Safe Computing

New scareware sends you to fake Download.com reviews | The Download Blog - Download.com

I spent a few hours over the weekend nursing a virus/spyware ridden relatives PC back to health. I'm probably one of the few Techie Geeks that actually finds this sort of thing kind of like a "puzzle challenge", so the time spent is better for me than most. A few observations:

• The linked article points out that the Viruses are getting more sophisticated, including messing with your links, hosts, etc so you actually end up going to a fake site to supposedly download software to help you!
• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware was one of the tools that I found I needed to use to remove "Antivirus XP 2009" from the machine.
• The other took that I really needed was The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows" (UBCD4W). The box would not run, and most of what was needed to be done could not be done from Safe Mode, at least not in the machines state of infection.
• One of the things that I was surprised had happened to the machine (I assume a virus did it) is that the ability to get to the Task Manager via Ctl-Alt-Del was disabled. Here is a link to the Registry entry to fix.
• I ended up running SpyBot Search and Destroy under the UBCD4W boot from CD then booting and finding out I couldn't get to Task Mgr, so did the registry hack to get that fixed, and then started finding bad tasks running. One thing nice about the net is that as long as you have another working machine (and it is hard for me to even IMAGINE only having one computer!! ;-) ) you can just Google things that "look wrong" and if they are, you go out and do a Registry / Disk Search and try to get rid of any remaining ones. My guess is that for most folks it might be easier to just try another free download of something that you trust rather than the manual approach. Since I "mixed", I can't be SURE that if I'd found Anti-Malware earlier, that might have just done the whole trick rather than me mixing in some hacking around.

Epistemological Modesty

Op-Ed Columnist - The Big Test - NYTimes.com

David Brooks was a big BO supporter, but apparently now he is starting to see where his "hope went wrong".

These experiences drove me toward the crooked timber school of public philosophy: Michael Oakeshott, Isaiah Berlin, Edward Banfield, Reinhold Niebuhr, Friedrich Hayek, Clinton Rossiter and George Orwell. These writers — some left, some right — had a sense of epistemological modesty. They knew how little we can know. They understood that we are strangers to ourselves and society is an immeasurably complex organism. They tended to be skeptical of technocratic, rationalist planning and suspicious of schemes to reorganize society from the top down.

"They knew how little we can know"! There we have it, the crux of the problem! Liberals were always saying that "Bush was arrogant". Why? Well, because he looked like he smirked, and they thought he was too stupid to be President. Did he think that he (or any human) could address ALL of them? No, in no way.

Compare that with this quote from BO:

“We cannot successfully address any of our problems without addressing all of them.”

Uh, hello? Like that would meant that in the SHORT run we are all DEAD!!

It is too bad the following aren't nearly the only possibilities:

All in all, I can see why the markets are nervous and dropping. And it’s also clear that we’re on the cusp of the biggest political experiment of our lifetimes. If Obama is mostly successful, then the epistemological skepticism natural to conservatives will have been discredited. We will know that highly trained government experts are capable of quickly designing and executing top-down transformational change. If they mostly fail, then liberalism will suffer a grievous blow, and conservatives will be called upon to restore order and sanity.

It’ll be interesting to see who’s right. But I can’t even root for my own vindication. The costs are too high. I have to go to the keyboard each morning hoping Barack Obama is going to prove me wrong.

Among the other obvious ones -- we don't recover, we sink into being some sort of "fallen nation" status like many liberals liked to predict would happen after Reagan. BO and company turn us into a totalitarian socialist gulag. Terrorists attack us with smallpox or some other worse bio weapon and the vast majority of Americans die -- who knows what comes out the other side.

The Benefit of Crisis

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Obama's Schadenfreude

In the world that BO, community organizers, and liberals pretty much live in, this is how "wealth" is looked at:

In those worlds, wealth isn't created; it's seen as a fixed pie, and some slice is taken from those who have and given to those who haven't.

It is hard to believe that BO and company would really be so stupid as to do many of the things they are doing now, and I don't believe they are stupid. They are leftists that believe that the country needs to be "destroyed so it can be saved" -- they see the basic American fabric as so corrupt that it has to be "purged" in order to get a "new America" that BO and even his wife can be "proud of".

Here it is from Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" -- the bible for community organizers like BO:

"There's another reason for working inside the system... Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people.They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

Push more and more into the system, allow the system to break miserably, blame the engine of the system (capitalism/business) rather than the massive overload of the system that broke the "frame" ( FICA, Medicare, regulation, taxes, more and more federal programs, etc). When the people are hungry and the wrong side is fully blamed, then the left can complete their takeover and make it impossible for freedom to ever return--control the media, collect the guns, round up the "non supporters" and we can have a great "unified system".

