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Page 75 of 791 pages « First < 73 74 75 76 77 > Last »
May 2007
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Weekend at Soloway’s?
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Thu 31 May 2007 10:42
by Kevin McGehee
72° and cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Our Times]
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How would it be possible to tell whether one’s computer has been zombified by a spammer?
A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.
Robert Alan Soloway is accused of using networks of compromised “zombie” computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails.
“He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world,“ said Tim Cranton, a Microsoft Corp. lawyer who is senior director of the company’s Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. “He’s a huge problem for our customers. This is a very good day.“
A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.
Soloway pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to all charges after a judge determined that — even with four bank accounts seized by the government — he was sufficiently well off to pay for his own lawyer.» AP: Notorious Spam King Nabbed in Seattle, Could Face Long Prison Term
Are the users whose machines have been compromised like this, the kind of people who don’t use firewalls, anti-spyware scanners and anti-virus software? Just how insidious is this?
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AK4MC Is Now Mobile
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Wed 30 May 2007 19:20
by Kevin McGehee
86° and mostly cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[AK4MC]
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A while back Chris took her car in to our regular shop for routine service, and she asked them to see if they could improve on the not-so-tidy installation job she and I had done on her 2-meter mobile ham radio rig. They did such a fine job that I decided to have them do mine too. Not only did they handle the wiring, but they also took care of the antenna lead and set the radio on a bracket of sorts, which Chris’ rig didn’t need.
The hardest part was making sense of the programming instructions so that I could get into the local repeaters, but once I got that sorted out I was quickly able to program in several more repeaters that I thought might come in handy during my travels.
Now if our HF antenna kit would just get here so we can get the base station rig on the air, we’d finally be in a position to put these licenses to some serious use.
And of course, we have that four-band radio she got for home use on the bands the HF rig won’t do, and it’s supposed to replace a 2-meter handheld that we’ve been using at home, freeing up the latter for field use (it was, in fact, one of the two radios we used to keep in touch while driving our respective vehicles from North Pole, Alaska to our present stomping grounds). The last time we tried to set up the four-bander, though, we apparently got the juice hooked up backwards or something. Fixing that was one of two jobs that Eddie, WB4QAU, did for us—the other being fixing this mobile rig that’s now installed in my Bronco.
No, neither one of us has ever shown much inclination to do any “contesting.“ Mostly, Chris wants to be able to take part in various ARES-related nets, which because of the ranges they cover need to be conducted in the longer-wavelength bands.
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I’m Hanging Out My Shingle
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Tue 29 May 2007 14:20
by Kevin McGehee
82° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
4 comments
[Our Times]
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Notice to all elected officials: I am available for consulting work to help you with executing the powers of your office effectively and to the proper benefit of your constituents.
My specialty is grabbing you by the lapels, shaking you until your teeth rattle, and shrieking,
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR COTTON-PICKING MIND!!??
If you wish to partake of my services, email me using the link under my photo at left.
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‘She Has No Pulse’
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Mon 28 May 2007 22:43
by Kevin McGehee
69° and clear
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Get Offa My Lawn!]
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“Serious tensions” exist between U.S. Sen. Mrs. Bill Clinton’s Washington-based presidential campaign staff and those working on her campaign in New York, Democratic insiders say.
“Her New York crew is fighting like hell with her D.C. folks, and it’s worse than the normal stuff, real serious tensions,“ said a Democratic Party source. “The New York folks are the ones who got her elected to begin with. They’ve done it and know what to do. The D.C. folks are the ‘geniuses’ who do ‘national elections’ and think everyone here is a rube.
“The Washington types hold meeting after meeting and then send a group of fatheaded 27-year-olds to do events in New York, and they wind up fighting with her staff here,“ continued the source, who is in day-to-day contact with party activities.» New York Post: New York-D.C. Feud Rattles Clinton Campaign
Sounds a lot like the descriptions of the 1993-2001 Clinton White House, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, the source said many New York Democrats believe Mrs. Clinton “isn’t doing so well out there, that she may not have what it takes to become president.
