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Keep in mind, Bashir is now an accused war criminal. And we’re surprised that he’d respond by inflicting further suffering on innocent civilians? Sort of like being surprised that an aronist responds to being called an arsonist by burning down another home. This is not, after all, rocket science.

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Apple has just sent out invitations to a special media event on March 17. The invite-only event is geared towards the new iPhone SDK, Apple says, and will give the media a “sneak peek” at the iPhone OS 3.0 software. The event will apparently be an intimate one, as it will take place at Apple’s Town Hall building in Cupertino at 10am Pacific Time.

Just when I’m getting to know the 2.0 sdk….

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Twenty-seven top Internet publishers – including the New York Times, CNN, CBS Interactive, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal – say they’ll try the supersize ads in an attempt to get the attention of Web surfers who have learned to ignore banners.

I’ve never learned to ignore banners myself. I have a computer to do that for me. Wanna guess what my computer thinks of these new banners?

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“I understand some banks are short of cash these days,” writes Greg, “I guess this is one way of breaking the news.”

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Amadee Coral Reef New Caledonia in New Caledonia

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When Vesuvius erupted on Aug. 24, A.D. 79, a Roman fuller named Vesonius Primus fled toward the sea, leaving a watchdog chained to a post in the atrium of his house. It appears that the dog managed to survive the night by climbing continuously atop the mounting ash, but at dawn it reached the limit of its chain and was buried alive.

Like other victims of the eruption, its body left a vacancy in the ash layer, so a plaster cast could be made of its final position.

“Moreover, the satellites of Jupiter are invisible to the naked eye, and therefore can exercise no influence over the Earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist.”

— Astronomer Francesco Sizzi, on Galileo’s claim to have seen the moons of Jupiter

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Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on health care, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.

In a different twist, the report took those costs and factored benefits into the equation.

It compares statistics on life expectancy, death rates and even cholesterol readings and blood pressures. The health measures are factored together with costs into a 100-point “value” scale. That hasn’t been done before, the authors said.

The results are not encouraging.

The United States is 23 points behind five leading economic competitors: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The five nations cover all their citizens, and though their systems differ, in each country the government plays a much larger role than in the U.S.

The cost-benefit disparity is even wider — 46 points — when the U.S. is compared with emerging competitors: China, Brazil and India.

“What’s important is that we measure and compare actual value — not just how much we spend on health care, but the performance we get back in return,” said H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the insurance company Cigna. “That’s what this study does, and the results are quite eye-opening.”

[..]

One thing the report does not do is endorse the same solution that countries like Canada have adopted: a government-run health care system.

The CEOs of the Business Roundtable believe health care for U.S. workers and their families should stay in private hands, with a government-funded safety net for low-income people.

Short version: US health-care sucks, so let’s do more of the same.

Oh, and never mind that $2.9 trillion divided by 350 million does not equal $1,928 but well over $8k

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The government’s terrorist watch list has hit 1 million entries, up 32% since 2007.

Federal data show the rise comes despite the removal of 33,000 entries last year by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center in an effort to purge the list of outdated information and remove people cleared in investigations.

It’s unclear how many individuals those 33,000 records represent — the center often uses multiple entries, or “identities,” for a person to reflect variances in name spellings or other identifying information. The remaining million entries represent about 400,000 individuals, according to the center.

Approximate Assumed Annualized growth rate: 16%.

Years until 300 million people are on list: 40
Years until 7 billion are on the list: 60

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For years music industry lobbyists, headed by the RIAA, have gone after illegal file-sharers – supposedly in the best interests of the artists. Unexpectedly, a group of top musicians has started its very own lobby group to avoid being exploited by these very same record labels, who tend to abuse copyrights for their own sake.

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A Japanese coffee company, Goeorgia Max Coffee, modified the bathrooms of ski areas around Japan to promote their coffee energy drinks. This is probably the most exciting bathroom I’ve ever seen!

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James G. Cummings, who police say was shot to death by his wife two months ago, allegedly had a cache of radioactive materials in his home suitable for building a “dirty bomb.”

According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9.

[..]

Also found was literature on how to build “dirty bombs” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler’s personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.

If you’re a hippie that burns down a McMansion, you’ll get front-page, 24/7 coverage on CNN and FOXNews. If you’re a gun nut who stockpiles weapons, chemical, biological and radiological agents to go after queers, Jews and darkies, good luck with anyone hearing about it.

U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Rucker patrolling downtown Samson, Alabama, after the shooting spree on Tuesday. (Mark Wallheiser/Reuters)

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A trail of death and destruction caused by a heavily armed gunman stretched across three grieving towns in southern Alabama Wednesday, as police officials and relatives tried to make sense of a rampage that left 11 dead, including the shooter.

The Alabama Department of Public Safety identified the gunman as Michael Kenneth McClendon, 28, a resident of Kinston, in Coffee County, not far from the Florida border. At least six of the dead were members of his own family, officials said, and others appear to have been randomly shot on the street from his car during a wild police chase.

Horrible news, of course, but read the caption on the photo again. And then, read this:

[Posse Comitatus Act:]

The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (today the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.

