InMuscatine

We are forced to note difference between NATO and India :

NATO plays “catch ‘n’ release” with pirates.

India plays for keeps :

An Indian navy warship has destroyed a suspected Somali pirate vessel after it came under attack in the Gulf of Aden.

INS Tabar sank the pirate “mother ship” after it failed to stop for investigation and opened fire instead, an Indian navy statement said.

[From BBC NEWS | South Asia | India ’sinks Somali pirate ship’]

Oh, hell yeah! What are the odds the pirates are going to screw with any Indian vessel? Ummm, that would be zero.

The Indian navy said the Tabar spotted the pirate vessel while patrolling 285 nautical miles (528km) south-west of Salalah in Oman on Tuesday evening.

The navy said the pirates on board were armed with guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers.

When it demanded the vessel stop for investigation, the pirate ship responded by threatening to “blow up the naval warship if it closed on her”, the statement said.

Pirates then fired on the Tabar, and the Indians say they retaliated and that there was an explosion on the pirate vessel, which sank.

Please, please, please dear merciful God in Heaven tell us some Indian sailor was armed with a camcorder and recorded the entire event. Please let that sailor upload it to the internet as a warning to all who would be pirates

All for the unforgivable crime of expressing dissatisfaction with the direction of the State of Iowa.

We recognize and applaud the Walgreen Company for introducing free health care for the unemployed and uninsured, without government compulsion :

Drugstore operator Walgreen will offer free clinic visits to the unemployed and uninsured for the rest of the year, providing tests and routine treatment for minor ailments through its walk-in clinics — though patients will still pay for precriptions.

Walgreen said patients who lose their job and health insurance after March 31 will be able to get free treatment at its in-store Take Care clinics for respiratory problems, allergies, infections and skin conditions, among other ailments. Typically those treatments cost $59 or more for patients with no insurance.

Hal Rosenbluth, chairman of the Take Care Health Systems division, described the plan as something close to an experiment: He said Walgreen isn’t sure of patient demand or how much providing the services might cost the company.

[From The Associated Press: Walgreen giving free care to jobless and uninsured]

And we also applaud the Walgreen Company for telling the government to stick it where the sun don’t shine :

As a result of extreme reimbursement cuts in the State of Washington Medicaid program, Walgreens (NYSE:WAG)(NASDAQ:WAG) today announced it will withdraw 44 of its pharmacies from the state’s Medicaid program as of May 1. These 44 pharmacies represent more than 60 percent of the company’s total Medicaid business in the state and are found in communities large and small. Walgreens operates 111 pharmacies throughout Washington.

Under a new Medicaid reimbursement rule set to take effect on April 1, the State of Washington will significantly reduce the price it will pay for brand name medications, severely impacting the economic viability of doing business in Washington.

Kermit Crawford, Walgreens senior vice president of pharmacy, said, “We have made the decision to stop filling Medicaid prescriptions in these pharmacies after long and careful deliberations. Walgreens is the market leader in Washington and provides cost-effective pharmacy service across the state. We have thousands of loyal patients who appreciate and trust our pharmacists, and we are absolutely committed to patient care.

“The fact remains that the state could fill its Medicaid budget gap in a number of other ways. As an example, independent and chain pharmacies have identified as much as $90 million in potential savings through more effective medication management. These are sound alternatives to payment cuts to pharmacies.”

[From Walgreens to Stop Filling Medicaid Prescriptions at Nearly Half of Its Pharmacies in the State of Washington as of May 1 - FOXBusiness.com]

Good for Walgreen Company! We abhorred the recent mindset in Washington where every private resource was somehow perceived as the private piggy-bank of politicians at all levels. We congratulate the Walgreen Company for giving the politicians in Washington a crash-course education in basic business economics.

Well done!

Such a sloppy job from Fox News :

Last month, Buffalo resident Aasiya Hassan, 37, was found decapitated after she had been complaining to police about domestic violence. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, was charged with the crime.

While Muslim leaders caution against stereotypes and point out that domestic violence happens in all cultures, some women’s rights leaders worry that Islam is being used to justify violence against women.

[From FOXNews.com - Muslim Women in U.S. Struggle to Balance Western Freedoms and Islamic Culture]

This may be. We remember an earlier story we covered where TV in the Muslim world was broadcasting “how-to” programs covering wife beating. We believe this to be the difference between Muslim culture and the rest of the world : the abuse is systemic, intergenerational, and worse - expected. What also bothers us is how silent NOW is over all this.

