Oops.

Heh, Edmonton lost in overtime anyway.

Daily Drew

So where are you guys?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I like

Daily Drew

BARRYMORE REVEALS SECRET TO STROKES RELATIONSHIP

Don't take your relationship so damned seriously all the time. "Laugh more! Laugh your ass off!"

Virgil Goode's office classily vandalized

Found here.

Mel Gibson?

"You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

Nope. Wesley Clark. Apparently the coming war with Iran is the fault of the rich Jews in New York. DAMN YOU ROTHSCHILD!

TWAJS.

A reporter gets it right

Administration Official: Troop Escalation ‘More Of A Political Decision Than A Military One

(Jim) MIKLASZEWSKI: Good evening, Brian. Administration officials told us today that President Bush has now all but decided to surge those additional troops into Baghdad to try to control over the violence there and only then could they accelerate the turnover of territory to Iraqi security forces. Fact is they’re not up to the task yet. The plan would also throw more U.S. money at Iraq for reconstruction and a jobs program. Interestingly enough, one administration official admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one because the American people have run out of patience and President Bush is running out of time to achieve some kind of success in Iraq. While this plan will clearly draw some stiff opposition on Capitol Hill, the president is expected to announce it a week from today.

Virgil Goode pwned

But It's Thomas Jefferson's Koran!

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

You may remember Virgil Goode's bigoted tirade against Rep. Keith Ellison using the Koran at his Congressional swearing in. He's just been made to look more foolish. Ellison will be using unserious terrorist loving Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran.

Note to Goode... sit in the back of Congress and keep your mouth shut, you'll get pwned far less often this way.

Daily Drew

A Lucky You (warning link goes to horrific Flash site) promo photo...

Wii Girls

A Tale from Donkeypuncher

Old Men! There's No Need to Feel Down!

It's funny.

The Blog | Cenk Uygur: What Rep. Virgil Goode Said About Jews | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Cenk Uygur: What Rep. Virgil Goode Said About Jews | The Huffington Post:

"If American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Jews elected to office ... I fear that in the next century we will have many more Jews in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America."

Just replace Muslim with Jews, and that is actually what that bigoted pig said.

That's BS

Some Marketplace Downloads Already On Disc? - Kotaku:

And the case against microtransactions mounts. Industrious NeoGAF poster "a master Ninja" has done a little digging and uncovered just how big some of the "downloads" are over the XBL marketplace for useless shit like Viva Piñata accessory packs. I say "downloads" because, well, you're not really downloading much at all. From the size of these files, it's clear you're just downloading a key that unlocks content already present on the disc. Content that you've already paid for by paying for the disc.

He then goes on to cite the well reviewed Viva Piñata (not linked to not support this douchery) as an example of a game where you've paid your $50 for the game, and the only thing you get for 320 gamer points is accessory packs that were all ready on the disc when you brought it home.

SaveTheInternet.com

Their newest commercial on Net Neutrality

Uh yeah, way to uh... marry well

First ladies will be golden in new coins - U.S. Business - MSNBC.com:

For the first time, the U.S. Mint is dedicating a series of coins to the accomplishments of women — the nation’s first ladies.

It's amazing what you learn

O.J. Publisher Was Fired For Alleged Slur, News Corp. Says Judith Regan Made Anti-Semitic Remarks During Phone Conversation - CBS News:

An industry force since the 1980s, when she produced best-sellers by Drew Barrymore and Kathie Lee Gifford for Simon & Schuster, Regan has been labeled a "foul-mouthed tyrant" and the "enfant terrible of American publishing." She is also widely envied — if not admired — for her gift of attracting attention to her books and to herself.

When you relentlessly cyber-stalk someone. (Ok, ok, it's just a few Google News Alerts, but hey, now I know that Judith Regan was the producer of Little Girl Lost.)

Please be true

Posh to be Cruise's alien bride

Britain's Daily Star newspaper reports that the wife of football star David Beckham has apparently been lined up to play the alien bride in The Thetan - based on the religion, which believes in alien life forms.

The Daily Star reported that Victoria - who Cruise has described as a "comic genus" - is said to be "thrilled" about getting her big Hollywood break.

A source told the Daily Star: "Victoria is really hoping to make a go of it in Hollywood...

