• There’s No Real Difference Between Online Espionage and Online Attack (Bruce Schneier at The Atlantic) Basically, we are setting up an infrastructure to engage in unprovoked attacks on other nations computer infrastructure.
• Choosing Secure Passwords (Bruce Schneier, again)
• There’s an App for What???? (Jezebel) A phone app to practice oral sex called Lick This. Just clean your screen before and after.
• David Cameron’s porn-filter advisor arrested for possession of images of sexual abuse of children (Boing Boing) So not surprised.

J-Pop and Death Metal together at last.

Warning: That which is seen cannot be unseen.

• ProPublica Wins MacArthur Foundation Award (ProPublica) They deserve it.
• Joe The Plumber Is Now A Union Man (Crooks and Liars) Hypocrisy much?
• Rupert Murdoch took the BuzzFeed ‘Which Billionaire Tycoon Are You?’ quiz (Business Insider) It said that he was Rupert Murdoch
• The Chevron Guarantee: Our well won’t explode…or your pizza is free! (Philly.com)  Not the Onion, not a parody, it’s real, God help us all.
• Five surveillance myths stalling NSA reform, debunked  (The Guardian)
• A Walmart Worker Explains Why Walmart’s Customer Service Is Horrible (Gawker) Nickel tour:  They are too cheap to give worker to have the time to help you.
• An FT story lets Wall Street off the hook (Columbia Journalism Review) They studiously ignore the fact that Wall Street tacitly (and sometimes actively) encouraged this fraud because they made more money that way.
• F-35 Delayed After Fourth Prototype Becomes Self-Aware And Has To Be Destroyed (Duffelblog)

Nitrogen, a Koosh Ball, and Too Much Free Time

• Juggalos Get Pentagon OK To Wear Religious Face Paint In Uniform (Duffel Blog) Which is a national treasure on par with The Onion
• Downworthy: A browser plugin to turn hyperbolic viral headlines into what they really mean I am waiting for the Firefox Version
• Offshore Leaks, Tax Haven Secrecy Revealed (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) Lots of stuff here, I am still perusing
• Conservative author and pundit Dinesh D’Souza charged in campaign finance case (The Washington Post) Felony charges.  I am not interested enough to blog about it, but I’m sharing the schadenfreude
• Wrap That Rascal With A USB Condom (HotHardware) Basically, it air-gaps the data ports, but allows you to charge, so you don’t have to worry that their phone is stealing your computer’s data, or their computer is stealing your phone’s data.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for the screen capture of the FB dialogue.

• Fridge sends spam emails as attack hits smart gadgets (BBC) Yes, this brave new world of smart gadgets is such an amazing step forward. H/T ECop at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
• N.J. bridge scandal proves the need for dogged local journalism (Rachel Maddow at the Washington Post)
• Yuriko Koike criticizes democratic countries’ indifference to the threat posed by the Thai opposition’s strategy of protest (Project Syndicate) Former Japanese Minister of Defense condemns Thai protests as an assault on democracy.

This is more the ‘tude of Destructo (the male, almost not a kitten) rather than Meatball (or Mouse Trap, my wife and I disagree^*)

^*It doesn’t really matter, they do not come when they are called.

• Polar Vortex Causes Hundreds of Injuries as People Making Snide Remarks About Climate Change Are Punched in Face (The The New Yorker) Andrew Borowitz is truly funny this time
• Student Expelled for Witchcraft (ABC News) Not The Onion, it appears that the absurdity that is Oklahoma trumps that of America’s Finest News Source.
• Obama Approves Releasing Classified Information to Attack Snowden for Leaking Classified Information (Empty Wheel) Hypocrisy much?
• Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?  (New America Foundation) No, and this comes from a “Think” tank that is normally a nest of Obama fanbois.