Then again, nobody else NOW criticizes will hunt them down and murder them either.

“The typical Muslim man, they always are very overprotective, they’re very controlling over the women. They’re not allowed to do this, they’re not allowed to do that,” says 23-year-old Fai Oman, who was born in Yemen.

She says she feels lucky to be living in the West because she has more freedom and security than she would have in her home country.

And this is precisely the problem. Islam dictates “uppity” women must be beaten, and it is the only religion - so far as we can tell - which gives specific instruction and permission for the beatings.

In short, Islam is completely incompatible with freedom so long as that freedom is for women.

NOW, call the office…

Here we go again. The MSM will launch into another series of bogus stories about how vulnerable the Mac is compared to Windows. The problem is, there is still no there, there :

The Pwn2Own contest is being presented as a shootout between Mac and Windows browsers. Last year’s contest also included Linux, but attendees with the ability to crack Linux “didn’t want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest,” according to a report by IDG.

That fact highlights that, in reality, the platforms and browsers involved aren’t targeted by a series of equal attacks. Instead, researchers arrive with exploits they hope to use against vulnerabilities they are aware of in specific platforms or browsers, but have not yet reported. Were they to report the exploits in advance, they would be patched by the vendor. There’s no money in that, so the contest provides an incentive to report vulnerabilities.

In exchange for the winning prize, Miller granted the reporting rights to the discovered flaw in Safari to TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative, which will coordinate the handling of the disclosure and the patch release process with Apple. When a vulnerability is reported to Apple, the company credits the discoverer with finding the problem when issuing a patch for it.

[From AppleInsider | Mac security researcher wins Pwn2Own contest with Safari hack]

And here is the problem :

Pay no attention to the yellow wire, or the “hacker” sitting at the computer.

This is the problem we have been harping on since Pwn2Own started - that being that anyone with physical access to a computer can “pwn” it with practically no skill. In fact, here is the “rule” about physical access :

Each laptop will only have a direct wired connection (exposed through a crossover cable) and only one person may attack each system at a time so that each team’s exploit remains private.

We have called for a real test of a “hacker” to be zero physical access, the Mac computer located in another city behind a standard Cable/DSL router, and the “hacker” is supplied only an IP address. There will be no “social engineering” (read: exploiting stupid people), just a brute-force takeover of the computer by any software the “hacker” can write or choose to use.

If you do not like that, then is there someone explain why the “rules” of Pwn2Own expressly forbid remote exploits? Seriously, you cannot claim the prize money if you can remotely hack the machine - the “rules” expressly state you must physically be present at CanSecWest.

We suspect the reason for this “rule” is every “hacker” would fall flat on their faces were they to attack a PC to which they didn’t have physical access and was protected by a standard firewall in a Cable/DSL router. Well, at least if that computer is a Mac.

But we also wish to make the point the Mac in question wasn’t “pwned” in seconds - from all we can tell there was nearly a year of research put into these “hacks” and they were only executed in seconds. Oddly, you never hear about how many man-hours of effort went into that “seconds” worth of “exploit”.

But sensational - albeit utterly clueless - headlines grab the eyeballs and scare sheeple into thinking their computers will be scooped up and digitally raped at the whim of some “hacker” hopped-up on silicon. While sensational, it just doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.

Please note we are not saying that no computer is immune from being compromised. Far from it. We acknowledge the old aeronautical saying - you can make a barn door fly with enough horsepower. The question was, is, and always will be this :

Is the payoff worth the expenditure of resources for a hacker to “pwn” your computer?

For the vast majority of people with a home PC that answer will always be no.

From the Press Release :

“Tea to Be Donated For Tax Day Tea Parties”

Portsmouth Tea Company to Donate Tea

NATIONAL- On April 15th the DontGo Movement (www.dontgomovement.com) in collaboration with Michelle Malkin, Top Conservatives on Twitter, and Smart Girl Politics will be hosting Tax Day Tea Parties in every state in America. For the Tea Parties, the Portsmouth Tea Company (www.portsmouthtea.com) will be donating one pound for every participating state. They will be providing tea similar to what was used at the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

President of the Portsmouth Tea Company, Marshall Malone, says, “It’s an honor to aid in the revival of liberty – fighting socialism rather than imperialism. The number of lives impacted is greater than our founding fathers ever imagined. We will choose our own stimulus package and offer $2 shipping until tax day.”