Cruise - who is bankrolling the project himself after it was rejected by all the major film studios - is said to have picked Victoria for the role after being impressed by her "comic genius".

Daily Drew

The, er, other side of Drew at the We Are Marshall premiere.

The jokes... they write themselves.

Hunt Wins a Ring

Mississippi State commitment Mike Hunt served double duty for the Franklin County Bulldogs this past season. After a mid afternoon tilt against North State champ Nettleton, Hunt and Franklin County are the last ones standing in Mississippi's 3A classification.

Plug

Gossip blog A Socialite's Life is running ads from some clothing company all December. The ads have caught my eye a couple of times because of the seemingly great prices in the ads.

This ad caught my eye for a different reason.


Pure sex -- much like this

One for the resume

MCP, CCNA, 12 years experience, oh and I was Time's Person of the Year for 2006. Of course, so were you, so its not all that cool. In fact its pretty freaking stupid.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

That's wonderful, you think viral videos and memes are the trend of the year. I wouldn't argue with you, so how hard is it to find a representative of this trend? How about Youtube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley? Ok billionaires are not representative of the trend. How about a user? Let's go with Macaca himself, S.R. Sidarth, There's a user who almost singlehandedly changed the balance of power in the US Senate. Nope none of that though, they chose me, and I proudly accept the award for Time's Person of the Year.

How to win in Iraq

How to win in Iraq

But a young captain serving in Iraq's violent Al Anbar Province has offered a simple explanation of what the problem was in Iraq and how to solve it. Among his observations is the importance of having a moustache in Iraq.

In a military known for its sleep-inducing, graphically dizzying PowerPoint presentations, the young captain's presentation, which has been unofficially circulating through the ranks, stands out. Using stick figures and simple language, it articulates the same goal as the president's in Iraq.

The creator of this PowerPoint presentation, "How to Win in Al Anbar," was Capt. Travis Patriquin.

But Patriquin will not see victory in Iraq. He was killed by the same improvised explosive device that killed Maj. Megan McClung of the Marine Corps last Wednesday.

Patriquin had fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. A gifted officer, he spoke numerous languages, including Arabic.

"How to Win in Al Anbar" may not make it to the desk of the president, but maybe it should.

The presentation

Protip: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Richard Marx will pwn your ass

Chicagoist: Richard Marx Wants You to Know Chicagoist Is Wrong:


Sometimes, in the world of blogging, mistakes are made. In the rush to publish, we obscure the occasional fact and allow our less-than-reliable memories to run away with the truth.



Cute email exchange between Chicagoist and Richard Marx.

via Perdita

Daily Drew

On the set of Music and Lyrics

Deadspin: "That's why they don't call him Feelings Johnson"

Tackle facing 6 gun charges on ChicagoSports.com:
Do not judge Tank Johnson yet. Well hell, judge him all you want, but dude's name is Tank. You think a guy named Tank might be into guns?



I dunno, what do you think?

That's sweet.

I do whatever McSey says for me to do. So here. - Pearl Fang - by Pearl:

He had never kissed anyone besides his mother and her. He had dived for the golden sack only because he wanted to impress her. He sometimes looked in the mirror for hours at a time, making faces, tensing muschles, winking, smiling, puckering.

Book:Everything is Illuminated
Author: Jonathatn Safran Foer

ecto test

It seems I've used this software before, but I want something that works with Blogger Beta. BlogThis and a bunch of other tools I've used forever got broken by my foolish switch to Blogger Beta, so let's try one I've all ready discarded.


Update, well it seems to post some stuff. The tags are Technorati rather Blogger labels, but I'll live.

Technorati Tags: Meta

Johnny White's: They Never Closed

Radley Balko's visit to Johnny White's a New Orleans bar that stayed open throughout Katrina.

It's here

Finally!

White Dolphin extinct

China's white dolphin called extinct after 20 million years

The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.

Douglas Adams wrote about these.

More here.

Yay, I tweaked my template

To allow for wider pictures. It throws the balance off a little and basically makes the blog require at least 1024x768, but now I can post pictures all of 640 pixels wide.

It's fun to stay at the...

Random find on The Tubes.

Yippie!

and Finally

Two pics (Zire blogging)

The view from outside this morning very very foggy.


