Category: Stupid

A 22 Year Old INTERN is Given Personal data on 64,000 People???? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot????

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This is un-dirtyword-believable.

Data on 64,000 Ohio state workers stolen

By MATT REED, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 16, 7:15 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A 22-year-old intern was given the responsibility of safeguarding the personal information of thousands of state employees, a security procedure that ended up backfiring.

The names andSocial Security numbers of all 64,000 Ohio state employees were stolen last weekend from a state agency intern who left a backup data storage device in his car, Gov. Ted Strickland said.

This is a Bad Headline and Bad Journalism.

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The bill is NOT about bloggers. It’s about journalists. Bloggers should not be the lede, nor the headline.

Myopic computer press.

Bush administration attacks ‘shield’ for bloggers
By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: June 14, 2007, 12:19 PM PDT
Last modified: June 14, 2007, 1:52 PM PDT

WASHINGTON–The Bush administration on Thursday blasted a congressional proposal that would shield a broad swath of news gatherers, including some bloggers, from revealing their confidential sources.

The latest draft of the Free Flow of Information Act would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting far too large a segment of the population, a U.S. Department of Justice official told Congress.

“The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web,” Rachel Brand, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing here. She also argued it would protect “a terrorist operative who videotaped a message from a terrorist leader threatening attacks on Americans.”

Justice Department opposition has bedeviled Congress throughout its numerous attempts in recent years to enact federal shield laws. Supporters say such legislation is needed in light of high-profile cases involving New York Times reporter Judith Miller and what free-press advocacy groups characterize as a sharp rise in subpoenas to reporters in recent years.

Laws recognizing some form of “reporter’s privilege” already exist in 49 states and the District of Columbia–but, crucially, do not shield journalists from federal prosecutors. The Bush Administration claims there’s no evidence that source-related subpoenas to reporters are on the rise and argues that it already has robust internal guidelines, including a requirement that the attorney general personally approve such subpoenas and provide an appropriate balance between press freedom and investigative needs.

This year’s Free Flow of Information Act, which has been introduced in both the House and Senate, proposes a protection for a broader swath of people than earlier versions. It covers anyone engaged in journalism, which is defined as “gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.”

Even those covered individuals could be forced to give up their sources under certain circumstances, including when it’s clear that crimes have been committed, when “imminent and actual harm” to national security could occur, or when trade secrets, nonpublic personal information or health records are compromised in violation of existing laws.

Some Rockers are Smart, Some are REALLY Stupid

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This rock and roller understands how music distribution is changing, and what his fans want.

Rock star says piracy battle is lost

‘The horse has bolted’
By OUT-LAW.COM
Published Friday 15th June 2007 08:52 GMT

Major record labels are still fighting the piracy battles of 1997 according to a leading rock musician and digital rights activist.

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree told OUT-LAW that they should have realised in 1997 that their battle was already lost.

“If you turn back the clock when all this stuff was still on the horizon, the key realisation to have made was that we had lost the war already,” Rowntree told OUT-LAW Radio, the weekly technology law podcast. “That’s what I was going round telling everybody 10 years ago, saying ‘the horse has bolted, there’s no way of undoing what has been done already, the only thing you can do is to try and turn your business around so that you turn this into a plus rather than a minus’.”

Rowntree advises digital rights advocacy group the Open Rights Group and has been a vocal opponent of the mainstream record industry’s policies of chasing individual file sharers. When told that the last Blur album was leaked on to the internet he reportedly said “I’d rather it gushed”.

Rowntree said that the major labels’ policies of putting digital rights management (DRM) technology on music CDs to attempt to stop them being copied and shared backfired spectacularly.

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And then we have the Blithering idiots that are Don Henley, Celine Dion, Martha Reeves, Christina Aguilera and Wyclef Jean, and the “musicFirst Coalition“

SiliconValley.com – Performers seek royalties on airplay from radio

MUSIC GROUP PLANS TO LOBBY FOR NEW LAWS
By Alex Veiga
Associated Press
Article Launched: 06/15/2007 01:35:48 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES – A coalition of recording artists, music companies and industry groups said Thursday it will push for compensation of performers whose music is played on the radio.

