Political Hackery and Douchebaggery from

the Indian-American Republican Council. Here's a statement from the IARC about George Allen's "macaca" remark directed to an American of Indian descent:

IARC Statement on Senator George Allen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mr. Radha Krishnan - (202) 347-1223 IARC Executive Director info@iarcnational.org

August 15, 2006

IARC Statement on Senator George Allen

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Indian American Republican Council issued the following statement from its Chairman Dr. R. Vijay:

"We don't believe Senator George Allen was making a reference to the ethnicity of Jim Webb's campaign volunteer. He has apologized for any misunderstanding this statement has caused. We do know that Senator Allen has worked closely with Indian Americans when he was Governor and as U.S. Senator, and he has always garnered strong support from the community. He has visited India and showed strong leadership in supporting the U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement.

"It's disappointing to see Jim Webb using an Indian American volunteer in a demeaning fashion in order to garner attention to his campaign. We believe there are pressing issues facing Virginia and our nation, from the war on terrorism to the challenges in the Middle East. Jim Webb needs to engage in these issues instead of attempting to smear the reputation of a respected leader."

A Couple of Things

about these assholes they caught in England wanting to blow up planes. First, I'm glad that they're publicizing this, for the sake of the vast majority of US and British muslims who are not jihadists:

A British intelligence official has told CNN that the original information about a plot to down commercial jetliners in mid-Atlantic with explosives came from a tip from the Muslim community in Britain.The official said the tip resulted from a person who had been concerned about the activities of an acquaintance after the July 7 terror attacks in London.

Second, I hear that they found some "martyrdom tapes" in the homes of some of these pieces of shit. I think that somebody ought to buy the rights to them and turn them into MST3K comedy bits. It would probably be quite funny. And you could show them on a continuous loop to the guys as they rot in jail.

One Shining Moment

Tears in my eyes...

She gone!

Apple Billing Leopard as Vista 2.0

Introducing Vista 2.0,
originally uploaded by Gernot Poetsch.

Check out the top of this photo from the Moscone Center in San Francisco, site of the WWDC. Thanks to Gernot Poetsch for the picture, by the way.

Dot, Not Feather

Fall Practices Have Begun!

And Ron Zook is Geeked!

Remember those ultra-modern passports

that the US started requiring and caused such a flap around the rest of the world because of their cost? They had RFID chips and various other security-minded features. Well, apparently they're easily hackable and as easily copied as the old passports. Suhhweeet!

In a demonstration for Wired News, Grunwald placed his passport on top of an official passport-inspection RFID reader used for border control. He obtained the reader by ordering it from the maker -- Walluf, Germany-based ACG Identification Technologies -- but says someone could easily make their own for about $200 just by adding an antenna to a standard RFID reader. He then launched a program that border patrol stations use to read the passports -- called Golden Reader Tool and made by secunet Security Networks -- and within four seconds, the data from the passport chip appeared on screen in the Golden Reader template.

Grunwald then prepared a sample blank passport page embedded with an RFID tag by placing it on the reader -- which can also act as a writer -- and burning in the ICAO layout, so that the basic structure of the chip matched that of an official passport. As the final step, he used a program that he and a partner designed two years ago, called RFDump, to program the new chip with the copied information. The result was a blank document that looks, to electronic passport readers, like the original passport.

I'm just going to get under my desk and roll up into a little ball.

What the Fuck?

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

David Bernstein over at Volokh.com

always seems to protest too much. Especially as it relates to Juan Cole. He once claimed that Cole said that "Israel is the most dangerous regime to American interests in the Middle East." Not surprisingly, Prof. Bernstein had materially misquoted Prof. Cole. By contrast, Cole's quote, which was admittedly provacative, was that "Ariel Sharon's government was the regime that did the most damage to US interests." In the comments to his post, I argued that Bernstein's omission of the word regime altered the entire meaning of the quote.

Similarly, this Bernstein post over at the Volokh Conspiracy strains credibilty. First, he quotes Cole:

As for the Iraq War, puh-lease. Opinion polling shows that in spring of 2003, some 75 percent of Americans wanted to go to war against Saddam's regime. At the same time, only a little over 50 percent of American Jews supported the war. "Jews" did not cause the Iraq War. George W. Bush caused the Iraq War. He had Gentile advisers who wanted him to go for it. He had a handful of Jewish advisers who wanted him to go for it. But he is the president. It was his decision. And the American Jewish community was distinctly lukewarm about the whole idea, and very divided.

He then tries to contrast this statement with several Cole quotes assigning some blame for US mid-east policy to Likud, Ariel Sharon and their US allies (namely the neo-cons). Those quotes, Bernstein says, conflict with the passage above. Hmmm... indeed.

Would Bernstein really have us believe that Likud is the same as the international Jewish population? Hell, even Ariel Sharon moved out of Likud in the years after we invaded Iraq. I know a lot of jews (I also have black friends) and most of them were and are agaisn the Iraq war. But we're to believe that they're Likud party members or Ariel Sharon supporters?

I hate to go all ad hominem at this point, but I'm pretty happy I didn't have Prof. Bernstein for a law school teacher.