Sleepless in Midland

Lazy and conspicuous -- two things that don't go well together

In this "what-do-you-do" society, a person is measured by the answer to that question. And the answer better pertain to work, not sloth. There are ways to disguise laziness, but these people don't even try.

Yeah! Three cheers to them. "Lazy" just might be "resourceful."

Check out And You Thought You Were Lazy…18 Pictures Of Extreme Laziness for more pictures. Well, OK. Most are just plain lazy.

Elizabeth Warren much like FDR's enablers

A couple of weeks ago we talked about Robert Higgs and the regular attacks against historians who come up with new theories that challenge the prevailing wisdom. (He had dared bring to light the theory that FDR had prolonged the Great Depression with misguided measures to "fix" the economy.)

If you haven't yet tired of hearing about Higgs, here he is again.

This time he talks about Elizabeth Warren. It was not too long ago that she expressed her exited contention that anyone who ever got rich did so only with government help because the government paid for the highways, the government paid to educate the workers, and so on.

Higgs almost comes to her defense, if by saying she wasn't as bad as some of her predecessors can be called a defense. We should feel lucky, he says, that the view of many Democrats of earlier times doesn't prevail today. That view was that the government owned everything, and any part of a person's earnings the government didn't take was a gift to the earner.

He cites a book titled FDR Goes to War by Burton and Anita Folsom which tells of the debates that eventually resulted in the law that established income tax withholding. A couple of notable quotes:

Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.) -- The government always has a moral if not actual lien on all our income.

Sen. Happy Chandler (D-Ky.) -- ... the government can take everything we have if the government needs it.

Higgs says we are lucky we only have the likes of Elizabeth Warren to contend with. So are you feeling lucky?

Higgs' article: Government Officials Want You to Know that Your Earnings Belong to Them.

Attention Walmart shoppers: Behave!

Road rage seems to have been conquered, but apparently the rage is still lurking under the surface. And when everyday low prices aren't enough, it's store rage.

This one happened in Batavia, New York, when a Walmart greeter asked an exiting shopper to see her receipt. Whack! The customer slugged the 70 year old greeter and took off. Customers and employees caught up with the battling shopper and detained her until police arrived.  No, not a shoplifter, just a thin skinned customer. Maybe this is what they mean by Boxing Day.

Read about it here. Mugshot here.

It's getting to the point where stores might need to hire bouncers.  Via.

You don't have to be Rain Man to appreciate this

Todd McLellan is the dismantler/photographer. It looks like a painstaking process, but the results are amazing. This is a disassembled typewriter with the components spread out in a nice orderly manner.

Click Everyone has a piece of the puzzle to see more like that.

You can almost hear Philip Glass in the background while looking at these.

Rules for ghosts from American Horror Story

[This article is about season 1 of American Horror Story.]

TV can be educational when it tries to be. Live humans have a fascination with ghosts, and the recently ended TV series helped answer some frequently asked questions about ghosts. This post will attempt to set forth these rules as learned from the TV show American Horror Story.

For background, American Horror Story was about a house in Los Angeles which was built in the 1920s but quickly became haunted when murders were committed by the first occupants. Each homeowner to follow met some horrible end, and all of the dead now haunt the house.

That brings us to the present day for this multi-ghost residence. A gentle family from Boston found the house for sale online and couldn't pass up the bargain. Some bargain. The series ended with the last of the surviving family members meeting a violent end. That's the show in a nut shell. But it's worth a look, if for no other reason, than to see Jessica Lange play the most entertainingly unlikeable mother to grace the screen since Mommy Dearest.

Now, Rules for Ghosts:

1. Some ghosts can leave the house in which they died, but others end up in an endless loop when they try to leave -- they walk out one door but it's really just another entrance to the same house so they come right back in. Some can leave the house as a passenger in an automobile, however before they reach their destination, they will become invisible when the driver's attention is diverted, and they will be mysteriously transported back to the house.

2. Ghosts can be visible or invisible to humans at their option.

3. When they are visible, most ghosts appear as they did at death. Some, but not all, still display the wound that killed them.