 Everyone supporting the "same thing"! Wonderful!

May 7, 1997

Recession Worry Seizes the Day and Dow - WSJ.com



The Democrats "way back machine" has erased all the market wealth creation since '97, a full 12 years worth of investor time. One of the bad things about "spreading the wealth" is that there is always so much less of it to spread once you begin.

But, as Lenin said on the way to communism -- "The Worse the Better". The right always has the problem that we want civilization to be preserved. The left is just fine with it all falling down and starting over -- and you know, they are pretty darned good at destroying things!

You Have to Love Polls

Poll: Politicians trusted more than business leaders on economy - CNN.com

Here we have a HEADLINE poll on CNN tonight that sounds really good for congress and BO. Funny, on the way home this evening, even NPR was pointing out that BOs numbers were DOWN 9 points in 2 weeks, and lamenting that almost ALL of that slip was among Republicans. ONLY 39% of REPUBLICANS now said they supported him, as opposed to something like 50% that hadn't figured out that he was a socialist prior to him ramming his package though with no input from Republicans.

NPR was pretty sad that ONLY 39% of Republicans liked BO. Strangely, I've been listening to them for the last 8 years, and there was nothing at all "partisan" about greater than 9 out of 10 Democrats being against Bush. In fact, PARTISAN meant basically Bush only handing over 80-90% of the reins of Government to Reid and Pelosi. Strange how things seem different now.

I'd say it is a good indicator of exactly how much trouble BO is already in when his friends at CNN go out of their way to gin up a misleading poll and put it as a headline to make it seem like their guy isn't sinking like a stone in the polls.

If Bush had lost 9pts in 2 weeks, the headlines EVERYWHERE would read "Bush Sinks 9 Points in Two Weeks". or "Bush Crashes with Market", "Bush Already In Poll Trouble" ... etc ... in fact we already saw that, and that was just the kind of headlines that the media put out!

Ten Conservative Principles

Link to the full text

There is more detail around each one and it is worth following the link to read it all. How important it is to read such things in the current world!

First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire.

Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.

Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world.

Best to just ponder with no extra comment from this quarter -- if you have extra time, go read the rest.

Did He Say How?

Obama pledges to halve budget deficit in 4 years | Reuters

BO seems to be out on the campaign trail again trying to shore up his already sagging approval ratings (-9 in two weeks). Campaigning is the only thing that he knows how to do, so I suppose he might as well do it. Unfortunately, he tends to make a lot of promises when he campaigns, and here is another one by a guy that apparently has no idea what he is saying.

So we JUST decided to spend $800 Billion, and we will be VERY lucky if next years deficit isn't in excess of $2 Trillion, rather than the $1.2 Trillion that BO is quick to point out that he "inherited". Interesting how the role of congress drops to zilch when it is a Democrat congress isn't it?

So, spending at the rates of Trillions of dollars a year is "pressing on the gas" for the economy about as hard as we possibly can. While I disagree with how much and where, the idea that the gas must be pressed in a recession seems sound.

Now we have "halve the deficit in 4 years???". Say what? How pray tell would one do that? Drastic cut in spending coupled with tax increases? Uh, but that is stepping on the BRAKES!!! Why drive with one foot hard on the gas and the other hard on the brakes? Isn't that about the most STUPID way possible one can drive???

Sensor Drift

Well, there was a solid NSIDC prediction that in 2008, the North Pole would be ice free! Only the evil "disbelievers" had an doubt at all. OOPS, small problem, the sensors were off and it didn't melt -- and now the ice in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005-2008. Hmmm.

"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice-free, open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relies on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."

Free Speech Lefty Style

NAACP calls for firing of N.Y. Post cartoonist - CNN.com

BO's own book is full of "how he would like to get the white blood out of his system" and the "World in need run by White Man's greed" actual line and thinking.

His new AG says that we are "a Nation of racial cowards".

I suppose we ought to be thankful -- they aren't rioting in the streets and killing folks like the Muslims did over a cartoon.

Yes, yes, white folks are bad, black folks are good. In fact, they are so good, that if they just FEEL offended, people ought to lose their jobs over it. What kind of "freedom of the press" does one have in that sort of a world?

Oh, that's right, NONE -- the whole idea of Campaign Finance, Fairness Doctine, etc is the unilateral disarmament of "speech that the left doesn't like".

That is how we get "unified".

