Vista News & Ramblings

Why We Lost In Iraq

by Sandi

Not us... Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda Discusses Losing Iraq

May 27, 2008: Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups, who were trying in vain to scare the Americans out of the country.

Today, al Qaeda has been shattered, with most of its leadership and foot soldiers dead, captured or moved from Iraq. As a result, al Qaeda attacks have declined more than 90 percent. Worse, most of their Iraqi Sunni Arab allies have turned on them, or simply quit. This "betrayal" is handled carefully on the terrorist web sites, for it is seen as both shameful, and perhaps recoverable.

This defeat was not as sudden as it appeared to be, and some Islamic terrorist web sites have been discussing the problem for several years. The primary cause has been Moslems killed as a side effect of attacks on infidel troops, Iraqi security forces and non-Sunnis. Al Qaeda plays down the impact of this, calling the Moslem victims "involuntary martyrs." But that's a minority opinion. Most Moslems, and many other Islamic terrorists, see this as a surefire way to turn the Moslem population against the Islamic radicals. That's what happened earlier in Algeria, Afghanistan, Egypt and many other places. It's really got nothing to do with religion. The phenomenon hits non-Islamic terrorists as well (like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA).

I guess some Muslims don't appreciate being called to duty as "involuntary martyrs."

Posted Saturday May 31, 2008 | Catagory: (Good news (WOT)) | Permalink
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Food Court Musical

by Sandi

Food Court Musical

A well done Food Court Musical.

Sixteen agents from Improv Everywhere staged a spontaneous musical in the food court of Baldwin Hills shopping mall in Los Angeles. It started out by one agent planted as a worker behind a food counter who just breaks out into song for no apparent reason other than she needs a napkin. The rest were planted as shoppers or eating customers and used wireless microphones tied into the malls PA system.

Watch the video. It really caught the patrons in the food court off balance: the WTF! looks on some faces are near priceless.

The link at the top of this post has the background behind the scenes from Improve Everywhere.

Posted Friday May 30, 2008 | Catagory: (Arts & Entertainment) | Permalink
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Japanese Bug Fights

by Sandi

Entertaining in a weird way if not a bit gruesome. Japanese bug fights, usually to the death, where the obvious insect choice isn't always the winner. The winner in the clip below between a scorpion and a centipede surprised me.

Click here to watch all 30 fights between various bugs (and a few crustaceans).

Posted Thursday May 29, 2008 | Catagory: (Oddities) | Permalink
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(forgetable) Moments in Sports

by Sandi

But it didn't seem to slow down the celebration too much.

Posted Thursday May 29, 2008 | Catagory: (Sports) | Permalink
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Kindergartener Voted Out By Classmates

by Sandi

Post Source: TCPalm

This just isn't right. I don't know if this teacher is just plain stupid, or mean.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.

Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under the suggestion of Morningside Principal Marsha Cully.

In the video below Barton with her son, Alex, was interviewed exclusively by CBS Harry Smith live from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Via Dean's World

Posted Tuesday May 27, 2008 | Catagory: (Education) | Permalink
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Are voters misogynists?

by Sandi

Post Source: The Wall Street Journal

Hmm...

Hillary Clinton is now complaining that her candidacy has been harmed by sexism. Interviewed earlier this week by the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton said the polls show that "more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." This gender bias, she grumbled, "rarely gets reported on." [...]

This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?

But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.

Via Steve Burri @ Grandpa John's

Posted Monday May 26, 2008 | Catagory: (Politics) | Permalink
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Plastic Ugrades for Human Cells

by Sandi

Post Source: New Scientist

It has been fascinating the last few years, especially the last two, to witness the exponential knowledge explosion in science and medicine. Much of the technology growth is coming in the area of nanotechnology, or more specific to medicine, nanobiology.

Click to enlarge

Nanotechnology is a field of applied science that fabricates materials and devices that lie in the range of 100 or so nanometers (billionths of a meter). A couple of years ago I read about "respirocytes" which are mechanical devices intended to duplicate all of the important functions of red blood cells, only several hundred times as efficient. I imagine with a transfusion of them one could hold ones breath under water for an hour or more.

