Category Archives: current events

current events, Radical Islam

The killings in Chattanooga were not “senseless violence”

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4 slain marines

The news wires were full of press releases from elected officials (both D & R) last week denouncing the killing of five servicemen in Chattanooga as “senseless violence.”

All of them are wrong.

It wasn’t senseless.

It was carefully calculated and very logical.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted revenge on US soldiers who have fought them overseas. They achieved that.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted to initimidate US solders and their families and to make them fear being attacked and killed in their own country. They achieved that.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted to initimidate any civilians who might be considering signing up for service in the US military. They achieved that.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted to strike fear into all US citizens by striking on US soil, in the heartland. They achieved that.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted to embarrass the US military and make them appear weak and unable (or unwilling) to protect their own troops. They achieved that.

Radical Islamic leaders wanted to undermine and tarnish the image of the US President. They achieved that.

Stop saying it didn’t make sense.

The target was carefully chosen. The specific location was carefully chosen.

This wasn’t the first attack, and it won’t be the last.

Because with each attack, they achieve more of their objectives.

And they will keep attacking as long as they continue achieving their objectives.

Church History, current events

Christians and ISIS in Iraq: France offers Asylum

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Christen und Islamischer Staat im Irak: Frankreich bietet Asyl an - SPIEGEL ONLINE

The story is only on the German side of Der Spiegel at the moment. I applaud the government of France!

Christen und Islamischer Staat im Irak: Frankreich bietet Asyl an – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Quick translation:

It was an Exodus in fear of death: Thousands of Christians had to leave the northern Iraqi city of Mosul a few days ago because they were threated by the terrorist group ISIS. Now France is offering the refugees asylum. “One must help every person who fled to Kurdistan because of the threats of ISIS,” reads a joint declaration from the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Monday in Paris. “We are prepared to give them asylum in our country, if they wish.”

Proud of the French.

Listening and waiting for the joint Declaration by John Kerry and Jeh Johnson.

[crickets]

current events, technology

You can’t trust your copier – German professor discovers that Xerox machines have been altering numbers on copies – perhaps for years!

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This one still has me shaking my head in disbelief, but I’ve verified it.

The news is coming out of Germany and hasn’t broken big in the English speaking world yet, but it will.

Trust me on this – this is going to be a BIG story very soon.

Der Spiegel (the German equivalent of Time magazine) came out with the story today, but the real hero is German professor, D. Kriesel, at the University of Bonn. The story at Der Spiegel has not yet appeared in English. But, even better, here’s a link to the professor’s story (and blog) (in English) where I suspect things will be quickly developing.

To summarize, the good professor was working on some building plans which needed to be copied. He used a standard Xerox WorkCentre 7535 copier and suddenly noticed that some small numbers, placed in the center of each room giving the size of the room in square meters had been altered by the copier. Not just blurred, altered – swapped. A room which the original plans showed as 21.11 m2, showed up on the copy as 14.13 m2.

Again, the importance of this observation – The numbers were not just blurred, they were altered – swapped in fact for numbers taken elsewhere on the document.

Compare the images below:

-Original Building Plans- ——Xerox Copy——

Original Building Plans
Original Building Plans

Xerox copy
Xerox copy

 

Professor Kriesel has been able to reproduce the phenomenon on a number of documents and a number of copiers. Numbers set in small type, especially 7 points or less, seems most susceptible to being altered. The numbers are still quite readable by the human eye, and they are clearly altered.

Why is this happening?

Professor Kriesel’s hypothesis, which is being confirmed by lots of technical analysis, is that the Xerox copier is using an image compression algorithm that replaces tiles in the original with “similar”tiles found elsewhere in the document.

Professor Kriesel contacted Xerox, which at first seems to have dismissed his allegations as a joke.

They’re not laughing anymore as lots of other Xerox copier owners have been able to reproduce the behavior.

The implications are staggering.

What about document centers which have used Xerox copiers to produce digital images and then destroyed originals?

What implications are there for financial records? engineering documents? medical records?
How long has this behavior been going on? (hint: It has likely been happening undetected for years.)

Hacker News appears to have some of the liveliest early analysis.

Stay tuned – there will be lots more on this story over the coming weeks – a prediction by RedHatRob!

current events, marriage, National Politics, Tennessee politics

Gay Marriage Goes National, Act 1

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marriage game overDOMA was doomed from the start, as many (including the Red Hat) pointed out when it was passed back in the 1990s, and signed into law by President Clinton. He probably knew at the time that it was doomed as well, and cynically signed it anyway.

A federal judge in Ohio today ordered state officials to recognize the marriage of two men that was performed in Maryland. This, in spite of the fact that the constitution of the state of Ohio forbids the recognition of any marriage other than that between “one man and one woman.” Such a ruling was inevitable. And, though it may be appealed, it is inevitable that it will be upheld by the federal courts.

In these matters, it helps to have some acquaintance with the text of the Constitution. In this case, specifically, the “full faith and credit clause,” found in Article IV, Section 1. Recall that Articles 1, 2, &3 outline the functions and powers of the 3 branches (Legislative, Executive, Judicial). Article 4 defines relations between the states.

The “full faith and credit” clause is a fundamental principle of US law. It explains why, when certain states adopted no-fault, no-waiting, divorce statutes in the 1960s, it spelled the end of any legal discouragement of divorce. A divorce granted in Reno must be accepted as a binding official act by the state of California (or any other state), because of the “full faith and credit” clause.

In the same way, once any one of the 50 states began to recognize homosexual marriages, it became inevitable that they would have to be recognized in the other 49 states as well.

