Sadly, its necessary for me to leave these reminders here:

If you get eval(base64 hacked on wordpress/dreamhost

I have a shared host on Dreamhost that just got hacked to shit. A fairly standard hack, and nothing particularly inspired, but nevertheless some clients from years ago weren’t too happy. If this happens to anyone else, here’s the fix (for now)…

Dyslexic Mayans Want to Sell You Cialis

My shared host account got hacked-TFU last Monday. After looking a little closer it became clear that there had been more than one break in. Apparently my account also got hacked last November, three times in December (twice by the same hacker!) and once in January too, so for the past few months my server has had a back door like Dennis the Menace’s hanging pajama flap.

Simple cleanup solution for the latest WordPress hack

If your site got hacked on the last mass infection of WordPress sites out there, we have a simple solution to clean it up.

Via SSH:

If you have SSH access to your server, run the following commands on your web root:

$ find ./ -name "*.php" -type f |  xargs sed -i 's#< ?php /\*\*/ eval(base64_decode("aWY.*?>##g' 2>&1
$ find ./ -name "*.php" -type f |  xargs sed -i '/./,$!d' 2>&1

And, oh yes—don’t forget the spaces-in-filename clusterfrak:

Unix/Linux — find & xargs — Spaces in filenames

Spaces in filenames can be a problem when using find | xargs combination.

To solve this, use:

find . -print0 | xargs -0 

This tells find and xargs to use the ASCII NUL character instead of space to end (separate) the filenames.

Yesterday afternoon, sometime between 3 and 4pm, I tried to pull up the Florida Bar website, which was working fine – albeit with its usual lack of speed – earlier in the day.

What came up was a typical domain-squatter page that you’ve seen on any domain that was once used but let go by the owner.

So, what happened? Did someone forget to pay for the registration over there? Did they get hacked? Or did they abandon the site?

Web site management, ostrich-style

I called over to the Bar yesterday to alert them to the problem. The pleasant lady who answered the phone sweetly assured me that there was no problem with the web site. I told her that I couldn’t access it and if anyone else reported it, she might want to have someone check on it.

So today, almost 20 hours later, still no progress. Just another example of how the Florida Bar doesn’t understand technology .

UPDATE:

Others have noticed this too. Here are some of today’s search term hits:

• florida bar website
• florida bar website down
• florida bar website gets hacked
• florida bar hacked
• florida bar website hacked
• florida bar web site hack
• florida bar website problems

UPDATE 2:

The Florida Bar website – which I can now see – has the following message posted:

Access to our Web site is currently being affected by an incorrect DNS record on the Internet. The issue has been resolved, however, it is possible that access problems may continue for up to 24 hours. We apologize for any inconvenience.

(Thanks, Tiff.)

NOTE: I’m writing more about this at the Florida Foreclosure Fraud weblog.

Florida’s new Foreclosure Rescue Fraud law

Last week, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed a new law which imposes broad-ranging restrictions on so-called “foreclosure rescue” service providers. The well-intentioned bill is meant to curb the worst abuses by bottom-feeding predators who use foreclosure as an opportunity to bilk money and property out of desperate homeowners. But some unintended consequences of the bill may leave homeowners out of luck when it comes to seeking legal representation.

Some of the protections in the new law will prevent con-artists from “rescuing” homeowners by signing them into predatory loans, getting them to sign over their property unwittingly, or just pocketing a fee to negotiate with the lender and then disappearing. Unfortunately, the broad scope of the law also means it applies some strict new regulations on Florida lawyers who are actually trying to help these homeowners – regulations which may prevent these homeowners from having access to any lawyer at all.

Scope of the new law

The new law, Fla. Stat. § 501.1377, [pdf] applies to all “foreclosure-rescue consultants” who provide homeowners with “foreclosure-related rescue services.” Those services include any service related to “Stopping, avoiding, or delaying foreclosure proceedings concerning residential real property” or “Curing or otherwise addressing a default or failure to timely pay with respect to a residential mortgage loan obligation.”

This broad definition appears to include lawyers who would represent homeowners defending a foreclosure suit; it may also encompass bankruptcy attorneys who help homeowners file for bankruptcy during foreclosure proceedings.

Disclosure and cancellation requirements

Among the requirements in the new law, these attorneys who may fall within the definition of “foreclosure-rescue consultants” would have to provide their prospective clients with written agreements containing certain disclosures – in uppercase type, no less – and also state “the exact nature and specific detail of each service to be provided,” and “the total amount and terms of charges to be paid by the homeowner for the services.” The “consultant” must also provide a copy of the agreement to the homeowner “not less than 1 business day before the homeowner is to sign the agreement.” The homeowner also has a three-day right to cancel the agreement after signing it.

The written disclosures and cancellation rights are minor impediments, but still, they present problems for the lawyer who might represent a foreclosure defendant. First, without spending time reviewing the documents, it may not be possible to determine in advance the “exact nature” of the services to be provided. And for lawyers who might bill hourly, it is not at all possible to calculate the total charges to be paid until the work is actually done. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for many lawyers to take on new clients if they had to comply with these requirements.