Your advertisement of the day: (Funny)

• Australia’s sharks will now tweet before attacking – (Salon.com) Headline of the day
• Michael Hirsh Aims at Edward Snowden, Accidentally Blows Off Own Leg (MichaelMoore.com) In which Mr. Hirsh announces that American involvement in the Vietnam War ended before 1971, much to the surprise of the 250,000 troops stationed there, and even more of a surprise to the 2,414 servicemen killed in Indochina that year.
• For human rights to flourish, religious rights have to come second (The Guardian) Religious freedom does not include the right to oppress non-believers.
• I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot (Deadspin) Former Viking punter Chris Kluwe makes a good case for his being let go for supporting LGBT civil rights

This is genius. You need to watch the whole minute thirteen.

This guy owes me a screen wipe.

• Good Grief and Great Tits (The Stranger) Dan Savage’s takedown of Sarah Palin’s is epic.
• Crushing Christmas: How to Win Every Argument (The Daily Beast) How to deal with that crazy uncle at family get togethers by out crazying them all.
• But I’d like, just once, for someone to have the balls to admit their bigotry without trying to blame it on Jesus (Squatlo Rant) Not bishop Shelby Spong, but pretty good
• Scientists Link Spike in Thyroid Disease to Fukushima Disaster (Real News Media) Be afraid, be very, very, afraid.
• Stanford Researcher Proves NSA Can Probably Identify Individuals From Phone Records (TechCrunch) Seriously, this sh%$ is data mining 101. Your phone records reveal who you are.

H/T Distractify

• Dead AK-47 Inventor To Be Buried In Mud For A Week, Cleaned Off, Then Put Back To Work (Duffelblog) This is the most inspired obit for Mikhail Kalashnikov ever.
• How the Media Would Have Covered the Birth of Jesus (NY Mag) The burn on HuffPo is best.
• The corporation invasion (Le Monde) How the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) is just as unspeakably awful as the Transpacific Partnership (TPP).

V2.0 of the Engineer’s Guide to Cats

• How to undo in Gmail (Slate) You have about 10 seconds to call back an email if you set your options properly
• ‘In a single moment, I stopped being religious’ (Haaretz)
• Sharks Do Get Cancer: Tumor Found in Great White (Discovery News)  Yet another example of patently false pseudoscience exploded.
• How to commit fraud and get away with it: A Guide for CEOs (Macroresilience)  This is a primer on how to use willful blindness to create a corrupt organization.

I don’t know if my cat wants this, but I do.

Link.

• 100 Years of Breed “Improvement” (Science of Dogs) How dogs have transformed into ugly sickly beasts by the breeders.
• New MS treatment looks promising (Ottawa Citizen) Bone marrow transplant? WTF?
• Bloomberg Defends NYPD’s Controversial Stop And Kiss Program (America’s Finest News Source)
• How to make schmaltz  (The Splendid Table) You get gribnes as well.  Not great for the arteries, but good for the soul.

H/t New Nutownesaloon

• Italian company to sell portable cold fusion plant deliverable next year (Phys.org)  I wish that there was a way to bet on this being a fraud.
• TPP Defenders Take To The Internet To Deliver Official Talking Points; Inadvertently Confirm Opponents’ Worst Fears (Techdirt)
• MenuetOS, written entirely in assembly language (Computer World) a full 32 or 64 bit operating system, with a GUI, and it runs on a floppy ……… sweet

I work in retail. This is completely accurate. – Imgur

China’s Second Aircraft Carrier under construction  (China Defense Blog) Domestically manufactured, and it might have a catapult.
India Hits ‘Milestone’ with Launch of Own Aircraft Carrier (Defense News) 
J-2X Hot-Fire-Tests First Additive-Manufactured Part (Aviation Week) 3-D printing of high temperature, high strength components.  This is a big deal.
Caseless and case telescoped ammunition as a part of the Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT)

LSAT supporting materials:

You can see the 26 page PowerPoint for the program here, and a 2 page brochure here.

• How the NSA is hurting America’s economy (The Daily Dot)
• Thug Kitchen Recipes and F-Bombs. NSFW.
• Here’s why Obama trade negotiators push the interests of Hollywood and drug companies (Washington Post) The picture with the article is of a revolving door.  It’s kind of a tell.
• There Is No Best Sword (Hank Reinhardt) Makes the should-be-obvious-but-it-isn’t point that that every sword is optimized for a specific sword fighting form.  (H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS)
• ATDT, Your Phone is Owned (CS News) Remember the Hayes modem command set?  It is in your smart phone, and it can be used to hack into it.

