Apple’s iPhones contain malware? NSA malware no less. NSA worked on iPhone spyware to remotely monitor users, leaked documents show.
New documents revealed on Monday show the U.S. National Security Agency has the capability of deploying software implants on Apple’s iPhone that grants remote access to on-board assets like SMS messages, location data and microphone audio.
Spiegel International has the catalog of gadgets here. And the full story of the NSA hacker’s unit is at this link.
Global warming researcher gets stuck in ice – SFGate.
They got stuck in the ice in Antarctica’s summer.
A funny thing happened during Australian climate-change professor Chris Turney’s venture to retrace a 1912 research expedition in Antarctica and gauge how climate change has affected the continent: Two weeks into a five-week excursion, Turney’s good ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy got trapped in ice. It turns out, global warming notwithstanding, that there’s so much ice down under that two ice-breaking vessels sent to rescue the research team cannot reach the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
Ice of this magnitude can crush a ship, so maybe by full summer they will be freed.
I’ve been revisiting my love of Progressive Rock. So I thought I would share. “I’ve Seen All Good People” by Yes. Who would have thought you could write a song about chess, and yet it managed to get a fair amount of radio time in its day. This is from The Yes Album. (Their 3rd) It came out in 1971.
So many people in the past few days are furious, that Amazon/UPS/whoever didn’t deliver their gifts in time for Christmas.
Really? You think it is someone else who is to blame. Really!?
Now I don’t celebrate Christmas. But even I know that it comes on the same day every year. You now have slightly less than 365 days before the next Christmas. Get started.
But then it isn’t about celebrating anything except their own vanity. Look at me, I got the best deal on this flat-screen. I got the latest phone/phablet/tablet/PS3XBOX whatever.
An interesting story on this subject was posted by one of my favorite authors, Steven Thor Abell. (Great middle name for a Heathen.) That Special Gift. In which he asks the question, “Who exactly are you shopping for anyway?”
[Note: for those of you not up on your Asatru legends, I give you my limited understanding. Frey (The Lord) and Freya (The Lady) were brother and sister. Members of the Vanir, who after the defeat by the Asir, (Odin and company,) were sent to live in Asgard in a sort of hostage bond that would have been familiar to the Vikings. Frey was a god of fertility and Lord of Summer. Freya was goddess of magic and war (and several other things), Chief among the Valkyries and leader of Fólkvangr (Field of the Host). Half the valorous dead went to Valhalla, under the command of Odin, the other half to Fólkvangr)]
Mellisa Etheridge – “Fearless Love” from Fearless Love (2010)
Another failure of the victim-selection-process. Store clerk scares off robber with real gun | Volusia County.
DAYTONA BEACH — A man tried to rob a store with a pellet gun Friday, but the store clerk had a real gun and shot at the robber several times, scaring him off.
The miscreant ran like a rabbit, lead police on a car chase that ended when he hit a tree, and flipped the car – which in prime Hollywood fashion caught on fire. He was pulled for the car, taken to the hospital and charged with armed robbery.
Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0.
If you are going to rob people, you probably shouldn’t try to rob a police officer. NEW: Suspected home invader dies after being shot by homeowner, an OHP Trooper | KFOR.com.
The suspect told the trooper to go back into his apartment.
Police say once inside, the trooper managed to get his weapon and that’s when he shot the suspect.
The would-be bad-guy died at the hospital during surgery.
Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0.
In the UK, it almost became a national religion. NHS on brink of crisis because it became 'too powerful' to criticise – Telegraph.
It became too powerful to criticise,” [David Prior, the chairman of the Care Quality Commission,] said. “When things were going wrong people didn’t say anything. If you criticised the NHS [National Health Service] – the attitude was how dare you?
I suppose we are in for the same thing. The Democrats are already screaming that anyone – mostly Republicans – who want to fix the problems with Obamacare really want to take away your health insurance. No debate. Not dealing with the problems. That is exactly what got the UK in the mess they are in today.
The classic Chicago dishes. Dogs. Italian beef. Deep Dish Pizza. Makes me hungry. Slide Show | The Chicago Food Glossary: A Guide to the Unique Dishes of the Windy City | Serious Eats.
Here’s a “taste”
A proper Chicago dog features a steamed natural casing all-beef hot dog in a poppy-seed bun, topped with mustard, chopped onions, neon green relish, tomato wedges, a dill pickle spear, sport peppers, and celery salt
Italian beef? Glad you asked.
Chicago’s version of a roast beef sandwich deserves more respect. Created by Italian immigrants in the 1920s or 30s, the sandwich is a great example of transforming a cheap cut meat into something slightly out of control and ridiculous.
From Flaming Saganaki (Opah!) to barbequed rib tips, to a few specialized condiments, like giardiniera, Chicago has some great food.
And of course there is pizza – I prefer the stuffed variety, but there is no doubt that deep dish came first. (Note: Chicago stuffed pizza is definitely NOT the stuffed crust pizza that you find at some overworked pizza franchises around the country.)