Why The Market Sinks

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Is It Any Wonder The Market Continues To Sink?



Most of this has been covered in the Blog, but a good summary list. The picture is worth a thousand words.

Markets care very little about the past, it is the future that people (used) to invest in. The Palin nomination / McCain uptick gave them a ray of hope, but that hope is long gone now.

We desperately need some hope that is "old and real" -- responsibility, paying personal and national bills, the people that earn the money keeping the money, real risk and real rewards -- simple things like that. We are back to the 70's -- now the questions are how long, and must we REALLY go all the way back to the 30's or an even worse place before we realize the basic truth.

There never has and never will be a free lunch!!!!

A Rant For the Ages

Rick Santelli's mortgage rant - THE WEEK

Somebody had to say it, said the Colorado Springs Gazette in an editorial. The government is sending the message that people who bought houses they couldn't afford win, and those who live within their means foot the bill. Santelli's rant was one "for the ages, full of wisdom and truth," by a man who "understands the danger of a country that rewards failure, by taxing all success."

Finally, at least SOME people are starting to awake to the disaster that we have brought upon ourselves with 2 years and running of "change"! The core of Democrat change is always "Punish those that do good, and Reward those that do evil!"

BTW, the Republican version of that is not "the opposite", but rather "Man is a poor judge of good and evil -- seek God, markets and other higher powers".

Hey, It is Possible to Fail on All Fronts!

RealClearPolitics - Articles - 'Kick Me' Diplomacy

The left found it very unimpressive that post 9-11 we didn't have a single attack on US soil, and until a year after the Democrats took over Congress, we generally had markets that were rising.

Well, now are markets are in the tank and the world is treating us like a weak skinny kid with big ears and broken glasses. Of course, our MSM is unwilling to even acknowledge the vote of "no confidence" from the markets, but they are completely silent on the decline in the American position abroad.

Sorry folks, it is VERY possible to be broke AND be attacked by foreign powers. One just needs to vote in a clueless and generally unsuccessful community organizer from Chicago as president, and the outcome is all too predictable.

BO Agrees with ... Bush???

Obama administration keeps Bush view on Afghanistan detainees - CNN.com

Wow, What is up with this?? Here we have Bush, the "worst President in US History", and BO, the "greatest US president ever" -- and what? The best agrees with the worst on a critical issue relative to the War On Terror??

How surprising!

Democrats For Truth!

The Case for a Truth Commission - TIME

Patrick Leahy leading the charge for "truth and non-partisanship" is like Teddy Kennedy leading the charge for "temperance and respect for women" (or maybe teaching young women to swim, at night, out of a car under water).

How can you be more reasonable than this?

One path to that goal is to appoint a truth-finding panel. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair-minded and without an ax to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecution in order to get to the whole truth.

First, you get "fair minded folks" (like Pat I suppose) that have "no axe to grind". Simple! Their only "straightforward mission" would be to "find the truth"!! How could anyone be against this? Why, couldn't Pat just lead it up himself? He certainly seems like a "fair minded guy, with no axe to grind, only interested in the truth"? Isn't that what ALL Democrats really are?? I mean NONE of them are partisan in any way, right?

During the past several years, the U.S. has been deeply divided. This has made our government less productive and our society less civil. President Obama is right in saying that we cannot afford extreme partisanship and debilitating divisions. As we commemorate the Lincoln bicentennial, there is a need, again, "to bind up the nation's wounds." Rather than vengeance, we need an impartial pursuit of what actually happened and a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past.

Now, there is a real news item -- "during thelast several years". What would "several" be? The past two years when we have had a Democrat Congress and a Republican in the White House? The previous 4 when we had very slim Republican majorities in Congress and a Republican in the White House? Maybe from 2001-2002 when we had Democrats with a one seat majority in the Senate and the rest Republican? Golly it just isn't stated. I wonder why that is?

It seems like there really couldn't be much better than a good old "truth commission" to help bring this nation of ourse together!

Dems to New Orleans, Drop Dead

Power Line - That Was Then, This Is Now

Anybody that doubts that the whole idea of some "Katrina Debacle" caused by supposed incompetence and insensitivity in the Bush administration can be certain it was only politics now. In the first major spending bill by our first Black President, after YEARS of howling of the "inadequacy of spending for New Orleans" -- on dikes, repair, etc, how much is there for New Orleans in the greatest Porkfest in history? Not one thin dime.

Katrina and New Orleans served their purpose, and then some. Now they can drop dead for all the Democrats care. Time to pay off some new constituencies!