Now researchers at University of Basel, Switzerland are developing a technique to upgrade cell metabolism without genetic alterations, instead using nanoscale plastic packages of enzymes dubbed artificial polymer organelles. Human cells have internal subunit called organelles. These organelles are to a cell what our organs are to our bodies. Depending on what enzymes are in the organelle they can be quite useful for different therapies.

Meier and colleagues coated their polymer vesicles in a chemical that encouraged human white blood cells called macrophages to engulf them. The small capsules contained enzymes, just like natural organelles. The enzymes chosen produced fluorescent chemicals, signalling they were working without problems inside their new host.

The artificial organelle's membrane can be chemically tuned to control which chemicals can pass through it and regulate the reactions inside, according to Wolfgang Meier, one of the researchers. "We call it a 'nanoreactor'," he says. ....

An advanced chemotherapy technique involves giving patients a harmless "prodrug" that only becomes toxic in the presence of a particular enzyme. This enzyme bonds to an antibody that seeks out cancer but ignores healthy cells – this means the drug will only become active around cancerous cells.

Meier says that the artificial organelles might provide a way to introduce prodrug-converting enzymes actually inside cancer cells, where the drug can be more effective. They could targeted to cancer cells using a similar method to that used for enzymes alone.

"You can create, inside these cells, a little compartment that is able to convert the non-toxic prodrug into a toxic drug that kills [them]," he says. ...

Artificial organelles might also be able to treat conditions caused by a deficit of a particular enzyme. For example, someone with lactose intolerance could have their digestive cells given artificial organelles containing lactose-digesting enzymes.

In the far future, it might be possible to introduce non-human metabolic functions into human cells. "We could, in principle, bring in a nanoreactor that [lets] your skin do something like photosynthesis. So if you are hungry, you just lie in the Sun," says Meier.

While I love to sun bathe I'll forgo the sunshine diet and keep my meat and potatoes, thankyou.

Posted Monday May 26, 2008 | Catagory: (Health/Medicine) | Permalink
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Memorial Day

by Sandi

Too often, many of us who are beneficiaries of those who made the ultimate sacrifice ignore memorial day. Thank you, all that served, those who are maimed in heart or body, and those who sacrificed themselves for my peace and freedom.

Do not stand at my grave

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the mornings hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-2004)

Posted Monday May 26, 2008 | Catagory: (General) | Permalink
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Charter Monitors Customers Surfing: Inserts Ads

by Sandi

Post Source: The New York Times

Charter Communications—my ISP unfortunately—is testing a plan that will monitor customers’ web surfing habits. The informaion will be sold to NebuAd, a sleazy spam company.

The cable company will sell the data to a firm called NebuAd, which in turn will use it to show ads to Web-surfing Charter customers that are meant to be related to their interests. (Visit a knitting site yesterday and see yarn ads today.)

Charter started sending letters out to several hundred thousand customers in four markets: Fort Worth, Tex.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Oxford, Mass.; and Newtown, Conn. (The letters were first reported by DSLreports.com.)

Charter said it will start testing the system within 30 days and will make a decision whether to introduce it to its 2.8 million Internet customers a few months after that.

Using data from Internet service providers for what the advertising people call behavioral targeting raises all kinds of questions about privacy, disclosure and who owns the information about where Internet users surf.

I called Charter to ask about this Tuesday, and the company quickly put Ted Schremp, its senior vice president for product management and strategy, on the phone. That immediately set Charter apart from the other Internet companies in the United States that have been identified as working with NebuAd: Embarq and Wide Open West. Neither of them would discuss the matter when I last asked.

Charter is taking “for the most part, a high road approach,” according to Mr. Schremp. “We have told customers exactly what we are doing,” he said. The letter to customers, he added, was “very forthcoming” and “not buried in mouse type and legal disclosures.”

The five-paragraph letter positioned the monitoring program as an “an enhanced online experience that is more customized to your interests and activities.”

"Enhanced online experience" my ass. There are several problem I see with this assuming they go beyond their test market.

1. You don't opt-in, you have to opt-out. I can tell you a thing or two about Charters "opt-out" because every year I have to opt-out of email spam from Charter as well as deny them permission to sell me email addy to third parties. There are a lot of hoops I have to jump through just to get this done, and then it has to be renewed all over again every year.

