Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Star-Chamber Justice in the Liberal West

The statistics are in, the science is "settled": what passes for a Justice System in this nation does not fit it's title, there is only a Star-Chamber¹ left of what used to be the world's finest Justice System. Three-quarters of the sitting Judges in the USA have been appointed by Liberals and dispense only Liberal Politics, not actual justice and not according to the Constitution, either. It makes little difference to this Star Chamber system to elect, for four years, a "conservative" President. We would need at least thirty years of such Presidents to make a change and reversion to actual justice and Constitutional (strict construction) Justice.

The case I refer to today is that of Mike Strickland, an independent videographer who was filming at one of Lefty-Looney Portland's many commies-on-parade street functions, and a group of thugs, face-covered anarchists and Black Lives Matter hired goons (Soros payroll, maybe?), attempted to shut down his 1A rights by physical intimidation. This bandit gang was led by the same person who had previously assaulted Mr. Strickland and put him in the hospital, surgery required, and should have been charged with Assault Second for that event, but never was. They were carrying the usual Black Bloc weaponry, quarter-staffs disguised as protest signs. Strickland was armed, and he pulled his pistol and covered the advancing gang with it, video of him showing he never had his finger on the trigger. He was arrested and OVER-charged with Felony menacing violations, despite the obvious fact that he was not prepared to immediately fire on the gang. His case went to "Court", and he was convicted.

There are too many examples during proceedings to list. Violations of Rules of Evidence such as the "best evidence rule" - police officers who were prepared to testify that Strickland's display of his weapon did NOT rise to Menacing because he was faced with multiple assailants, some of whom had previously assaulted him, ALL of the video of the confrontation, and reasons of the District Attorney as to why his assailants were not charged with any crime. (Conspiracy, Menacing and Intimidation Second would have been highly appropriate for Mr. Kerensa et al). In fact, Kerensa's gang were made out to be saintly victims in the most grotesque twisting of the truth that THIS 25-year LEO has ever heard about in a Criminal Proceeding.

Facing 50 years on the "stacked" charges, Strickland was sentenced to "only" 40 days in jail. This is a sign that the Star Chamber Court now knows that the legal proceeding itself will face some serious scrutiny. Interestingly, the Judge also removed Strickland's First Amendment Right to publicly operate a camera and publish the resulting video. The Judge lacks that authority, which belongs ONLY to the Federal Court. Is the Judge trolling to have his case tossed so the Star Chamber can be buried? Keep this in mind.

The Strickland Case has just handed POTUS Trump his best chance at reforming the ultra-liberal, Constitution-ignoring "Courts" of the Left Coast.

It is IMPERATIVE that USAG Jeff Sessions order an immediate Civil Rights investigation, leading to Grand Jury indictments of State officials involved. I have no proof, but I suspect that the proceeding vs. Strickland was ordered at a higher level than the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. My guess is that it was ordered in the Governor's Office. A USAG investigation can and should subpoena the communications records of Governor Brown and the Democratic Party of Oregon. The Mayor of Portland at the time, Mr. Charlie Hales, a rat-a-tat liberal, might also have been involved. I am fairly certain that orders from the Chief of Portland Police also went down the line telling street officers with knowledge of the anarchist/BLM gang to keep quiet about that group's previous intimidation activities so that that gang could be portrayed as "victims".

Here is my solution, which fits MY rule of never offering conflict except at the level that will accomplish the goal, but it also fits another of MY Rules, that of turning the enemy's weaknesses against the enemy. Conservatives need to now demand that USAG Sessions makes the Strickland case a priority for Civil Rights investigation. The BEST way to do that is via FORCING Oregon's Senior Senator Ron Wyden to make that request of USAG Sessions. The "Big Stick" which Oregon's conservatives MUST use is to get a Petition going, with a HIGH number of signatures on it, and present it to Wyden. If Wyden ignores that, the heat of him ignoring it will generate smoke, and where there's smoke, there's fire, and that fire will then consume the Looney Left Star Chamber system and maybe take Wyden with it.

This Can be done, it SHOULD be done, it MUST be done.

Thank you.

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1. From the Wiki: "In modern usage, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings are sometimes called, metaphorically or poetically, star chambers. This is a pejorative term and intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings."

"Sanctuary City" leaders cook their own goose

The self-styled "Sanctuary City" mayors and fellow-traveling sycophants had a summit meeting today. They are light on historical perspective. Such a meeting of Mafiosi took place in the '60s, and as a result, many Mafia types were indicted.