Also, the one-day advance copy requirements and the three-day cancellation requirement, effectively mean that any homeowner facing an immediate deadline may not be allowed to hire a lawyer. Have a court deadline tomorrow? Sorry, you can’t hire a lawyer until a full business day has passed. Have a court deadline in two days? Sorry, but most lawyers won’t enter a case until after the three-day cancellation notice has passed. (Otherwise, the court might not let them out of the case if the client cancels.) A homeowner who needs a lawyer in a hurry will have a hard time hiring someone before time runs out.

Deferred fee requirements

Besides the written agreement, the new law also forbids the consultant from asking for or accepting any fees from the homeowner “before completing or performing all services contained in the agreement for foreclosure-related rescue services.” What does this mean? It means that a lawyer who takes on a foreclosure defense case can’t even ask for a retainer – a deposit – until after he has already done all the work on the case, which may be months or even years later. It also seems to suggest that a bankruptcy lawyer cannot ask for or accept any fee from their client until after the bankruptcy case has concluded – which, my colleagues in that field tell me, means that bankruptcy attorneys effectively waive their right to collect any fees, whatsoever.

What effect would this have on the willingness or ability of lawyers to represent homeowners in foreclosure cases? For most, it means they can’t. To defer a fee on a foreclosure defense until the end of a case not only means they have to wait to get paid, in most cases it means they won’t get paid at all. Once a lawyer has provided his services, he can’t take them back – he has no leverage to persuade a cash-strapped homeowner to pay the bill for services that have already been provided. Faced with the choice of taking a long-deferred fee that might never be received, or refusing to take the case, most lawyers will refuse the case. And then the homeowner has to face foreclosure alone. This is helping?

Aiming at the wrong target

And the worst part is, there’s no need at all to apply these restrictions to lawyers who represent foreclosure defendants. Attorneys who, in good faith, take on these cases and litigate them can provide an enormous benefit to their clients. The rare attorney who takes a fee, pockets it, and disappears, is subject to the strict discipline of the Florida Bar. And, despite the rash of foreclosure rescue scams in Florida and across the nation, I know of none that involve lawyers representing homeowners in court proceedings. By lumping these lawyers in with everyone else, the legislature tried to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

Is there any hope for the future?

I hope I’m wrong about the scope of the bill, but I’m afraid that it means exactly what I think it means. No doubt the consumer law bar will eventually figure out a way to modify these restrictions, but until then, homeowners seeking legal help are getting the short end of the legislative stick.

CONTACT: Those wishing to reach me about this article can use this web form to send e-mail.

UPDATE: Jacksonville bankruptcy attorney Chip Parker sees this bill the same way.

As Lewis Black once said:

The only thing worse than a Republican or a Democrat, is when these two pricks work together! Basically how it works in congress is that a Republican stands up and says ‘Hey, I got a really bad idea’, and a Democrat stands up and says ‘And I can make it shittier.’

Here’s one way in which the new Democratic congress has taken a really bad Republican idea and made it even worse. This week the House of Representatives passed – with only two dissenting votes – H.R. 3791, the “Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act of 2007.”

This new legislation would require anyone providing an “electronic communication service” – that’s your ISP, MySpace, the internet cafe down the street, and your neighbor who failed to secure his wireless network – to report to the authorities the identity of any person they believe to be involved in child porn or “transferring obscene matter.” Failure to make the report could result in fines as high as $300,000.00… and, oh, yeah, seizure of all your computer equipment and data for “investigative” purposes.

Now, it might not be easy to define child porn, but it’s a safe bet that most of us know it when we see it. (Um…. would know it. If we saw it. ) But what to figure out what might be obscene matter and not obscene matter is pretty tough even for the Supreme Court to figure out, let alone the untrained layperson. (Um… non-lawyer.) So, in the interests of educating the public, I’ve decided help those of you running “electronic communications services” (lock down that wi-fi, people!) sort out what kinds of “obscene” material you are likely to encounter on your network, and would therefore have to report to the authorities:

Five Terribly Obscene Things Americans With Open Networks Must Report to the Authorities Under H.R. 3791

1. Video depictions of University of Hawaii football players watching a one-loss team play a two-loss team for the BCS National Championship
2. Photographic depictions of Kevin Federline’s ex-wife’s genitalia
3. Uwe Boll not getting knocked the hell down.
4. Digital transmissions of Kevin Federline’s ex-wife’s new album
5. Any depiction of a Member of Congress engaged in the explicit act of supporting legislating like H.R. 3791

Hat tip to Engadget for the story and to Merlin for 5ives.

As Dan originally noted, and as Jon Gruber has reported in more detail, some shabby logo mill has ripped off the SimpleBits logo to re-package and sell for their own profit.

The Flickr thread is lengthy, and much of the amateur legal analysis on both sides is quite simply wrong. But it’s very illuminating, especially the several examples of theft by the shabby logo mill from an ever-growing array of victims.

It’s nice to see that the web is onto these assclowns and, given time, their “business” will dry up, rumble into dust, and blow away like mold exposed to the sunlight. But like many parasitic life forms, thieves evolve, multiply, and repeat. People who post creative work on the web need to be aware of their rights, and if they’re creative professionals, they should take steps to legally protect their work to the greatest extent possible.

