Microsoft's Windows key validation survives less than 24 hours

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This week, Microsoft began requiring visitors to the Windows Update web site to complete a short validation process before allowing them access to updates for the latest Windows versions. While you can still obtain "critical" updates by enabling the Automatic Updates control panel, "optional" and driver updates now require the validation.

I hope Microsoft didn't spend a lot of money developing this validation process, because it lasted less than 24 hours before being hacked by a string of 48 characters.

AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h: window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all'

IOKIYAR - it's not just an acronym; it's a way of life.

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Some vets condemn 'Wedding Crashers' site

"I challenge the producer of that movie to go to Walter Reed Hospital and walk through the ward and see if he still wants to print out a fake Purple Heart," said Thomas Cottone, Jr., a special agent with the FBI who enforces a federal law that prohibits wearing, manufacturing, buying, selling or trading a Medal of Honor.

I don't suppose anyone else recalls last year's GOP convention, where the troop-supporting Republicans wore bandaids with purple hearts as a slap at John Kerry?

Where was Agent Cottone's outrage then?

IOKIYAR - It's OK If You're A Republican

Help Wanted: White House Spokesperson

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Must be able to keep a straight face while telling whoppers like:

. . . and it's very important that the American people know what we are doing to win that war on terrorism.

even as your administration bosses do everything possible to conceal the evidence of their warcrimes:

“U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed Friday that videos and ‘a lot more pictures’ exist of the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.

"’If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse,’ Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ‘I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.’

Pentagon Blocks Release of Abu Ghraib Images: Here's Why

Send resume and $5000.00 non-refundable application fee to Karl Rove, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The two types of Internet debate

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Type A:

• Liberal makes statement
• Conservative responds with personal attack on liberal

Type B:

• Conservative makes statement
• Liberal responds with attack on statement
• Conservative responds with personal attack on liberal

If we could just harness all the energy wasted hating the Clintons

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Sadly, No! is running a Wingnuttery Hall of Fame competition that had me dredging up this moldie oldie: the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel champions the cause of cockfighting in order to take a cheapshot at Hillary.

This should be a cause for concern, because whether or not you approve of cockfighting, Ms. Clinton's bill is an affront to greater principles. To begin with, it tramples all over states' rights. Worse, it threatens to eliminate a legal, legitimate, multimillion-dollar industry that conducts a thriving trade across the world.

Half Cocked - August 9, 2001

As is often the case with such overblown rhetoric, this proved too much for even some of the Journal's conservative readers, including Roy Fassell of Los Angeles who responded:

I dislike Hillary Clinton and have no use for her. However, to defend the abuse of animals to demean Hillary Clinton is quite revolting.

If "drawing blood" in animals is the mark of a good citizen, then I pass.

I'm old enough to remember the Wall Street Journal as a respected source of news and information. It's really sad they pissed away more than a century of credibility to be Rush Limbaugh's whores.

I'm really tired of hearing about

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Arnold Fucking Schwartzenegger and all the dumbass Californians who now appear to have developed buyer's remorse much like Minnesota early in the Jesse Ventura days.

Too bad, assholes - you did this to yourselves. A whole bunch of you voted for this musclebound oaf to play Conan the Governarian. Well, you're getting what you voted for. You deserve this, so shut up, quit whining, and take it like a goddamn grownup.

And remember - it could always be worse. Look what happened last time you elected a movie star governor.

Schwarzenegger more unpopular than ever, poll finds - Yahoo

I live in Kansas City.

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Developers here have literally owned the government for decades.

Pendergast's power grew during the Great Depression, creating a Ten-Year Plan bond plan aimed at putting unemployed Kansas Citians to work building civic structures that still stand, including City Hall, Municipal Auditorium, and the Jackson County Courthouse. These structures, sporting art deco architecture, were built with concrete supplied by Pendergast's Ready-Mixed Concrete company and other companies that provided kickbacks to Pendergast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_MO

So we tend to have a bit different perspective on things like eminent domain. We know a sizeable percentage of our politicians are crooks, and can't for the life of us understand why anyone in their right mind would want to make it easier for them to rip us off.

See, we've recently been blessed with things like developments in one of KCMO's swankest neighborhoods getting tax breaks intended to reduce urban blight:

Standard TIF deals compensate developers for the increase in property taxes that their improvements trigger. But Kansas City also lets developers feast on sales taxes. Buy a hamburger in this town, and a few pennies get kicked to them.

Kansas City helps developers another way. In most cities, TIF projects are restricted to distressed areas. Here, blight is interpreted liberally -- so liberally that tax money can be used to clear land for a luxury community that has adopted the pretentious one-word slogan "Uncompromised."

The $87 million Kirkwood project covers 10 acres south of 49th Street between Wornall Road and Main Street. The development will create a semiprivate retreat of 107 high-end residences. The centerpiece is a 12-story high-rise in which future inhabitants will have their choice of granite or marble floors in the master bathroom.

http://www.pitch.com/issues/2004-05-20/news/stline.html

Of course, it's not like we have any real blight that needs to be taken care of, no siree.

