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I am ashamed to admit I once had the Starship album.
Did they somehow miss Dee Snider looking like a really big and mean transvestite when he sang this?
Easy on the helium.
Sadly, there can be no Tough Crowd Boogie in a Rock of Ages world.
From Newsday, a syndicated piece warning of the pressing need for more trained computer security workers — to defend the US from cyberwar.
At the heart of it, Jeff Moss of DefCon, who turned the BlackHat convention into a business which sold for millions to another company.
Moss was appointed to Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2009.
Jeff Moss, a prominent hacking expert who sits on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, said that it was difficult to persuade talented people with technical skills to enter the field because it can be a thankless task.
“If you really look at security, it’s like trying to prove a negative. If you do security well, nobody comes and says ‘good job.’ You only get called when things go wrong” …
Moss, who goes by the hacker name Dark Tangent, said that he sees no end to the labor shortage …
U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp on Monday launched the first undergraduate honors program in cybersecurity with the University of Maryland to help train more workers for the burgeoning field.
Sean Sullivan, from F-Secure, said: “[Flame is] interesting and complex, but not sleek and stealthy. It could be the work of a military contractor — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other contractors are developing programs like these for different intelligence services. To call it a cyberweapon says more about Kaspersky’s cold war mentality than anything else. It has to be taken with a grain of salt.???
Not enough science and math majors, it reads. Boo-fucking hoo.
There are plenty of educated scientists in the US, just not precisely the ones these types of stories always pine for. Plus, there’s the private sector unwillingness to train on its own dime.
So if the government will do it for us …
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On the “Rock of Ages” movie, from the Chicago Tribune, excerpted:
Oh, that something Satanic might actually have crawled into “Rock of Ages” at some point. When Tipper Gore formed the Parents Music Resource Center, she wasn’t gunning for Quarterflash and REO Speedwagon, just two of the whitebread bands whose songs are featured here. It’s akin to making a movie about people trying to suppress gangsta rap, and then filling the soundtrack with cuts by PM Dawn and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
Whether you have fond memories of songs like “I Want to Know What Love Is” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” or you’re inclined to change stations when they pop up on the radio, the karaoke versions offered up by “Rock of Ages” are ear-punishers.
It’s a movie that passes off mainstream pop as being somehow dangerous, reaching its crescendo at the end when, after rejecting a New Kids-ish boy band, “Rock of Ages” delivers its thunderous climax with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a song that’s been so castrated by pop culture that it’s a grade-school sing-along.
This is what the reviewer means …
Saw Journey perform it. The band was never much of an example of testosterone in stadium rock but even they couldn’t have imagined how Glee would amplify its sissy quality for the sake of stirring nerds into a frenzy of panty-wetting.
Can you tell which of these Broadway renditions is the most wuss? It’s hard.
Joe Klein of Time mag has produced a column in which, as usual, he interviews American salt-of-the-earth in the south for ways to restore “common cause.” It’s worthless. There will never be common cause in this country. There never was.
The people in the interview imagine a place from their past, which didn’t exist. What existed was that they were on top or where they wanted to be and all those they despised then and still despise, the designated no-goods, were out of sight.
I doubt if there was ever any time when I thought there were a big bunch of American comrades who could could gather around a campfire and sing songs like at Boy Scout Camp. In fact, I hated Boy Scout Camp and the whole idea of the shared rote ritual and duty, always designed by someone else allegedly more knowing than you.
Strip away Klein’s musings, leaving only the quotes from the interviews, and it reads as nasty business, older whites who, as usual, want to have it stuck to someone else, usually of different color, religion, sexuality, or place on the totem pole — preferably smaller and powerless.
The picture of the veteran with the bald head, shaking his finger, tells you what’s in store.
Everyone not like me needs a kick in the pants so we’ll straighten up, fly right and work together:
Richard’s coffee shop and military museum in Mooresville, N.C., is a down-home place where veterans from all our modern wars gather most days to talk and feel comfortable in ways they only can among their fellow warriors …
Most of those who spoke with me were Vietnam veterans, and they were not thrilled with the way the country was going. When I asked them how they’d rate Barack Obama as Commander in Chief, they started to laugh, which I thought was unfair and disrespectful …
It turned out that these vets, like many I’ve met, simply didn’t trust anyone who hadn’t been through boot camp–and so their pool of acceptable leaders was diminishing dramatically …
“There isn’t an 18-year-old boy who doesn’t need to get his butt kicked,” added Nosker [the finger-pointing old white guy], “by someone in a position of complete authority.”