UPDATE: But wait! There’s more!

UPDATE 2: Here’s a nice summary of all the rip-offs by the shady logo mill. And some PageRank rolling, too. By the way, try a Google search for the name of the offending company and see what pops up in the Top Five.

UPDATE 3: Godbit lists several blogs mentioning the issue. Also, be sure to check out my recent post on the so-called “Poor Man’s Copyright” and why it’s worse than useless.

UPDATE 4: An apology, Too Little, Too Late.

Just posted on RedState:

As DNC Chair, Dean didn’t disappoint… his opponents. He said things like, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for…” and accused the President of playing “hide the salami” with Supreme Court nominations. He even felt compelled, during an “interesting conversation” about “dog pee,” to warn a class of 8th grades not to drink urine. Dean as DNC Chair was the gift that kept on giving.

But never fear, the Stupid Party, as Bob Novak called the GOP, would even the score in 2006 by putting Mel Martinez as the face of the RNC. After a string of skilled persuaders like Marc Racicot, Ed Gillespie, and Ken Mehlman, the party could have chosen someone like Michael Steele, another skilled persuader, or possibly dozens of others. In the wake of voter repudiation of Congress, we could have gone for someone outside of Washington. There were probably dozens of excellent men and women to choose from. Instead, we chose Mel Martinez.

Read the whole thing.

I never for a moment imagined that we’d be able to get through the month of October without some major scandal or stumble by Democrats. Even then, my wildest dreams never approached what actually happened — John Kerry insulting our troops in Iraq:

If the Republicans were worried last week about the base turning out, I don’t think they need to worry anymore.

Frank J. on the Tennessee Senate race:

When a dog whistle blows, only dogs hear it and start barking. When someone “blows a racist whistle” only the racists should hear it and start making noise. But, when each of these ads first appeared, the only barking I heard was from the nutroots.

Link via RedState.

In a move that demonstrates both political cynicism and the difficulty of true anonymity on the Internet, the people behind the website Stop Sexual Predators (the site that first publicized the emails, innocuous compared to the messages revealed later, from then-Congressman Mark Foley to former Congressional pages) have been revealed.

At least, their computers have. No surprise – they belong to the Human Rights Campaign.

Draw your own conclusions.

Wild Bill at the Passionate America blog got an email from attorney Stephen Jones, on behalf of former Congressional Page and infamous prankster Jordan Edmund. While this may be an “Oh, crap!” moment for Bill and his family, it’s a chance for me to engage in a little translation of lawyer-speak to ordinary English:

Um, yeah, Mr. Jones. We’ll get right on that.

1. We now know about some suggestive e-mails, some explicit instant messages, a long history of close contact with the Page program (including one alleged instance of showing up drunk at the Page residence) – so question One is, did Foley actually have sex with any of these pages or was he just chasing wild geese?
2. How many other elected Republicans – because you know there must be more – are hiding their sexual orientation, and more importantly, how many of those have deeper, darker secrets like Foley’s?
3. Might the Democrats suffer a backfire if any of their own share a similar dark secret?

Ok, that last one has been asked. But I’m curious to see how this plays out.

UPDATE: Looks like question number two has been asked, at least indirectly:

The problem is that being in the closet makes you vulnerable, and forces you underground into an environment where repression makes excess attractive and exposure can turn pecadillos into a career-ending scandal. Unable to seek normal, public social outlets for their sexuality, these repressed individuals look for satisfaction in the office or with those they can control and manipulate. The fact they are living secret lives makes them more likely to express their homosexuality in the most immoral and exploitative ways.

By now the entire world knows that Former Congressman Mark Foley sent sexually explicit email and instant messages to former Congressional pages. When he knew he was about to be exposed, he resigned and checked himself into rehab.

His once-promising career is over. His reputation is destroyed. He may even face criminal charges – although the criminal liability is murky at best. Few people, if any at all, would say his fate is unearned.

Foley’s congressional seat is now vacant. Although Foley has resigned and has no intention of staying in next month’s election, his name will remain on the ballot. The GOP has selected State Representative Joe Negron to run in Foley’s stead, but in order to vote for Negron, citizens of the 16th District will have to perforate the butterfly ballot next to Foley’s name instead.

Those of you paying attention will recall this ballot issue coming up eariler this year with the resignation of Tom DeLay. The election laws of Texas and Florida, and presumably other states as well, prevent candidates from taking thier names off the ballots even when they have completely withdrawn from the race weeks or even months before.

Historically, there may have been logistical reasons for this, modern electoral technology ought to allow much greater leeway for replacements in the new century. Substituting candidates ought to be possible until the last few weeks or even days prior to the campaign. Not only can we do this, we should do it. When a candidate drops out of the race, voters lose the opportunity to make a choice. In effect, they are deprived of their right to vote. When a substitute candidate steps up to replace his departed colleague, voters again have a real choice. But if they want to choose the new candidate instead of his opponent, and the new candidate’s name isn’t on the ballot, they again lose that right to select the person they deem best fit for office. Of course, many will rememeber the “secret” that voting for the drop-out will count as a vote for their new choice, but all too many won’t. They will come to vote for a particular candidate, not see his name on the ballot, and either vote for the wrong person or not at all. And if the dropout’s name is clouded by scandal, many voters will change their choices in the polling place even though if they had the right information about who was running they would vote their true preference.

