Computer & Laptop Security

I recently found this blog post detailing how a well known Canadian security program Computrace (created by Vancouver security group Absolute Software) describes how it could be turned against the owner. Here is Absolute's response.

Irregardless of the likelyhood of such a security breech (the point being that if someone steals your laptop and it has something worth stealing, they have alot of ways to discover them and can be sucessful) it only points to another obvious reason to develop security measures for PC use, including data drive encryption (which I can not stress enough) via open source programs like TrueCrypt. (Again, which I personally use and totally endorse!)

I hope these links help.

Female Serial Killers

I ran across a review of this book by Torontonian, Peter VRONSKY in a Criminology Journal and was surprised to find an interesting collection of eclectic topics covered - among them teaching The History of Nazism and The American Civil War at Ryerson University in Toronto (we used to call it Rye High).

I think he would be an interesting fellow to ask about 1) the outbreak of IPV murder-suicides that appear to have broken out recently and 2) Similarities between the Reichstag Fire which triggered a constitutional hijacking of Government by the National Socialists and last winters attempted "Unholy Alliance" between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc and 3) Similarities between the "Peoples Court" of the Third Reich and CHRC's attempts to remove our rights of expression as disclosed by Ezra LEVANT.

[here are notes on HST 603 - HISTORY OF THE THIRD REICH by Peter VRONSKY]

10 year old girl fined $50 for operating a lemonade stand without a license

10 year old girl fined $50 for operating a lemonade stand without a license.

Can it get any worse than this? (and with tomorrow - Aug 20 - being National Lemonade Day?). Sometimes you couldn't even imagine this stuff.

Perhaps it is a play on that good ole American maxim "If you got lemons, make lemonade (but ask the SEC first)?

Backup Madness

Ok, I do this alot. But with all the o/s upgrades and reinstalls I now have a mass of DC's and DVD's from previous efforts. Having used Backup software in the past (like the recently deposed Microsoft OneCare) I am now finding it a pain that I must reinstall the backup program to Restore! So I am looking for a new app that can "migrate" with me a little easier.

In the meantime I have decided to just use WinZip v12.1 - it can compress files as it Archives and I just write the password on the CD/DVD and store in a secure location. That is the simplest way for now. (plus I have been using WinZip forever so I don't have to keep learning it! Although I find I have to upgrade occasionally.)

However, in my "search" one program I really liked was Gmail BACKUP. I am running it now. It is true that one of the things that has bothered me about Gmail is I may never be able to leave the service as it holds EVERYTHING (and is becoming MORE ubiquitous) so this is a real find!

[here is MakeUseOf's summary]

Honour Killings in Kingston

Le point de bascule (tipping point) has another angle on this tragic story that has not been commented upon in the English language press (finally the walls are coming down!). Of course it is likely that it is natural waryness of the Quebec media to be rather, well - European - with the truth. Or at least that is the way anglophone reporters regard the fast and loose reportage in "La Belle Province".

Mohammad Shafia, the father of the 3 girls (his daughters) and 1 women (his first wife) may be able to recieve compensation from the Quebec No-Fault Auto Insurance Society SAAQ (la Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec) in the order of $200,000.

Here is the (English) post featuring an interview with the former Minister responsible for SAAQ.

Le point de bascule (the tipping point)

I made the most wonderful discovery today, via re-reading the National Post's interview with Jennifer LYNCH on June 15, 2009 in which she lashed out against her "enemies" (whom she declined to name but obviously must include Ezra LEVANT). Among the comments posted below the article were a few well informed ones referring to le point de bascule.

Not having seen or read of it, I searched and found it at www.pointdebasculecanada.ca. It is a francophone blog that appears to be taking the same tack as Ezra LEVANT - at least as far as taking the CHRC to task. The founder - Marc LEBUIS - claims to be a supporter of Free Speech and is obviously very bilingual (not really sure about his other background) . He has a number of french posts translated into English, in order I suppose, to get wider distribution. Yet even for his french posts he has employed the free "Google Translate" add-in on his site, which allows any reader to select one of the 36 languages available and have the french version rendered almost instantly into that tongue. WOW! I declare the "Two Solitudes" officially over.

In particular, M. LEBUIS has taken an Imam in Montreal named Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti to task for some of the outrageously hateful comments made by him in an ebook (in french/arabic) available at his website and mosque. Among some of his pronouncements:

• Gays and lesbians should be “exterminated in this life”. Gays involved in sodomy must be “beheaded”.
• Infidels generally “live like animals,” “love perversity”, “are our enemies,” and their offspring are the most perverted of children. Male infidels want to “sexually exploit women.” “One of the greatest forms of ignorance and injustice” would be for Muslims to regard infidels as being on the same level as Muslims.
• Christianity is a “religion of lies” responsible for the Western world’s “perversity, corruption and adultery.”
• Jews “spread corruption and chaos on earth.”
• Men are “better” than women, having “a more complete intellect and memory.”
• Muslims in Muslim lands must “humiliate and punish” Christians and Jews; Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and others must convert to Islam or “be killed”.

