Chris

Just wanted to point this out for all of my male readers. From the latest issue of Maxim. Take a look.

Ok, we now return you to your Saturday. Have fun with the wife and kids.

Later.

Just to tone it down a little from all the political stuff of late let’s talk about my weekend for a minute. I had a tough weekend with some work stuff but finally was able to get it back on track. Thank you Aaron in Florida for all the good advice. It worked.

One thing to keep in mind as you go about your life: try to avoid using Windows products as much as possible unless you are prepared to deal with the very real possibility of gigantic failure. When it works it works fine. Much like Mac OSX or Linux or whatever. But when it decides to take a dump, it really takes a dump.

Anyone who has ever worked with Windows NT and Exchange 5.5 I’m sure can sympathize. It was a major pain in the ass to get things back on track over the weekend. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday working on it. The funny thing is I know how to do it and have done it before on several occasions. This time, for some reason known only to the computer gods, it just would not work as advertised.

That is one of the things that is most fun about working with computers and tech in general. The chaos factor. Sometimes things just don’t want to work no matter what you try. It’s like they have a mind of their own and that mind is dead set against you. It’s weird and their isn’t much logic to it at all. Even though their should be given that you are dealing with a machine. It’s just ones and zeroes at the core after all.

I used to think it was just a mystery. Some random element perhaps. Now I actually think it serves a purpose. It keeps techs and consultants (like me) in business. It’s like cars. Even the best made cars and the most expensive cars need to be fixed and need new parts. The car companies make more money from parts and service than they make from selling cars. So, what’s their motivation to make better cars? None at all.

Not really a mystery at all it turns out. Just business.

Later.

CNN.com has this little gem. I know this is long kids but it makes for some interesting reading:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In a highly critical report issued Friday, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA’s prewar estimates of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were overstated and unsupported by intelligence.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters that intelligence used to support the invasion of Iraq was based on assessments that were “unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence.” The committee’s conclusions are contained in a 511-page report released Friday.

“Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade,” Roberts said. “Today we know these assessments were wrong.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the leading Democrat on the 18-member panel, said that “bad information” was used to bolster the case for war. “We in Congress would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now,” the West Virginia Democrat said.

“Leading up to September 11, our government didn’t connect the dots. In Iraq, we are even more culpable because the dots themselves never existed.” Roberts listed several points emphasized in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that were “overstated or “not supported by the raw intelligence reporting.”

Among these were that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, had chemical and biological weapons, and was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents. He also said the intelligence community failed to “accurately or adequately explain the uncertainties behind the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to policymakers.”

Rockefeller said that the “intelligence failures” will haunt America’s national security “for generations to come.” “Our credibility is diminished. Our standing in the world has never been lower,” he said. “We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today than ever before.”

The top-ranking members of the Senate committee offered different interpretations on political pressures on the intelligence community. “The committee found no evidence that the intelligence community’s mischaracterization or exaggeration of intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of politics or pressure,” Roberts said.

But although he approved the report, Rockefeller said it fails to explain fully the pressures on the intelligence community “when the most senior officials in the Bush administration had already forcefully and repeatedly stated their conclusions publicly.”

“It was clear to all of us in this room who were watching that — and to many others — that they had made up their mind that they were going to go to war,” he said. Critics of the war had expressed concerned about visits to the CIA by Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials, but the report said it found no evidence that policymakers asked inappropriate questions of analysts or tried to pressure them into changing their views.

Some GOP lawmakers on the panel successfully blocked Democratic efforts to finish the second part of the report — how the Bush administration used the information from the intelligence community — until after the November elections. Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, said she hoped a similar investigation from the House of Representatives would address some of those issues, adding she was frustrated in her attempts to get the investigation off the ground. “There has not been the cooperation that there apparently has been on the Senate side,” said Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

She said she had written to committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Florida, four times. “And just today we were able to sit down together,” Harman said. Goss, a former CIA agent, has been mentioned as a possible replacement for outgoing CIA Director George Tenet, who was blasted in the Senate report. Tenet has resigned and leaves office Sunday.

“I would hope we could address [the issues] factually and on a bipartisan basis, but at the moment I don’t have a lot of confidence in it,” Harman said. Rockefeller said the administration’s position was that Iraq stockpiled weapons and actively pursued a nuclear weapons program and that it “might use its alliances with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, to use these weapons to strike at the United States.” Rockefeller said that “no evidence existed of Iraq’s complicity or assistance in al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks, including 9/11.”

The report said that intelligence analysts were “accurate and not affected by a lack of relevant source or operational detail” in making a connection between Iraq and terrorism — although it did say that contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in the 1990s “did not add up to an established formal relationship.”

Roberts said President Bush and Congress sent the country to war based on “flawed” information provided by the intelligence community. He said the panel concluded that the intelligence community suffered “from what we call a collective group think, which led analysts and collectors and managers to presume that Iraq had active and growing WMD programs.”

Roberts said this “group think caused the community to interpret ambiguous evidence, such as the procurement of dual-use technology, as conclusive evidence of the existence of WMD programs.” The report criticized the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Human Intelligence Service for their handling of an informer code-named “Curveball,” noting that the latter “demonstrated serious lapses in handling such an important source.”