 

Comes now a similar meeting of immigration lawbreakers, and with luck and hard work by Jeff Sessions, the same result will befall them that befell the Mafiosi.

Hammer time!

A different Threat, plus your responses

The events unfolding in San Bernardino show us a different threat. Not an unknown threat, just a different one.

We have been used to seeing various formats of homicidal/suicidal Jihad here: 9-11, the various Jihadi gun attacks since then, etc. All these attacks had one common characteristic: the Muslims involved were all determined to kill members of the Western Civilization, but pretty much stuck to methods which left their shock troops dead with the event. One-way attacks. Don't "pass go", Get your 72 raisins immediately.

With San Berdoo, we have just seen an attack in which the Jihadis had trained and prepared to strike with force and effect, but moved on quickly to, presumably, strike again later. Far from the normal homicide/suicide attack, this is more like revolutionary attack. This resembles what we used to refer to as a "partisan" attack. Similar to the tactics of the French or Yugoslavian partisans who attacked the Nazis during WW2. What we just saw could have been very successful for the Jihadis, and the only reason it wasn't, was better training and discipline/communication on the part of the police authorities.

My purpose here is not to figure out how to defeat this different flavor of Jihad, but to prepare the average citizen to survive it. Methods of defeat for the Muslim Jihad will have to wait for a National Command Authority determined to defeat Islamic Jihad itself, and we don't have such leadership now, we have the opposite. We have political and command leadership determined to NOT face down islamic Jihad instead of the other way around. The effect for John Q. Citizen is that he will probably have to face the shock troops of Jihad alone, possibly with the help of local police.

A personal note: I am trained in various aspects of public safety, and as events unfolded and were reported yesterday in San Berdnardino, I evaluated the events as if they were the result of criminal gang activity, since, to me, the events more resembled the activity of, say, Mexican drug cartels or the criminal gang MS-13 (both very active in San Bernardino), and both are orgs not unwilling to create mass murder to get their point across. I was wrong in that analysis, mostly because I applied the usual standard of homicide/suicide Jihad, then rejected it, and this event did not fit that model.

So, how to prepare?

1. Arm up. The protected citizen will be armed at all times, with handgun(s) within hands' reach at home and away, and a long gun close by as well. You will have to figure out how to conform to "safe storage" laws to accomplish this in your home and in your car (presumably, your "away" long gun stays in the car). At home, I have quick-reaction pistol safes (plural), and the long gun goes back in the big safe when kids are present, so I comply. In the car, I carry on my person as I am permitted to do, and my long gun is a Kel-tec folding rifle with internal lock, carried in a locking gun case, kept in the locked trunk of the vehicle.That complies with local law as well (it would NOT comply in CA or several Eastern states though).
2. Train up. At this point, if you have not already done so, join a local gun club or commercial firearms practice facility. Your preference should be one which has practice facilities for handgun (any caliber), rifle (any caliber) and shotgun. With the exceptions of no 50BMG and no full-auto, my club fits these requirements. You will need to allot sufficient funds for ammo, and/or begin to reload your chosen calibers. You will need to allot sufficient time to practice, probably a minimum of once per month in the training phase, and four times per year with all defense firearms as a maintenance-of-training effort.
3. Smarten up. Apply some common sense as to your selection of events to attend, particularly if you will be responsible for others' safety. Large outdoor events are Jihad targets of opportunity, as are crowded shopping malls. Organized athletic events in arenas and stadia are probably safer to some degree, but the Jihadis wouold love to target one for the kill ratio that they could achieve. Consider applying a sliding scale of risk to your life and it's chosen events. Yeah, that's a bummer, but we are at war, dude! You are probably safest at home, relatively safe out and about in your vehicle, safe enough doing shopping that is NOT done in large, crowded venues at peak predictable times. You are less safe in any public crowd, on mass transportation, at any outdoor event which has been heavily advertised as to attendance prospects. The training and/or dedication of your local policing authority is a factor in your relative safety also. Evaluate it.
4. Vote up. National elections are close at hand. Regardless of your political affiliation, you need to vote for your own safety. Safety is personal, and politicians and political parties which refuse to recognize your personal safety as their Job #1 should NOT get your vote. This is not about flavors of morality, this is about survival. See my note on National Command Authority, above.