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A pro-Christian bus side, created in response to the atheist campaign funded by ‘The God Delusion’ author Richard Dawkins, has become the fourth most complained about ad in the history of the Advertising Standards Authority.

The ad by the Christian Party featured the headline: “There definitely is a god. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life” and ran last month alongside two other pro-Christian campaigns, which also drew criticism from the public.

Despite attracting 1,045 complaints, around ten times the number received for the atheist ad, the advertising watchdog has declined to investigate The Christian party ads. The ASA said the poster was electioneering and fell outside its remit.

An IP address is not enough as to establish if someone is guilty of any crime on the internet, according to a french court.

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« Espérons que les députés se poseront les bonnes questions au moment de voter un texte de loi inapplicable », écrit aujourd’hui, Lionel Tardy, député UMP de Haute-Savoie dans un communiqué. Il réagit à un jugement du tribunal de Guingamp, en date du 23 février, qui établit que l’adresse IP ne suffit pas pour établir la culpabilité d’un internaute.

En mars 2008, l’auteur d’un blog consacré aux élections municipales de la commune de Penvénan constate que son site a été piraté, et affiche des propos diffamatoires. Il décide alors de porter plainte pour « modifications à caractère diffamatoire ». Les enquêteurs récupèrent alors l’adresse IP, puis remontent au propriétaire de l’abonnement. Il s’agit d’un homme de 53 ans, et l’adresse identifiée correspond à la ligne de sa Livebox, installée dans sa résidence secondaire. Mais cet abonné Orange a toujours nié être l’auteur du piratage du blog.

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Here’s a fun little tip: You can open most Sentex key pad-access doors by typing in the following code:

***00000099#*

The first *** are to enter into the admin mode, 000000 (six zeroes) is the factory-default password, 99# opens the door, and * exits the admin mode (make sure you press this or the access box will be left in admin mode!)

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Sarah Palin’s 18-year-old daughter Bristol has reportedly broken off her engagement with Levi Johnston, the father of her 2-month-old son Tripp. It’s surprising because in an interview just last month with FOX’s Gretta Van Susteren, Bristol said the 19-year-old Levi is a hands-on dad and that they planned on marrying after finishing their education.

But in a new interview with Star Magazine, Levi’s sister Mercede Johnston says Bristol actually broke up with Levi more than a month ago, is not attending school and rarely lets her baby daddy see their young son. Mercede also says Bristol even told him that she hates him and, when she learned she was pregnant, wished the baby wasn’t his.

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The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized – and that bank failures were so infrequent – that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.

Now with 25 banks having failed last year, 17 so far this year, and many more expected in the coming months, the FDIC has proposed large new premiums for banks at the very time when many can least afford to pay. The agency collected $3 billion in the fees last year and has proposed collecting up to $27 billion this year, prompting an outcry from some banks that say it will force them to raise consumer fees and curtail lending.

I just gave my health insurance provider a call. I think I’m going to be pretty healthy for the next decade, and so is everyone else they cover, so, you know, they don’t need my money for a while.

You are standing in a store looking at DVDs. You photograph a barcode with your phone and press a couple of buttons. By the time you make it home, the movie is waiting for you in your torrent client.

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An essential part of today’s commercial child pornography is now hosted in Germany and distributed from Germany. If this is for you a shock, then I will explain how this works, and the authorities can do absolutely nothing except for the stupid ideas people muck:

Today’s schemes are technologically very demanding and extremely complex. It starts with the renting of computer servers in several countries. First the Carders are active to obtain the credit cards and client identities wrongfully. These data are then passed to the falsifiers who manufacture wonderful official documents so that they can be used to identify oneself. These identities and credit card infos are then sold as credit card kits to operators. There is still an alternative where no credit card is needed: in the U.S. one can buy so-called Visa or MasterCard gift cards. However, these with a certain amount of money charged Visa or MasterCard cards usually only usable in the U.S.. Since this anonymous gift cards to buy, these are used to over the Internet with fake identities to pay. Using a false identity and well-functioning credit card servers are then rented and domains purchased as an existing, unsuspecting person. Most of the time an ID is required and in that case they will simply send a forged document. There is yet another alternative: a payment system called WebMoney (webmoney.ru) that is in Eastern Europe as widespread as PayPal in Western Europe. Again, accounts are opened with false identities. Then the business is very simple in Eastern Europe: one buys domains and rents servers via WebMoney and uses it to pay.

As soon as the server is available, a qualified server admin connects to it via a chain of servers in various countries with the help of SSH on the new server. Today complete partitions are encrypted with TrueCrypt and all of the operating system logs are turned off. Because people consider the servers in Germany very reliable, fast and inexpensive, these are usually configured as HIDDEN CONTENT SERVERS. In other words, all the illegal files such as pictures, videos, etc. are uploaded on these servers – naturally via various proxies (and since you are still wondering what these proxies can be – I’ll explain that later). These servers are using firewalls, completely sealed and made inaccessible except by a few servers all over the world – so-called PROXY SERVERs or FORWARD SERVERs. If the server is shut down or Someone logs in from the console, the TrueCrypt partition is unmounted. Just as was done on the content servers, logs are turned off and TrueCrypt is installed on the so-called proxy servers or forward servers. The Russians have developed very clever software that can be used as a proxy server (in addition to the possibilities of SSL tunneling and IP Forwarding). These proxy servers accept incoming connections from the retail customers and route them to the content Servers in Germany – COMPLETELY ANONYMOUSLY AND UNIDENTIFIABLY. The communication link can even be configured to be encrypted. Result: the server in Germany ATTRACTS NO ATTENTION AND STAYS COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS because its IP is not used by anyone except for the proxy server that uses it to route the traffic back and forth through a tunnel – using similar technology as is used with large enterprise VPNs. I stress that these proxy servers are everywhere in the world and only consume a lot of traffic, have no special demands, and above all are completely empty.