This theme kept coming up in meeting after meeting during my first five days on the road, though usually in less vivid fashion …
For the conservatives, the country had changed beyond their imagining; not just civil rights but gay rights (a contentious referendum recently banned gay marriage in North Carolina), and new ethnic groups that seemed foreign–the South Asians who all of a sudden seemed to run half the convenience stores, the Latinos who didn’t seem to want to speak English. Why, even the President of the United States was something strange, neither black nor white. For liberals, it was all about intolerance.
[Because it is about intolerance. The first two sentences of the paragraph are just that. Everyone — the ‘everyone’ being the gays, the ‘new ethnic groups,’ the people who don’t speak English — needs a ‘kick in the butt’ to get with the program.]
But we were all Americans, I’d remind both sides. How were we going to get to know each other better, find some common ground?
[A lot don’t want common ground with the people interviewed for the piece. Why should they? As a decent human being it would be reasonable to want to have nothing to do with the intolerant. Just because we’re all “Americans’ by birth isn’t much of a reason for coming together.]
“I went to a private school where the students did all the cleanup work ourselves, except for the heavy-duty plumbing and electrical work, and it created a real camaraderie. I just went to my 50th high school reunion, and that spirit was still there. And I’ll tell you what else, we didn’t have very much destructive behavior or graffiti in our school …”
I asked if anyone around the table was opposed to Obamacare. “I am,” said Terry Kinum, 69, a recovering alcoholic, retired from the Navy, who now works with addicted veterans. “I’m sick and tired of all these welfare and socialist-type Marxist programs we’re being inundated with.”
Yes, the Mitt Romney private school was so civilized fifty years ago. All the nice white boys and girls from the good families kept the place neat, clean and orderly. No riff raff allowed. For sure, it proved they were made of all the right stuff.
Another day, another first person piece — like grains of sand — on the people of good will at the coffee shop.
We had a saying for this man, even back in ’74: “Blow it out your ass.”
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From the wire:
President Obama angrily denied today that his White House team is the source of national security leaks on alleged terrorist “kill lists” and cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear program.
“The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive,” Obama said at a brief White House news conference. “It’s wrong.”
Obama added the leaks were potentially criminal acts.
Putting viruses on the computers of others is a criminal act whether or not those who own the infected computers are popular or unpopular.
Always been this way, always will be. Eugene Kaspersky and the anti-virus industry know this well. Globally, they should triple and quadruple their efforts to expose cyberwar operations. It could be very good for the image and will make for interesting stories. Meting out embarrassment and odium where it is deserved is appropriate.
It might also eventually serve to deter lousy decision-making at the top in the United States. Or at least make it more risk averse. At any rate, it couldn’t hurt.
Obama continued:
“When this information or reports — whether true or false — surface on the front page of newspapers, that makes the job of folks on the front line tougher,” Obama said. “And it makes my job tougher. Which is why, since I’ve been in office, my attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks and speculation.”
Only bad people care if those on the “front lines” of virus-writing have it tougher. The world, and this country, will not derive net benefit from more feverish and secretive military and intelligence malware manufacturing and distribution.
“We’re dealing with issues that can touch on the safety and security of the American people, our families or our military personnel or our allies, and so we don’t play with that.”
You’ll have to explain how the families or acquaintances of our state-run virus-writing operation are made less safe by its vague exposure in a newspaper, Mr. President.
Anyway, leaks and subsequent press on virus war won’t stop our virus-writing operation any more than bad press and damaged national reps stop the bombing of paupers with drones. At least not yet.
In the last ten years you’ll have noticed nothing impedes US weapons shops, so why should anything slow down state mischief in the virtual realm? Our ruling class does not care to exert true oversight and is quickly sold on just about any escalating military and secret solution to world problems.
This is because no one whose job does not depend on the expansion of armories and attack plans is ever listened to.