“When you’re out talking to real Democrats in the field, you hear them say, ‘She has no pulse. Just polls.‘ Did you see how she voted on the Iraq resolution? . . . She waited to see how [Barack] Obama voted before she did. So calculated even on such a core issue,“ the source said.
It’s just gossip, of course—but lest we forget, Matt Drudge was generally regarded in D.C. as an internet gossip reporter before he broke the Lewinsky story.
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Charles Nelson Reilly, 1931-2007
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Mon 28 May 2007 12:51
by Kevin McGehee
75° and partly cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
3 comments
[Our Times]
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Charles Nelson Reilly, who acted and directed on Broadway but came to be best known for his campy television appearances on talk shows and “Match Game,” died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his partner, Patrick Hughes, who is his only immediate survivor. Mr. Reilly had been ill for more than a year, he said.
Long before moving west to become what he somewhat ruefully described as a “game show fixture,” Mr. Reilly was an actor and an acting teacher in New York City. In 1962, he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Bud Frump in the original Broadway production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” » New York Times: Charles Nelson Reilly, Tony-Winning Comic Actor, Dies at 76
I remember him from as far back as “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” on TV, and on a number of shows afterward of course. The last thing I saw him in was a more-off-kilter-than-usual episode of “The X-Files,“ but he’s obviously kept busy since then, including in two episodes of “The Drew Carey Show” that I didn’t see.
I can’t say I was surprised to learn he was, in fact, gay—but it never mattered to me either way. He was a genuinely funny man who will be missed.
H/t LeatherPenguin.
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Because I Still Can
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Mon 28 May 2007 0:40
by Kevin McGehee
64° and mostly cloudy
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Yee-haw!]
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 It’s not technically Memorial Day yet, but since this post is a retrospective anyway…
Three years ago, Kelley posted this at Suburban Blight, and in a comment on my post linking it, MORSteve added a link to this by Joe Katzman at Winds of Change. I also linked to this at Brain Fertilizer. And then there was this—found thanks to Indigo.
From two years ago, a bit of a round-up. Most of the links still work, even.
And last year I posted the text of an email written by Robert Stokely, whose son Mike was killed in Iraq in August 2005.
Enjoy the holiday, but please remember.
Update, Tuesday: Cox & Forkum also do a retrospective.
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Memo to Non-Profits
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Fri 25 May 2007 10:30
by Kevin McGehee
66° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
5 comments
[Here's Your Sign]
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Yes, I realize that the laws setting up the do-not-call lists almost always include loopholes for you. But do you realize that the reason people sign up for those do-not-call lists is because they don’t want unsolicited calls of any kind? The fact your call is perfectly legal DOES NOT MAKE IT ANY MORE WELCOME.
Telling me you’re not calling to solicit a donation doesn’t cut it, and you and I both know it’s a lie anyway. And when I have to repeat “Do not call!“ several times over your scripted spiel before you finally realize you’re only pissing me off, I am left wanting to keep an air horn by the phone for the next time I see your number on my caller ID.
If you call somebody’s home number and they don’t answer three or more times—and then when somebody does answer they are angry and uncooperative (which I have had occasion to elevate to an art form, by the way), GET THE F@#KING HINT. Your only graceful way out is to apologize, promise never to call my number again from anywhere for any reason, and hang up immediately.
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Those Damn ‘Contrarain’ Hurricanes
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Thu 24 May 2007 21:37
by Kevin McGehee
78° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
0 comments
[Nature]
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Over the last 5,000 years, the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today, according to a new study.
The authors, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, say their findings do not necessarily conflict with recent papers asserting a link between the region’s hurricane activity and human-caused warming of the climate and seas.
But, they say, their work does imply that factors other than ocean temperature, at least for thousands of years, appear to have played a pivotal role in shaping storminess in the region.» New York Times: Study Finds Hurricanes Frequent in Some Cooler Periods
Seems to me there were people saying this in 2005 while the hysterical news media were insisting that the busiest hurricane season on record was proof that allegedly human-caused global warming was suddenly having catastrophic effects on the weather.
[The deliberate misspelling in the title is drawn from this comment.]
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