The state of Ohio adopted an amendment to the state constitution in 2004 defining marriage as “one man and one woman.” It was ratified by a vote of 61.7% to 38.3%. That will not matter.

Tennessee adopted a state constitutional amendment in 2006 defining marriage as “one man and one woman.” The amendment was approved by 81.25% of the voters. That will not matter.

Both states will be forced by the federal judiciary to recognize homosexual marriages.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine how states with such diametrically opposed views on key matters of public policy will remain peacefully in union with each other.

God help us.

Hat Tip: Stand Firm | Gay Marriage Goes National, Act 1.

current events, Economy

Coincidental Numbers – The Sequester Explained

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Apparently, the end of the world is nigh.

Come March 1, 800,000 federal employees will be furloughed, policeman and fireman will no longer respond to emergencies, teachers will be fired, parents with children will be turned away from daycare centers, and old people will be left to die in the streets.

Something called the “Sequester” will strike the US and life as we know it will end.

Let’s go to the numbers, shall we?

The 2013 budget for the United States Federal Government is $3.803 trillion (or $3,803 billion).

The amount of spending cuts mandated by the sequester is $85.4 billion.

Let’s translate that back to human scales.

Imagine that your annual household budgeted spending was $38,030 dollars.

And let’s further imagine that you and the missus decided that for reasons inexplicable you needed to reduce your total annual spending by $854. Clearly, this would be a family crisis of epic proportions.  That would amount to $16.42 per week in cuts. If you’re in the habit of hitting Starbucks on the way to the office, you might have to forgo the pleasure of overly-priced coffee on three of the five days of the week.

Imagine now that either you, or your spouse rebelled against this harsh austerity. Imagine that instead of cutting back on the lattes, you announced that because of the budget cuts, you were going to have to euthanize the family pets.

Here’s the really maddening and tear-inducing irony. The 2013 sequester cuts amount to  2.245% of the Federal budget.

And not 60 days ago, the insanity that was the payroll tax holiday expired for all wage-earning Americans. Do you know what sort of immediate pay cut we all faced? That’s right. Two percent. 2%.

Obama & the Congress put together a budget deal to avoid the fiscal cliff and the brilliance-inside-the-beltway assured us that it was oh-so-good and responsible and only imposed a 2% cut in Americans take-home wages. And we all grumbled a bit when we first saw it, made a few adjustments and moved on.

But asking the federal government to cut their spending by 2.245%?

Clearly, an outrageous and unreasonable demand. Which will have dire consequences for the entire US economy.

Which the 2% cut in wages to American workers clearly did not have.

Because government economists! That’s why!

Why must you be so unreasonable?

2012 Election, current events, National Politics

The last pockets of resistance to the Gender Revolution must be eliminated, comrades!

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“a heretofore neglected pocket of resistance to the gender revolution in the workplace: married male employees who have stay-at-home wives.”

via Marriage Structure and Resistance to the Gender Revolution in the Workplace by Sreedhari Desai, Dolly Chugh, Arthur Brief :: SSRN.

Didn’t realize I was so easily identified as part of the resistance, but I guess so.

Note to all: the inflammatory, culture war rhetoric comes directly from the article.

The publication of this article paints a bullseye on every one of us husbands whose wives do not work.

Make no mistake. We are targeted for elimination and will be excluded from consideration for jobs in corporations of any size.

Two immediate reasons:

    • One: If I am in a management position, any female subordinate who files a gender discrimination complaint now has an immediate bit of scientific evidence to buttress her case. What corporation will want to assume the risk of allowing me to supervise employees?
    • Secondly: In any more broadly drawn complaint of gender discrimination, corporations will be asked how many of their male managers are married to stay-at-home wives? And were they aware of their propensity for bias and discrimination? And what steps have they taken to deal with this problem? Again, what corporation will want to assume the risk of employing any of us?

The last pockets of resistance to the gender revolution must be eliminated, comrades!

Up against the wall, traditional men!

God help us.

current events

The Revenge of Wen Jiabao

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“The father’s a hero, the son’s a brave lad; the father’s a reactionary, the son’s a bastard.”

Wen JiabaoYou cannot begin to grasp current events in China unless you know at least some of the history of the last 65 years. From the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, the One Child Policy, Deng Xiao Ping (and his cat), to Tienanmen Square there has been a never-ending conflict within the ruling class in China.

The world is catching a few glimpses right now of one of the more interesting episodes.

Anyone interested in China and foreign policy should read John Garnaut’s thoughtful and well-researched report below:

The Revenge of Wen Jiabao – By John Garnaut | Foreign Policy.

Incidentally, the opening quote is one of the slogans from the Cultural Revolution. One’s status in China was highly dependent (if not completely determined) by one’s ancestry – in a perverse, marxist way. If your parents were middle class, you were evil. If your parents were peasants, you were good.

2012 Election, current events, National Politics

Would Jesus support Obamacare?

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A response to the tired and tortured canards of the religious left.

a sample:

“Jesus’ values” had nothing to do with what the state was supposed to do for the poor or disadvantaged. They were about what you and your religious community were to do for the poor. “Jesus’ values” were the ethics of the Kingdom, and had to do, not with generalized principles for good conduct, but for the way His disciples were to live their lives in obedience to God. Getting the government to “perform the corporal works of mercy” is a way of shifting the burden from one’s own shoulders to those of the state, and to the polity as a whole, but Jesus never expected that non-disciples would follow His commands or do His works.

Very much worth your while to read…

David Fischler dissects Anthony Stevens-Arroyo’s distortions of the Bible and Theology in the Washington Post.

a hat tip to StandFirmInFaith.com