We expect our voters to be informed about the ballots they cast. But that standard should be limited to name, party, issues, and other qualifications of the candidate. It’s unfair to make voters for Joe Negron first remember, overcome their revulsion, and then punch the ballot (or the touchscreen…) for Mark Foley, a known sexual predator. Voters shouldn’t be expected to navigate a secret code or overcome their disgust for a placeholder in order to vote their true preference. Current ballot laws require this, and in so doing, devlaue our votes and erode our democracy.

When a burglar breaks into a house, is it the fault of the thief, or the fault of the homeowner for having insufficient security?

Or maybe, just maybe, is it both?

The Crime

The good folks at RedState rightly condemn two recent episodes in which Democratic operatives have broken into supposedly secure areas of political web sites to steal information. Most recently, the spokesperson for a Democratic candidate for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat lost her job after she “viewed an unreleased TV ad for Republican candidate Mark Kennedy that may have been illegally obtained.”

The Law

It is clear that a crime was committed under the laws of Texas (which is where the server in question is located). Texas Penal Code, Chapter 33, provides in part:

Sec.A33.02. BREACH OF COMPUTER SECURITY.AA(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly accesses a computer, computer network, or computer system without the effective consent of the owner.

Also, it seems obvious that this would constitute an “unauthorized access” to stored electronic communications per 18 USC 2701:

whoever—
(1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or
(2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility;
and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

It may also violate 18 USC 2314 which prohibits interstate transport of stolen, converted, or fraudulently obtained material.

The Perp

Now, the fellow who originally dug up the campaign ads has posted a statement on his blog explaining exactly how be broke into the server:

While searching for political ads, I clicked on a link titled ‘netview,’ which then brought me to another webpage. No other information was requested. I therefore typed in the name ‘Allen.’ Nothing more, nothing less. This redirected me to a webpage containing three pieces of information. Kennedy for Senate, a date, and a hyperlink. Upon clicking the hyperlink, I was directed to the aforementioned political advertisement. At no point in this process did I circumvent or misrepresent myself. The website containing this ad can be accessed by anyone online. It is possible to directly go to this website. It is in no way secured.

(Emphasis added) When Kunin says that “no other information was requested” he means no information other than the password.

(And as a side note, this guy obviously hasn’t lawyered up yet, because no competent criminal lawyer would have let him publish that confession.)

The Defense

Some folks short on both legal training and common sense claim that the weak security of the site exonerates the criminal. Supposedly, the fact some of the material behind the password screen might be accessible in other ways somehow absolves Kunin. But here’s the important fact. A web site asked him for a password; he plugged one in, and it worked because he guessed right. He was not given the password by anyone at the PR firm or the campaign. He was not granted authorization by anyone other than his own lucy guess. At that moment, regardless of what page the web server delivered next, Noah Kunin committed a computer crime.

For a laugh, check out where Chuck Olsen says “This is not a password screen.” (No, Chuck, it’s just a screen that asks for a password. It’s not a password screen.)

The Barn Door is Open

Now, the real problem isn’t so much that criminal hackers exist, and that they have political agendas. We know this. The real problem is that political figures and their staff don’t understand internet security. The first rule of thumb is that if you don’t want someone else to know something, don’t put it on your web server. Of course, there are times when one needs to distribute information to a select group of people, and the internet is the best way to do that. The way this PR firm “secured” its private information was not merely inadequate, it was gross incompetence. Mind you, that doesn’t excuse the criminals, but it does pose a very real problem.

Anyone who uses technology to disseminate confidential information (like, for example, lawyers) has a responsibility to know and use the proper security methods to protect the confidentiality of that information. When information is stolen, the thieves have the moral and legal responsibility for their actions, but anyone in a position of trust who fails to recognize that thieves exist and fails to take those necessary precautions is equally responsible from a moral standpoint. The PR firm in question, although it has some awfully A-list clientele, needs to clean up its act on the security front or it may soon find all its horses gone and the barn burned to the ground.

Consumerist reports that – suprise! – Cingular continues to find new ways to screw its customers.

Beckie is a reader who started out with a cell phone from a small company that got bought by AT&T. As you well know, AT&T was bought by Cingular. A few months later, Beckie received a letter from Cingular asking her to voluntarily discontinue her service because more than 50% of her calls were using competing networks and she was no longer economically feasible for Cingular. In return, Cingular would allow her to keep her numbers. No refund. No apology. No free unlocked phones.

Anyone who’s read one of Cingular’s service contracts end-to-end knows that they’re more slippery than a waterbed full of eels. But whether or not they have the legal right to terminate contracts at will (knowing full well, of course that you do not have that right) it’s just bad business to treat customers as disposable, because your reputation cannot survive for long when you do.

And the more pissed off your (former) customers get, the more likely they are to go hunting for a class-action lawyer. And that is very bad for the bottom line.