Did he miss anyone?

M. LEBUIS on April 1, 2008 filed a formal Sec 13 complaint (aka The Hayiti Case) with the CHRC using the above examples from Imam Al-Hayiti's ebook (apparently on his website) entitled L’islam ou l’intégrisme - À la lumière du Qor’an et de la sounnah (Islam or fundamentalism - In light of the Qor'an and the Sunnah).

The CHRC's staggering response to this complaint? Rejected. In a letter dated Dec 5, 2008, the CHRC could not find any "identifiable group" that was hurt by such statements (above).

Huh? Excuse me, but WHAT?

M. LEBUIS after an exhaustive dissection of the decision, makes the following trenchant conclusions:

• If you belong to a minority, you can with impunity propagate hatred and contempt against the majority. You are not held to the same standards of tolerance, respect and civility as the majority. Equality under the law, according to the Commission, does not exist anymore.
• If you belong to a religious minority, you can with impunity propagate a supremacist ideology that also condones the extermination of other minorities, and of the majority, if this is the doctrine of your religion.
• If you belong to the majority and you expose the supremacist, totalitarian and anti-democratic ideology propagated by a minority, you risk being sued.

In his closing closing, M. LEBUIS remarks about Commissioner LYNCH's whining about a “campaign” to “discredit” the Commission.

"I cannot help but observe that the CHRC has discredited itself without need of assistance."

That about sums it up. Do we need any more evidence that the HRC's have outlived their usefulness? I think not.

Fire. Them. All

Mohamed ELMASRY advocates terror against Israelis

Mr. Mohamed ELMASRY, Professor of Engineering at University of Waterloo ON launched 3 HRC complaints against Macleans Magazine for the Danish Cartoons.

Is this what we want our HRC to defend? If so let all other groups file suits as well.

Overlooks Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez .... but not this?

This was excellent - Mark STEYN you do us proud.

Some gems:

• The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power.

• Gates then told him, "I'll speak with your mama outside." Outside, Sgt. Crowley's mama failed to show. But among his colleagues were a black officer and a Hispanic officer. Which is an odd kind of posse for what the Rev. Al Sharpton calls, inevitably, "the highest example of racial profiling I have seen."

• Last year I had a minor interaction with a Vermont state trooper, and, 60 seconds into the conversation, he called me a "liar." I considered my options:
  

• Option a): I could get hot under the collar, yell at him, get tasered into submission and possibly shot while "resisting arrest";
• Option b): I could politely tell the trooper I object to his characterization, and then write a letter to the commander of his barracks the following morning suggesting that such language is not appropriate to routine encounters with members of the public and betrays a profoundly defective understanding of the relationship between law enforcement officials and the citizenry in civilized societies.
• I chose the latter course.

• Was the cop right? I dunno. I wasn't there. Neither was the president of the United States, or the governor of Massachusetts or the mayor of Cambridge. All of whom have declared themselves firmly on the side of the Ivy League bigshot. And all of whom, as it happens, are African American. A black president, a black governor and a black mayor all agree with a black Harvard professor that he was racially profiled by a white-Latino-black police team, headed by a cop who teaches courses in how to avoid racial profiling.

• My advice to professor Gates for future incidents would be to establish his authority early.

• "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Victims are black, Like 2 Live Crew."

[download archived article]

The Wrestler

I rented the other night and although not as good as Grand Torino - it was ok. But the best part by far was the Bruce SPRINGSTEEN solo:



The Wrestler [LYRICS]
Two, three, four

Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free?
If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me
Have you ever seen a one-legged dog making his way down the street?
If you've ever seen a one-legged dog then you've seen me

Then you've seen me, I come and stand at every door
Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before
Then you've seen me, bet I can make you smile when the blood, it hits the floor
Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

Have you ever seen a scarecrow filled with nothing but dust and wheat?
If you've ever seen that scarecrow then you've seen me
Have you ever seen a one-armed man punching at nothing but the breeze?
If you've ever seen a one-armed man then you've seen me

Then you've seen me, I come and stand at every door
Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before
Then you've seen me, bet I can make you smile when the blood, it hits the floor
Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

These things that have comforted me, I drive away
This place that is my home I cannot stay
My only faith's in the broken bones and bruises I display

Have you ever seen a one-legged man trying to dance his way free?
If you've ever seen a one-legged man then you've seen me

[YouTube link]

Al Jazeera in Canada

At the end of June I read that Al Jazeera English TV Network will be approved by the CRTC fro cable. I am not sure that is a good idea - but certainly as it will be an extra service and cable subscribers will have to pay Rogers to carry the service so there will be a small business advantage.
There is a "I want AJ" website put up to encourage Canadians to lobby the CRTC and provides a number of advantages of the service, code of ethics, journalist profiles etc. That is wher a great number of pixels are spent pumping that former CBC journalists Tony BURHMAM and Avi LEWIS have joined the English service.

Here is the live feed.