currently 10:57pm Friday 5th September, 2008 (NYC, New York)
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July 2004 archives
The following are all the entries published for the month of July 2004. earthquakes and asteroids
Saturday 31 July, 2004 at 11:38PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (2) A couple of interesting sites I stumbled upon a while ago and thought worth mentioning: The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program provides, among other things, a constantly updated (within the hour) world map of all significant earthquake activity, detailing severity, location, reports and more via a drill-down map of the earth. There's a lot of other information on this site, including significant historical earthquakes, hazards and preparedness advice and links, education sources and more. Along the same lines, another site worth checking out is NASA's Near Earth Object Program, which basically monitors and reports on asteroids and their likelihood of hitting earth. I think I found this site about a year ago, shortly after the international media were running a story about giant asteroid '2003 QQ47', which had a slim chance of hitting the earth with the force of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs. Cheers. is fighting spam a lost cause?
Friday 30 July, 2004 at 6:56PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (6) An interesting albeit extremely pessimistic view from the pages of Dive Into Mark discusses this newest avenue of unwanted solicitation; weblog comment spam. It is the "give up now because you haven't got a hope anyway" attitude that Mark conveys that will allow spammers to win, and I think his attitude is defeatist to say the least. Mark gives numerous reasons for his attitude, along with somewhat threatening insinuations that resistance is futile and that 'they' will destroy you if you try. Well hell, that's a reason in itself to fight against it in my book! In another portion of his discussion, Mark states that even if we could prosecute these spammers, they will just move to countries where the local laws have nothing in place to allow them to prosecute spammers. There's an important thing to think about here though: to get their spam out there, these prats have to utilize multiple servers all around the globe, as do we all when surfing the internet, and this is where existing laws may help. There was a case a while ago in (I think) California where a guy was prosecuted for spam. He did not live in that state, and whatever state he did live in had no anti-spam laws at the time, but because prosecuters could prove that his spam was routed through a server in California (among many other places) they were able to bring a case up against him under California State Law. It is this sort of use of the law that will assist in the demise of the professional spammer in the future, and a combined global effort by governments to recognise this invasion and bring in laws to combat it accordingly will hopefully become a reality one day. Why should they care? Because the communications benefits of the internet (and I'm not just talking weblogs here, I mean email, data transmission, streaming media etc) are under threat. How long will it be before some clued up spammer figures a way to inject spam into data transmissions? How much use will this wonderful communication tool called the internet be when it's covered in adverts for viagra and porn sites? How would you like your phone calls interrupted every few minutes by an advert for penis enlargement? Don't laugh too hard, because unless something is done, that is exactly where we are headed. It's either that or the internet will devolve into small and highly restricted individual intranets and you'll only have access to what your ISP hosts on its own servers. This weblog is owned and paid for privately. I specify very clearly right next to the comment submission box that spam is not welcome or tolerated on this site. If some tosser came up and started slapping advertising posters all over my house or car, they'd be arrested, no question. As far as I'm concerned, the same should apply with spammers posting their crap on privately owned websites. At the very least, I should be legally allowed to bill them for advertising fees, or expect reciprocal and equal advertising on their site in return. There are numerous other statements made on that entry in 'Dive Into Mark' that I disagree with, and some of his opinions on the current efforts to protect against spam are not well researched and show only minimal knowledge of utilities such as MT-Blacklist, although I notice Jay Allen (author of MT-Blacklist) has since emailed Mark, and as a result Mark has made a half-hearted retraction (of sorts) on some unspecified issues that he wrote initially. My message to Mark; mate, you aren't helping the problem. As you said, it will probably get worse, but at least we're doing something about it rather than preaching doom and despair and just giving up. Your site has a pretty large following so you're in a position to help bring awareness to the internet community in a positive way. Do it. Please. spammers get creative ...again