The musicFirst Coalition, which counts recording artists Don Henley, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Wyclef Jean among its members, intends to lobby Congress for new laws requiring the payments by broadcasters.

The group said U.S. performers, from superstar vocalists to background singers, deserve to be paid when their work is aired on AM or FM radio.

‘The artists and the musicians and the community in general have come together to say now is really time to make sure that when music is played on the radio, that people who perform that music are paid fairly to do it,’ Mark Kadish, the coalition’s executive director, said during a conference call with reporters.

Under current law, only songwriters are paid royalties when songs are played on AM or FM radio.

How long will it take Clear Channel, and its satanic ilk to use this to create a new form of Payola, which will come from Artist’s royalties.

This is why we need to stop looking at IP as property.

And in the Stupidity Olympics, We Have a Medal Winner

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Installing P2P software on one’s work machine? Really, Really stupid.

Also, the folks at the Register are a bit too cute…Privacy cock-up….

Pfizer worker data leaked via P2P

Privacy cock-up for Viagra makers
By John Leyden → More by this author
Published Thursday 14th June 2007 13:48 GMT
Why Businesses need Business Continuity – Free whitepaperMobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

Casual use of file sharing by the spouse of an unnamed Pfizer worker has been blamed for leaking personal information on more than 17,000 current and former employees at the pharmaceutical giant.

Unauthorised installation of a P2P package on a company laptop led to the exposure of worker data, presumably after a directory holding the information was inadvertently offered up for sharing to world+dog.

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China Blasts US for Stupid Comment.

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Someone needs to tell the Bush admin that this kind of false macho bullsh$# does not fly in the real world.

Better yet, someone should show them.

Oh…I forgot. Muqtada al Sadr already has

China says U.S. remarks on its military irresponsible

Reuters
Thursday, June 14, 2007; 5:31 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) – China denounced U.S. comments on its defense spending as “irresponsible” on Thursday and defended its military budget, saying it was open and transparent.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also called on the United States to stop selling weapons to Taiwan, the self-ruled island China considers its own, and to refrain from “sending any wrong signals to Taiwan secessionist forces.”

“China sticks to the role of peaceful development,” Qin told a news conference.

“On the military expenditure of China, we are transparent and open. The U.S. official’s remarks disregard the facts and spread the China threat theory,” Qin said.

On Wednesday, Richard Lawless, the U.S. deputy undersecretary for defense for Asia, was reported to have accused China of concealing its spending on its weapons programs.

“What we see is a deliberate effort on the part of China’s leaders to mask the nature of Chinese military capabilities,” Lawless told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

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North Korean Money Released

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This problem was not created by the DPRK. It was created by the Bush administration, which DAYS after having a preliminary agreement, froze North Korean assets.

My guess is that some of Dick Cheney’s protégés made the call to freeze these assets.

They have been sabotaging negotiations for years.

Hopes rise for end to North Korea impasse

TOKYO – The transfer of blacklisted North Korean assets from a Macau bank was set to begin Thursday, a report said, raising hopes of resolving the drawn-out dispute which has held up a nuclear disarmament deal.

Japan’s Kyodo News agency, quoting unnamed authorities in the Chinese territory, said procedures to transfer the funds out of the Banco Delta Asia were scheduled to begin Thursday.

The communist North, which sparked international outrage when it tested an atom bomb for the first time last year, agreed in February to shut down its nuclear reactor in return for badly needed fuel aid and diplomatic benefits.

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George Bush’s watch Hits eBay

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I have been told that a different camera angle disproves the theft story, but the fact that someone is hawking a phony watch on eBay is funny.

George Bush’s watch clocked on eBay

George Bush’s watch clocked on eBay
On its way to Oz via Kazakhstan
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Wednesday 13th June 2007 15:43 GMT
Mobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

It didn’t take long for George Bush’s wristwatch – allegedly swiped on Sunday by Albanian former godless Commies – to pop up on eBay.

Sadly, there’s no photo at present to back up the sale, but the vendor does give a very good reason:

I bought this watch from an Albanian friend, he claims to have “borrowed” it from George Bush.
Click here to find out more!