Again, we are at war. The war has been brought to these shores by Islam, and it's not going to get "wished away", even though this seems to be the primary "combat strategy" of the current political Administration. YOU are responsible for your OWN safety, so make safety happen for you, NOW!

A final word. Religion. Your personal religious creed should give you the mental strength to survive the mental rigors of mortal combat. It is NOT required for that purpose, but if you hold to a creed, it will pay you to increase your attention to it in these anxious times. Your creed is your business under our Constitution. Your survival is a natural AND Constitutional Right under our system. You MUST consider anyone who attacks you for your creed or attacks your Right to survival as your enemy. Islam is attacking/denying both.

Mizzou riots, then and now

I haven't been there for the "now" riot, but I WAS there for a "then" riot...

It was September, 1961. I was an incoming Freshman at Mizzou. No scholarship, my Dad wrote the checks. I lived in the dorm, as was the requirement in those days for freshmen. Right after WW2, Mizzou had expanded and built a huge quadrangle for men's living (sexes were segregated then). Three huge, block-long dorms with a dining hall/student union at the open end. Quadrangle in the middle, big enough for regulation football, and there were fierce touch football games there, but I digress...

The Frosh were about half-way through the Freshman Orientation session, which lasted two weeks. I had been assigned to a ground-floor room (built for two, but there were three in it), with a pre-engineering guy from LA (who was a dickhead, but he soon pledged a frat and was gone) and my bestie roomie, a guy in the Tiger Marching Band with a music scholarship (wish I could remember his name now, we had great times together). The Marching Band reported early with the frosh so as to practice their music and intricate field movements and be ready for the first home football game. He played Baritone Horn, a sort of mini-tuba that only Sousa could respect and write music for. He was good on the horn, a concert-quality musician. It seemed that there were a lot of quality brass hornists housed in that Quadrangle, and on such a hot evening after supper, sometimes an impromptu jam session would result. I was going to hike down by Hinkson Creek, to check the area for wimmen*, but decided to stay and listen to the music.

There was a pre-set signal among the band guys (and a few gals, but this was a male-only area) to assemble for a jam session, and my window-sitting roomie sounded that signal. He let loose a stirring rendition of "Dixie". Almost immediately, about 6 more horns chimed in with the music, then a base drum and some snares could be heard. Roomie bailed out of the window with his horn, and the dorms soon disgorged about 20 different band members and ten times that many freshmen who didn't play, including your blogger. There weere enough drums for a modest drumline, and the horn section, and even a junior Drum Major showed up to lead the ensemble.

The Band played on for about 20 minutes, and the crowd swelled, with probably all 2,000 men dorm-residents in the quadrangle. There was a lull in the music, and someone with a good "parade-ground" voice yelled out the name of a women's dorm about 3 blocks away. The crowd surged out of the quad, and onto the street leading downhill to the women's dorms. I was in that crowd. The drums played a marching cadence, and when we arrived in front of the gal's dorm, I noted that it seemed to be locked down tight, with a visible inside bar across the front doors, and all the lobby curtains drawn. Some of the gals were hanging out of their streetside upstairs windows, though, and that was enough to keep our testosterone foaming right along. A horn played "charge", and the guys closest to the dorm surged right up to the walls. The gals upstairs encouraged that, with occasional items of female underwear sailing down to the men below and many kisses being blown down. I was not in that vanguard, I was actually in the back of the crowd when I saw the first University Police car. The two cops in the car made no attempt to contact the crowd, but instead, disappeared into the basketball arena, right across the street. In a few minutes, I saw why, and my blood ran cold. The cops were on the roof, each cop using a 35mm camera with a long lens, and they were snapping pictures as fast as they could advance the film, and they were fast reloading the cameras, too. Next thing, the dorm's front curtains parted, a Speed Graflex* was pressed up to a widow, and it's flash started a regular rythm.

I rembered something. We frosh had been instructed about gatherings like this, and we had been told that if the University recognized a face from their photos, that student was immediately expelled. Free assembly was NOT the rule then. Not suspended or fined, expelled. There was a laundromat right behind me, and I faded into it. When the opportunity presented itself, I bailed out of the laundromat and took a back way back to the dorm, where I went into the student lounge under the dining hall and read magazines for two hours until the late news came on the TV, and sure enough, there was the Big Cheese Dean of Students hisself, reporting to Columbia, MO and environs how he had already started the process of identifying the "leaders of the riot".