Networks of servers around the world are also used at the DNS level. The DNS has many special features: the refresh times have a TTL (Time To Live) of approximately 10 minutes, the entries usually have multiple IP entries in the round robin procedure at each request and rotate the visitor to any of the forward proxy servers. But what is special are the different zones of the DNS linked with extensive GeoIP databases … Way, there are pedophiles in authorities and hosting providers, allowing the Russian server administrators access to valuable information about IP blocks etc. that can be used in conjuction with the DNA. Each one who has little technical knowledge will understabd the importance and implications of this… But what I have to report to you is much more significant than this, and maybe they will finally understand to what extent the public is cheated by the greedy politicians who CANNOT DO ANYTHING against child pornography but use it as a means to justify total monitoring.

[..]

In recent years I have watched as authorities – due to a lack of knowledge (and motivation) – and judges (due to ignorant shirtsigtedness) have wrongly suspected and very often also convicted thousands of people. There were fathers destroyed, families ruined, and people event committed suicide. Masses of accused people have even admitted guilt (although innocent) in order to avoid public humiliation in a court and additional damages resulting from it. One of the first big story was the alias of Landslide Operation Ore case. Allegedly 70,000 users had purchased child pornography from Landslide. The only ones that were really pleased were the Russians. Landslide had nothing to do with child pornography. But because Landslide developed a portal where also money was transferred, the Russian operators had opened accounts frequently and then tried to sell child pornography under these accounts. The manager of Landslide was extremely naive and did not have enough control over the accounts, payment processing and fraud. He did not notice that several credit cards were charged more than once, that client IPs did not match with the issuing bank, etc. – the CEO of Landslide was himself the victim of a gigantic fraud. The fact is that the CP operators had made a deal with the Russian Carders who got their credit cards and identities from the U.S. mafia (more specific information is given in the accompanying article from PC Pro). Under these CP accounts thousands of scammed and stolen (with the help of a trojan) credit cards were used so they brought the company Landslide insane revenues. But they were all stolen credit cards. Since it was already too late for Landslide and for thousands of innocent people, this meant the end of family life, loss of employment and even the end of any hope that led to a subsequent suicide. Much worse is that the U.S. police manipulated the website of Landslide AFTERWARDS (this is best described in PCPro).

Fun fact: people in Germany who linked to the above article had their house raided by police.

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I was also made aware of a second rejection yesterday, this one actually less of a rejection and more of a revocation after the fact. The app in question in this case is A Real Tree (iTunes link), which we covered when it was initially released. Mokugift, the people behind A Real Tree, contacted me explaining the situation, and it provides some rare insight into how Apple deals directly with iPhone developers. As a bit of background, A Real Tree is an app that is used to help plant trees in areas hurt by deforestation. You purchase the app, they plant a tree. Simple.

In the email, Mokugift’s representative describes how Apple called them a week ago to inform them that A Real Tree would need to be altered or would be removed from the App Store. The reason given was that a new policy was in place prohibiting apps from claiming to do anything beyond themselves, and that any and all applications related to charity were also no longer permitted. According to Apple, this was clear from the SDK agreement, though a search by Mokugift couldn’t produce any such reference in that document.

Not only that, but when asked for a written copy of the new policy, the Apple rep stated that they were only allowed to communicate it over the phone. In other words, they couldn’t commit anything to paper, where it might get out to the newsmedia and circulate.

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Times are tough—apparently so tough that some associates at Office Depot are willing to turn notebook customers away if they aren’t spending enough on extras. According to several LAPTOP readers, including a current Office Depot employee we interviewed, the retailer’s sales staff are under such intense pressure to sell such “attachments” as Product Protection Plans and Tech Depot Services, that many will tell customers who turn down these services that the computer they asked for is not in stock, even when it’s sitting right in the stock room.

[..]

If a store’s attachment rating falls below 30 percent, the manager could face disciplinary action from higher-ups. Sales associates like Rich, however, are not held to a percentage, but to a weekly dollar amount. Rich said his current dollar amount is $200, and if he doesn’t hit that number, he faces warnings, and then termination in short order.

“Basically they drill it in your head that if you don’t sell PPPs, you’re gonna get fired. It’s gotten so bad to the point where the managers are starting to find loopholes in the system. They would rather sell one laptop with a PPP than ten laptops with nothing. They don’t care,” he said.

So next time you find yourself with the urge to buy something at Office Depot, chain yourself to something solid until the urge dissipates…