I can’t prove it’s an Authentic Dubya timepiece, (It has a Mickey Mouse face, as opposed to the Presidential Seal) but it’s certainly a nice watch.

Obviously the watch is second hand, however it’s in mint condition.

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Bush Administration Endangers Air Travelers Over Petty Snit

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Yep, bullsh&% at the expense of safety, because petty score settling.

One wonders what other self destructive stupidity might be occurring because of, say, oedipal conflicts, *COUGH* IRAQ *COUGH*.

U.S. delays exporting licenses to Syrian Air

The U.S. government is dragging its feet on exporting licenses for aviation security items to Syrian Air – and the airline thinks there is an ulterior motive. Fortune’s
Marc Perelman reports.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Marc Perelman, Fortune
June 14 2007: 5:42 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) — Is the Bush administration toying with aviation safety to pursue its political goals in the Middle East?

That’s what the chairman of Syria’s national airline and other experts say is the effect of extensive delays by Washington in issuing export licenses to Syrian Air for U.S.-manufactured aviation-security items – even though those items are exempt from a three-year-old export ban.

“Since the export ban has been in place, the U.S. has begun to delay the export-license process,” Syrian Air chairman Nachaat Numir told Fortune in a recent interview in Damascus. “In the past the normal export-license application process took one month, maximum. Now it takes several months, even a year.”

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Vladimir Putin Just Owned Bush and Rice

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There is no mistake about this. Putin just convinced people that he is the adult in this situation, and that Bush and his TOADIE Secretary of State are loose cannons who can destabilize the region.

These folks screw up everything they touch.

Russian missile offer is ‘a major shift’ says Czech PM

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Russia’s offer to set up a joint anti-missile base with the United States to end a stand-off between the two countries is a significant move, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said.

‘I think that the Russian offer represents a major shift in (President Vladimir) Putin’s view of the problem,’ he told a joint news conference after a short meeting with his British counterpart Tony Blair in Downing Street.

The Czech Republic and neighbouring Poland have been at the centre of a row between the United States and Russia over the former’s proposed anti-missile defence shield in central and eastern Europe.

Washington, which says the shield is aimed at rogue states and not Russia, asked Prague earlier this year to host a radar tracking station and Warsaw to site 10 interceptor missiles to shoot hostile missiles from the sky.

Amid escalating Cold War-style language and threats, Putin sought to defuse the row at last week’s G8 summit by suggesting a joint Russian-US anti-missile base in Azerbaijan.

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My Email to the Edwards Campaign

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I meant what I said. I am leaning toward his candidacy, and I want an apology from Mr. Sanders. A real one, not a phony “I’m sorry if I offended anyone” apology.

The text (pasted into their web form):

I recently read Dave “Mudcat” Sanders’ blog on time, and I am profoundly concerned by what he wrote on Time’s Swampland Blog.
There are a number of reasons:

* It was anti-Jewish. Specifically his slam of “elitist wing of the Democratic Party, or what I refer to as the “Metropolitan Opera Wing”.” is specifically a call to Jew Baiting.

* It was homophobic.

* It was racist, or at least it used racist code words.

I’m not of any particular importance. I have a blog with (perhaps) 100 readers a day (no I did not drop a few 0s, we are talking Z-list blogger).

I was a precinct captain for Howard Dean in 2004, but obviously the campaign was suspended before the Maryland primary.

I am given to understand that he is an adviser to your campaign.

I have not yet made a decision on which candidate to endorse, but you are currently the candidate I favor.

I will be making an endorsement before the Iowa caucuses (that and $2.50 will get you a Starbucks).

I am not suggesting that you separate Mr Saunders from your campaign.

However, SOMEONE should tell him that he needs to think before he talks.

I understand that sometimes consultants are tempted to sell themselves too much, and I believe that this is what happened here.

This campaign needs to be about John Edwards, not Dave “Mudcat” Saunders.

I would suggest that he apologize. It should be heartfelt, not a phony “I’m sorry if I offended anyone” apology, and it should be made clear to him that he needs to give his advice in private in the future.