Me after the Bears game last night. Very very foggy in my own way.
/gobears

(Yes I know these pictures are craptastic quality. I'm taking them on a Palm Zire 71. It has to have the worst digicam ever on it. Kinda digging its suckiness actually.)

Ode to Devin Hester

The talk was of Rex
But it's not he that we love
For there is but one Bear
That we can think of


He's faster than light
Runs a two-minute mile
And when he flies past you
All you see is his smile

The new Comedy Central Media Player

Does not suck. Works on the Mac (hint flip4mac is your friend).

TDS

A mememe

Found here.

Ok here is the deal

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, scroll down to the 5th sentence
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog
4. Name of the book and the author
5. Tag 3 People

Book: LDAP System Administration
Author: Gerald Carter

The following excerpt from ypldapd(8) manpage describes ypldapd's position with a network:

YPLDAP(8)
ypldap emulates the equivalent process ypserv by providing an RPC call-compatible interface. Rather than consulting 'map' files as ypserv does, however, ypldapd draws its data from LDAP databases.

Man I read some thrilling stuff.

The View From My Desk

My desk 12/08/06 10:00AM

A Sully Reader writes

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/12/on_vdh.html

You missed the biggest flaw in Victor Davis Hanson's statement, which is its historical inaccuracy. This country did not fight and defeat Germany, Italy and Japan all at once. We defeated Japan with some help from the British Empire and Commonwealth, and China; we defeated Italy with substantial help from the British Empire and Commonwealth, as well as Free French, Polish, Czech and other forces; the Soviet Union defeated Germany, with major help from us as well as the British Empire and Commonwealth, as well as Free French, Polish, Czech and other forces.

Had the Soviet Union not broken the back of the German Wehrmacht and its allies before Moscow, at Stalingrad and at Kursk, and thereafter, there is serious doubt whether even the combined forces of the U.S., the British Empire and Commonwealth, and their allies, could have defeated Germany in northwest Europe. Read Max Hastings.

This is an example of the pride and hubris in an all-powerful U.S. that does not have to resort to mere diplomacy and alliance building as it goes boldly forth to impose its military will abroad - pride and hubris that directly led us to the dire circumstances in which we now find ourselves in Iraq.

Pearl Harbor day podcast

Here's a little something I threw together today.

16.2 minutes, 8.6MB, m4a format (read use iTunes). Right click, save as.

edit: Updated images in podcast. It looks like Safari is adding a .txt to the podcast. Remove it and it works fine.

Snicker

Depressed War Fanatics Find New Hero - Wonkette

"Times are tough for the brave commenters on pro-Bush pro-Republican pro-Endless War In Iraq blogs. Their only allies in the War Against Bob Gates are Rick Santorum and some crazy old man from Kentucky with a broken No button. Dick Cheney has been kicked down to vice president and is no longer allowed to speak in public, the House and Senate are Democratic, and every church in the country is hosting nude gay weddings where the only heterosexual intercourse allowed is to produce stem cells for AIDS patients."

See previous post for suggested gift.

Pearl Fang wins at life

This is what she wants for Christmas.


Someone with a credit card type thing should buy it for her.

Posts You Should Be Reading

Glenn Greenwald on how ICE (formerly US Customs) knowingly kept a murderer on its payroll. It wasn't until a DEA agent and his family were almost killed that anyone said anything. And then it was the DEA agent in question -- he was fired. Go read it, its horrifying.

Dr. Pauly on surviving Vegas

Deadspin on Eastern Illinois linebacker Lucious Pusey who legally (and understandably) changed his last name to Seymour, and his hilarious email to Deadspin telling them he was no longer a Pusey. I will, of course, be legally changing my name to Micah Pusey. Heck I can still even be mcsey, just the sey will come from the end of my name not the beginning. And now that I think about it, why didn't he change his name to Seymour Pusey? That's pew-SAY BTW.

The View From My Desk

Apologies to Sully and his "The View from My Window" series.