Several months ago, I noted that the Florida Bar had decided to burn witches – urm, prohibit the mining of metadata.

Doing some metadata research today, I finally found the real reason the Bar acted so strongly – one of the members of the Board of Governors got suckered.

One Florida lawyer was quite upset when he learned his firm had been hoodwinked into e-mailing a document to opposing counsel instead of faxing it so that the metadata could be mined by opposing counsel. Apparently some client comments that were attached to the document and then deleted were recovered by opposing counsel. Well, this lawyer was on the Florida Bar’s Board of Governors…

There are few things as dangerous as a powerful person who’s been made to feel foolish.

Who’s the latest victim in the Democrats’ war on the “Republican Culture of Corruption” in D.C.? Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson, who was caught on videotape taking a $100,000 bribe from undercover agents. Most of the money was later found in the freezer of his Washington home.

Astute readers will recall that this is the same Congressman who, in the wake of Katrina, commandeered a military helicopter to retrieve a laptop computer, a few suitcases, and a large box from his flooded home.

We’ve now got some idea why those things were so important, don’t we?

Riding in a vehicle operated by anyone in the Kennedy clan continues to be a serious hazard to public safety and public morals. U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of the notoriously lethal driver Ted Kennedy, crashed into a barricade at the Capitol Building sometime around 3.a.m Thursday.

The two officials said officers at the scene reported seeing the car swerve before the crash and said Kennedy appeared intoxicated.

There was no indication from the sources that a sobriety test was given or that an arrest was made.

According to the Natioanl Public Radio report I heard this morning, police made an initial response to the scene, but were quickly replaced by higher-ranking members of the department. The ones who, apparently, gave him a ride home and didn’t bother to administer any kind of alcohol test despite the fact that Rep. Kennedy thought he was on his way to a vote at 3:00 a.m.

That’s impaired, baby, and in D.C., whether it’s drugs, booze, or an intern in your lap causing the impairment, that’s a criminal charge. The only possible reason I can think of for them letting him go was his implausible claim that he was “on his way to a vote.” Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution provides that :

[Members of Congress] shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same;

I do not believe that this would actually apply to a Congressman, impaired, driving into the Capitol at 3 a.m., but I’m not entirely familiar with the case law. On the other hand, the Capitol Police felt perfectly free to stop Rep. McKinney a few weeks ago on her way into the building, and look what happened in that case.

One thing is clear. If I or anyone reading this would have done the same thing, we’d have been the overnight guests of the Capitol Police. Ted Kennedy’s son, though, got a pass. And it stinks.

UPDATE: I’m hardly the only one to raise questions. The Captiol Police are investigating, and the officer’s union has questioned, whether any special treatment occurred and whether any additional charges should be filed. By Kennedy’s own admission, he was driving while impaired and I have a hard time imagining that, absent further special treatment, he will avoid charges of that nature.

I think running Windows on an Apple machine is tantamount to desecration. Andrew Kantor of USA Today thinks it’s a market-share opportunity for Microsoft. I use the word “thinks” very lightly:

But the notion put forward by some Mac folks — that Boot Camp will improve the Mac’s position in the business and gaming marketplace — is backward. Instead, it’s more likely to convince Mac users to switch to Windows once they’ve used it long enough to be deprogrammed.

MacWorld’s Jason Snell thoroughly rebuts Kantor.

Andrew Kantor is a technology writer, pundit, and know-it-all.

I can think of a few other items to add to that list, but what do I know? I’m just another crazy cultist who needs to be deprogrammed.

And Kantor is an intellect ranking even lower on the scale than Dvorak.

This one’s all in the metadata. A few days ago, Oliver Willis posted an immigration-related item on his blog entitled They Just Hate Hispanics, Admit It. Oliver put the entry under the categories “Immigration” and “Racism.”

Who are these mysterious racists Oliver calls “they”? Oliver doesn’t specifically say, but he links to a single post by Jeff Harrell describing Jeff’s experiences at the immigration protests in Washington, D.C. Now, anyone who’s read Jeff at anything beyond an eighth-grade comprehension level knows that Jeff resonates to external stimuli like a car rolling over rumble strips. The result is often uncomfortable and hard to ignore. On top of that, Jeff tends to process his experiences by relating them, whereas most of us would decline to share those same feelings with others.

Jeff’s post reminded me of the time about ten years ago when the Million Man March came to D.C. I was working on the Hill at the time and our office closed for the day. I only lived a couple of blocks away, so instead of watching the event on TV I walked over to the Mall to check it out in person.

Did I feel uncomfortable, one of the few white men in a crowd of several thousand? Yes, but not for the reason you think. That crowd had gathered because they were supporters, to differing degrees, of Louis Farrakhan, a man whose own racist views are widely known. I was concerned that racism might be visited upon me, by any one of the crowd who took Farrakhan’s views to their natural conclusion. Fortunately, nothing happened and I made it home safe and with a deeper knowledge of numerology.

I think that’s similar to what happened to Jeff – he felt, correctly or not, that he might be harmed because of who he was or who he was not, due to his presence at a specific event. When surrounded by people of another identity group, who are highly excited about an issue they think divides you from them, it’s only natural to feel some degree of apprehension. Jeff felt it. It felt it. I’m sure black people feel it more often than Jeff or I ever do. I’m sure Oliver has felt it.

