progress on the political front will do much to blunt the criticism of the war. But if the White House refuses to challenge its critics, and refuses to explain in detail why Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, and refuses to discuss the flawed intelligence on Iraqi WMD, and refuses to use its tremendous power to remind Americans that Saddam Hussein was, in fact, a threat, then it risks losing the support of those Americans who continue to believe that the Iraq war, despite all of its many costs in blood and money, was worth it.


    Indeed. Why doesn't the Bush administrationn refer critics to the Butler Report, produced for the British Government in July of 2004. It stated -- with utmost clarity -- that Hussein's agents were indeed in Niger, prior to the war, seeking uranium:

    The report indicated that there was enough intelligence to make a “well-founded” judgment that Saddam Hussein was seeking, perhaps as late as 2002, to obtain uranium illegally from Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.4 para. 499). In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.”


    And the administration could easily point to the litany of fabrications emanating from the dubious Joe Wilson:

    ...to sum up: the Senate Intelligence Committee's report shows that: 1) Wilson lied in the New York Times about what he told the CIA after he returned from Niger. In fact, far from debunking the concern that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium from Niger, Wilson reported that Niger's former Prime Minister told him that Iraq had made just such an overture in 1999. 2) Wilson lied when he leaked a report to the Washington Post about documents he had not even seen. 3) Wilson lied when he said that his wife Valerie "had nothing to do with" his being chosen to go to Niger.


    I'm just a tiny voice in the wilderness. But my message is the same as that of the blogosphere's big guns: the administration needs to play offense. Especially when the facts are ignored, omitted or buried by the Mediacrats, day after day.

    Thursday, November 10, 2005

    Election Results


    The voters in Virginia and New Jersey elected two Democratic Governors to replace two other Democratic Governors in their states. This, true to form for the Mediacrats, was positioned as a stunning rebuke for the GOP. Here's Al-Reuters, revelling in victory (the headline "Democrats sweep Virginia, New Jersey races" is endemic, celebrating a grand 'sweep' consisting of exactly two states):

    Democrats swept tough and sometimes nasty governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday, dealing a setback to Republicans and President George W. Bush ahead of critical congressional elections next year...

    ...The outcome in conservative, Republican-leaning Virginia was a particularly bad blow for Bush, who stopped there on election eve for a get-out-the-vote rally with Kilgore.


    Meanwhile, back in the little town I like to call Reality-ville, however, PoliPundit astutely notes that:

    ...the results in Virginia and New Jersey aren’t very indicative of what will happen in 2006. Democrats won both these states in 2001 - when President Bush was at the height of his popularity - but Republicans still won the 2002 midterms...


    Uhm, yeah. Maybe the mediacrats forgot about that part.

    In what may have truly been the day's most pivotal decision, Ohio voters pulverized State Issues 2, 3, 4, or 5 (or, as I like to call them, the Ohio-Voter-Fraud Acts of '05):

    ...[in] Ohio, voters rejected a package of Democrat attempts to subvert the election process.

    The group calling itself “Reform Ohio Now” was essentially a Liberal Stalking Horse, attempting to radically alter the process in Ohio, following the 2004 election. Four issues were set before the voters, ostensibly to improve the process, but in fact they would have taken much from the public, and put it into the hands of a few elitists...

    Issue 2 was a measure to expand absentee voting, which sounds good on its face, but this would allow voting by mail. That’s right, not only no photo ID or confirmation that the voter was eligible to vote, but no confirmation at all that the voter even existed... 63% of Ohioans decided they didn’t want to help people commit voter fraud.

    Issue 3 would have lowered limits on political donations not only from individuals, but also from PACs (which exist specifically to fund campaigns), “donor action committees”, or even from local, state, or national political parties. Essentially, this would have prevented competitive campaigning by anyone but the rich and the pre-financed, creating an absurd advantage for incumbents. This went down in flames as well.

    Issue 4 would have removed redistricting power from elected officials, and put it instead into the hands of a five-member appointed commission. This is plainly contrary to the spirit of all existing constitutions, both Ohio’s and that of the United States. It also raises the obvious question of who and what would influence men who were not accountable for their decisions... A full 70% of Ohio voters decided they wanted elected officials to be making those choices.

    And finally, Issue 5 would have further usurped power from elected officials, turning over the administration of elections to that same appointed commission, answerable only to their personal agenda. I don’t know about you, but the idea that the rules, boundaries, procedures, and review of elections being controlled by a few unelected men who don’t answer to anybody, just screams ‘Politburo’ to me. And 70% of Ohio’s voters thought the same.


    How this could have been ignored by the national media is nearly as vexing a question as whether Michael Moore has three chins or four.

    Update: similar sentiments over at NewsBusters.

    Wednesday, November 09, 2005

    The Unseen


    MS Word 2003The New York Times warns us that Microsoft Word documents can expose far more than the author(s) ever intended (hat tip: my brother).