Over and over, the report noted, analysts had exaggerated what they knew and left out, glossed over or simply dismissed dissenting views. The report said that the intelligence community eliminated caveats about assessments when it compiled a document hurriedly released to the public in October 2002, thus misrepresenting “their judgments to the public which did not have access to the classified National Intelligence Estimate containing the more carefully worded assessments.”

The National Intelligence Estimate was used to persuade Congress to authorize war, but administration officials for weeks already had been putting out the kind of information found in it. Regarding Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 2003 speech to the United Nations — in which he presented the U.S. case for war — the report said that much of the information from the CIA “was overstated, misleading or incorrect.”

Roberts said the most troubling finding was the lack of human intelligence in Iraq. “Most alarmingly, after 1998 and the exit of the U.N. inspectors, the CIA had no human intelligence sources inside Iraq who were collecting against the WMD target,” Roberts said.

Intelligence. I love that word. If only our current leaders had any. One more reason to go the other way. I realize that there are a lot of Democrats that worked on this report and its an election year but we never found any WMD’s in Iraq and this goes a long way to explain why we didn’t. Because they were not there.

That “whoosh” sound you hear President Bush is your career going down the toilet. Enjoy your last few months as President while they last.

Later.

CNN.com has this little gem. I know this is long kids but it makes for some interesting reading:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In a highly critical report issued Friday, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA’s prewar estimates of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were overstated and unsupported by intelligence.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters that intelligence used to support the invasion of Iraq was based on assessments that were “unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence.” The committee’s conclusions are contained in a 511-page report released Friday.

“Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade,” Roberts said. “Today we know these assessments were wrong.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the leading Democrat on the 18-member panel, said that “bad information” was used to bolster the case for war. “We in Congress would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now,” the West Virginia Democrat said.

“Leading up to September 11, our government didn’t connect the dots. In Iraq, we are even more culpable because the dots themselves never existed.” Roberts listed several points emphasized in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that were “overstated or “not supported by the raw intelligence reporting.”

Among these were that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, had chemical and biological weapons, and was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents. He also said the intelligence community failed to “accurately or adequately explain the uncertainties behind the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to policymakers.”

Rockefeller said that the “intelligence failures” will haunt America’s national security “for generations to come.” “Our credibility is diminished. Our standing in the world has never been lower,” he said. “We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today than ever before.”

The top-ranking members of the Senate committee offered different interpretations on political pressures on the intelligence community. “The committee found no evidence that the intelligence community’s mischaracterization or exaggeration of intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of politics or pressure,” Roberts said.

But although he approved the report, Rockefeller said it fails to explain fully the pressures on the intelligence community “when the most senior officials in the Bush administration had already forcefully and repeatedly stated their conclusions publicly.”

“It was clear to all of us in this room who were watching that — and to many others — that they had made up their mind that they were going to go to war,” he said. Critics of the war had expressed concerned about visits to the CIA by Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials, but the report said it found no evidence that policymakers asked inappropriate questions of analysts or tried to pressure them into changing their views.

Some GOP lawmakers on the panel successfully blocked Democratic efforts to finish the second part of the report — how the Bush administration used the information from the intelligence community — until after the November elections. Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, said she hoped a similar investigation from the House of Representatives would address some of those issues, adding she was frustrated in her attempts to get the investigation off the ground. “There has not been the cooperation that there apparently has been on the Senate side,” said Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

She said she had written to committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Florida, four times. “And just today we were able to sit down together,” Harman said. Goss, a former CIA agent, has been mentioned as a possible replacement for outgoing CIA Director George Tenet, who was blasted in the Senate report. Tenet has resigned and leaves office Sunday.

“I would hope we could address [the issues] factually and on a bipartisan basis, but at the moment I don’t have a lot of confidence in it,” Harman said. Rockefeller said the administration’s position was that Iraq stockpiled weapons and actively pursued a nuclear weapons program and that it “might use its alliances with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, to use these weapons to strike at the United States.” Rockefeller said that “no evidence existed of Iraq’s complicity or assistance in al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks, including 9/11.”

The report said that intelligence analysts were “accurate and not affected by a lack of relevant source or operational detail” in making a connection between Iraq and terrorism — although it did say that contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in the 1990s “did not add up to an established formal relationship.”

Roberts said President Bush and Congress sent the country to war based on “flawed” information provided by the intelligence community. He said the panel concluded that the intelligence community suffered “from what we call a collective group think, which led analysts and collectors and managers to presume that Iraq had active and growing WMD programs.”

Roberts said this “group think caused the community to interpret ambiguous evidence, such as the procurement of dual-use technology, as conclusive evidence of the existence of WMD programs.” The report criticized the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Human Intelligence Service for their handling of an informer code-named “Curveball,” noting that the latter “demonstrated serious lapses in handling such an important source.”

Over and over, the report noted, analysts had exaggerated what they knew and left out, glossed over or simply dismissed dissenting views. The report said that the intelligence community eliminated caveats about assessments when it compiled a document hurriedly released to the public in October 2002, thus misrepresenting “their judgments to the public which did not have access to the classified National Intelligence Estimate containing the more carefully worded assessments.”