4. Ghosts don't age. Most of them remain the same age they were at death whether they were infants, children, teenagers or adults.

5. A cleaning lady ghost is capable of appearing in two separate bodies, one old and homely, the other young and sexy, although not at the same time.

6. Ghosts can't be injured or killed, however if they incur a visible wound they might display that wound for a short while. For example, a ghost can be disemboweled or shot in the forehead but he or she will recover in short order, and the wound will disappear.

7. Ghosts can injure or kill live humans. However, a live human killed in the house by either a ghost or a live human will become another ghost in that house.

8. Ghosts and live humans can copulate.

9. Female ghosts can't get pregnant. However, male ghosts can impregnate live females, but a baby born of a human who was impregnated by a male ghost will be evil and might even be the Antichrist.

10. When a live person or another ghost says to a ghost, "go away," the ghost must go away.

Unknowns: The life span of a ghost and what happens if the house they inhabit is demolished.

If you live in a haunted house maybe these rules will be of use, especially number 10. Disclaimer: We cannot be held responsible if your ghost varies from these rules.

Happy Kwanzaa

Although the Kwanzaa hasn't caught on quite as well as Christmas has, the holiday begins today -- the day after Christmas -- and continues though the end of the year. It has been around since Dr. Maulana Karenga invented it as a way for African Americans to coalesce and celebrate certain cultural values.

Those values are expressed in Seven Principles, as follows:

Unity -- To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

Self determination -- To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Collective work and responsibility -- To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Cooperative Economics -- To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Purpose -- To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Creativity -- To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Faith -- To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

If some of the phrases, "victory of our struggle," and "profit from them together" have a 60s ring to them, they should. Dr. Karenga invented the holiday in the 60s when revolution and collectivism were all the rage. One has to wonder if Kwanzaa might make a comeback with "share the wealth" and "pay their fair share" thrown in for good measure.

Wikipedia contends that Dr. Karenga originally intended it as an alternative to Christmas for African Americans, but his FAQ says otherwise and that celebrating Kwanzaa is a cultural, not a religious choice.

And under certain specified circumstances, non-African Americans can celebrate it too. Those circumstances are not currently present, but what the heck. Racial exclusion shouldn't ruin an opportunity to celebrate. Happy Kwanzaa, everyone!

Update: Here's a notable celebrant -- President Barack H. Obama.

A white Christmas in dry West Texas

Snow! Yes snow!

Someone dreamed of a white Christmas. And with snow falling all day Christmas eve and freezing overnight temps, it was a dream come true.

Here in drought plagued West Texas the moisture was indeed welcome. And at Christmas!

What a sight. Luckily most of the streets were free of ice.

Merry Christmas everyone!

A sad Christmas story can tug at the heart

Not everyone has the good fortune to enjoy Christmas. Read on:

I was rushing around trying to get the Black Friday bargains before they were gone. I was stressed out and not thinking very fondly of the Christmas season right then. It was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot as I was loading my car up with gifts that I felt obligated to buy. Then I noticed that I was missing a receipt that I might need later. So mumbling under my breath, I retraced my steps to the mall entrance.

As I was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt, I heard a quiet sobbing. The crying was coming from a poorly dressed boy of about nine years old.

He was short and thin. He had no coat. He was just wearing a ragged flannel shirt to protect him from the cold night's chill. Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred dollar bill in his hand!

Thinking that he had gotten lost from his parents, I asked him what was wrong. He told me his sad story.

He said that he came from a large family. He had three brothers and four sisters. His father had died when he was six years old. His mother was poorly educated and worked two full time jobs. She made very little to support her large family.

Nevertheless, she had managed to skimp and save two hundred dollars to buy her children Christmas presents. The young boy had been dropped off by his mother, on the way to her second job. He was to use the money to buy presents for all his siblings and save just enough to take the bus home. He had not even entered the mall, when an older boy grabbed one of the hundred dollar bills and disappeared into the night.

"Why didn't you scream for help?" I asked.

The boy said, "I did."

"And nobody came to help you?" I wondered.

The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his head.

"How loudly did you scream?" I inquired.