Chicago’s single most famous dish was invented at Uno’s in 1943, and from the start it was designed to be substantial and filling—a knife-and-fork dinner instead of a handheld snack. It features a sturdy and crumbly bottom crust, which sometimes contains butter. Though the sides are reasonably tall, most of the crust isn’t all that thick, but it is compact, which explains why it can support a copious amount of mozzarella, toppings, and a chunky tomato sauce. Unlike most pizza, the cheese is placed under the sauce
Makes me home sick. (Will have to go there when the snow melts in the spring.)
And just because….
“Starting Over” from Legion of Boom.
[Clickty.] The removed all religious displays? Huh.
What KOCO failed to report was that Barnard Elementary really meant “All religious displays THAT AREN’T CHRISTMAS.”
It’s a thing with Christians that they are really a persecuted minority. Of course it isn’t true. They are not. (How many federal holidays coincide with Jewish holidays? Muslim? Zoroastrian? Yeah, that’s what I thought.) There is the usual “funny” email circulating this month. If I can wish you a Merry Christmas, great. If I can’t, then you are a closed-mind, politically-correct fool. Because there is a war on Christmas. Not.
Since the days when the Catholic church put Christmas on Dec 25th (once the winter solstice, birthday of Mithra, Horus, and perhaps others as well) in order to stamp out any other celebration, Christians have been waging a war on anyone not Christian. When that didn’t quite work – decorated trees, mistletoe, Yule logs, etc. – they reworked the calendar and moved the solstice off the 25th.
Still if you break into enough homes, you will eventually run into problems. UPDATE: Neighbor Stops Home Invaders by Shooting One and Holding Other at Gunpoint.
Terry Robbins, a neighbor and family member, caught the two suspects in the house and says he was forced to shoot one of the alleged burglars when he tried to attack him.
Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0. Both bad guys are OK, even though 1 was shot in the stomach.
It was a long time coming to this. U.K. finally pardons computer pioneer Alan Turing.
He was part of the team that broke the Nazi code machine (Enigma), but that wasn’t good enough for the 1950’s hatred of all things gay. (Actually the 1950s hated everything that wasn’t white, Christian, and male.)
Turing’s contributions to science spanned several disciplines, but he’s perhaps best remembered as the architect of the effort to crack the Enigma code, the cypher used by Nazi Germany to secure its military communications. Turing’s groundbreaking work — combined with the effort of cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park near Oxford and the capture of several Nazi code books — gave the Allies the edge across half the globe, helping them defeat the Italians in the Mediterranean, beat back the Germans in Africa and escape enemy submarines in the Atlantic.
If you were to study computer science (at any school that would teach you more than how to program in Java, and then give you a degree) you would study the Turing Machine. The Turing Test is the benchmark we will use to determine if machines ever develop real intelligence. And part of the reason we aren’t speaking German, can be laid at the feet of Alan Turing. But none of that stopped the hatred the 1950s directed at everything different.
Alan Turing was gay, and 1950s Britain punished the mathematician’s sexuality with a criminal conviction, intrusive surveillance and hormone treatment meant to extinguish his sex drive.
He eventually committed suicide.
While it focuses on one surgeon tired of waiting for the government to get things moving, there are some interesting bits of info about the state of Canadian Health Care.Frustrated with wait times, Calgary doctor quits public health system.
Hollinshead acknowledged his move could reopen the debate about private health care in Alberta, but noted queue jumping is already taking place through medical tourism when patients book in with surgeons outside of Canada, or head to the Cambie Surgery Centre in B.C., for example.
Further, Hollinshead said, some patients fly with their Alberta surgeons to Turks and Caicos for hip, knee and shoulder surgery.
The reason? The alternative is to wait for government-rationed facilities to be made available.
Today, it takes up to 18 months to see a shoulder surgeon in Calgary, then between six months and a year to book the procedure, he said. Some family doctors struggle to get their patients in to see surgeons, leaving them “just swirling around” waiting for care, as their conditions deteriorate, said Hollinshead.
18 months is forever in the world of orthopedic surgery. The difference between getting full-range-of-motion back and having some disability.
Ain’t socialized medicine grand?
Evergreens and holly and mistletoe don’t have squat to do with Christianity. Here is a history lesson in the form of a smack-down. The Tyee – An 'Infidel' Writes: Dear Mr. Pallister, Since You Asked.
For example, when some ill-informed zealot tells me Jesus is “the reason for the season” it’s only generations of WASP-y repression preventing me from launching into a history lecture on the spot.
Sure it’s Canada, but it’s still fun.
What is money? If you look too close you will get a headache. (Or you will see the fnords.) The Invention of Money
There has been a lot of head scratching because the markets didn’t throw a fit when the Fed announced the beginning of the end quantitative easing. (Otherwise known as “the taper.”) Well, I don’t know why people are confused about markets. The only people who think that markets are rational are economics professors. If markets were rational, no one would make (or lose) much money.
But then you can’t understand the markets if you don’t understand the basics of this economy.
Start with the basics. What is money? If you only listen to the prologue of linked story you will learn something.