No-sir, I was only 17 then, but I had already learned a valuable lesson: Recon first before acting. I like to think that lesson has kept me alive in several ugly times during my life so far.

Today's Mizzou students seem not to have learned this 54-year-old lesson, and with facial-regognition software in the hands of everyone who can pay for it, the list of the commie campus bullies' names will remain long after their politics have mellowed. They are fools.

@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@

* Speed Graflex: a Large or Medium format camera, similar to the "Press Cameras" of the 19-teens through the 1950s. The cops used them as evidence cameras because the negative supported poster-sized enlargement prints. I trained on this camera in my first Police Academy in 1973. They hung around almost to the digital-camera days in police service.

Public money DIRECTLY spent for a gun grab

Cross-posted from Straight_Case gunblog, your Straight Spine bulletin board.

Interesting case, all the more so because it all happened within 5 miles of my residence.

Fact set: Crazy kid defeats lock on older brother's gun safe (a sheet-metal type, it sounds like), takes an AR-15, a vest and plenty of ammo then goes to shoot up the local High School (biggest high school in the State). He kills one, wounds another, but when the pressure is applied by the good guys, he kills himself (standard MO of these cowards).

Of course, that's when the gun-grabbing drama-llamas took over, and as a result, you have probably heard of the Reynolds High School shooting of last year.

Continuing. At the time, there was quite some speculation that the liberal Multnomah County District Attorney would charge the shooter's older bro (gun owner) with some crime, but in the end, no one could prove that the safe was left unlocked (and Oregon lacks "safe storage" laws anyway), and older bro said he had locked it. So, no crime was charged, but the authorities kept the AR and associated equipment. The older bro SUED THE CITY OF TROUTDALE, because Oregon law is quite clear that when no charges are preferred, evidence seized MUST be returned to lawful owners within a time certain.

Enter: the Troutdale City Attorney. It seems that he disagrees with his superior prosecutor, the DA, and wanted charges on older bro, but lacks jurisdiction to file them (in Oregon, only minor crimes may be charged by a City, most crimes have to be charged by the District Attorney), so he dithered and kept the gun, which was in the custody of the Troutdale Police Property Room. A State Judge heard the lawsuit, and ruled in favor of the plaintiff (older bro) that the gun and equipment must be returned. The City Attorney stalled, but apparently figured out a way to keep the plaintiff's gun: give him Fair Market Value for it. The lawsuit was soon settled.

According to this article, the City Council buried the payment to older bro on a lengthy and boring agenda of City Council administrative business, and snuck it through, except for the reporters on the City Beats. Oregonian Reporter Steve Duin, a gun-grabber himself by many previous writings, noticed and wrote the story up. Okay, at least said reporter is a digger, is willing to take on government hanky-panky, right?

Nazzofast, Guido. Read the whole article.

About fifty words in, Reporter Duin writes a paragraph listing the property involved in the lawsuit:

"One Daniel Defense Armament DDM4 carbine rifle, one of the bullies in the AR-15 family (emphasis added). Eight 30-round Magpul magazines. A “plate carrier” vest, a United State Army standard-issue laundry bag and “several hundred rounds” of ammunition."

It appears that TWO people have now personified the rifle (illogically made an inanimate object into a person), not only the City Attorney, who could not bear the idea of the gun being returned to it's rightful and blameless owner, AND Reporter Duin, who has declared that the most popular rifle in the USA is a "bully".

I was taught that there is no higher authority on the etymology of the English Language than the Oxford English Dictionary, so I went there and looked up "bully":

"(pl. bullies) a person who uses their strength or power to frighten or hurt weaker people"  (my emphasis).

O.E.D. very specifically refers to a "bully" as a PERSON (twice, once directly and one indirectly).

So sorry, Steve Duin, old sport, your anti-gun predjudice is STILL showing in your public writing. Don't bother apologizing or issuing a correction though, it would compound your anti-liberty personality defect by adding insincerity to it.

WTF, enviros?

From the Coyote Kid, who notes that these environazis may be long on enthusiasm, but they are woefully short on smarts.

Environazi attack planning:

1. Pick the next four people in the cell seeking placement in the Environazi Hall of Fame.

2. Gather equipment: bicycle u-locks and chain to chain the protestors to the target, also some glue to create further mischief.