The soft-spoken boy looked up and meekly whispered, "Help me!"

I realized that absolutely no one could have heard that poor boy cry for help. So I grabbed his other hundred and ran to my car.

The story has been around since at least 2003, but this time via Miss-Cellania, a woman with a heart like gold. And don't worry about the boy, he turned out just fine. He grew up to become a compliance officer at Fannie Mae.

New gunboats for the Texas border

Ahoy, maties. Be you friend or foe sailing these rivers?

OK, they probably won't participate in Talk Like a Pirate Day. However, the Texas Department of Public Safety will be cruising the rivers. They recently showed off the "J.D. Davis," a new gunboat which they say will patrol the waters marking the Southern Texas border. The video shows three 300 horsepower Mercury outboard motors powering the thing, and automatic weapons stick out quite impressively. KHOU.com says this:

The $580,000 shallow water interceptor can patrol in just 12 inches of water and is the first of a planned fleet of six such vessels comprising the newly-created Highway Patrol Tactical Marine Unit.

A similar report can be found at KXAN.com.

It's a sleek looking vessel, and those three motors should really make it move.  Hey ordinance experts, is that a Saw mounted up there?

The rest is history -- until it's revised

If, like me, you cringe when you hear the phrase "revisionist history," it's because the phrase is typically used derisively by someone who preferred the old version of history better and wants to try to undermine the new version.

And if there is any one person who has heard the phrase in its most derisiveness, it would be Robert Higgs. We've talked about him before. See Great Depression 2.0 and Regime Uncertainty about Mr. Higgs' contention that Franklin D. Roosevelt prolonged the Great Depression with his hostility toward business.

Robert Higgs has a new post at George Mason University’s History News Network titled Why Do So Many People Automatically and Angrily Condemn Historical Revisionism?. Here are a few excerpts:

When people are offended or otherwise greatly displeased by historical analysis, they often employ the term “historical revisionism” as a synonym for falsified, distorted, or doctored accounts that fly in the face of what they, their history teachers, and perhaps even the most respected university historians believe to have been the case.

The irony of such use of the term “historical revision,” which makes it practically a swear word, is that revisionism is and always has been an integral part of historical research and writing. As a rule, professional historians do not seek simply to pile up more and more evidence for what historians already generally believe. ... In short, revisionism is an unremarkable aspect of workaday historical research and writing.

When a historian strays outside the 40-yard lines within which the bulk of the historical writing and teaching takes place, however, he is likely to be met with the dreaded accusation that he is not an honest, competent, or “respected” historian, but a revisionist—a writer who seeks to propagate socially destructive and utterly unfounded ideas in order to rend the fabric of national unity and undermine the nation’s virtues. ... Many people possess a loaded ideological gun with a hair trigger, and the slightest shake suffices to cause them to fire away. Moreover, they shoot first and reserve their fact-checking and more careful thought for later, if indeed they ever reach that stage.

One is tempted to suspect that such quick-draw reactions reveal an underlying lack of confidence in their own beliefs. ...

Some news reporters and commentators claim that they write history's first draft. Too often that draft sets the narrative, and those who come along later are so steeped in that narrative that they won't be able to accept any facts to the contrary. So here's to Robert Higgs and people like him who challenge the established view. We may not always agree with him, but he might be right.

Governing the idyllic TV colony of Terra Nova

Creating the TV series Terra Nova probably fulfilled the producers' dreams -- creating a new world with a clean environment and the form of government they might prefer.

For anyone not familiar with the story, it starts in the year 2149 after the population bomb has exploded and industrialist have exploited all the natural resources and rendered the air un-breathable. So someone invented a way-back machine which was used to send a select group of racially diverse humans back to a time when the air was clean and the dinosaurs roamed. Their objective was to outlive the dinosaurs in a little farming community called Terra Nova and save the planet from the future. Details about the colony here.

So armchair archaeologists/psychiatrists watching all of this unfold on our TV screens these past few weeks have had a peek into Hollywood's psyche and can speculate about what the producers think might be the ideal form of government.

