- That’s more like it, North Korea. Showing weakness by capitulating to international pressure and putting the brakes on your nuclear program in exchange for food aid for your people is a punk move. Rejecting international criticism of your planned satellite launch next month is not. Doing so even when close ally China is among the chorus of nations cautioning you is a balls play and the first sign of tension since Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as dictator of the totalitarian state. U.S., Japanese and South Korean condemnation of the launch is “a base move to deny the DPRK’s right to use space for peaceful purposes and encroach upon its sovereignty,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Sunday. The North made it clear it has no intention of abandoning its plans even after Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun expressed his “worry” over the March 16 announcement. Zhang spoke to North Korean ambassador Ji Jae Ryong and conveyed his concerns. “We sincerely hope parties concerned stay calm and exercise restraint and avoid escalation of tension that may lead to a more complicated situation,” Zhang told Ji. The U.S. was quick to inform Pyongyang that the launch, which is to mark the 100th anniversary of state founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, would negate the aforementioned agreement to provide food aid in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests. Offending China would be a risky play for North Korea, which depends on the communist titan for energy and food assistance. This could be a case of Kim Jong Un looking to establish his own reputation after taking over for his old man, Kim Jong Il, who died in December. Japan is considering sing its Aegis missile defense system to shoot the North Korean rocket down if it enters its territory. The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite will be mounted on a Unha-3 rocket and is scheduled for launch from a station in North Phyongan province between April 12 and April 16. That gives the rest of the world a few weeks to ward off disaster…………
- As usual, the Super Bowl halftime show was a complete farce and a total waste of time. Anyone who didn’t avoid the 15-minute waste of time that was a performance by the Material Skank, a.k.a. Madonna, and pal M.I.A. was subjected to a general display of horrible singing, inane lyrics and sexed-up antics designed to draw attention away from the fact that Madonna’s music sucks. However, it’s a middle finger and sh*t-bomb by M.I.A. that have drawn much of the ire from viewers irate enough to contact the Federal Communications Commission. Granted, the kooks who take the time to contact a bureaucratic governmental organization and rant against the evils of post-“Leave It to Beaver” cultural values tend to be irrelevant to the masses, but that doesn’t change the fact that a total of 222 ass hats contacted the FCC to express outrage over both the antics of M.I.A. and the lurid content of the show itself. To put the number of complaints in perspective, 111.3 million people watched the Giants beat New England in the most-watched Super Bowl ever. The tiny fraction angry enough to take time to contact the FCC are an incredibly small percentage, but are they ever angry. Most complained about M.I.A. giving the world a middle finger, with one especially oversensitive Nashville resident who described the display as giving "me and the entire viewing audience the finger." A viewer from Alaska who may or may not have been Sarah Palin (assuming she’s savvy enough to both locate a contact information for the FCC and dial a phone) said the act was akin to "flipping off America and flipping off my family." One angry viewer actually invoked the classic film “Gone With the Wind,” which means that viewer was over the age of 90 and probably won't be with us much longer. But the most hilarious comments came from a spelling-challenged viewer in Canton, Mich., who whined, "We had to have an emergencee [sic] family meeting to contain the backlash of the lewd image." The “backlash of the lewd image,” wow. Someone needs to step outside their alarmist, conserva-Nazi bubble for a moment. Oh, and mix in a spell check. What’s hilarious is that the real reason to be angry is the piss-poor quality of the show itself, which is an affront to one and all and proves emphatically that the NFL needs someone to step in and save it from abysmal music choices for its halftime shows………….