3. Transport selves to target, an eeevilll Fracking Energy Company gas station.

4. While proprietor is distracted, chain selves to the gas pumps, deploy the glue to further damage the equipment.

5. Smile for the cameras of the sympatico news media, read the official and obligatory statement condemming fracking and other non-socialist activities.

6. Wait for the constabulary, who had to spend a lot of time delicately cutting locks and chains off of protesters.

7. Declare a victory in the name of Gaia.

According to this report, the op plan was flawlessly executed, save for one thing: the gas station these environazis attacked didn't belong to the eeevilll targeted Fracking Energy Company anymore, it belonged to an individual private person, one Mr. Patel.

DOH!

In one swell foop, these e-nazis have not only made laughingstocks of themselves and their cause, they attacked the property of a friendly foreign-born person. These Indian immigrants have sufficient numbers and cohesiveness in England to cause grave political consequences for any who attack them. They are the equivalent of our Latin voting bloc.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Gunwalker WTF

We on the Right like to use Eric Holder's failed Fast & Furious operation to beat him and his boss up with. Okay, but a dangerous splinter hangs off that cudgel.

The NRA correctly tells us that "guns don't kill people, people kill people". That is the ULTIMATE truth in the gun control "debate", isn't it? I think so.

We need to stop saying that "Eric Holder's gun killed Brian Terry". That statement just doesn't fit. If we want to keep on thumping Holder for Gunwalker, that's fine, there's plenty of fail in his op to thump him with. Personally, I'd bet serious money that the Justice Department DOES know exactly who killed Brian Terry, so why hasn't the USDOJ issued a warrant yet?

Bottom line: Holder, for all his faults, did not Kill Terry, so stow that sentiment please.

Scamazon dot com? REVISED

NOTE: This blog-post has been revised. I had originally included a factual error, the result of sloppy research, in the previous version.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

If any of my two or three regular readers live in Seattle, you may object to this post, because it pans one of your local self-made men, Jeff Bezos, and his firm, Amazon dot com.

Back story: I found the perfect Xmas present for one of my daughters. It is a JIS 9000, waterproof and rubber armored "boom-box". Note that the definition of such has changed in the last 30 years. Boomboxes used to weigh 20#+, and take up the entire back seat of your Honda Civic. These were also known as "ghetto blasters". This one I just bought (well, I THINK I've bought it, it's not here yet) Is tiny by blaster standards,  but it's what the yutes go for now. Good for them, they're keeping their music more personal.

But I digress.

So, I buy this item online, and immediately start getting bombarded with emails by Amazon. First email was one asking if I wanted to keep shopping. Deleted. Then, one stating that they had received my order. Saved it. Then another exclaiming that they were processing the order. Deleted, then one stating it had been shipped. Saved it. Then several more stating it had been shipped. Trashbin.

Then a curious phenomenon: I start getting phone calls from something called QRI. They called for two days, maybe 8 to 10 calls. I never answered any of them and they never left a message, but I did get curious: after research, it seems that they are associated with Amazon! Will wonders never cease? My research said they would remove me from their robocall stack, dial their # back and hit a two. Did that and the calls ceased, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. a scammy taste.

Then, this ayem, I get up and look at the email. Some outfit I never heard of, "TechGiant", wants me to evaluate my purchase. Strange, since I had ordered it as a present and wrapped and the purchase had not involved "TechGiant".

There are smoke and mirrors here. Why? Has Amazon gotten too big too fast? Why doesn't their site tell you up front who you are actually purchasing from? EBay does that, so why can't Bezos? Why doesn't TechGiant show up in searches? There is just no information out there on them. Amazon DOES have a review system, but there is none for TechGiant. If I had answered that email and reviewed my purchase, where would the review have gone? This reminds me of the gamblers who used to ride the buses in DeeCee where I grew up, doing their Shell Game for nickels and dimes...

Now, add this experience to another difficulty I just had with the Amazon about my Kindle account, and well, I have lost faith in this company to do business in a fair, trustworthy and equitable manner.

World: Beware of Scamazon dot com

CryptoLocker !

If the above title doesn't do anything for you, it should. As a computer user, you have a responsibility to keep up with threats—at least recognizing them—to the equipment you use; just as a woodcarver has to keep his tools sharp, so do you. 

CryptoLocker is a new form of computer threat: RansomWare. It enters your computer via a “Trojan” virus and encrypts certain types of files, namely all the stuff you want to keep (Microsoft Office files, photos, databases, 2D and 3D drafting files—about 60 types in all), and NOT the operating system files, which are easily replaceable. It only affects Windows systems—Linux and MacOS are naturally immune.