The colony is governed by bylaws which one supposes could be comparable to the U.S. Constitution but with the omission of any provision for a president, congress, courts, a bill of rights, and any form of checks and balances. It would be nice to be able read them online, but unfortunately, they aren't available to those of us stuck in the 21st century.

The colony is ruled by an unelected dictator called "Commander Taylor" who wears a handgun over his heart. But this being someone's idea about how people should be governed, Taylor is firm but fair. There are no protections against search and seizure. Harsh interrogation is improper, unless he really, really needs the information. There are no trials, Taylor makes the decisions about guilt and punishment.  But the colony loves him, trusts him, and tolerates everything he does because they believe that he believes it's in the best interest of the colony.

For weaponry they use an assortment of the guns described at imfdb.org. But look at this. Geeksaresexy.net thinks one of the guns looks like a modified toy nerf gun. Well, who really knows what it takes to stop a dinosaur anyway?

And of course, there's gun control. This is Hollywood, so how could there not be? The only way gun control could work would be to start a new civilization where guns could be physically controlled. So in Terra Nova the only ones who appear to be authorized to possess weapons in peacetime are the police and military. Oops, the bad guys and gals have guns, too. So the fantasy contained a realistic development.

The first season ended a few days ago following a stalemate between two battling forces but still nothing about how they intend to survive whatever wiped out the dinosaurs. That may not be the little colony's biggest problem, though. The show is expensive and needs lots of viewers, which, according to LAtimesblogs, could lead to its extinction.

Ain’t it awful

Seems like half the people want to complain about something. And the other half wants to complain about those complaints. Well, this guy is here to tell you that some of the problems faced here in the most prosperous nation in the world are very real.

Do you suspect that guy was in the Occupy Wall Street crowd?

Via Geekfill.com via DigDang.com.

What will CNN say about Kim Jong Il now?

Once not too many years ago some reporter who had access to the highest office in North Korea told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on air how CNN was Kim Jong Il's favorite TV network. Blitzer simply glowed, and he replied that they were very proud of that fact.

That comes to mind now that Kim is dead. Another thing that comes to mind is that infamous statement by CNN's Eason Jordan soon after Saddam Hussein was unseated that CNN rat holed negative news about Saddam so that they could keep their Baghdad office open. Access was more important than honest reporting.

So what will we learn about CNN now that Kim Jong Il is gone? Anything? Most likely they will simply resume business as usual with the son, just as they would have with Uday Hussein had he taken over the family business.

But not everyone felt the need to suck up. Go for it, Team America.

Puppies under a Christmas tree -- what could be cuter

A slow scan of presents under a Christmas tree, a tall sack falls over, and out tumble a bunch of cute puppies that romp and play amongst the presents. (Blame *Robo-ed for this one.)

It's too cute for words. Click to watch Puppy Christmas.

*Robot-editor thought this blog needed some Christmas cheer. So how's that for starters? [It'll do. But would it kill ya to show a little humanity every once in a while? Robo-ed.]

Send your ashes to the moon

Dust to dust, ashes to space. From last rites to last flights. May we mourn the departed as we give their beloved souls a gentle boast toward the heavens. Not that they would need it, to be sure.

Actually, this is pretty cool. No need to buy a plot and casket or pay a funeral home, except to burn the body.

It's a space service from Celestis.com. Launch your loved one into earth orbit for just $3,000.

They won't know how long the capsule will stay up there until after it completes one full earth orbit, but previous ones are estimated to remain in orbit between 10 and 240 years before they burn up on reentry. The mourners will be able to track the satellite. Hey look, there goes one.

They don't take all the ashes, just one to seven grams of the deceased, depending on the package purchased. But don't worry about dealing with the remainder of the ashes, Celestis will cast them into the sea, if you wish.

Pay a bit more for an orbit around the moon. That would cost $10,000, but kick it up to $12,500 and send the ash into deep space.

But look at this. There's competition in Virginia.

Bang, zoom. One of these days, Alice. To the moon.

Icy Stairs

Here's a game of Who's Worse. Is it:

(a) the crew responsible for sprinkling sand or salt over icy walkways;

(b) the people falling on the slippery ice;

(c) the person memorializing all of these people with a video of them falling on the ice;

(d) the people watching these videos; or

(e) the people spreading this video on blogs and elsewhere?

