Security Through Obscurity (and Lawyering Up)

Adam Savage tells of MythBusters and RFID at the start of this clip. (The rest is good, too.)



h/t to The Consumerist.

Does this mean. . .

that if I don't vote for McCain/Palin, I'm a sexist?

Willing to help

IUPUI POLICE
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
1232 W Michigan Street
Indianapolis IN 46202
ACTIVITY REPORT
August 29, 2008

08/28/08, 0800

08000854 Other

Lot 62 – 345 N. Lansing Street

An employee waved down an officer and turned over a box of ammunition she had found in her home. The ammunition had belonged to her ex-husband and she wanted to turn it over to police so that it could be safely destroyed.

Hey, I'm willing to help here. I'll make sure any unwanted ammo is safely destroyed particularly any .45ACP rounds and 12 and 20 gauge shotgun shells. I'll even take your .270 Winchester and .35 Remington rifle ammo. Deer season is just around the corner.

Quote of the next day

A reporter working for the Colts News Organization IndyStar reports that a family hit the $300,000 jackpot after suing a cemetery over a casket mishap in which they were exposed to the dearly departed who looked a bit the worse for wear after being dead for over a year. The quote comes from one of the plaintiffs:

"Now, maybe my brother can rest."

Yeah, right. He's at rest knowing that he was able to win ya the Big Bucks in the Litigation Lottery.

Quote of the Day

X-rated video shot in Bartlett park

And the quote of the day?

"I think I'm not letting my kids go down that slide anymore."

Getting Fortville's Goat

Saw this in the Colt's Official Publicity Brochure today:

Goats in the yard? Town officials say there ought to be a law

I seem to recall my father resigning his position on the town board of Shepherd, Michigan after finding some of the other members to be petty little Hitlers (not his words but mine.) I read that in Fortville, Indiana:

Sarah Brown [owner of the goats] said she believes town officials have a personal agenda against her and her family.

"We've got a bunch of bullies trying to take people's animals away," Brown said.

You think? I'm beginning to see that there's a plethora of petty little Hitlers in a lot of local government.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I had an urge for something sweet last night and made my favorite cookies: chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies following a recipe that my mother used since I was a kid. The recipe:



And the results:



The only changes to the recipe that I might suggest are watch carefully as depending on the humidity/weather/pixies the cookies might be done after 6 minutes. If they get too done you can always add a bit of milk in to soften them up. The other change is you can use waxed paper on which to drop the cookies.

So see, I have something more going for me than just my good looks. I can cook, too!

Recycling "Green" Bags

I noticed that Roberta has mentioned that she was introduced to Mrs. Shomes project of Frankensteining "green" bags into something a bit more personal and pleasing to the eye. I thought I'd post a pic of a couple of the finished bags.

BlogMeet Triumvirate

After going to Target to purchase a pink collar and leash for Pumpkin (sister of the bug-eating Pie) Mrs. Shomes and I drove down to the Broad Ripple Brew Pub to join Roberta X and Old Grouch for food, beverages and conversation at Part Two of the August BlogMeet. Our numbers were small but I like to think it was due to the happenstance of the schedules of those absent and not the power the currenty-absent-at-Blackwater Tamara to cloud men's minds* and make them come to blogmeets.

*I admire the other person who was able to cloud men's minds, Lamont Cranston, for no other reason than his choice of weapon for concealed carry was not one but two 1911's!

Lucre Oil Stadium

Hmmm. The IndyStar, normally serving the role as the propaganda arm of the Colts and offering free advertising with every fluff 'news' item they write concerning TGS (That Goddam Stadium) give the taxpayers a small peak at the man behind the curtain:

New deal lets Colts rake in cash

The Colts ". . .could reap $1.4 billion over the next three decades in one of the sweeter stadium deals in the National Football League."

And what do we residents of Indianapolis get beyond the knowledge that the Colts' owner Jim Irsay will never be on welfare?

"Keeping the team in Indianapolis lends the city a certain prestige bestowed on few American cities."

Thanks, but you can keep it and instead give me a decent mass transit system, a real sewer system, better schools, etc. etc. You know. Stuff that actually benefits the citizens and taxpayers.

