Extortion on a Grand Scale not surprising in the Land of the Mobster

Citywide Strike Halts New York Subways and Buses - New York Times

Shivering, intrepid and occasionally befuddled, New Yorkers yesterday faced down the first citywide transit strike in a quarter-century, walking, biking and car-pooling through their city as transit workers and the state agency that employs them remained locked in intransigence.

Millions of subway and bus commuters stood at street corners, clutching paper coffee cups, waiting for private buses, taxis or drivers willing to take urban hitchhikers out of the 20-degree morning chill just hours after the Transport Workers Union announced a general strike.

Every day and in every way, the modern labour union is becoming indistinguishable from the Mob.

That's a nice city you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.

With proper labour laws, I think we could dispense with this extortion completely.

What? Freedom?

Renewal of anti-terror law blocked in Senate - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, demanding increased protection of civil liberties, defied President George W. Bush on Friday and blocked legislation to renew the USA Patriot Act, a centerpiece of his war on terrorism.

On a Senate vote of 52-47, mostly Republican backers of the measure fell eight short of the needed 60 to end debate and move to passage of the legislation.

This is truly the best thing to happen all day. The idea that America is moving one step away from totalitarianism is something i didn't expect but greatly applaud.

Those poor 52 Senators, though: the current admin's goons will see to it they never get re-elected again, and probably they will suffer yearly tax audits until the end of time.

Critical Free Speech Upheld

CBS News | Student Wins Anti-Bush Shirt Clash | December 13, 2005�21:34:07:

(AP) A Pennsylvania student is off the hook after the American Civil Liberties Union defended his right to wear a political T-shirt to school.

Chris Schiano's T-shirt said 'International Terrorist' and had a picture of President Bush.

Apparently Mr Schiano did his homework - for shock - and knew that the school had no legal right to stand on when it said he should remove the potentially critical clothing or go home.

Thankfully this means we're getting away from the crap from the last few years, where one can be considered unamerican if one dares to criticise or question any part of the current administration.

Now we just need more careful criticism.

On the 10th day of Festivus, TV gave to me - TV Squad

David Cross on Fox Marketing:

4. 'I got an idea for what you can do. You can f---ing fire your complete marketing team, alright? Get a new one in that knows how to market a show that won five mother-f---ing Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG awards, WAGA awards, DGA awards, Producers Guild awards, critics' top ten lists. If you can't market that kind of show and get better ratings, then maybe the problem doesn't lie here. Maybe it lies with marketing. Goodnight.' David Cross, ranting about FOX's lack of faith in his critcally-acclaimed show, during a short segment on the Arrested Development, Season 2 DVD.

Heh heh. Brings the fate of Firefly to mind, doesn't it? I mean, Firefly was an emmy-winning, well-written show with flawed but likable characters and real acting. And Fox couldn't apparently do enough to kill it, including pre-empting it with re-run made-for-TV movies.

I just wish I'd said that, that's all.

10% Chance of spoofing Biometric security: that's the dream

LinuxElectrons - Engineer Outwits Fingerprint Recognition Devices with Play-Doh:

Fingerprint scanning devices often use basic technology, such as an optical camera that take pictures of fingerprints which are then “read” by a computer. In order to assess how vulnerable the scanners are to spoofing, Schuckers and her research team made casts from live fingers using dental materials and used Play-Doh to create molds. They also assembled a collection of cadaver fingers.

Clarkson University Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Stephanie C. Schuckers, with imitation fingers. Simple casts made from a mold and material such as Play-doh, clay or gelatin can be used to fool most fingerprint recognition devices. Schuckers, an expert in biometrics, the science of using biological properties, such as fingerprints or voice recognition, to identify individuals, is a partner in a $3.1 million interdisciplinary biometrics research project funded by the National Science Foundation with support from the Department of Homeland Security.
In the laboratory, the researchers then systematically tested more than 60 of the faked samples. The results were a 90 percent false verification rate.

“The machines could not distinguish between a live sample and a fake one,” Schuckers explained. “Since liveness detection is based on the recognition of physiological activities as signs of life, we hypothesized that fingerprint images from live fingers would show a specific changing moisture pattern due to perspiration but cadaver and spoof fingerprint images would not.”

In live fingers, perspiration starts around the pore, and spreads along the ridges, creating a distinct signature of the process. Schuckers and her research team designed a computer algorithm that would detect this pattern when reading a fingerprint image. With the new detection system integrated into the device, less than 10 percent of the spoofed samples were able to fool the machine.

So lemme get this straight:

• If you use a fingerprint recognition system, there's a 90% chance that someone can spoof it with Play-doh.
• These systems are touted as being secure
• Even if this new system is totally effective, the chance of being spoofed is still 1 in 10.