Answer: (e). It simply encourages (c).

Link. Alternate link.

Mice on smart pills

Last month we talked about experiments in mice in which interference with NCoR1 in muscle tissue resulted in increased mitochondria which kept their little muscles going longer. See Building a better mouse with gene manipulation.

This time they are making mice smarter by genetically inhibiting a molecule called PKR. From BCM.edu/news:

The authors discovered that mice lacking PKR in the brain have a kind of "super" memory. "We found that when we genetically inhibit PKR, we increased the excitability of brain cells and enhanced learning and memory, in a variety of behavioral tests," he said. For instance, when the authors assessed spatial memory (the memory for people, places and events) through a test in which mice use visual cues for finding a hidden platform in a circular pool, they found that normal mice had to repeat the task multiple times over many days in order to remember the platform’s location. By contrast, mice lacking PKR learned the task after only one training session.

And note this:

"These data are totally unexpected, and show that two molecules classically known to play a role in viral infection and the immune response regulate the kind of brain activity that leads to the formation of long-term memory in the adult brain," said Costa-Mattioli.

"It is indeed quite amazing that we can also enhance both memory and brain activity with a drug that specifically targets PKR". Definitely then, the next step is to use what we have learned in mice and to try to improve brain function in people suffering from memory loss, said Costa-Mattioli.  (bold added)

We should live so long. While we wait we'll be plagued with smart, muscular rodents.

Via Kurzweilai.net.

Those crazy robbers and their facebook postings

I was scrolling around looking for stories about how dumb criminals post their adventures on Facebook and came upon a site with a whole collection of them. Type "facebook" in the ClumsyCrooks.com search engine and pull up geniuses like the guy on the right who used a stolen laptop to post a picture of himself on facebook. Scholarship material.

Aside: That's why conspiracy theories seldom pan out.  There will always be someone somewhere who won't be able to resist the urge to brag. We've got those major human needs -- food, clothing, shelter, sex, the urge to blab. They control our behavior. Not to make excuses for that guy, but we're helpless against them.

And here's a question nice guys ask all the time. What is it about those bad boys that drives women wild?

You won't get the answer here. Or in Australia. So here's the plot: Girl meets guy on Facebook. They agree to go out. She picks him up. He has her make a stop at a betting shop. He goes in and robs the place. Lucky for her, he told police she didn't have anything to do with it. Link.

Sounds like something out of a sitcom. Hey wait a minute. It is!

Poor Mrs. Gaddafi

Did you get her email, too?

All she needs is someone in the U.S. to help her with a huge sum of money.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Mrs. SAFIA FARKASH, wife of late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed by the unfaithful opposition leaders in my country Libya .I am desperately looking for a foreign partner whom I can trust to handle some investment for me. ...

She goes on to explain that she fled Libya for Algeria, however her IP address shows her to be in Bangkok, Thailand. Bless her heart.  The poor widow is so distraught she doesn't even know where she is.

But never mind that. She left behind US$65.4 million "at two reputable security companies in Africa." All she needs is someone to help her invest it.

Sorry, lady. I would love to help, but I'm busy rearranging my spice rack.

Ezra Klein's graph shows us liberalism's hurdle

In one simple graph. The Gallup poll asked whether big government, big business or big labor was the biggest threat to the U.S. in the future. Big government was the winner with 64%. Link.

But as Klein pointed out, those opinions don't seem to be much of a factor when it comes to the vote. Maybe that's because in the past neither party did much to stem government growth. Will it be different next time? We'll see.

Should a negligent firearm discharge be a criminal offense?

The District Attorney in Milwaukee thinks so. And of course there are laws on the books in many states making the negligent use of a gun a criminal offense. However, actual criminal charges seem to be a blue state thing. (Remember Plaxico Burress?)

There are so many laws on the books these days that don't require criminal intent that some commentators speculate that practically everyone is a criminal, they just don't know it. That's a slight exaggeration, but we really should question whether criminal action against negligent behavior is the best way to prevent it from happening again.