KCMO's TIF Commission (Tax-Increment Financing, a fancy political term for "steal anything that isn't nailed down") apparently considers itself royalty, demanding the property of common citizens as if it were its birthright:

Mannequins with distant stares have modeled wigs at Gigi's on Grand in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, since 1984. But if the city's Tax Increment Finance Commission has its way, the owners of the shop, Chung Hoe Ku and his wife, Myong Suk Ku, will be forced to pack the heads in boxes and vacate the premises.
The TIF Commission is trying to condemn the Kus' property, forcing them to sell. Condemnation is a powerful redevelopment tool the TIF Commission used to acquire several properties the city needed to begin construction of the entertainment district and the new H&R Block headquarters, major projects in downtown's South Loop.

The wig shop, however, stands just outside the boundaries of the entertainment district. The property is clear of the site where the new arena is going, too. There is, in fact, no project planned for the block where Gigi's Wigs stands.

Just the same, the TIF Commission has demanded the Kus' property -- and is poised to transfer it to one of downtown's largest private developers.

http://www.pitch.com/issues/2005-05-05/news/news.html

(Note: The Pitch is KC's "entertainment" weekly - the small-time publication found in most places of any size that contains stuff like club listings, etc. They're really our only source of information on these kinds of abuses, since the Kansas City Star - the "real" newspaper - is squarely in the pockets of City Hall and the powers-that-be)

Anyway, most of us figure this decision will only encourage the thieving bastards, since now they won't even have to pretend there's "blight" to steal other people's property.

I'm not sure which part of this I find more disgusting - the bozos who rubberstamped this utter disgrace or the fact that the three justices I most despise were the only dissenters.

Whichever Dem wants to win in '08 should hire Wonkette

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The left-wing's answer to Karl Rove advises:

What we realize now is that liberals finally have an issue where the headline hurts Republicans more than it hurts them: "White House Aide Identified Undercover CIA Agent." Now, shut up. Shhh. Zip it. ZZZip. No, really, quiet. Repress natural urge to pedantry. For once, allow Americans' short attention span work for you. And whatever happens, do not let Michael Moore make a movie about it. Let the Republicans shoulder the responsibility of having to explain how Karl didn't do anything illegal, or how when he identified the agent it was in a context that wasn't so bad, or that it's Matt Cooper's fault, or why this is all just a massive smear campaign.

Memo to Dems: Turnabout Is Fair Plame

Would that woman make one badass campaign manager or what?

My contribution to Operation Yellow Elephant

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Up next, a STEEL CAGE DEATHMATCH!!

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It will be the Schindlers vs. the Holloway-Twittys vs. Jennifer Wilbanks and John Mason in a three-way steel cage Texas Deathmatch for the White Trash Heavyweight Championship of the Wooooooooooooorld! LIVE, on Pay-Per-View!

Anybody got Vince McMahon's phone number? I really think this would be one money-making motherfucker. Hell, I'd watch it twice.

Not much fun being bombed, is it?

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The people in the various countries bombed by the US and Britain didn't care much for it either.

This Friday's Ten Tunes go out to Judy Miller

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Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock
Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought the Law
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
System of a Down - Prison Song
John Prine - Christmas in Prison
Eric Clapton - County Jail Blues
Sam Cooke - Chain Gang
Joan Baez - Prison Trilogy
Marty Stuart - Walls of a Prison

Make some more jokes about singing Kumbaya, why don't you?

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All of a sudden, peace doesn't look so bad, does it?

Maybe we need to start talking about it less and actually doing something to make it a reality. Ya think?

You can start by wiping that sneer off your face.

Gerald Ford is celebrating tonight.

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He will no longer be remembered as President Klutz. The torch has been passed.

Mom in Aruba case wants suspects sent to Gitmo

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Well, not exactly. But close enough.

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - The mother of a U.S. teen who disappeared in Aruba more than a month ago issued a plea Tuesday to stop two Surinamese brothers released from custody from leaving the island, saying she believes they are guilty and should still be in jail.

"I'm asking all nations not to offer them a safe haven," Beth Holloway Twitty, mother of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, told a news conference as her voice cracked with emotion and she struggled to hold back tears. "My greatest fear is that they will leave Aruba," she said.

( . . . )

"These criminals are now free to walk among the tourists of Aruba ... while I have not seen my beautiful daughter in 36 days," Holloway Twitty said.

Holloway's mom wants brothers kept in Aruba

Now where would Mom get the idea that she can unilaterally declare someone guilty and order them held on little more than a whim? Hmmmmmmm. Someone's been setting this gal a bad example. Wonder who it could be?

The Ten Principles of Conservative Debate

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1. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
2. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
3. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
4. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
5. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
6. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
7. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
8. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
9. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.
10. If you say it enough times, dumbfucks will believe it.

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