Communications Director Juliana Johnsons, “This highlights how many people are getting involved. We are so thankful to the Portsmouth Tea Company for supporting our cause. These are small business owners, working, everyday Americans who believe in our cause. We have more than 20 states holding Tax Day Tea Parties. We are growing every day. April 15th will be something this nation hasn’t seen since 1773.

The goal of these protests is to call attention to the unprecedented wasteful spending by the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress.

Information on the Tax Day Tea Party can be found at www.taxdayteaparty.com

The Democrats aren’t the only ones with tax problems. It would seem Gov. Palin owes back taxes for not living in the Governor’s mansion and collecting a State of Alaska per diem for doing so :

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials.

The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

“The amount of taxes owed is a private matter,” Sharon Leighow, Palin’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record.”

[From adn.com | Palin owes tax on per diem, state says ]

We don’t believe this issue should be “private” as Palin is living on the public dole, as it were. And certainly Palin cannot claim the mantle of “watchdog” of the people’s taxes if she is not open and transparent about the amounts and how they were paid.

Palin billed the state for 312 nights spent in her Wasilla home during her first 19 months in office, according to the Washington Post. She received $60 a day tax free, money intended to cover meals and incidentals, while traveling on state business, her travel forms show.

We believe Palin shouldn’t be receiving these payments simply for not wanting to stay in the Governor’s mansion. Were Gov. Palin actually traveling on business for Alaska - say, on a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. - certainly she is entitled. But exploiting a loop-hole in the law to boost pay by refusing to stay in the official residence of the Governor should be cause to disqualify any Alaska governor from collecting the money.

The Politico story about the survey said his situation echoed that of Tom Daschle, who had to step down as President Barack Obama’s pick for health secretary after revelations about back taxes, including taxes owed for a limo and driver.

“For Politico to say it’s the same as Daschle — that’s bunk,” Begich said.

We fail to see the hair Begich is splitting so very fine. Back taxes are back taxes, and they serve to illustrate how screwed up the tax code is.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

Posted using ShareThis

Despite stable-to-rising sales, Wal-Mart is laying off workers :

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is closing its return center in Georgia and laying off all 400 employees, in the second job cuts the retailer disclosed this week.

The Macon facility is one of six return centers that Wal-Mart operates across the U.S. to handle merchandise that is returned, defective or recalled.

The facility has been open for 15 years and has become too small to process all of the goods that are shipped to it, Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said.

Wal-Mart will now ship the goods to a third-party contractor in South Carolina, said Rossiter, who declined to identify the contractor.

[From Wal-Mart Closing Ga. Return Center, With 400 To Lose Jobs]

We think we have found the third party contractor - Wal-Mart :

We’ve learned more specifics about the jobs that will be available when a Walmart Return Center moves from Macon, Georgia to Spartanburg County.

Hundreds of new jobs will come to the Upstate.

[From New Info on Applying for Walmart Return Center Jobs | WSPA]

So what is Wal-Mart trying to pull? If this is a simple case of closing one center and opening another, why didn’t they say so?

The QC Times then :

Jennifer Figge’s spirit of adventure and ocean-sized work ethic remain part of our Quad-City fabric, nurtured in her Davenport childhood home and still apparent in her hometown’s school system, symphony and so many other places.

Figge is drawing worldwide attention for her Africa-to-South America swim across the Atlantic. The Davenport native now lives in Aspen, Colo., as an endurance athlete, undertaking unthinkable challenges that push the limits of human endurance.

[From An ocean-sized achievement / QCTimes.com]

And the AP now :

There were problems with the story from the start. A few of the less-important ones included the fact that Cape Verde is at least 2,400 miles, not 2,100, from Trinidad. And the African islands are about 500 miles off the western coast of the continent, meaning Figge had a huge head start on her trip across the Atlantic. (It’d be like somebody saying they ran across America after starting in Cincinnati.)

Those are trivial though. The real issue stemmed from the fact that swimming 2,100 miles in 25 days is impossible. (Some newspapers picked up on this.) It’s infinitely more impossible when somebody only spends 21 minutes swimming during one of those 25 days. Michael Phelps swimming his fastest would take about 20 days to cover that distance. And that’s his fastest pace, sustained for three weeks, without ever stopping. Impossible.

[From The great Atlantic Ocean swimming hoax - Fourth-Place Medal - Olympics - Yahoo! Sports]

Well, so much for pushing the limits of human endurance. Pushing the boundaries of the truth, well we believe the QC Times does just fine with that.