Have some exquisite music.

The camera work is a bit busy though.

• Lara Logan Taking Leave Of Absence From ’60 Minutes’ After Debunked Benghazi Report (TPM) I do not think that she is coming back. Every time a rock gets turned over, the story gets worse.
• Racial profiling by police caught on tape (Miami Herald)
• U.S. Senators: ‘No evidence’ that NSA metadata collection is useful (ZDNet)

 

H/t Crooks and Liars.  I lurve New Yorker cartoons.

• MotherF%$#ingWebsite (MotherF%$#ingWebsite.com) The best rant on stupidly complex web pages ever. H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
• OKC bomb squad says suspicious item was a burrito (Salon.com) Hed of the day. Still, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of a burrito.^*
• Paul Krugman Invokes the Katniss (NY Times)  Dude, do not read the comments section on a story about Obamacare.  What is seen, cannot be unseen.
• Karl Rove lied to the IRS (ProPublica) So Nu?

Breaking Bad alternate ending:

I’ve never watched the show, and I LOLed.

H/t Crooks and Liars.

^*Yes, this is fart humor.

• US and UK struck secret deal to allow NSA to ‘unmask’ Britons’ personal data (The Guardian) And I think that we will discover that the NSA cut a deal to allow the UK’s GCHQ to to the same with Americans.
• NIST to Review Standards After Cryptographers Cry Foul Over NSA Meddling (ProPublica) Note that the NSA is no more equipped equipped to determine what damage is caused it’s need to collect everything than Rob Ford is to determine what damage is done to his brain by smoking crack.
• Walmart to be prosecuted for firing striking workers, union (The Guardian) Unless management is frog marched in handcuffs, nothing will change

Best flash mob ever:

• There Is Nothing Rational About Moving 777X Production Outside the Puget Sound Region (but Don’t Expect That to Stop Boeing) (The Stranger) Of course it does not make sense. This is about our managerial class feeling that it is their God given right to f%$# their workers.
• Giving All Americans a Basic Income Would End PovertyBusiness Insider (Business Insider) Yes, the Business f%$#ing Insider is calling for a guaranteed wage for every citizen. Who knew that they were a a bunch of pinkos.
• Bill Black:The Department of Justice’s Willful Blindness to the Willful Blindness of CEOs (Steve Cohen Edition) naked capitalism Today’s must read.
• ObamaCare Clusterf%$#: No, Obama, you’re not “stupid.” You’re pissy, arrogant, and an Emperor with no clothes (Corrente) The hed is too good not to share.
• George Zimmerman Arrested For Domestic Violence (Crooks and Liars) Like a bad penny, he is back.

Science, bitches:

Specifically the Prince Rupert’s drop.

• Obama wants to cut Social Security (New Economic Perspectives)
• Ex-Moody’s staff raise alarm over ABS ‘meltdown’ (Financial Times) Yes, asset based securities are ready to bite us in the tuchas again
• There is no “market solution” for ethics (Math Babe)
• Privatizing Lincoln’s grave (Hullabaloo) Yes, handing over Lincoln’s tomb to a the tender mercies of a for for-profit corporation. ……… Sweet.
• The US media is relentlessly right wing on the NSA leaks (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Countries in the Euro Zone are selling citizenship to combat the effects of austerity (Testosterone Pit)

And in the, “I wish that I had thought of that,” department:

Racism In White Americans Linked To Gun Ownership And Gun Control Opposition (Medical Daily) Rather unsurprising, my earlier posts on Reagan and gun control
Terrible Columnist Richard Cohen Shocked To Learn That Slavery Was Really, Really Bad (Wonkette) What a prat.

Have some music:

• Politico Playbook Parody: Civil War Playbook (New Republic) ROFL.
• Tom’s Kitchen: Wine-Braised Beef Short Ribs (Mother Jones)
• These Really Exist: Giant Concrete Arrows That Point Your Way Across America Condé Nast Traveler

And here is about the clearest description of a synchronized (Synchromesh^®) manual transmission that I have yet seen.