Closing time 12/6/06

Return of the AudBlog

Hello Dear Reader,

A long time ago, well last year, I used to do quite a bit of audio blogging. TBH I didn't. I used to read quite a bit into my phone. Then through the wonders of the automagic Intertubes a post would appear on my site with the content of said phone call. Well that service has gone the way of Python's Proverbial Parrot -- that is to say it's bleedin' demised, it's ceased to be, it is bereft of life, it is an ex-service. So being a true technical innovator and all around geek, I figured away around that. I, er, uploaded a recording I made to my webserver. No more Master and Commander though, this time it's some musings, and then a bit of Neil Stephenson's Mother Earth Motherboard.

Here ya go...

MeMBoard01 3.1MB mp3 7:12 (right click save-as if on a slow connection)

Daily Drew

On the set of "Music and Lyrics By"

WTF?

The Japanese Wii Safety Manual is Crazy - Gizmodo

Scary Mary

I'll speculate

The Blog | Melissa Lafsky: Acrockalypto | The Huffington Post

Such an unsubtle marketing strategy begs the question, if you're releasing a potential blockbuster and your director is a walking bottle of audience-repellent for large numbers of moviegoers, wouldn't you think twice before tying him so incessantly to your film? Disney's answer is clearly no, for reasons we can only speculate.

Maybe because not all that many people really care about Jews. More specifically as Jews make up all of 1.3% of the population there's lots of smoke and no fire to Gibson's "audience-repellent" rating. Now combine the number of people who don't really give a shit about intolerance of what amounts to a fringe group of American society and add in the Dobson types who pretty much actively encourage anti-Semitism (all the while denying it of course) and Disney collectively said, "Who cares?" regarding Mel's Michael Richard's moment.

The Iraq War Wingnut Timeline

Instaputz: Putz on Iraq: a timeline.

See the most influential B.O.P.* blogger's timeline of Iraq war events. You'll notice something, I'm sure, about well how terribly wrong it is.

*He can claim he's a libertarian all he wants. His blogging just doesn't support that claim. He's B.O.P. Bush Only Party. Not Republican, not conservative, simply whatever Dear Leader wants.

Geek girls and a mess

Guilty until proven innocent

Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect's Isolation - New York Times:

"Mr. Padilla was added as a defendant in a terrorism conspiracy case already under way in Miami. The strong public accusations made during his military detention -- about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings -- appear nowhere in the indictment against him.

The indictment does not allege any specific violent plot against America. Mr. Padilla is portrayed in the indictment as the recruit of a "North American terror support cell" that sent money, goods and recruits abroad to assist "global jihad" in general, with a special interest in Bosnia and Chechnya. Mr. Padilla, the indictment asserts, traveled overseas "to participate in violent jihad" and filled out an application for a mujahedin training camp in Afghanistan."

How we treat innocent uncharged Americans.

Look at those photos, shackled, sensory deprived, guarded by three body armored guards. An innocent, and at the time uncharged American who could be you. This is why we have courts. Padilla could well be guilty, but his rights have been so trampled at this points, who cares? He has served his time for any offense he is currently (and finally) charged with. I've seen far more evidence that Bush et al are guilty of war crimes and unconstitutional acts that are impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors", than I have that Padilla has done anything he was finally charged with. Hell, Padilla's 3 year uncharged, warrantless, confinement is more wrong than anything he has even been accused of.

Greenwald slams another dunk

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The fruits of democracy:

"Hugo Chavez was overwhelmingly re-elected yesterday as Venezuela's President. Opposition to the United States played a significant role in his successful campaign, as he promised 'a more radical version of socialism and [to] forge a wider front against the United States in Latin America.'

Over the last two years, the Palestinians democratically elected Hamas leaders. The Lebanese have democratically elected Hezbollah to play a major role in their parliamentary government. The Iranian-allied militias in Iraq are led by factions with substantial representation in the democratically elected Iraqi Government. And the Iranian Hitler himself was democratically elected "

First off, if you aren't reading Glenn Greenwald regularly, you should be. Always insightful, he nails home point after point regarding several issues -- especially lawless indefinite detention ala Jose Padilla and illegal warrantless surveillance (side note: Firefox doesn't recognize the word warrantless -- it tells me its not a word, good for Firefox, the word shouldn't be in an American's vocabulary).