Spot the thief who wouldn't swife or push something a mere ten times if it meant totally busting your Banke Account or maquerading as you at the supermarket. Considering the rate at which the relatively trivial bar code reader fails at the supermarket and requires re-swiping, I'm quite sure that a potential thief will not get a second glance if he looks the part.

And looking the part is what they've been practicing at for decades. This system is screwed.

US Running out of War Crimes to Commit; Stoops to Denying Red Cross Access

BBC NEWS | Americas | US blocks ICRC access to suspects:

The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody.

The state department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger, made the admission but gave no details about where such prisoners were held.

Correspondents say the revelation is likely to increase suspicion that the CIA has been operating secret prisons outside international oversight.

The really tough part I face, these days, is a risk of becoming too desensitized to occasions where the US mistreats more prisoners or commits another War Crime. I need to continue to be outraged, so as to continue to believe that they're generally above such abuses of human rights.

Because they were one of us who were above this kind of stuff when we tried the guys in Nurnberg.

Study Suggests Caffeine Can Help Liver

Study Suggests Caffeine Can Help Liver:

Coffee and tea may reduce the risk of serious liver damage in people who drink too much alcohol, are overweight or have too much iron in the blood, researchers reported yesterday.

The study of nearly 10,000 people showed that those who drank more than two cups of coffee or tea per day developed chronic liver disease at half the rate of those who drank less than one cup each day.

Forbes is reporting the same thing:

There have been other studies that have shown this effect from caffeine, said lead researcher Dr. James E. Everhart. However, why caffeine protects against liver disease is not known.

"Caffeine blocks one receptor found in the brain and liver. This may have immunological effects, but this is really speculative," he added.


In their study, Everhart and his colleague, Dr. Constance E. Ruhl from Social and Scientific Systems in Silver Spring, Md., collected data on 5,944 men and women who were at high risk for liver injury.

The subject's risk came from excessive drinking, hepatitis B or C, iron overload, obesity or impaired sugar metabolism.

Okay, so I'm a risk on at least one of those. Awesome.

So, I guess it's DDP to the rescue. Yay!

Bring the boys back home

Mr Stewart,

Your site presents me with a great dilemma. You see, I've walked long distances in hand-me-down boots and fired automatic rifles myself. I support and worry for the Grunt working in-country, and really do hope that all your countrymen return home as soon as possible.

But I cannot stomach the idea that they're fighting evil in Iraq. It's been proven, oh so many times, that Mr Hussein was merely a corrupt, violent, arrogant leader of a very bankrupt country; similar to how I think Americans see Mr Castro. While we both know that the US invaded Cuba in Mr Kennedy's time, I think we can both agree that Cuba is just not a military threat to your nation -- in the same way which the Dominicans specifically twice posed no threat to America during Mr Johnson's presidency, to cite another of many examples.

And neither was Iraq; today, three years ago and probably 13 years ago as well. Militarily speaking, it was a shambles from about the second day of the Air War, if it ever posed any kind of threat in the first place to a country so many thousands of miles away. All the stories of WMDs have been shown to be blatantly bogus, and your Military Leaders have broken almost every rule of war ever conceived after WWI, WWII or Vietnam. The idea that an organization founded 60 years ago on an ideal of collective security has its home offices in a country which has belligerently invaded another country almost twice every decade in the last 60 years, is tragic.

My point is, the fighting of the evil which most threatens your nation will be done via letters to senators and, one day, a complete overhaul of your democratic process. If your countrymen are fighting evil, then they're in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are at their typewriters and computers, they are at their post offices, and some of the more expressive are manning pointless picket lines in the hopes of suggesting that national aggression isn't the way to beat the energy crisis. The picket lines and the protests are unfortunately the only front lines that should matter to Americans at this point, and restoring your country to something worth of a constitution should be your only goal.

Would I like to bring your troops home? Of course; not to want them home is disgraceful on many fronts, most of all to the residents who call that irradiated soil home. But I would not bring home the dozens stationed in the mountains who are fighting an evil your people have forgotten, and I cannot fund a society which so deludes itself regarding the purpose of the people who are stationed in Iraq.

Sincerely, and with Great Hope for your Future,
- me

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.co.uk

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.co.uk:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hotels offer many amenities, but being eaten by bedbugs should not be one of them, say two Swiss women suing a prominent Manhattan hotel.

The women, in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, want the Hotel Pennsylvania and its owners to pay unspecified damages due to physical pain, mental anguish, emotional distress and lost earnings.

Ugh. I'm so not staying there. Thankfully, I do know some people (without bug-free couches) in the area and I can hopefully avoid the unpleasantness of a stay in a big hotel.

Not that the Pennsylvania is unique: rumour has it that Bedbugs are on their way back in a big way, and that all major hotels are fighting this unmentioned problem.

Sleep well.