Thursday 29 July, 2004 at 11:47PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (5) Never a dull moment in the war against spam. The proliferation of anti-spam techniques such as MT-Blacklist (in use on this domain) have dealt a solid blow to spammers who tirelessly come up with new methods to increase their search engine rankings. The latest technique bought to the attention of the international blogging community by Adam Kalsey (Kalsey Consulting) uses a more indirect method to raise those search engine rankings for the spammers. What the spammers are doing is finding sites that don't delete comment spam, and filling them with hundreds of spam links. They then boost the PR of that site by spamming it in other weblog site comments. The spam-contaminated site itself appears to be legitimate at a glance, so the comments that link to it are not instantly recognized as spam and therefore not deleted. Once the spam-friendly site has an increased Google ranking from these comments linking to their site, all the spammed links in their comments get a boost in rank as well, which is what the spammers are aiming for. Make sense? Good. So what does this mean? In Adam's words; "If you operate a site that is apathetic toward link spam, it is now time to choose a side. If you continue your apathy and allow comment spam links to linger on your site, you are helping the spammers." ..and hence you become part of the problem. What will happen as a result is that those websites with spam-infested comments may soon find themselves on the blacklist. The message is pretty clear; you may not be a spammer, but lack of action on your part in dealing with comment spam only serves to aid the spammers themselves, and I guess if you want an analogy, you're guilty of aiding and abetting. smooth move arroyo
Tuesday 27 July, 2004 at 10:40AM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (5) :: trackbacks (1) I just read an entry on michellemalkin.com regarding the recent controversial move by President Arroyo to pull all troops out of Iraq in order to save the life of hostage Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz. Rumour has it that not only did Arroyo pull all troops out of Iraq at the demands of the terrorists, but also paid a ransom of around $6million! A ransom of $6 million was offered and paid out to the Iraqi rebels holding Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz hostage, to ensure his release before President Arroyo's scheduled State of the Nation Address on July 26, a high level Philippine intelligence officer told the Tribune yesterday. This offer was alleged to have been approved by the President herself, who then tapped Malaysian emissaries for the job, the intelligence officer, who asked for anonymity, said. Whether there is truth to this ransom payment is hard to say. The related articles published in the The Daily Tribune linked from Michelle's entry have all mysteriously disappeared. I could not locate any retraction of the story, so one could assume that the articles were removed due to censorship rather than threat of litigation. The only related quote I could find was a 'neither confirm nor deny' type stance which stated that "Arroyo and the Malaysian government have no comment on the ransom payment." ..whatever. While the moral dilemma in considering this action is a tricky one, I can in a way admire Arroyo's humanitarian reasons for caving to the terrorists demands, but the consequences are costly - perhaps too costly. This action of course sets a precedence and sends a clear message to terrorist factions, which means that the rest of the world can only expect a lot more of the same type of hostage demands. Actually the precedence was probably set initially by the about-turn of Spain's involvement in Iraq after the train bombing there, but the message is the same. The alleged ransom payment however was a bad move in my humble opinion - that amount of money will go a long way in financing future terrorist actions, which will in turn be used to take the lives of many others fighting against terrorism. When saving the life of one will likely result in the deaths of many others further down the line, what are you supposed to do? Blood will be on your hands either way - it just depends on how much blood is on your hands now compared to later.. Bit of a catch22. The [alleged] ransom payment also brings up the possibility that Arroyo could now be considered to have indirectly financed terrorism, and in a country that has enough problems of its own, Arroyo's decision may have endangered the lives of her own fellow citizens with local terrorist factions using the same methods - I mean, if it worked once, they'll keep trying it, right? The other obvious consequence for Arroyo is the effect on diplomatic ties with the US, a strong ally. The US government makes it very clear that they will never bow to terrorist demands, and having one ally after another not support this stance will not favor future relations between the countries. In considering all these factors, what would you do? Personally I think I'd throw in everything I have to get that hostage back, and show no mercy to those responsible. Risking a life does not sit well with me, but the consequences of doing otherwise in this situation could almost be considered reckless. movabletype developers contest
Friday 23 July, 2004 at 10:42AM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (7) The international MT Developers Contest winners were announced at the BlogOn2004 conference held at the Berkeley Haas School of Business last night. The 1st prize went to a deserving Jay Allen who currently resides in Hungary. Jay wrote the indispensible MT-Blacklist plugin which a small group (including myself on this site) have had the fortune to be beta-testing for the last couple of weeks. MT-Blacklist has proven to be an indispensible and highly effective tool in the fight against spam, and this sort of recognition from the International Blogging Community will serve to propel MT-Blacklist to new heights of popularity and be an even greater bane to the scum who propagate the endless spam we are all forced to endure on a daily basis. Grats Jay. For full details of the winning entries, read this article on SixLog. Gratz to all and much kudos to Six Apart for devising the competition in the first place. subtle but effective