Today, Greenwald led with a post on the spread of democracy and its inverse relation to friendly foreign governments. It seems all one needs to do in the current world political climate is run an anti-Bush, anti-American-foreign-policy, campaign and its the secret to getting elected around the world. Even our staunchest allies are feeling the sting, Tony Blair's approval rating sits at 27%, and he has resigned his role as Labor Leader following his current term as Prime Minister. Obviously the new British government will not be openly hostile to America, but undoubtedly the British peoples' perception of Blair as Bush's poodle contributed to his historic fall from record high approval ratings in his early (pre-Bush) days in office to his current near record low popularity. The message from voters around the world -- and as the Democrats showed in the midterms in the United States as well-- is clear, "Supporting Bush's foreign policy is bad for you at the ballot box. Opposing America's current foreign policy is good for you come election day."

For the 47 seconds this site is gonna last

You can watch Airplane! and a ton of other movies streamed for free:

Airplane!
Uploaded by ZAZfan

update 20061206: Well it lasted four days. Longer than I thought really.

UnSuggester

LibraryThing UnSuggester | Don't read THIS

The opposite of the normal "If you like, try this." site. Plug in a book you like, and it will tell you books that you will not like.

I plugged in "Master and Commander" and it spit out:

1. Awakening the Buddha within : eight steps to enlightenment : Tibetan wisdom for the Western world by Lama Surya Das (expected 11.6, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
2. Tori Amos, piece by piece : a portrait of the artist : her thoughts, her conversations by Tori Amos (expected 11.6, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
3. ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham (expected 11.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
4. You slay me by Katie MacAlister (expected 11.2, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
5. Fire me up : an Aisling Grey, guardian, novel by Katie MacAlister (expected 10.7, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
6. The emerging church : vintage Christianity for new generations by Dan Kimball (expected 10.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
7. Boy meets girl : say hello to courtship by Joshua Harris (expected 15, found 1; unsuggestions)
   
8. Everybody's normal till you get to know them by John Ortberg (expected 9.8, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
9. Succulent wild woman : dancing with your wonder-full self! by Sark (expected 9.8, found 0; unsuggestions)
   
10. Messenger by Lois Lowry (expected 9.6, found 0; unsuggestions)

Now with the exception of #3, I can't imagine wanting to read any of those. And seeing as how I will probably never learn to program in LISP I doubt I'd ever need to read that book either.

You the man now dawg

Seriously, I will have Keith Olbermann's man babies. His "Special Comment" speeches, done in classic Murrowese, are simply the best non-satirical comments on American politics and politicians. To wit, here's November 30th's skewering of the pest Newt Gingrich

Your 'Do You Want the Terrorists to Win' Score: 89%

 

You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, "blame America first"-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day.... in Guantanamo!

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I'm in ur base belonging ur votes to us

Florida.

Ah jeez not this shit again.

/Diebold just switched to the Cell processor to enable real-time vote changing.

In other words, thanks for handing Iraq to Iran, George.

Iraq, Iran reach agreement on security - Yahoo! News

It's a sad state of affairs when the President of Iran makes more sense than the President of the United States of America.

Feck off George.

Sully's Underwear Flap

Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: Underwear, Again:

"But I am not sorry for publishing a visual of them. My response is the same to Mormons as it was to Muslims who were offended by my publishing images of Muhammad. This is your taboo, not mine. And this is a free country. If you cannot handle some inspection of your religious practices, then you need to find some other place to live."

Sully's right as usual. In case you wonder what's got some Mormon panties in a wad, it's this.



A picture of LDS "temple garment" that many Mormons wear at all times.

Playing with GarageBand3

Nice start Jim Webb

In Following His Own Script, Webb May Test Senate's Limits - washingtonpost.com:

"At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

'How's your boy?' Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

'I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,' Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

'That's not what I asked you,' Bush said. 'How's your boy?'

'That's between me and my boy, Mr. President,' Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House."

Webb is a Bush Democrat. In other words a Republican who got fed up with the GOP for following Bush and the neocons' radical agendas. Webb has a strong libertarian streak that appeals to me. He got a perfect score on the NRA's candidate questionnaire. He supports civil unions for same sex couple and is pro choice. He's also anti-Iraq-war without being antiwar. He fought in Vietnam as Marine and served as Reagan's Sec. of the Navy. He is, hopefully, gonna raise hell on bringing our troops home. He's off to a good start.