The National Intelligence Estimate was used to persuade Congress to authorize war, but administration officials for weeks already had been putting out the kind of information found in it. Regarding Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 2003 speech to the United Nations — in which he presented the U.S. case for war — the report said that much of the information from the CIA “was overstated, misleading or incorrect.”

Roberts said the most troubling finding was the lack of human intelligence in Iraq. “Most alarmingly, after 1998 and the exit of the U.N. inspectors, the CIA had no human intelligence sources inside Iraq who were collecting against the WMD target,” Roberts said.

Intelligence. I love that word. If only our current leaders had any. One more reason to go the other way. I realize that there are a lot of Democrats that worked on this report and its an election year but we never found any WMD’s in Iraq and this goes a long way to explain why we didn’t. Because they were not there.

That “whoosh” sound you hear President Bush is your career going down the toilet. Enjoy your last few months as President while they last.

Later.

I always forget something. Getting old is great. What’s next, diapers? Anyway, I just wanted to comment on more of the Bush campaign’s great strategery. John Stewart also did some funny bits on this during the recent “Daily Show”. Not watching “The Daily Show”? You should be, its funny.

Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge announced that Al Queda is planning a major terrorist attack to disrupt the coming elections. This announcement actually included no real information as to the type of attack or the timing of an atttack. Actually, Mr. Ridge basically had no information whatsoever but did say that they were working very hard, gathering intelligence to stop the coming threat. All under the guidance of President Bush. Now i feel much safer.

Call me jaded or paranoid but I can’t help feeling that this announcement had pretty coincidental timing given that on the same day John Kerry and John Edwards made their first public appearance together as running mates. All that the Homeland security announcement was meant to do was to divert our attention from Kerry and focus it on our eminent death. Way to go Tom Ridge.

Are people actually going to fall for this kind of stuff? I hope not. Fear is one of the ways people in charge stay in charge. If you are afraid and thinking about your own safety, you are less likely to think about the crappy job they are doing and the fact that you are only afraid now because the people in charge didn’t do their job in the first place.

Let’s go into this thing with our eyes open at least, shall we? As I am so jaded I will say that I don’t expect the Democratic side to be free of mud-slinging and negativity. It’s just the nature of the system. I do hope they do it with a tad more finesse though. . . Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Later.

According to an IDC survey, 36% of all software installed worldwide last year was pirated. The number is only 27% in the US. The biggest offender: Eastern Europe. That doesn’t seem right about the U.S. as at least 50% of the people I know pirate software. My sample isn’t very scientific though.

The Los Angeles city council is cracking down on Internet cafés in the wake of several shootings in the San Fernando Valley. The new regulations require cafes with at least five computers to eliminate closed booths, install security cameras and bar minors during school hours to prevent truancy. This actually took place in Northridge. Rival gangs got into it over a spirited game of “Counterstrike”.

I don’t know about you but when some 12 year-old kicks my ass during an online game of “Pandora Tomorrow” or “Medal of Honor’ I get pretty angry too. Although, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go so far as to actually kill someone. At least I would like to think so.

Google is cracking down on Gmail profiteers. The license agreement was modified last week saying users cannot “sell, trade, resell, or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account.” That’s too bad because I was going to make a few bucks selling all the extra GMail invites I’ve gotten. Oh well, I can still work on my cure for Cancer.

Lastly, Yahoo announced its fifth straight wildly profitable quarter yesterday, but the stock went down because the company didn’t exceed analysts expectations. The Internet company showed a profit of $112.5 million on $832.3 million in revenue, twice the profits from this time last year. Now if they would only give out 1GB of free mail space with their mail accounts. Then, they would really be cool.

Later.

Small entry today. Just enough to get your attention and give you some clue where my political thoughts lean these days. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July.

Later.

Everyone, listen up and repeat after me “John Kerry and John Edwards, John Kerry and John Edwards, John Kerry and John Edwards, John Kerry and John Edwards . . .” Am I getting through to you?

Ok, now go out and tell everyone you know to get off their asses come this November and vote for . . .wait for it . . . you guessed it: John Kerry and John Edwards. You may have heard that John Kerry picked a running mate. Yes, its John Edwards. Yes, I’m happy about it. And yes, for the first time in several years I feel optimistic about this country’s future.

For more info on John Kerry or John Edwards, click away. You may even want to give them a buck or two. They probably don’t need it as they are both very wealthy with the largest amount of campaign funds in many years. But hey, its the thought that counts.

That’s pretty much all I have to say at this moment except that it didn’t surprise me in the least (or anyone else I suspect) that the Bush campaign instantly attacked John Edwards. I love the fact that they go instantly to the negative. They must have had adds ready for each potential Kerry pick. I bet they thought they were being cleaver or practicing good campaign strategery (as Mr. Bush is fond of saying).

To me, they just look desperate. Desperate and lashing out. I hope that people see through their bullshit and send them packing. Like I said, today I feel optimistic. I feel like things are going to get better. I expect to feel this way for at least a day or maybe two. Then, things will most likely go back in the crapper.

It will be fun while it lasts.

Later.