Son of Indy August BlogMeet

Roberta X has the graphic.

Aug. 24, 3:00 PM at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub. Be there!

Racism Outside the U.S.? That can't be!

Impossible! We all know that only we in the U.S. are racists. I don't know where the Consumerist found this. And Michelle Malkin must have photoshopped these.

File Under "Nut" and "Blind Squirrel"

Over at The Smallest Minority Kevin reports that in Newsweek (a magazine that I have little if any regard for) Patty Davis writes on the outrage that occurred to Mayor Cheye Calvo in Berwyn Heights, Md. Kevin promises to write more on this and I look forward to reading what he produces.

And reflecting on this, I note that the victim of this botched police raid was a photogenic white politician. I wonder how many non-white, not so photogenic common citizens have been victimized by the police in such raids and don't have Patty Davis to write about them?

Safe Sex in South Asia

Condom ringtone launched in India

Hmmm. I wonder how you say 'jimmy hat' in Hindi?

'Janu Topi?'

Ek miniT roko!
Barfadmi ek miniT roko, ek miniT!
Janu Topi chahiye!

There's immigrants and then there's

refugees.

Myanmar refugees wait months for aid in Fort Wayne

Now if I was a cynic I would observe the real problems the Burmese refugees are facing is that:

1. They're here legally and not illegally.

2. They're from Southeast Asia and not from South of the Border.

But thank heavens I'm not a cynic and would never say anything like that.

Too much, the Magic Bus

I saw in the IndyStar today:

IndyGo wants to raise bus fares by 25 cents a ride

In part:

Faced with rising fuel costs and higher demand for bus service, IndyGo has proposed increasing its fares by 25 cents per trip beginning in January.

The increase, presented Monday to a City-County Council committee as part of the agency's 2009 budget, would bump the cost of a bus ride to $1.75.

Now I can understand this. The rising price of fuel has boosted the price of just about everything. But when they say:

"We're doing everything we can to preserve what little service we have as it is," said Michael Terry, IndyGo's interim president and chief executive officer.

I lose it. As I said before, they just do not get it. Local politicians will fall all over themselves to hand money to Jim Irsay and the Colts, seeing the Lucas Oil Stadium as an amenity. But they don't see the bus system as an amenity. They could have pumped some of that $750 million spent on the Lucas Oil Stadium into IndyGo and advertised Indianapolis as a city where you can "park you car and never have to use it again" but instead chose the route of offering the plebes bread and circuses at that goddam stadium.

Bon Voyage BlogMeet Report

Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Shomes, Shermlock Jr. and I joined Roberta X, Tamara, Brigid and last but not least, Old Grouch to give Tam a send off to Blackwater. The beer was good, the Scotch Eggs were good and the company was great. I'm looking forward to this coming Sunday's repeat meeting at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub. Maybe I'll try the Scotch Egg pizza!

Reparations to Libya for Reagan's Air Strike

Just saw this at the National Review:

The Bush Administration Agrees to Pay Libya Reparations for Air Strike Ordered by President Reagan

Crap. What will we be paying the Germans for Dresden, much less the Japanese for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Idiots.

60's Nostalgia

Ok. I'm feeling guilty after that last nostalgic post. Here's something that brings together a number of musicians whom I admire. From the Stone's Rock and Roll Circus:

Toast and marmalade

Well, it sounded good when I was fifteen.

Professors Gone Wild, Pt. 2

Here's an interesting way of punctuating a scholarly disagreement:

Professor Under Investigation For Mooning Incident

And the extended video is up on YouTube:



I get a chuckle out of Provost Gould's statement on the matter:

". . .we need to make sure everything is revealed before we take any action."

No, I think we've seen enough.

h/t Larry J. Zimmerman

"A+" in Intro to Bodacious Ta-Ta-s

I make 'em do the assignments. Guess I'm doin' it all wrong.

Professor Accused of Fondling Students in Exchange for Higher Grades

The Dangerous Hoosier Triangle

Quote of the day:

"The number of American fatalities in Iraq for July2008 were less than 1/2 the number of Hoosiers gunned down in Indianapolis."