Thank you Macaca.

I find it deliciously ironic that the end of the "War on Terror Made by Brown People in Iraq (TM)" might have started with a racial slur.

Ok so I get told to be the porno police by my boss. That's cool. It's all ready my job, and I all ready have a system that I understand to check for it. Basically I've got a content filter that emails me when a blocked site is attempted to be accessed. One block I ignore, but if I get 10 in a row from the same IP address, I check out what they're trying to get to and then take appropriate action.

Now, to find out who is actually trying to get to the "banned" material, I have to match up the IP to the machine that had that IP at the time of the block. That's in one log. After that I have to match up who was logged into that machine at the time of the block. That's in another log. It's a bit of a bear, but considering I've had to investigate this type of thing maybe ten times in 3 years, it's no biggie.

Now my boss had the bright idea to order me to make user level blockage reports for all staff on a monthly basis. I tell him I think that I can do that, but it will probably cost him some money. I get to fiddling around inside the Sonic Wall Pro 300 content filter and see that while it won't take LDAP authentication directly from my LDAP server, it does have the capability of doing RADIUS lookups.

"AHA!" says I, and couple of hours later I have a working RADIUS test server that passes the auth request off to my LDAP server and returns to my content filter a yes/no on the user/pass entered. I know this because my content filter has a RADIUS test thingee in its RADIUS config. Just plug a u/p in and it tests it and says it works. I can also see my RADIUS and LDAP logs that show a successful transaction in both services. "Hunky dorry gee whiz," I think, "I can do this thing for free." All it requires is one entry of the u/p when a user fires up his/her browser. This tells the Sonic Wall who's browsing and what username to log it under. Basically I've got usernames and IPs in my logs now.

So far so good. Now it's time to set the reporting end up. Sonic Wall makes reporting software called Viewpoint. It just so happens that buying the Pro 300 gave us free access to Viewpoint. Viewpoint is basically a glorified front-end to a syslogd service. It parses logs and generates reports on things like "Web Usage" and "Blocks Per User". Blammo! Exactly what I'm looking for. I d/l the latest version of the (Windows only) program, install it, and follow the directions for configuring my Sonic Wall to talk to the Viewpoint server. (Basically this is just setting up one syslogd to talk to another).

I triple check everything to make sure all is good, backup my Sonic Walls config, and turn that shit on. BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! All hell breaks loose and the network slows to a crawl. No problem, I think to myself, login to the Sonic Wall and turn that shit off. So I pop in the content filter's IP to login... timeout. I try to get on the web, no problem. I try to get to a blocked site, blocked. I check the Viewpoint server. It was connected to the Sonic Wall at first, but now its not. I portscan the firewall. 443 is open but I can't get a connection via https. 80 is open but I can't get a connection via http.

Finally, I physically walk down to the content filter, and its activity meter is pegged. I hook up a laptop and fire up Ethereal. The thing is spewing syslogd data so fast that its poor processor can't keep up and other services aren't fielding requests. I go check my system requirements for my userload to insure that I read what I thought I read. I read what I thought read and this box should be able to handle a network about 10 times the size of mine with reporting on.

Ok says, I, I can't get in via the web but there has to be a command line interface or at the very least some sort of emergency serial interface that I can login with on a Mac. No nada nunca. Sonic Wall's official "fix" of this problem is to do a firmware reset, !but! not only does this screw my configuration back to zero, but also it uses a "dual-bios" trick to rewrite my firmware back to what shipped from the factory so that my "backup" is basically useless. In the time it takes to get all the settings needed to get the firmware back to where it needs to be, I can just reconfigure the box from scratch...* of course intarwebs access is down the whole time I'm doing this without that I reconfigure my whole network to ignore the content filter (which all other machines see as their gateway router).

So to sum up -- Fuck You Sonic Wall. I'm buying another Barracuda filter.

/and don't get me started about having to pay for security firmware updates. Features I can see, but when you have a bug in your product that allows me to be attacked, that update should be free./

*Not true, you just have to have a Windows machine to restore the mofo. Still getting another cuda.

A one sentence solution to the war in Iraq

An Attytood commenter named No W NOW wrote:

"The best solution politically might be for us to impeach Bush and put the entire administration up before world court for war crimes, apologize as a nation to the Iraqis and leave."