In this case it was a police sergeant who was in line at Auntie Anne's pretzel shop when he let his 40 caliber S&W slide down his pants leg then fired it off as he grabbed for it. A bystander got a welt on her leg, possibly from a bullet fragment, but otherwise, according to the report at policeone.com, no one else was hurt.

To the prosecutor's credit, at least he didn't give the cop special treatment. The prosecution theory must be that the example set by prosecuting the police sergeant will help him develop better safety habits.

Maybe, but I believe public ridicule has a more lasting effect. So, Sergeant Michael A. Edwards, next time send someone else to buy the donuts. Yes it's true, lesser men than you may have shot off their guns at the wrong time, but a bang in your pants could make you that lesser man.

The news article came to us by way of handgun instructor C.S. who added, "How many times have I told you? Use a holster!"

And this is about the point where I would put in a pitch for manual safeties on handguns. But I give up. Manual safeties are a thing of the past, I suppose. Today's gun buyers had rather risk shooting themselves in the foot than have to flip a little lever.

Keep the enemy out of captured drones with Torx screws

It was inevitable that a U.S. drone would land in the the wrong hands. And if the drone builders haven't already taken measures to secure any secrets inside, here's what they should start doing.

Screw it together with Torx screws. Torx screws were the brain child of some meddling mechanic who must have thought Phillips screws weren't bad enough.

They take a special screwdriver designed just for them. And they are sneaky. If you don't squint they look like Phillips head screws. But use a Phillips screwdriver and it grinds down the heads making them impossible to remove.

So the Iranian rocket scientist starts trying to unscrew the thing with a Phillips screwdriver and ends up locking it even tighter.  Absolutely spy-licious.

And put some stink bombs in them just in case they do get one open. That'll teach 'em to mess with our toys.

Added later.You may think that was silly, but consider this. Fox News reported that the captured drone had a self destruct device on board. However, President Obama elected not to activate it.  Whether we like it or not, the guys on the assembly line and those crazy screw heads may be our last line of defense.

Sunday Diversions -- silent messages

Don't bother knocking.

Via Oddee.com.

Squeeze play. (It's a clever zoo ad on the side of a bus.)

Via RegreftulMorning.com.

Snarky Xmas gift ideas

There's a great little piece at The Lid with some hilarious yet appropriate gift ideas for certain famous politicians and pundits. Here's a sample:

Eric Holder- Hooked on Phonics. You ever see him at a committee hearing? All he ever says is "no I didn't read that." It's obvious that the guy can't read.

Former Vice President Al Gore- A heating pad so he can honestly say it's getting warmer---somewhere.

Chris Matthews- A night with President Obama (you know he wants it).

President Barack Obama-A brand new set of the best golf clubs available. That way he will have something to do when he goes into retirement in January 2013.

Read 'em and laugh at A Snarky Christmas Gift List For My Favorite Politicians and Politicos.

Independents are rented not owned

That was a phrase used by Lanae Erickson of Thirdway.org this morning on C-Span's Washington Journal as a warning to candidates that the vote of independents in one elections doesn't imply they will vote the same way in the next. Watch the interview here.

The last time there was a big leap in number of independents was in the years of 1972 -1976 when Republicans were frustrated over Watergate, and Democrats were split over the Vietnam war protests. It's happening again.  Ms. Erickson, a self described left of center moderate, has coauthored a paper titled Independents Day 2012 documenting the current rise of independents which rivals that last one.  This chart comes from that paper.

But look at and where the independents are coming from. While both parties are losing loyalists, self proclaimed Democrats are going down at a greater rate.

We don't need a study to know that independents voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008 and for Republicans in 2010. Ms. Erickson predicts it will be somewhere between those extremes in 2012 with independents making up perhaps a third of the vote.

But it doesn't look good for Obama.

Obama has maxed out the Democrat votes. He'll get them regardless of what he does, but there aren't enough of them to lock up the election. So he needs the independents, and apparently he thinks the focus on the class warfare issue is just the issue to sway them in his direction. We'll see whether the Chicago Way will work this time around.