2. Once this gets into their main market I don't see them telling the rest of their customers that they are going to be sending them spam. I don't want Charter customers visiting any of my blogs or forums and ticked off at me because they see annoying ads on my page.

3. The experience I have had on forums and blogs displaying legitimate ads is that the big ad companies get high server load and slow down page loads. Not to mention muck up the bandwidth with high content ads and flash content.

4. Although the ads won't originate on my page, they are inserted into the data stream by Charter as if I put them there. With no legal background I still have to wonder about Charter or anyone else tampering with the data I send to my reader's browsers, few though they may be.

Well I don't intend to take the heat for ads that Charter places in the stream from this or any of my sites. A team at the University of Washington in Vancouver has developed Web Integrity Checker. If you click the link the page will tell you if the stream has been tampered with on it's way to your browser. They have also developed a bit of code that administrators can put on their site to warn the reader as well as send the offending info to the administrators email. It's called a Web Tripwire Toolkit. If you have a website and don't want your pages rewritten, I would highly recommend using it.

The Experiment Harness loads one page (launcher.fcgi) from each of the domains listed above into separate frames on this page. In each frame, launcher.fcgi runs an independent test to determine the integrity of a second page from the same domain (testpage.html).

Each distinct fetch of testpage.html uses a different top level domain (.edu, .com, .net, etc.), although each of our servers hosts identical content. Since the HTTP request includes the server name itself, any "party in the middle" which is only targeting a particular top level domain or group of domains will still interpret the request as something worth modifying.

To perform the test, the "integrity checking" code in launcher.fcgi requests a copy of testpage.html from the server, using a JavaScript XmlHttpRequest call. To your ISP, this request looks no different than if you had visited testpage.html in your web browser. To your browser, this request looks like pure data, so it will not be altered by page-modifying browser extensions. As a result, even if you have an ad-blocker browser extension that hides ads, our integrity checking code will still detect any ads inserted by your ISP.

The integrity checking code then compares the actual contents of the test page to a string containing the expected contents of the test page. If it detects a difference, it reports the modified web page to our server. It also displays a message to you saying that the web page has been changed, as shown in the screenshot below:

Charter is out to make a buck anyway they can, and rumor has it that they have operated at a loss last year and the first quarter this year. Their stock has been in the tank, and they almost got de-listed on the stock exchange. I may have to drop Charter and check out AT&T DSL.

Posted Friday May 16, 2008 | Catagory: (General) | Permalink
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Man Jailed After Adult Daughter Fails To Get GED

by Sandi

Post Source: WCPO-TV9 Fairfield, OH

Talk about judicial insanity. This happened almost 5 years ago when the girl was 16. She is now going on 19.

Father was ordered to see that his daughter got her GED. But although the father had custody, the girl lived with her mother.

A Fairfield man is in jail because his daughter hasn't gotten her General Equivalency Diploma (GED).

A judge ordered the father to stay on top of his daughter's education months ago and when that order wasn't followed, Brian Gegner was sentenced to 180-days in the Butler County jail.

The daughter, Brittany Gegner, says her father shouldn't be punished for her problems.

Especially, she says because she's now 18, an adult.

"It's ridiculously wrong," said Brittany Gegner.

"Of all the punishments they could have given him, to make him go to jail?," she asked. "I mean, probation – until I get my GED – would be reasonable, but to send him to jail? That's overboard."

Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not following a court order which required Gegner to be sure his daughter got her GED.

This comes after ongoing problems of Brittany skipping classes at Fairfield High School and then, Butler Tech.

While Brian Gegner had custody of her, Brittany says it was while she lived with her mother that she was truant.

"I'm about to be 19 and my Dad's being punished for something I did when I was 16," she said.

The court says it doesn't matter that Brittany is an adult now, because the case remained active, and she was a juvenile when her problems started.

Courts pull a stunt like this, then let off a child molester or rapist with probation. WTF is the out court system coming to?

Via Glenn Sacks at Deans World

Posted Wednesday May 14, 2008 | Catagory: (The Courts) | Permalink
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Lebanese Army and Hezbollah Negotiates Surrender

by Sandi

Post Source: CNN News

...of Western Beirut Government Positions.