Works for me.

Chris Rock predicts the future

From the Chris Rock Show circa 1997

Soon

The software is here. The machine is not.

Warning Label Generator

Warning Label Generator

Pay Drew!!!

Unclaimed Property Search - Property Details

Ok, so I'm joking, Drew has $83 coming to her when she decides to pick it up. I'm sure she'll get right on that.

Daily Drew

Wow

This guy can't play drums or piano, but he can sure edit the hell out of video

The Phone Guy

Link via Boingboing

Let's Play Eschaton's Game

You know "Simple Answers for Simple Questions"

Boing Boing: Advice for a torn and lovelorn BoingBoing reader: "

Mike asks, 'If you meet a cute girl at a Democratic Victory party, but she QAs DRM for Microsoft, is asking for her email address evil?'"

Yes.

Both parties have no clue on DRM.

Great day.

House Democrats eager to clash with Bush

All this morning when people have said "Good morning" to me I've responded, "Yes, it is!"

Dashboard widget test?

I dunno... that's funny

nice

Build a solar iPod charger

Don't let them bite. Seriously.

A Socialite's Life:

"Maya Rudolph and her family moved into their new apartment happy and excited to be home. A $13,500-a-month dream home turned into a disgusting nightmare as the place was infested with bed bugs. Furious, they have filed suit for $450,000. Court paper stated:"

Been there done that, it really sucks. It's not a cliche. Well it is, but actual bed bugs suck.

Go read Pearl Fang

Pearl Fang has your number. Its 4 - by Pearl

This post is NOT about the Rod Bryan campaign, HOWEVER, I do think he's
awesome, I know him personally, and I have stood many a nights just
picking his brain about what he would really do if he were governor,
and I believe in him.

powered by performancing firefox

Say what?

The Complete Bushisms - Compiled By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one."—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006

Scott Adams on Electronic Voting

The Dilbert Blog: Electronic Voting Machines:

"Years ago when I worked at a big bank, one of the hot issues was that many customers didn%u2019t trust our new-fangled ATM machines. Amazingly, this fear had almost nothing to do with the fact that I worked in the ATM department. Indeed, my suggestion to include a paper shredder hole right next to the deposit hole was barely even considered. In the end, ATMs rarely stole anyone%u2019s money and kept it for long. Now most people trust ATMs.

I think about the history of ATMs when I hear all the nervous Nellies wetting their pants over electronic voting machines. I believe those worries are totally misplaced. Now don%u2019t get me wrong %u2013 there%u2019s a 100% chance that the voting machines will get hacked and all future elections will be rigged.? But that doesn%u2019t mean we%u2019ll get a worse government. It probably means that the choice of the next American president will be taken out of the hands of deep-pocket, autofellating, corporate shitbags and put it into the hands of some teenager in Finland. How is that not an improvement?

Statistically speaking, any hacker who is skilled enough to rig the elections will also be smart enough to select politicians that believe in . . . oh, let's say for example, science. Compare that to the current method where big money interests buy political ads that confuse snake-dancing simpletons until they vote for the guy who scares them the least. Then during the period between the election and the impending Rapture, that traditionally elected President will get busy protecting the lives of stem cells while finding creative ways to blow the living crap out of anything that has the audacity to grow up and turn brownish.

The important thing with democracy-- and this has always been the case -- is that the citizens a) Believe the election result is based on the common sense and voting rights of the citizens, and b) Have enough handguns to wax any politicians who gets too seriously out of line (also known as a "check and balance").

And here the definition of "seriously out of line" would not include humping interns and stealing from taxpayers. Those things should be allowed, even encouraged, so we can attract the most capable candidates from private industry.?

Call me an optimist, but electronic voting machines make me feel good about my country.

Is it too late to start selling bumper stickers that say "I think I voted"

NYT hires Ric Romero*

A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data - New York Times

To report on Google bombing.

*If this means nothing to you, try here.