There’s no way it’s fair to call Jeff, or anyone else in the same situation, a racist for the feelings he describes. It’s nothing more than a debate tactic, and a pretty sinister one at that. It’s the lefty equivalent of standing in front of the abortion clinic, howling “baby killer!” at the sixteen-year-old girls running inside. It takes the debate out of the debate by classifying anyone who disagrees as not just differently viewed, but possessed of some deep character flaw. It’s not just that they have a different opinion – there’s something wrong with them.

The people who read Oliver on a regular basis eat it up. As for Oliver, either he doesn’t know any better, which is very sad, or he does know better and is doing it anyway, which is downright tragic. He’s serving up to his readers the intellectual equivalent of paint chips – and anyone who eats them gets dumber as a result.

Will the last person to leave the Katherine Harris for Senate campaign please turn out the lights?

We all know that Cynthia McKinney is a raving loon. The fact that she’s a Member of Congress (again!) troubles me only a bit, because even the clinically insane, paranoid, and racist are entitled to have representation in Congress, and why not one of their own? Besides, if you took the nutjobs and the morons out of Congress, you couldn’t get a quorum. You probably would have to cancel the Congressional baseball game. You might not even be able to get a set together for a game of bridge.

But I digress.

Rep. McKinney’s complaint, in essence, is that a Capitol Police officer stopped her from entering the building and asked for ID when she wasn’t wearing the shiny pin that identifies her as a Member of Congress. Mind you, it’s the job of the Capitol Police to prevent entry to anyone who tries to walk around the security checkpoint without the required ID.

The officer just didn’t recognize McKinney, and that got her fired up enough to shove him. Now, you might say to yourself, a Capitol Police officer charged with working the doors ought to quickly memorize the faces of all 535 Members of Congress. Maybe so. But even if that were both reasonable and possible, the fact is that McKinney has recently abandoned the schoolgirl-style braids she wears in her official photo and has opted for a dramatically different look called a “twist-out.” (For an even better look at the “twist-out” check Michelle Malkin’s screencap.)

So yeah, it’s not crazy to think that even a Capitol Police officer who knew Cynthia McKinney from her photo might not recognize her with her new don’t ‘do, and might stop her to ask for ID. How this translates into what her lawyer calls “the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin,” is frankly beyond me. (OK, she now claims that she was not only “stopped” but “inappropriately touched” – but to stop someone dodging the security checkpoint without ID, the degree of “touching” required to rise to the level of “inappropriate” would have to be somewhere between medieval and Ted Kennedy’s waitress sandwich.)

I expect Cynthia McKinney to depart from reality from tiem to time, since she’s a founding member of the race-card-based community. But what’s this? Danny Glover backstopped her at the press conference? Danny Glover lent his support to this, of all causes? What would your buddy Mel think?

I used to like Danny Glover. But now? Dead to me.

She will never surrender! Katherine Harris is scheduled to make a “major announcement” this week, and it’s not what everyone expected it was. According to the Washington Prowler:

…Harris very bluntly told them to forget about [dropping out]. When told they had strong interest from a well-known, respected former Florida elected official in jumping in, her response was that she welcomed the competition. When they responded that the GOP would begin to make fundraising more difficult, she revealed nary a frown.

To underscore that point, Harris told them that she would resign her House seat and privately finance her Senate campaign. If that “major announcement” is to come, we hear it is going to be that she is taking her campaign private, putting her money where her mouth is and focusing on the race full time.

She may not be the brightest bulb in the toolbox, but no one’s ever doubted that she’s got great big brass balls on her bedposts.

So who’s the “well-known, respected former Florida elected official” this source is referring to? My best guess is Bill McCollum, but it could be just about any former House member. Charles Canady, now a state judge, is well-respected but not a household name. Mike Bilirakis is well-known and respected but still in office. Porter Goss is both well-known and (at least formerly) well-respected, but seems to have his hands full with the spook business.

State level leaders? Frank Brogan is currently awaiting his next opportunity by serving as President of FAU. He’s possible. Former state House or Senate leaders? There are whole whole bunch of “well-known” among the qualified, but it’s hard to remain “well-respected” after leading that pack of wild dogs known as Florida legislators.

Anyone with genuine inside knowledge, please drop me a line. Anonymity guaranteed.

A group of protestors pay homage to Sammy Hagar by actuallly driving the speed limit around Atlanta’s betlway. Naturally, havoc ensues.

Via Say Anything.

How is it possible that someone like John Dvorak has been writing a nationally-published computer column for decades when he produces such totally indefensible intellectual fluff?

Will Apple Adopt Windows?

Bigger companies than Apple have dropped their proprietary OSs in favor of Windows—think IBM and OS/2. IBM also jumped on the Linux bandwagon over its own AIX version of Unix. Business eventually trumps sentimentality in any large company.

Has Dvorak ever met anyone who uses a Mac, or seen one, or used one himself? Running Windows on Apple hardware is like… is like… well, I’ve already said it.

Windows. Seriously. Running Windows on an Apple machine is like going to Morton’s and asking for A-1 sauce.