    IT hardly ranks in the annals of "gotcha!" but right-wing blogs were buzzing for at least a few days last week when an unsigned Microsoft Word document was circulated by the Democratic National Committee... The stern criticisms of Judge Alito rubbed some commentators the wrong way (Chris Matthews of MSNBC called it "disgusting" last Monday). But whatever the memo's rhetorical pitch, right-leaning bloggers revealed that it contained a much more universal, if unintended, message: It pays to mind your metadata.

    Technically, metadata is sort of the DNA of documents created with modern word-processing software. By default, it is automatically saved into the deep structure of a file, hidden from view, with information that can hint at authorship, times and dates of revisions (along with names of editors) and other tidbits that, while perhaps useful to those creating the document, might be better left unseen by the wider world...


    The culprit is, of course, the "track changes" option that remembers the modifications to each document (as well as the name of the person who made the edits).

    There have been a variety of bizarre gaffes related to this product "feature", the most notorious of which may have been the SCO lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone. A routine inspection of the document showed that Bank of America had also been a target.

    If you haven't used it before, the change-tracking feature is best illustrated by an example:

    [Kristin] Let's offer them $1.75Mill [John] How about 1.5M - and we go up to 1.75 if needed. [Kristin] Okay

    We are prepared to offer you shares and cash worth $1.5 million if the deal is closed by December 1, 2005.


    I guess we know these folks are really prepared to go up to $1.75 million.

    Here's a simple set of steps you can take to protect yourself if you're forwarding Word documents around. When you're ready to distribute a document outside your organization:

    1) Open up a blank document in Word.
    2) Use the menu choice 'Edit -> Select all' on the original document and then 'Edit -> Copy' to copy it to the clipboard
    3) Paste it into the blank document and save it as the doc to be forwarded.

    This way, there ain't no history goin' along for the ride.

    It's kind of a shame that the Word team didn't disable this feature by default. Or, for that matter, the Outlook developers didn't use automation to determine whether change-tracking was on in an attachment. That way they could at least issue a warning to the sender.

    And, last time I checked, both teams were working for the same company.

    Tuesday, November 08, 2005

    News of the World


    Four hundred and fifty police officers swarmed twenty-three locations in Australia a day ago, disrupting what a spokeperson called, "the final states of a large-scale terrorist attack." Among the sixteen persons arrested: a radical cleric named Abu Bakr, an understudy of Osama Bin Laden. The crew had stockpiled chemicals and materials in preparation for what could have been a massive attack similar to that of London or Madrid. The police commissioner in New South Wales, Ken Maroney, noted that the attack would have been "catastrophic."

    It's the dawn of day twelve in the French "intifida," pitting "disaffected" youths in multiple cities against the government. Commentator Steven Plaut suggests that perhaps the French could follow their instructions for Israel: trade land for peace and recognize the legitimacy of demands emanating from the pesky troublemakers.

    The rioting appears to have spread to other countries in Europe, including Germany and Belgium. Sun-Times columnist Mark Steyn notes:

    Ever since 9/11, I've been gloomily predicting the European powder keg's about to go up. ''By 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on the news every night,'' I wrote in Canada's Western Standard back in February.

    Silly me. The Eurabian civil war appears to have started some years ahead of my optimistic schedule...


    Read the whole thing.

    As Drudge would say: developing.

    Sunday, November 06, 2005

    PHP Framework


    Advanced PHP ProgrammingThe announcement of a forthcoming PHP framework reminds me of leading a foot-race by a huge margin, then stopping and turning around to see who's catching up.

    Recent news coverage of Ruby on Rails -- a framework for creating web applications with a minimum of fuss -- has Zend and others in the PHP community reacting with what seems to be, at first blush, raw panic.

    Okay, maybe it isn't panic. But why else contribute another entry to the Vaporware Hall of Fame as Zend did in late October?

    While Ruby on Rails places a web developer into a tight MVC framework, the beauty of PHP hinges on its very lack of a framework. Or, in fact, flexbility to utilize many frameworks.

    MVC has a well-known set of benefits and -- importantly -- drawbacks, not the least of which is design complexity and a requirement for significant up-front planning. Debugging most MVC-based systems can be difficult. And, in general, the MVC concepts run counter to the iterative approach inherent in many of the most successful web-based applications.

    Further, PHP already has a set of MVC frameworks from which to choose if MVC really sets a developer's mind at ease.

    The ease of PHP is still, after all these years, stunning. Consider the following code snippet that reads a tab-delimited text file and prints the third column of fields to a web page:

       $arrayRecords = file("/temp/foo/somefile.txt");
       for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($arrayRecords); $i++) {
          $arrayFields = explode("\t", $arrayRecords[$i]);
          echo($arrayFields[2] . "<br>");
       }

    My contention is that PHP shouldn't fix a problem that doesn't exist. More than twenty million domains run PHP because of its inherent simplicity and flexibility. Forcing-feeding another framework into the mix may run counter to much of what made PHP so popular.