- Microsoft doesn’t need anyone exposing its software’s many vulnerabilities because its users are bound to stumble across them early and often when using any of the company’s products. However, the leak of proof-of-concept exploit code for a recently disclosed Microsoft Windows vulnerability has built the drama to a fever pitch. After the company patched a "critical" vulnerability last Tuesday involving the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in all versions of Windows because the bug could be used by attackers to remotely exploit code of their choosing on any vulnerable PC, questions arose as to who leaked the code. Microsoft urged users to update their software as quickly as possible or use a temporary mitigation tool to address the problem and warned that it was strongly likely that an exploit targeting the bug (labeled MS12-020) would hit the wild within 30 days. Two days later, the exploit code appeared online and now there’s a $1,500 bounty to see who can be the first to weaponize that code and add it to the popular penetration testing toolkit Metasploit. As soon as the code leaked, accusations began flying over who was responsible for giving hackers a head start. The frontrunner was the HP TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which offers bounties for bugs. Italian security researcher Luigi Auriemma claimed in a blog post that he discovered the bug in May 2011 and then sold it to ZDI, which verified the flaw and notified Microsoft in August 2011. However, Auriemma has denied responsibility for the leak. ZDI has also denied involvement in the form of a tweet. "We are 100% confident that the leaked info regarding MS12-020 did not come from the ZDI," the post read. "We have confirmation of where it did come from." Others have suggested the leak likely occurred during the code’s distribution to Microsoft’s corporate partners. Microsoft itself hurled suspicion in the direction of the Microsoft Active Protections Program, which shares information with security software makers. "The details of the proof-of-concept code appear to match the vulnerability information shared with [MAPP] partners," said Yunsun Wee, director of trustworthy computing for Microsoft. Blame for the leak aside, hackers now have a leg up in gaining full, remote access to a vulnerable PC. Thanks for doing what you do so well, Microsoft: failing………….
- Don’t eff with the women in pastel-colored pants and butt-ugly floral print nurses’ shirts, Baystate Health Medical Center. Taken for granted and disrespected one too many times, the registered nurses of two Baystate Health bargaining units took it to the streets Saturday to picket and protest at the dedication of Baystate's $290 million dollar "Hospital of the Future." The nurses are members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United who work at the Baystate Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) and the Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield and both groups are in bitter contract negotiations with hospital officials. Some state officials, labor and community leaders joined the nurses, who marched holding a banner that said, "RESPECT YOUR NURSES." In addition to their protest, the nurses have filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. One of the major issues is a proposal to recalculate overtime pay in a way the VNA claims would cost its members thousands of dollars. The protest was largely unimaginative in its approach, using the slogan OCCUPY BAYSTATE in a weak attempt to show the world that Baystate, one of the area's largest corporations, is acting only in their interest and in the interest of creating more profit. Both sides have lawyered up and are preparing to slug it out legally if the process continues to slog along. Hospital management has cited the current economic climate as a reason it should be allowed to offer little, if any, wage increases and reduce benefits. In response, the nurses have vowed to continue their floral-print protesting ways for as long as it takes. "We have done billboards, newspaper and radio ads. This is just the beginning,” Clark added. Next time, add a Molotov cocktail, an overturned and burning dumpster or two and a police car flipped upside down and really make your point clear………..
- Wow. The Oprah Winfrey Network canceled Rosie O’Donnell’s show amidst pathetic ratings? Who could have seen that coming what with O’Donnell’s eloquent ways, classy persona and extremely attractive personality and appearance? Yet after a mere five months on the air, Winfrey yanked “The Rosie Show” from the air and it took one of Donnell’s former staffers about five minutes to call working for her a “f**king hellhole.” While that’s one of the nicer characterizations of being forced to spend time with O’Donnell, the comment was extremely blunt and didn’t sit well with a second anonymous source, who insisted working on the show was not all that bad. “It wasn’t hell,” the source said. “Rosie’s a great person. She’s a great talent. If folks have other opinions, that’s fine, but I would work with her again in a heartbeat.” No word on how much that source is being paid by O’Donnell to say nice things, but his or her words are weighing in against multiple sources who described O’Donnell losing her temper and “uncontrollably yell[ing]” backstage during her five months helming “The Rosie Show.” The show debuted in October and its ratings began low and declined from there. It averaged around 200,000 viewers in its 7 p.m. time slot and went through two executive producers before Winfrey pulled the plug on Friday. “I thank Rosie from the bottom of my heart for joining me on this journey. She has been an incredible partner, working to deliver the best possible show every single day,” Winfrey said in a statement. O’Donnell issued her own gushing statement in return, countering, “I was welcomed with open arms and will never forget the kindness of all I encountered. It was a great year for me — I wish the show was able to attract more viewers — but it did not.” For those wondering when the train wreck of a show will officially end, its final episode will tape Tuesday in Chicago and air March 30. Its demise marks the third failed talk show run for O’Donnell, who hosted the “Rosie O’Donnell Show,” from 1996 to 2002 and served as moderator of “The View” from 2006 to 2007 before leaving the show following a heated, on-air exchange with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Oh, and she was also eviscerated by Donald Trump in the single greatest celebrity-on-quasi-celebrity verbal beatdown ever crafted…………
No comments:
Post a Comment