Blogging the snow day

Monday, it was. A couple of inches of beautiful snow fell upon the fair city of Midland, Texas, and it gave a lovely white texture to everything but the street. What a joy it was to watch the snow descend from the skies and leave us a beautiful white blanket.  (It was nice to get the moisture, too.)

So here are three photos taken Monday morning for a sampling of what the area looked like.

Notice the sprinkler going in the one on the far right.  Drought?  What drought?

Found a lost memory device? Be careful.

There's an old spy trick whereby the spy places a USB thumb drive in the parking lot of a secured building and waits for some curious person to pick it up, take it inside, and plug it in to see what's on it. And a Trojan virus shoots through the system, steals all the valuable secrets and sends them back to the clever spy.

So a found thumb drive is no treasure.

Paul Ducklin tells about an experiment at Naked Security where they bought a bunch of USB thumb drives at an auction of items lost on the city transit system in Sydney, AU.

And many of them contained malware. Quote:

Two-thirds of the keys (33) were infected. We found 62 infected files in total. The worst key contained six infected files, representing four separate items of malware.

We didn't find any OS X malware. But nine of the keys appeared to belong to Macintosh owners (or at least had been used extensively on Macs); seven of these were infected.

In other words, if you're a Windows user, don't assume that you can automatically trust everything that comes from your Apple-loving friends. And even if you're one of those Mac users who is opposed to the concept of anti-virus software, consider softening your stance as a service to the community as a whole

He made some other interesting observations. Read the article to learn about them.

With the economy being what it is, and with the popularity of those reality TV shows where people collect junk, there must be a lot of scavengers out there looking for useable throw-aways. A USB drive might not be such great find.

Greasing your guns -- field stripping a Glock

Here's an informative video demonstrating how to field strip and clean a Glock handgun.

Click How-To Field Strip and Clean a Glock With Ashley to watch it. Notice how she points it in a safe direction before she dry fires it. Very important.

If you're wondering why someone would make a video of a shapely woman cleaning a gun while dressed in a skimpy Victoria Secret type garment, well, you watched it didn't you?

Via Teresa in Fort Worth.

Classroom socialism experiment

I was talking to someone the other day who started complaining that the problems of the world could be blamed on capitalism. Um 'k. That's my exit cue.

But here's a cute story about how a professor tried a socialism experiment with the students in a class. Daniel Mitchell tells it. And it's one of those stories that is just too perfect to be true. But one of the secret rules of the bloggers' code is that it's OK to present an unbelievable story so long as there's a good lesson to be learned.

It goes like this. A professor at a local college proposed an experiment in a class of Obama fans whereby all test grades would be averaged and everyone would get the same grade. As they approached the first test some students studied and some coasted. As you can guess, the average test scores started falling as soon as those who studied got tired of carrying the ones who didn't.

There's a lesson the Wall Street occupiers could learn from this. There has to be an incentive to work. Take away the incentive, or make the worker share it with those who don't work, and the worker becomes a non-worker. Eventually there is nothing left to share.

WWII bomb defused -- more 1950 German street scenes

According the AP, a 1.8 ton British bomb and a 275 pound American bomb were discovered in Koblenz, Germany, last month. And this weekend, after the temporary evacuation of thousands of people, both bombs were were successfully defused.

And that's all the excuse we need to display more photos taken in 1950 in Germany. 

Cologne, Germany, is about 120 kilometers Northwest of Koblenz, and Cologne endured a lot of Allied bombing during WWII, also. The first two photos were taken from a train one day in 1950.

Although the buildings appear to have been damaged, apparently they were still liveable. The handwriting on the back of the one above reads, "Taken from the train at Koln (Cologne) Germany." No dirty laundry there.

The back of this one reads, "A typical scene taken from the train just outside Koln (Cologne)." More visible damage. More clean laundry.

Some kids. I believe this was taken on the streets of Wiesbaden. "Little German boys - typical street urchins."

And finally, some young men in Garnisch. Cool pants, dude.

These are snapshots of old photos there were in a box loaned to me by a neighbor. Click Europe 1950 for more like this.