It’s like painting “Hello Kitty” on your Ferrari.*

It’s like drawing a feces mustache on the Mona Lisa.

It’s like mixing Coke in your 1787 Chateau Lafite.

It’s like asking John Wayne Gacy to babysit the kids.

I’ll stop now. But really… it’s a bad idea.

* (Good Lord, I didn’t know that someone had actually done that until I Googled it.)

It would be like having Dvorak write a column for your nationally published computer magazine.

Not that anyone’s surprised, but there’s another major e-mail faux pas making the rounds. (Hm. I originally typed “e-mal” by mistake – perhaps a better term for this.) Again, not that anyone’s surprised, but this one comes from a recent Boston-area law school grad tanking her job interview. Here’s the full exchange (via 880012:

—–Original Message—–
From: David —-
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:54 AM
To: Stacey —–
Subject: FW: Thank you

Read from the bottom to the top.there was an intervening exchange of voice mails as well.as you can imagine, they were as unprofessional as her e-mails.

—–Original Message—–
From: William A. Korman
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:55 AM
To: ‘David —-’
Subject: RE: Thank you

You can e-mail this to whomever you want.

—–Original Message—–
From: David —–
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:47 AM
To: ‘William A. Korman’
Subject: RE: Thank you

OH MY GOD!

Where to begin?

First of all, how unprofessional.and secondly, it is “reap what you ’sow,’” now “sew”.if she is going to use a clich?, couldn’t she at least spell it right? And WTF is with her “blab la bla”? Does she not read your e-mail about it being a small community?! So, finally, can I forward this along to some folks? I am sure they would love to see how the up-and-coming lawyers are comporting themselves! (Clearly she did not go to BU!!!) J

—–Original Message—–
From: William A. Korman
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 7:59 AM
To: ‘David —-’
Subject: FW: Thank you

Did I already forward this to you?

—–Original Message—–
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:29 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

bla bla bla
—– Original Message —–
From: William A. Korman
To: ‘Dianna Abdala’
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?

—–Original Message—–
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:01 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so.
Again, thank you.
—– Original Message —–
From: William A. Korman
To: ‘Dianna Abdala’
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

Dianna -
Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 PM voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering stationary and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
– Will Korman

—–Original Message—–
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
To: wak
Subject: Thank you

Dear Attorney Korman,

At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer.
After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew.

Thank you for the interviews.

Dianna L. Abdala, Esq.

Of course, the legal community and the blogosphere have risen up to give Abdala a well-deserved mocking. But to my surprise, not many seem to think attorney Korman did anything wrong.

I do.

Korman responded to Abdala’s initial snooty e-mail by lecturing her on professionalism, saying about her message: It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. That may be true, but I also think it’s unprofessional for one attorney to lecture another, who is not his employee and not his child, about professionalism.

Both sides then threw fuel on the fire. Abdala lectured him on what a real attorney would and wouldn’t do – thereby cementing Korman’s first assessment of her – and he responded by patronizing her. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career? he asked. Well, good for you, Korman. Hasn’t all that experience as a trial attorney taught him anything about human nature? Apparently not, since he actually had agreed to have this woman join his firm – business cards, letterhead, and all. I think a professional with Korman’s “experience” should have let the matter drop instead of plugging onward. Korman chose a different course, and drew Abdala’s now-famous retort: “Bla bla bla.”

So then Korman did something I think really crossed the line on his part – he sent the e-mail to his friend “David” and told him:

You can e-mail this to whomever you want.

Abdala, from what we can tell, is young, foolish, and spoiled. Korman is an experienced and apparently respected attorney who should have known better than to authorize his friend to share the exchange with, in effect, the whole world. In some states, Abdala might have grounds to sue Korman for invasion of privacy. Even if she might not win, it’s a headache that no one wants to endure.

And her complaint to the Bar might have some legal merit as well. I can’t speak for Massachusetts, but in some states Korman’s conduct could violate prohibitions against acts reflecting poorly on the profession. (It is much more clear that Abdala’s conduct would do so.) Why he would allow this e-mail exchange to be forwarded, I can’t know for sure, but it certainly seems to be driven by a desire to embarrass Abdala, or to make good on his promise that she would “piss off” the “small community” of criminal lawyers in Boston.

Abdala may eventually grow out of her inadequacies. For Korman, he’ll just have to live with the knowledge that he’s probably ruined someone’s career when he should have exercised restraint.

UPDATE: More remarks at the probably NSFW site Bitch | Lab

There is something fundamentally wrong with your view of God if you think He wants people to die because of a cartoon.

Speak out? Fine. Protest? Fine. Threaten death or actually kill people? Better re-examine whether or not you’re a true follow of a “faith of peace.”

UPDATE: Comments are not open on this item.

“Please note: You’re not allowed to call yourselves followers of a ‘religion of peace’ if you riot and make death threats over a political cartoon.”

Via The Shape of Days.

Capitol Police have apologized for ejecting Cindy Sheehan and, um, Mrs. Young – did she keep her first name when she got married, or is that where C.W. “Bill” Young got the extra one from? I never saw it reported – from the STFU SOTU address this week.

“Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T- shirts,” Gainer’s statement said.

They also dropped the charges against Sheehan. First Amendment crisis averted.

Samuel ALito was confirmed today to replace Sandar Day O’Connor as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The 58 – 42 vote was almost pureply a party-line vote, with Republican Senator Chafee the only GOP “No” vote and Democratic Senators Byrd, Conrad, Johnson, and Nelson (Nebraska) voting yes.

It was the most partisan vote on a Supreme Court nominee in modern history. Clarence Thomas, whose confirmation hearing were marred by accusations of sexual harassment, got more minority-party votes than the eminently-qualified, major-scandal-free Alito. The vote clealry demonstrates how partisan and hypocritical the debate has become over court nominees.

Recall my post the other day about “ink by the barrel“?

That post was more prescient than my football picks. Tiff’s story got picked up by the Consumerist, Instapundit, and Doc Searls.

She’s gotten more eyeballs in three days than I’ve gotten total since I started blogging more than six years ago. And 90% of those eyeballs will never use the offending ISP as a web host – not because of the service suspension, but because of the post-suspension jackassery about trademark law and trying to get her pulled from her new web host.

And as one might expect, the owner of the ISP still doesn’t understand that it’s not about gay porn, it’s about trying to silence opposing viewpoints by abuse of legal process. That’s why he’s been vilified by most of his former target market. Because information wants to be free, but some people still don’t get it.

Let’s just say… it got brung.

There’s an old saying, Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. I don’t know the original author, but it sounds like Mark Twain to me.

Now imagine that the ink-buyers in question are a pack of howling-mad bloggers. Their ink is free, you see. They can just keep writing, and keep writing, and keep writing. And they’ll all link to each other. And their rage will spread. And sooner or later, anyone trying to find your name on the web will find the rantings of a howling-mad pack of bloggers.

Would you pick that fight? One guy apparently would. Now, maybe he started out partially in the right, even mostly in the right. But then he started hurling false accusations. And threatening frivolous lawsuits. And generally doing other things that make very little business sense. And the barbarians with racist and sexist slurs rushed in to his aid, strangely enough from his very same IP address… just minutes later.

The howling is just starting, and I think it’s going to get a lot louder before it gets quieter. You want to be the guy picking that fight?

Bring it.

It seems that the celebration of an important and historic American figure brings out the weirdest of howl-at-the-moon tendencies in Democrats. On the one hand, we’ve got New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who claimed that the hurricanes were God’s way of punishing America and blacks in particular. Moving seamlessly from his Pat Robertson impression to his Louis Farrakhan impression, he then called for New Orleans to be rebuilt as a “chocolate” city:

“I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.”

Even the media thought this last comment seemed out of line.

Pressed later to explain his comments, Nagin, who is black, told CNN affiliate WDSU-TV that he was referring to creation of a racially diverse city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, insisting that his remarks were not divisive.

“How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about,” he said.

Glad he cleared that up. Meanwhile, back in the cradle of modern civilization that is New York City, U.S. Senator and likely Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton compared the House of Representatives to a “plantation”.

“When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run — it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about,” Clinton said.

No, actually. What exactly are you talking about?

“It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard,” Clinton said.

Oh, that makes it so much clearer. You weren’t actually race-bating, you were using a bizarre analogy to stand up for the free speech rights of our powerful elected leaders. Well, let’s see how that works out, shall we?

First, let’s look at the claim that no one gets to present legislation. Picking a random Democratic rep, let’s check the Congressional record: 14 bills sponsored. (“Random” selection method: go to the Library of Congress website, hit the pull-down menu for Representatives, scroll down an arbitrary amount, and hit the first option I see with a “D” by the name – Michaud was the first and only record I looked at.) Go ahead and try this with your favorite D, and leave your high score in the comments.

Repeating the same method for speaking opportunities, I searched the Congressional Record for Allen Boyd. Although I can’t find a way to directly link to the search results, there are at least 23 instances in the 109th Congress (in other words, in just the last calendar year) in which Rep. Boyd has been heard on the floor of the House of Representatives. Again, try this one at home.

Neither Michaud nor Boyd are atypical Dems – their evident empowerment no doubt extends to others of their class as well. Apparently being elected to one of the most powerful political bodies in the world really does come with some substantial media access rights. Not only does one get to introduce legislation, but one also gets to speak on the floor of the House in front of all the TV cameras until one turns blue, and then send letters to the yokels back home about it without paying a penny. Life on the plantation doesn’t seem all that bad from a free speech perspective.

So Senator, what exactly are you talking about?

If the Dems keep this up through the midterm elections, I predict a bloodbath.

Some Cal-Tech student set a new world record for solving the Rubik’s Cube - 11.13 seconds.

Here’s the AP headline:

Rubik’s world record: 3 cubed plus 2.13 seconds

Three cubed? That’s 27. Three squared would be nine… plus 2.13 seconds getting you to the 11.13.

An impressive feat for new record holder Leyan Lo, who dusted my best time of 45 seconds. Not so impressive for the math geniuses over at AP, who let thier desire for a cutesy headline override the need for accuracy in journalism.