You get the Trojan by opening an email attachment (a zip file containing a friendly-looking PDF). Only it is not really a PDF, but an .exe. Windows knows what it is, but doesn't tell you and happily runs it when you click on it. Once you have it, it changes the desktop background into a ransom demand:

 If you pay the ransom, $300 at first, you supposedly will be sent a decryption key so you can unlock your files and use them again. You have to act fast on their demand if you are going to pay the ransom, you only have 72 hours to complete a fairly complex, “dead-drop” payment, after which the ransom quintuples, but you still only have a few more days. The encryption that CryptoLocker uses is secure—computationally unfeasible to break. It's a 2,048-bit binary key, and 256-bit is the most any brute force decryption tool will even try, and even then you need a supercomputer to run it.

If you get CryptoLocker, and you want the files, you need to comply with the piracy. Even then, there's a chance that you won't be able to comply and will lose the files.

Let's look on the bright side and say you don't have CryptoLocker yet. How do you keep from getting it? Hint: no anti-virus will stop it for now. You have to stop it with your own personal computer discipline.

Here are some steps you should start taking immediately:

Make a daily FULL backup to a stand-alone hard drive. You can get a Terabyte (1,000 gigabyte) hard drive for about $120 now. Get a reliable program to do the backup. One should come free with any new external hard drive.

1. When the daily backup is done, disconnect the backup drive from the computer. Physically disconnect it (unplug the USB cable). This insures that an infection doesn't get onto the backup disk. At the same time, remove any removable media from the computer.

2. The remaining discipline steps involve how you use the Internet. First, email: examine every email with an attachment closely before opening the attachment. Do you know the sender personally? If it's a business, have you received emails from that business before? If the answer is NO, delete the email and attachment. If it was harmless, what have you lost but some sales opportunity or some bee-essing with a buddy? If you see some wording in the email which looks like it's a bad translation of Kirgyz or some exotic language, DELETE immediately. This assumes that all your email list can actually write the King's English properly.

3. Surfing the Internet. If you surf porn sites, you ask for trouble, enough said. If you go to any commercial site and it's not what it seems, abandon it. For example, a few years ago, yours truly was looking for parts for a collector vehicle, and when I got to a site that Google said offered them, I got a pop-up ad for a porn site. That should have been a clue, but it wasn't, and the next page I turned on the “parts” site got me a nasty trip-hammer attack from a virus which overwhelmed my anti-virus with repeated attacks until it got through. That attack cost me $1,100 in damage.

 

Finally, if you can summon up geeky courage, quit using Windows. Over 98% of computer viruses are written for Windows, because it is so easy to break into Windows, no matter the version. A very few are written for Apple operating systems, and none that I know of for Unix-based operating systems. I am learning to use a Unix operating system, Linux Fedora, which I have operating a spare computer. I don't even have anti-virus for the Fedora 19 box, though it is available for free. The Department of Defense rates my Linux Fedora box as suitable for Secret WITHOUT cryptography installed, and for Top Secret, NoForn with basic cryptography. When I learn Unix well enough, ALL my computers will run it, and I'll look back on my Windows computing life as just a horrible example of inefficiency and worry. BTW, most of the Windows programs you are used to using have free Unix versions, and if you really can't force yourself to learn a new system, you can put a “windows emulator” on your Unix box that will use your Windows files but in Linux's naturally secure architecture.

My curiosity is running away with me on this one, so if any of you geeks out there read this, what happens when the NSA, spying on everyone as they now do, copies a Unix-based file you are transmitting over the 'Net? Do they even know what they have? Do they put the file-sender into a special category to be watched? What DOES happen with our spy-masters, who probably use Unix-based equipment themselves?

H/T to Wally the SysEng

S.N.A.P., aka Food Stamps.

A small cut in allotments for food stamps just went into effect because "stimulus" money allocated temporarily to the program went away.

Of all the forms of government assistance, i.e., welfare, food assistance makes the most sense to me because it is DIRECT assistance.

If I were reforming welfare, the first thing I would do is prosecute the cheats. The food stamp program has it's share of cheats, and if a few hundred of them did some jail time, the program would be "self-cleaning" in short order.

This isn't political. It's a criminal matter. Hammer the cheats, period.