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My take has always been that, primarily, only morons click on Google AdSense links, and by extension, Facebook advertising. Those who do click may be doing so only out of curiosity, often to see just how awful whatever’s being shilled actually is.
And some knob named Alexander Heffner at the blog of the ex-newspaper formerly known as the Christian Science Monitor:
Mark Zuckerberg has the potential to rekindle confidence in the markets and to engage everyday Americans in the kind of economic growth that has been limited to only a handful of individuals in recent years.
Even more hilarious than when published.
Four out of five Facebook users say they have never bought a product or service as a result of advertising or comments on the social network site, underlining, to some observers, the challenges Facebook faces when it comes to drawing in revenue.
Furious Facebook.Com investors have filed a lawsuit against founder Mark Zuckerberg, alleging he knew the business had been overvalued ahead of its flotation last month (May12).
Zuckerberg floated his social networking site on the U.S. stock market for $100 billion (£63 billion) but shares soon dropped in price, prompting complaints from many investors.
Critics allege the CEO knew the stock was overpriced and protected his own finances by selling off the organisation, according to TMZ.com.
Mark Zuckerberg and his FB colleagues are great poster boys for the culture of lickspittle and how it works. The jig’s up for Facebook but they have their piles.
And you’re not famous and you have a couple hundred ‘friends,’ maybe more, on Facebook?
It’s all right to tell the doctor you don’t need any more renewals on that prescription for stupid pills. It’s OK to stop taking them. Really.
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There’s never a day when some annoying nerd has a story to tell about his revolutionary app, social and smart, for changing the world. Always, they’re trivial solutions to minor annoyances or non-problems, just ways for the geek to make money siphoning cash from one established process to a new one owned by the tech revolutionary, or creative destroyer, or whatever.
All you have to do is wave an iPhone, mention “app” and “social,” and your inane idea is considered gold by the gullible.
From the wire, the “social bike,” empowered by iJunk:
[Ryan Rzepeki’s] new company, Social Bicycles, also called SoBi, will launch a pilot program “at the end of the summer??? in Buffalo and two unnamed West Coast cities soon after, Rzepecki says. It’s not just the model that he has going for him, it’s also the data.
‘I looked at the model in Europe, where there are big docking stations and kiosks,??? said Rzepecki. “It’s very expensive. I thought, what if they have smart bikes rather than smart bike racks????
It is that idea of a smart bike – and a mobile app to connect all those bikes – that is at the heart of Social Bicycles. Once you subscribe to the service, the app will tell where the closest sharable bike is …
“We definitely see the software, electronics and tracking package, working for other parts of transportation,??? said Rzepecki. “We’re Interested in looking at other modes. You don’t need a five ton steel cage to go a few miles.???
Never been to southern California, let alone Pasadena. Bicycling in large numbers is a total non-starter. Lotsa reasons: heat, traffic, culture, sweat, and the vague antipathy almost everyone holds for the few weaving fitness freak guys and gals in spandex and helmets on Saturday morning between Sierra Madre and eastern Pasadena near the high school.
Perhaps surprising to others, soCal has quite a few people who DO NOT have cars. Largely, they still do not gravitate to bikes. They use shoe leather and work in service near their homes. Or they use public transportation, albeit mediocre to poor.
Collect data from a potential fleet of such bikes? Who cares? Collecting data on vehicular traffic flow — that’s where action is.
And I’ll avoid the glaring distinctions between European city life and American, particularly in the hinterlands, even in college towns.
So go to Europe already. What’s with the pilot program in two “unnamed” West Coast cities stuff?
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Is there anyone who doesn’t see electromagnetic pulsing on television, in comic books or movie screens a couple times a week?
From the wire — no link:
New Regency has picked up The New West, an adaptation of a comic book written by Jimmy Palmiotti, with Len Wiseman now on board to produce …
Palmiotti, co-writer of DC Comics’ All-Star Western comic (art by Phil Noto), wrote the two-issue New West set in a near-future Los Angeles where an electromagnetic pulse bomb causes all technology to stop working. In this hostile environment, a disgraced former LAPD detective must rescue a kidnapped mayor with only a horse and a sword.