The fictional quality of money is one reason why that as screwed up as we are, the Euro is in no danger of replacing the dollar as the reserve currency: The Europeans are at least as screwed up as we are.
Expect a case (maybe this one) to go to SCOTUS. Judge strikes down Utah same-sex marriage ban.
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling Friday saying Utah’s law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples’ rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
Shelby says the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way, and the state’s unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify deny allowing same-sex marriages.
Expect the Right to have kittens on Monday. (All the talk radio.) How can this be? How can a gay marriage have no impact on your straight marriage? How can this not just squeeze the special out of straight marriage?
Canada is the one of the other places with Socialized medicine held up as Nirvana. It isn’t always so good. Faced with doctor shortages, some emergency rooms struggle to stay open.
The Glace Bay Hospital in Cape Breton, N.S., shut its emergency department from 4 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next morning for three days this month. The Pasqua Hospital in Regina avoided a similar fate this week after doctors agreed to work additional shifts – its emergency doors were slated to shut between 7:30 p.m. and 8 a.m. And, in Thunder Bay, home to Canada’s second-busiest emergency department, the hospital has been hit with an exodus of doctors. Six of the 27 emergency doctors resigned from Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre this summer. Another three retired over the past 16 months.
It isn’t just emergency medicine – known for long hours and tough conditions – that is having trouble with staffing. Alberta Children's Hospital Surgeries Cancelled Due To Staff Shortages, Wildrose Say. Doctors say that the surgeries were postponed due to staff shortages. But don’t worry the bureaucrats have another explanation.
AHS medical director Dr. Francois Belanger says six surgeries had to be postponed this month, but not because of a staff shortage.
He says it has to do with how the operating room is managed on a day-to-day basis, as well as the patients’ medical condition, type of procedure, and what kind of recovery bed is required.
So the surgeries were postponed, but it was mostly due to lack of resources aside from staff.
And when the government sets the pay rates for doctors, there may be a disincentive for the doctors to practice at all, or to take your insurance. Plenty of job vacancies for dermatologists in BC; uncompetitive pay to blame, doctors charge | Vancouver Sun.
In Kamloops, for example, the home base of health minister Terry Lake, there’s only one dermatologist, but he’s de-enrolled from the Medical Services Plan which means all patients must pay out of pocket if they want to see the lone specialist.
In Prince George, the only dermatologist in town serves a population of 300,000. But he’s retiring next month, so by the end of the year, there will be no MSP-billing dermatologists between Kelowna and Prince George.
Now you may think dermatology is a low-priority, but if you ever had to consult one you might feel differently.
And shortages of doctors is only one form that this phenomenon takes. Rationing in the form of waiting is pretty common in Canada. Canada's costly health care wait times – Winnipeg Free Press.
Waiting has become a defining characteristic of the Canadian health care experience, but the consequences imposed on patients by delayed access to universally accessible care are too often ignored in the health care debate.
It isn’t just waiting to get expensive, specialized treatment. Canadians wait to see their family doctor. Doctor bookings backlog system | Chatham Daily News.
Their practices are driving wait times that pushed Canada’s ranking in access to family doctors to dead last in an international survey.
Say it again: Dead Last. I wonder if that pun was intended.
Waiting for staff. Waiting for equipment (e.g. an available MRI or operating room). Waiting. Waiting and the long wait times were actually central to why Canada’s Supreme Court struck down the public-monopoly on health care and reinstated the idea of private medicine. Waiting can kill you if you have the wrong disease. Waiting can condemn you to disability where prompt treatment would yield a better outcome. Waiting in medicine is bad.
You may get the drop on him, but that isn’t the end of the story. Suspected robber shot dead during Cleveland home invasion identified by medical examiner | cleveland.com.
The suspects approached Mosby in his driveway and forced him inside the home, police said.
Mosby, who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, was able to reach his weapon and open fire on both suspects during the attack, police said.
One would-be-bad-guy is dead. The other got shot in the knee.
Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0.
The NHS is often lauded by the Left in this country. The single payer system they so desperately want. But it isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Telling harsh truths about the NHS is a bitter but necessary pill – Telegraph.
The first paragraph is what caught my attention.
When my immigrant wife first came to Britain, it took her ages to understand our GP system. If I fell ill, I had to wait days to see the doctor. But if she felt sick, the same doctor would see her that afternoon as she was categorised as a private patient (and paid a modest £50 for the privilege). As far as she could work out, it was a Russian-style system of bribery: the official system doesn’t work, but you can bypass it with a few backhanders.
It is socialized medicine after all. Comparing it the old USSR is not surprising.
But that comparison is backed up by hard numbers – most of them put the UK towards the bottom of the developed world in terms of health-care-outcomes (like cancer 5-year survival rates.)
While a lot of stories about the NHS concentrate on hospitals, this story has some disturbing data about local surgeries. (What we in the US would call clincs, or even just “doctors’ offices.”) Problems in training, supplies, and cleanliness – things like not keeping sterile items sterile. In other words, real problems with real consequences.
Socialized medicine even in a place like the UK, is not the wonderful thing those on the Left would have you believe.
357 Magnum Archive 