I'm surprised this isn't getting more play in the media. I suppose because main stream media is all too wraped up and giddy about the Democratic two horse primary race. A less than exciting race with one horse lame and falling back as they near the finish line.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Western Beirut fell under the control of opposition Hezbollah militias Friday in what amounted to an army-negotiated surrender of pro-government positions, Lebanese Internal Security Forces and Western military observers said.

The "dramatic development" is a major blow to the democratically elected and pro-Western government of Lebanon, CNN's Brent Sadler said.

Soldiers went to several offices of pro-government political parties in western Beirut overnight, he said. They persuaded pro-government gunmen who had battled Hezbollah militants to leave the offices as the opposition forces hovered nearby, he said.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, part of the pro-government coalition, said the government was "now at the end of a gun barrel" and they expect the "conditions for surrender will be offered sooner or later," Sadler reported.

"I think ... it's a coup," Jumblatt told CNN in a phone interview. "The Lebanese army is in total paralysis."

Rather than fight, the army has stayed above the fray. With its own political factions, taking sides could throw the military into disarray.

With pro-government gunmen out of the way, the fighting in the capital eased at bit Friday after intense gun battles the previous two days echoed through Beirut's streets.

Read the rest at CNN.

Posted Friday May 9, 2008 | Catagory: (War) | Permalink
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Advocate For Unfairness...

by Sandi

...and other commencement advice for graduates by P.J. O'Rourke in the LA Times Opinion column.

Here are some excerpts, but you'll want to read the whole thing. It's really quite good advice for everyone, not just young graduates.

1. Go out and make a bunch of money!

Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.

There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.

Well as I always say: Money can't buy happiness, it sure can help you look in a lot more places. It is my belief that income disparity is created by two things. Our progressive tax system and welfare. As long as you take enough from the wealthy to keep the lowest class comfortable they are happy to stay in that state. Remove that incentive (except for the very needy that cannot work or are mentally challenged) and people will provide for themselves.

2. Don't be an idealist!

Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?

Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."

Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.

Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?

So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.

I'll have to agree and disagree someone on this one. Making money takes a certain amount of idealism. However his point is well taken that too much idealism misdirected is counter-productive.

3. Get politically uninvolved!

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I'd be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I've got three kids and three dogs in my family. We'd be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation's problems will be solved.

But the problem isn't politicians -- it's politics. Politics won't allow for the truth. And we can't blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today's campaign trail:

"No, I can't fix public education. The problem isn't the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!"

Truth in politics, what a novel idea. But honesty will never fly. Besides the people know politicians lie and want them to do so, and will defend the lies to the bitter end. Visiting any forum that discusses political news will easily convince you of that.

4. Forget about fairness!

We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.

Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!"

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

Which makes number 1 about making money all important. We either stay at the bottom and live partially off the rich, or make enough to at least be middle class. Of course the more you make the better as most of us realize. In fact so many people realize it that the middle class is shrinking. The progressives will tell you that this income disparity is bad, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Life is about freedom, and as a late online acquaintance of mine used to say: "Liberty and equality are incompatible, since liberty means diversity while equality means uniformity. Free men are not equal and equal men are not free."

Posted Wednesday May 7, 2008 | Catagory: (Education) | Permalink
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Gas Price Breakdown

by Sandi

This would be better if it included Federal and state taxes in the breakdown.

Vista

Via Steve at Grandpa John's

Posted Tuesday May 6, 2008 | Catagory: (Economy) | Permalink
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Is Human Caused Global Warming Settled?

by Sandi

If you are swayed by the national news and the IPCC reports you might think that it is. Well it ain't. Not by a long shot.

For those who think humans are responsible for global warming these four clips are a must. Laypeople with some knowledge of scientific principle are generally skeptical of the tactics used my the IPCC and pressure from politics and the media. These clips are plain enough that you don't have to be a scientist to understand.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas although one of the lesser effective ones, but CO2 is in no way a pollutant. Please watch this four part series by Professor Bob Carter who will use the scientific method on the popular theory that global warming is linked to CO2 levels.

Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause? - Pt 1 of 4