Daily Drew

Now with videoy goodness. Straight up stolen from Drew-Barrymore.org

Daily Drew

Haven't done this (or much of anything else) in a while...
Drew at the Borat premiere

So that makes them STFU

Guide to the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. The Green Rising, 1910-1977

Laugh, it's funny. Kind of reminds me of the little Christian school down the road... the Fulton Unity Christian Knights

E agora para algo completamente diferente

Walleyball: "Yeah Yeah We Speak Perfect English, Just Serve."

Wholphin DVD

Walleyball. Volleyball played over the two story fence that separates a section of the US-Mexican border.

You might be a Republican if...

NO QUARTER: Are you a Republican?

If you start a war in Iraq while lying to the American people that Saddam was tied to Osama Bin Laden, you might be a Republican.

If you follow policies that squander a budget surplus and create an $8.5 trillion dollar budget deficit, you might be a Republican.

If you expose the identity of an undercover CIA officer in charge of tracking down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, you might be a Republican.

Political Cortex: The Constitution of the United States 2.0

We the Republicans of the United States, in Order to prevent any challenge to our continued Supremacy, free ourselves from the Confines of Justice, placate the Tranquil masses, degrade the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of War Profiteering for ourselves and our Friends, do ordain and establish Constitution 2.0 for the United States of America.


In the word of the Putzy one... Indeed.

What I wish Obama had said...

Barack Obama, my Senator, voted against the Torture Bill, here's what I wish he would say about this...

"Torture bill, I can't think of a bill less American than this. And it is a torture bill. This bill allows an man innocent like Maher Ahar to be waterboarded at the whim of one individual. Waterboarding has been used for centuries. The Romans used it as torture. The medieval Dutch used it as torture, but even they knew something this bill denies. Waterboarding and torture do not work. Even the medieval Dutch legal system would not accept a confession or evidence obtained during torture. Something this bill specifically legalizes, this Torture Bill.

This Torture Bill suspends habeas corpus. A natural right to both confront one accuser and know the reason for ones detention that is specifically denied to those seized under this Torture bill. A right so basic that in 1789 Thomas Jefferson during one of the first periods of civil unrest in American history said, ""The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." A right so basic that during the greatest ever threat to our nation, during the War Between the States, the Supreme Court, with nation torn asunder, told the great Abraham Lincoln he possessed not the wisdom to be the sole decider of detainment. This Torture bill provides that unchecked power, denied to the Great Emancipator, to our current President. We the Congress have a solemn duty to guard this sacred right.

This Torture bill gives those and so many more unchecked powers to the Executive Branch, and it is done. I voted against it of course, but in this democracy, in this hallowed Senate the most votes usually wins, and 5x Senators believed it was necessary to divest ourselves of these responsibilities and to divest our people of these rights. The right not to be tortured, the right to know why you are being detained -- these basic rights. We have divested ourselves of these responsibilities and placed this burden on one man's shoulders -- this President. This and future presidents bear a great responsibility, and I pray for them. I pray that they have the wisdom to see what the 15th century Dutch did. Torture does not work. I pray that they have the wisdom to see that torture is a terror tactic. The Romans publicly tortured dissenters not just punish those for their thoughts and expressions but to terrorize those that might agree with them. I pray to the Lord that the great United States of America will not use the tactics of terror. I pray that the great United States will not give up its precious liberties and basic freedoms. I pray we will not torture not just innocents like Maher Ahar, but that we will live up to the Christian ideals that so many of us share. Who would Jesus torture?"

Winning: The Joke's on Osama

I agree with this guy, but its what I've been saying for a while. Al-Qaida is not as a big a threat to us as we are our to ourselves.

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Call today or they will ban online poker

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is attaching the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act to a bill that is expected to be approved by the Congress early this evening. PLEASE call your Senators today and tell them that they should oppose the Internet gambling bill being part of Port Security legislation.

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This is what you voted into office

Olbermann

Moron

Troy Gentry Accused of Killing Tame Bear - Forbes.com

Something I'm for killing

Wired News: Death to Caps Lock

Ana Marie Cox continues to use her anus to reach the top

Eat The Press | Ana Marie Cox Named Washington Editor For Time.com | The Huffington Post

Good for her. Redhead + history of ass fucking jokes = teh win.

One Web Day 9/22/06

Piling on.

Whiskey Bar: Useless Idiots

Billmon takes on Sully and the former Bush Only Party (BOP) faithful for bitching about getting bitched at.