Unintentionally hilarious because no one would actually want to rescue the mayor of Los Angeles for much of any reason in southern California.
Phoned in rubbish by those in Hollywood who regard audiences as so many factory-caged chickens.
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Tim Cook and Apple appear to occasionally worry the reputation of the company has taken a hit. For all the sweat shop labor in China, legal global tax cheating and general arrogance.
So now DD sees company officials occasionally muttering about how they want to make it all up. They’ll look into labor abuse. We legally tax cheat because everyone else does it. And so on.
Today, it’s Tim Cook telling a gullible audience he’d like to make some iJunk completely in the US. Someday. But not today.
“The truth is the tool and die-maker skill in the U.S. began to go down in the late ’60s and early ’70s,??? Cook said. “How many tool-and-die makers do you know in the U.S. now? I could call a meeting and invite every tool-and-die maker in the United States and we wouldn’t fill this room.???
Not so in China, though. Said Cook, “In China you could fill a city with tool-and-die makers.???
Tim Cook was 10 in 1970.
So precocious, he knew the score then. Unskilled Americans, already going to shite.
It was all in China, just waiting to be tapped. We had nothin’ to do with sending it there. Nothin,’ I tell ya!
Robert Windrem used to be a national security affairs journalist who wrote books and did television. He was often very good and twenty years ago I saw him as a brief lecturer at a Knight Fellowship seminar on nuclear proliferation for reporters given at the University of Maryland. (I was a journalist granted a fellowship to attend it.)
But now he’s a much older man. Journalists sometimes don’t age well. Once cutting edge, then out of it and turned to shite when subjects and the times advance.
Today Windrem tackles the Flame virus for MSNBC.
It’s an opportunity to talk with people eager to give the United States credit for it. And to brag some more about how sophisticated and everything else it is:
As the United Nations and Iran warn that the newly discovered Flame computer virus may be the most potent weapon of its kind, U.S. computer security experts tell NBC News that the virus bears the hallmarks of a U.S. cyber espionage operation, specifically that of the super-secret National Security Agency …
“It was U.S.,??? said [one anonymous] official, who acknowledged having no first-hand knowledge of how the virus operates or was introduced into the Iranian computers …
U.S. intelligence officials declined to discuss the virus. “We have no comment,??? said one …
The virus was first discovered and announced over the weekend by a Russian cybersecurity organization after reports of massive data losses in Iranian government computers …
[I guess you could call Kaspersky Labs a “cybersecurity organization.” No one seems to have informed Windrem that the global corporate anti-virus business has been around for a long time and has a sizable US sales and advertising footprint.]
“From reading press reports, this appears to be penetrating networks to surveil, as opposed to destroy, as was the case with Stuxnet,??? said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst …
If this is indeed a U.S. cyberwarfare operation, said computer security expert Roger Cressey, the target is likely to be Iran’s nuclear program and its decision-making apparatus.
“Whoever has developed this is engaged in very sophisticated intelligence gathering on computer networks throughout the region. Clearly, Iran is a top priority for this program,” said Cressey, former chief of staff of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board under George W. Bush and now an NBC News analyst …
[Roger Cressey is a long-time
flunkyassociate of Richard Clarke’s at Good Harbor although now he is at Booz Allen Hamilton. Both are sources of cyberwar hype because defense against it is a core business operation. Windrem does not disclose this. Notice this is a good gig. You can be a paid “analyst” for a news operation on the same subject as your core business role and the news operation won’t tell the rubes.]Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the work of Kaspersky Labs helped Iran uncover the infection and remove it from the centrifuge control program.
[I’ve emphasized this is a good thing. Vigorous anti-virus company competition in the global industry makes finding and neutralizing state-designed viruses a business asset. So the social good on the Internet is served by messing up, completely terminating or exposing various aspects of cyberwar operations.]
Cybersecurity officials have told NBC News that the [Stuxnet] infection, while heavily publicized, was not as effective in disrupting Iran’s nuclear program as has been portrayed in some media accounts.
And that’s never been a surprise.
One of Windrem’s sources tells him the virus attacks make Iranian officials “paranoid.”
They’ve always been paranoid, though. So making them more so means better?
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