Tuesday 20 July, 2004 at 12:52PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (6) You know you're in for some entertaining reading when the sidebar on a weblog has this to say about their site: racial profiling and terrorism
Friday 16 July, 2004 at 10:17PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (8) Now most people would agree that racial profiling is wrong, but in light of the current terrorist threats facing not only the US but many other countries around the world, the story I'm about to inform you of will make even the most staunch supporters against racial profiling think twice. Keep in mind that in the US there is now a federal law that prohibits airport security from doing extended searches on any more than two people of a specific ethnicity (ie: middle eastern) on any one flight. Now I don't know about you, but to me this seems like an open invitation to terrorism, I mean heck, any would-be terrorists just have to watch the queue and send a few guys through if need be, and once two have had searches beyond the cursory checks that everyone gets, they're all set to go, knowing that it would be illegal for the security to pull them out for a random additional security check (unless something untoward came up in the standard security checking procedures). Also keep in mind that, according to recent intelligence, terrorists groups have been conducting dry runs which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets, allowing militants to assemble them in the air. The story itself comes from WomansWallStreet.com and occurred about two weeks ago to one of their writers, Annie Jacobsen. It's a fascinating read but I suggest you get comfortable as it's fairly lengthy. I was able to read the story in full once, but it seems I can no longer access the site (probably because there's a heap of others trying to read it). Fortunately I had it cached, so I'll republish it here. It opens with the following two paragraphs: Terror in the Skies, Again? Thanks to FreedomOfThought.com for putting me on to this story. Also worth a read for the flip side of the coin is John Hoke's recent experience with a TSA Screener. Come to think of it, I wonder if that two person maximum applies all races or just ethnic minorities? ..yeah ok, I wont open that particular can of worms just yet... funny how the Patriot Act seems to be messing with all sorts of civil liberties for many ordinary citizens like John, yet where the risk is the greatest, suddenly there's this seemingly contradictory law stating that they cant search more than two people per flight of the same ethnicity (as long as they're a minority?) ..wtf? Really intelligent time to start remembering the constitution again ...sheesh. Idiots. more eyebrow-raising justice
Tuesday 13 July, 2004 at 10:41AM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (2) Watching the NY1 news this morning I was rather taken aback when they covered two unrelated headlines back to back which detailed the sentences handed out yesterday on two criminal cases. The first story reported the sentencing of a Queens man, David Robles, for a knife attack allegedly ordered by his landlord who wanted his tenants out of a rent controlled apartment (Queens is a borough of New York City). The landlord allegedly wanted them out so he could raise the rent from $400 to $1,400 a month. The two brothers who were targeted survived the attack. Robles' conviction on the attempted murder charge got him a sentence of 40 years to life in prison. An accomplice, Danny Machuca, pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder, and is still awaiting sentencing. The landlord, Juan Basagoitia, is awaiting trial on several charges, including attempted murder. The second story (aired immediately after) detailed the sentencing of an unrelated murder case in New York restaurant "Rao's". Louis Barone, a reputed mobster who shot and killed a patron at Rao's after an argument about a singer's performance at the restaurant pleaded guilty yesterday to manslaughter. Barone took the manslaughter plea in exchange for a sentence of 15 years behind bars. Barone also pleaded guilty to assault for shooting another diner in the foot. That 5-year sentence will run concurrently with the manslaughter conviction (which effectively means he gets let off without any punishment for that one). Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Gary Fishman told the court that Barone could have been sentenced to 25 years to life if he had been convicted of second-degree murder, as initially charged. Barone, an alleged Genovese crime family associate, and Circelli (the victim), reputedly a newly made man in the Luchese family, argued about the performance of Broadway veteran Rena Strober who was singing at the restaurant at the time. When Circelli paid his tab and headed for the door, Barone followed, shooting him in the back as he passed the restaurant's kitchen door. Circelli fell face down. Firing again, Barone accidentally hit Petraglia, chief clerk of Nassau County Surrogate Court, in the foot. Now explain to me how an attempted murder can result in a sentence of 40 years to life in prison, yet a guy who shoots someone in the back and kills him just for a difference of opinion only gets 15 years in prison. And this is in the same state, so the same laws apply. I know 15 years is still a long time, but this just makes no sense. Could the message here be conceived that if you're going to attempt to kill someone, make sure you succeed so you'll get less time for it? Ridiculous. Along similar lines, an update to an entry I wrote a couple of weeks ago (here and here) regarding the Bridget Marks custody case; apparently Judge Goldberg (who made the seemingly unjust ruling) is a Criminal Law Judge and had never heard a custody case in her entire career prior to this one! She was transferred over because of case overload. Have a read of this article from ABC news for a good impartial rundown of the contraversial case. independence weekend
Monday 5 July, 2004 at 12:05PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (6) It's been a very groovy weekend. On Friday we headed off early, leaving the apartment at about 5.30am. A subway ride to Manhattan 34th & 6th followed by a short walk found us at Penn Station (under Madison Square Garden). From there an Amtrak train took us from New York, through New Jersey and into Delaware. A taxi ride from the train station then took us across another state border and into Pennsylvania to our final destination, Longwood Gardens. This place is impressively huge. The gardens, woodlands, and meadows are immaculate, with many fountains and waterfalls scattered throughout the 1,050 acres that make up Longwood Gardens. It took us 8 hours to get around most of it, including lunch at The Terrace Restaurant (if you go there, try their corn bread and the grilled skinless chicken breast with vegetable salsa and couscous - yummo). It was a hot day venturing into the high 80's°F (around 30°C), so of course I had to jump into one of the waterfalls, and then we both got into a few fountains to cool off along the way ..no, I don't think you're supposed to, but hey, I was hot ok? Yesterday (Sunday) we crawled out of bed and headed to a sports club in Brooklyn around midday to meet up with IceQueen's Dad, the Lemur. Lemur plays table tennis (ping pong) a lot, and invited us down to play a few games. Play we did. I hope we didn't embarrass Lemur too much, our skills are ..umm ..somewhat lacking, but entertaining. Most of the time we played and scored like in volleyball (win service first before you can score) and then go for 21 points to win. Turns out we had it all wrong. You're meant to play to 11 points only, and service is two serves then the other player serves twice and so on. Never mind, we had fun regardless. Thanks Lemur! We both have sore muscles today in a few places that obviously we don't normally use. After about 2 hours of table tennis, we walked to Brighton Beach and decided to have an early dinner on the boardwalk at Tatiana's Cafe. I had the fillet mignon (not bad) and IceQueen, well she ordered a lobster. It was pretty entertaining at first watching IceQueen tackle the lobster with the nutcracker thing (neither of us knew what one is supposed to do with a whole lobster), until she crushed its head and ewwwww.. I get a full view of mashed green brains and intestines and crap ..that was the end of my appetite (fortunately I had already finished most of my steak by then). A stroll along the boardwalk after our early dinner bought us to the subway station and back to the apartment, where we then changed and relaxed in the sun by the swimming pool for the remaining couple of hours of daylight. Awesome few days huh? putting the 'just' back in justice
Thursday 1 July, 2004 at 12:09AM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (18)
In August 1993, Sheriff Joe banned Playboy and other sexually explicit materials from the jails (a decision that has since been backed by the U.S. Supreme Court when a convict attempted to sue the Sheriff for taking his Playboy magazine away). That same year Joe placed 1,200 men in Korean War surplus Army tents to save money and relieve jail overcrowding. This was the new 'tent city jail' which contributed to Sheriff Joe's notoriety as 'America's toughest sheriff'. In 1995, tents to hold 200 women prisoners were also installed. To symbolize that he will always have room for more criminals, a 'vacancy' sign was installed at the site of the tent city jail. When the sign was destroyed in a riot in November 1996, the sheriff immediately had a new sign installed. In 1997 the U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe alleging excessive use of force by guards. The sheriff settled the suit by promising to stop hog-tying inmates (that made me laugh). In 1998, room for incarcerated teens are added in what Sheriff Joe calls his 'pup tents'. Shortly after, America's first full-time jail high school is instituted at Sheriff Joe's prison, with 30 of the jail's 250 teenage inmates attending. Good stuff. During Sheriff Joe's time there have been a number of other [alleged] facts reported about his prisons. He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them (excellent - why should taxpayers have to foot the bill?). He has banned smoking in the jails. He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects, and then in 1996 started the world's first female chain gang at Estrella Jail, presumably so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination (yet another nice move). Sheriff Joe took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails (how anyone could justify passing that order is beyond me), so he hooked up the cable TV again, but only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel. When asked why the weather channel, he replied, "So they will know how hot it's gonna be when they are working on my chain gangs." He cut off coffee on the grounds that it has zero nutritional value. When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back." (I'm really starting to like this guy). He bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on videotape and piped it into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place. What a comeback! More recently, with temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116°F/46°C at the time), the Associated Press reported: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138°F (58°C) inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks. Damn this guy is awesome. Of course there have been some negative things such as the live webcams on crime.com (jailcams), which have since been shut down when it appeared some of the cams were located in toilet blocks in holding cells - complaints from activists condemned 'jailcam' as a violation of privacy rights. One particular person, Donna Hamm (head of Middle Ground, an inmate rights group) went as far as to say, [because some of the women in the holding cells etc could be juveniles] "I think he's potentially an international child pornographer." She has requested a federal civil rights investigation. Whatever. Now personally I think this guy is on the right track. Prison is supposed to be a deterrent, not a friggin hotel. I recall a report in NZ a few years ago that said the annual cost of keeping an single inmate in jail was higher than the average household income at the time. I imagine that this is similar for the US as well. Guess who pays for it? Taxpayers. If you weren't the victim of the actual crime that put them in prison, then you're a victim anyway because you have to pay for their crimes. That for a start is fundamentally wrong. Inmates receive three solid meals a day, which is often more than many people on the outside get. Hell, it's made out to be some sort of punishment that the ones in Phoenix get bologna sandwiches for lunch now. What the hell were they getting before? I'd be very damn happy if someone made me bologna sandwiches every day for lunch, let alone a full cooked meal! It's not often I eat three meals a day either. One thing that gets me are the words 'inmate rights'. Now there's an oxymoron for ya. For the criminals that committed crimes against individuals, what about the victim's rights? They didn't seem to care much about anyones rights when they committed the crime did they? No they didn't. When I hear stories of crims suing house-owners because the crim broke their leg tripping over something while trying to break into a house, I want to scream at the injustice of a 'justice' system that would even consider such a case, yet considered they are, and sometimes the criminal actually wins it. In my opinion, the moment an individual starts committing a crime, they waive their rights as an individual. Why should they benefit from the protection of individual rights when they are in the act of violating another's rights? That's such a glaring contradiction it's not even funny. When I hear that crims are given virtually unlimited free professional counseling (free for them, because the taxpayers are footing the bill), yet the victims only have limited professional counseling and then have to pay exorbitant fees for it after that, it starts to look like the system is working for the crims, not the law-abiding public. My current opinion is that criminals should be punished for their crimes, and they should have to work their asses off to cover their room and board [while in prison] at the market rate just like everyone else has to on the outside. Thumbs up to Sheriff Joe for having the balls to try and make these crims regret their crimes and actually punish them as far as he legally can, and at the same time minimizing the cost to the taxpayer. So what do you think? On a kind of related topic, a blogger I know by the online name of RWO (retired Warrant Officer), has recently finished Jury Duty serving on the California vs Erskine death penalty murder case and has written about his experience. The high profile case makes for some fascinating reading, especially for someone like me who for some reason has never been called for Jury Duty. The story is covered over a series of entries starting on 2nd June: Little did I know back in March, when I showed up for my civic duty, I would be part of a jury that would be hearing such a horrific case, that had many of us in tears during several days of trial and during deliberations. His website is RWO (http://retiredwarrant.blogdrive.com). Use the calendar on the left hand menu of his site to navigate the entries from 2nd June through to 27th June to get the complete story. Thanks for sharing your experience RWO. |
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I came across a mention in a New Zealand surfing forum (of all places) about a Sheriff in Phoenix, Arizona, named Joe Arpaio. After a little digging around the net, it appears this guy is pretty famous, albeit highly controversial. Joseph Arpaio was elected sheriff of Maricopa County in 1992. Things haven't been the same in the county jail since.