- Pointman

Garbage

doin' "Bleed Like Me."

h/t Jonathan Alder at The Volokh Conspiracy.

"Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'"

Frank James gets it. Head to that link and read carefully. Take notes. Particularly if you wanna be POTUS.

"I never really been so I dont really know"

I'm getting fed up. Stuff like, "Border patrol agent held at gunpoint" and, "Mexico Border City Fines U.S. Drivers Seeking Cheap Diesel", and all this on top of the growing cost of illegal immigration. I had proposed a solution but it looks like

someone beat me to it.

And I love the irony. When the Leftists accuse us of "war for oil" and being "imperialists" we can smile and say, "Yeah. You kept accusing us so we finally decided to take you up on it."

Sharp As A Marble Returns From The Dead

Sharp As A Marble is back. Robb Allen tells of the dogpile of craptastic occurrences that brought his blog down for a few days. I feel for him. Earlier this year on my birthday I went to work to find three of the four drives in the RAID array of our web server had failed. Ouch.

Empty Nest

It's only Mrs. Shomes, myself, and Thing One and Thing Two now. After a little over twenty-two years of living with us, Shermlock Jr. or "Bud" for short, has a full-ride fellowship for a PhD in Informatics down at Indiana University in Bloomington. Mrs. Shomes is going through heavy-duty 'Empty Nest Syndrome.' I'm feeling a bit sad myself but realize that Bud is off on a wonderful adventure. And he hasn't moved far so we'll still be seeing him often.

August Blogmeet: Two for the price of one!

Roberta informs us that August's blogmeet will be a double: August 17 and August 24 at 3:00 PM at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub.

Mayor Thug Jailed

I've been keeping an eye on the exploits of the corrupt Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, mostly as an exercise in reinforcing my opinion that politicians get the breaks where the common citizen would not. Well, my world view is being shaken. With 8 felony charges filed against him Kilpatrick did an unauthorized trip across the bridge to Windsor figuring that no one would notice. Someone did and now Kwame is wearin' shoes without laces. At least until he posts the full $75,000 bond. Maybe there is justice.

Compassion

Over dinner last night we discussed the execution of the Mexican killer in Texas. In commenting on the number of people protesting this execution I observed that some people mistakenly believe that they are 'good' when they display compassion for those who deserve none when in reality they appear foolish for displaying no compassion for the victims and their families.

Piss off a politician and lose your rights

David Codrea over at The War on Guns reports on how this happened to Gabriel Razzano and how he's still waiting for justice.

Michigander

You probably picked up from one of my previous posts that I'm originally from Michigan. A lot of good things come from Michigan. I'm sad to say that some not so good things have come from Michigan, too.

Slippery Slope

Now why should this surprise anyone?

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Isn't it ironic that folks get their undies in a bundle over such disregard for the Fourth Amendment but have no problem with the Government playing fast and free with the Second Amendment? I tend to examine how any candidate for office looks at the Second Amendment and withhold my vote accordingly. Maybe I'm not so crazy being a single-issue voter after all.

Morning has broken. . .

When I was a young(er) man I thought my father crazy to get up in the wee hours of the morning, even on weekends when he didn't have to. But now that I'm old(er) I find that I enjoy the early morning quiet and calm.

I rise at 5:00 AM on weekdays and sleep in until 6:00 AM on weekends. And I necessarily must be up at 6:00 AM as that is the 'rise and shine' time for Inkem and Stinkem the Devil Dogs.

The last few days the weather here in Indy has been miserable for this ol' Michigan boy; hot and humid. It was even 80 degrees and humid at 6:00 AM! This morning, though, it was 62 degrees and pleasant when I freed the critters to do their thing in the back yard. And I can even prop the screen door open so they can come and go while I type this out.

My Drink Don't Stink

A while ago I'd posted about the Gray Kangaroo Personal Liquor Filter and how it appealed to my cheapness frugality. Well, so far I've found that booze like Kamchatka Vodka that would normally give me a hangover from hell after only one or two drinks is rendered benign by the filter. More experimentation is called for. [hic]