Sleepless in Midland

Copycat suicides

It seems epidemic. Four teens have committed suicide in the past few months in the city, and one has to wonder why. Maybe it's the obsession with movie vampires -- they don't die, you know.

One thing that can't be helping is the screaming headlines on the subject. With all the adults hoovering over them, constantly asking how they feel and counseling against suicide, a typical angst ridden teen might begin to think he/she is supposed to feel suicidal.

In any case, here from the Midland Independent School District, spelling errors and all, are Warning Signs of Potential Suicide:

Change in eating and sleeping habits
Withdrawl [sic] from friends, family, and regular activities
Violent actions, rebellious behavior, and running away
Drug and/or alcohol abuse
Unusual neglect of personal appearance
Marked personality change
Persistant [sic] boredom, difficulty concentrating, or a decline in the quality of school work
Frequent complaints about physical symptoms, often relating to emotions, such as stomach aches, headaches, fatigue, etc….. Loss of interest in pleasurable activities
Complaining of being “rotten inside”
Gives verbal hints with statements such as: “I won’t be a problem for you much longer” “nothing matters” “it’s no use” or “I won’t see you again”
Becomes suddenly cheerful after a period of depression

With the exception of the verbal clues, all of these warning signs could be symptoms of typical teenage-itis. Reacting to teen behavior has always been a challenge for adults. But treating ordinary teens like emotional cripples can't help.

Today in history -- assassination attempt on Andrew Jackson

This could be the first presidential assassination attempt conspiracy theory in American History. The conventional wisdom was that Richard Lawrence was a crazy lone gunman when he tried to shoot President Andrew Jackson on January 30, 1835. But conspiracy theorists, allegedly including President Jackson himself, thought Mr. Lawrence had been hired by political opponents.

As the story goes, Mr. Lawrence tried to ambush President Jackson as he emerged from funeral, but his gun misfired. Mr. Lawrence got the business end of 67 year old Jackson's cane as Lawrence's backup gun misfired as well. And who came to Jackson's aid? None other than the king of the wild frontier, Davy Crockett, who was serving as a Representative from Tennessee at the time.  More here, here, here and here.

What a history this country has. They should make a movie.

Via Politico.com via Reddit.com.

Goodbye Good Dog

Dogs have provided such great comfort to people for so long. It makes one wonder how it started. Did feral canines follow the cavemen for food scraps? And how long did it take those canines to figure out that the caveman was a sucker for an affectionate pet?

In any event, a pet dog has become a fixture in many households, and in some cases, the equivalent of a family member.

Their love is unconditional, their loyalty is unmatched, and their ability to comfort is priceless. A dog is here to say, "Hey, someone loves you. Whatever happens to you, I'm here for you. I'll try to make it better just by being here. All I ask from you is a square meal, a place to sleep, and a little return affection. You can skip those vaccinations, though."

So when a beloved pet dies it leaves a gaping wound.

My own dog died exactly one week ago. He was 14 years old and had lived a long and happy life. And yes, he did all the things a good dog does.

He stopped eating a couple of weeks before his departure, and none of the veterinary recommendations solved the problem. On the Friday before he died my vet told me he would be unavailable over the weekend but could perform euthanasia the following Monday if necessary. I was naive and thought that since the dog slept most of the time he would die in his sleep. Wrong. His last day on earth was not a pleasant experience for him. His systems were shutting down, and he breathing was very labored -- not the happy pant but hard, heavy breathing. There were occasional cries of pain, and sleep was out of the question. He was immobile except for the heavy breathing.

So that Sunday I could not comfort him, and his cries were heartbreaking. I did an internet search for do-it-yourself dog euthanasia, but the best I could find was a plan for a plastic tent with a concoction of vinegar and baking soda to produce CO2 to fill the tent. Well, if it worked, it would cause asphyxiation, and while I have never experienced that, I'm pretty sure it would not be a peaceful departure.

The little guy bit down on his pad and wouldn't let go. He was holding on for dear life, to anything. And I was no help whatsoever. I toyed with the idea of putting a plastic bag over his head, securing it with a cord, and suffocating him. But looking into his sad eyes, I just couldn't do it. I woke up around 2:30am Monday and checked on him. He was dead. It was not a good death.

But here's the thing. The dog's vet was unavailable until that Monday morning, but Sunday is when he needed relief from his suffering. There really should be a way for a dog owner to administer a peaceful euthanasia to a beloved pet, not to be cruel, but to end the pain.

Regardless, there he rests, in the ground under a freshly painted grave marker. Goodbye good dog. You won't be forgotten.

El Paso Times -- Murder rate in Mexico not that high compared to past

A reporter at the El Paso Times has calculated the murder rates in Mexico for the first five years of the past five presidential administrations and determined that current President Felipe Calderon's administration can boast a lower murder rate than all but one, his immediate predecessor, Vicente Fox.

International focus is on the war on drugs, and Mr. Calderon has taken a lot of heat for the violence that news watchers see on their TVs. But according to this, there have been periods in Mexico's history that have been much more violent.

Click chart to see the graphic. The way it's displayed, featuring totals for the first five years of each of five administrations, leaves a little bit to be desired. But it's all they provide. And the stats at inegi.org showing percentage of deaths from homicide with respect to the total number of violent deaths from 1990-2010, while not an ideal comparison either, shows a climbing rate with the highest in 2010.

But taking the El Paso Time's research at face value, we have to recognize that Mexico has had a bloody history. And maybe Mr. Calderon deserves some credit for reducing the blood flow rate.

Via The Corner where a commenter notes that the murder rate might have been even lower had the DOJ not been running guns to Mexican cartels.

Uncle Sam as stick up man

This cartoon pretty much sums up what a lot of people feel about the government these days. But the government is merely system of rules. It's the people in charge who are doing plundering.

But it's a good cartoon, nonetheless. How about that guy flying Obama flags?  The toon comes from Imgur.com.

Love those entrepreneurs

There are fewer stories more exhilarating than ones about the entrepreneurial spirit. There's a site out that's full of small entrepreneurs called fiverr.com.  It will connect customers with someone who will perform some specialized service for $5.

For example, Bethan will produce a short video of herself in a banana suit promoting your product or shouting anything else the customer wants. Here's a recent sample. Note: bad weather has brought her indoors.

And Han_da_man will photoshop a picture for a five spot.

But it's not all for fun. This one looks like real work. He will will read your insurance policy and answer three questions about it for his five clams.

All in all, it's a remarkable market place where customers and suppliers can get together and make a deal. Check it out to see what all is available.

Via Carpe Diem.

[Hey boss. Maybe you should hire the guy who will proofread your blog post for grammar and spelling errors. Ha ha - Robo-ed. Yeah, not a bad idea given how bad you are at it - GJ]

The SOPA meltdown message - apply that skepticism to all legislation

The other day I marveled at the ease with which the internet biggies brought down SOPA and PIPA in a post that ended with this, "... it makes one wonder what else an organized effort by websites could do. Hopefully, their efforts will be directed toward freedom and liberty not regulation and restraint."

Today Aaron Ross Powell makes an excellent point about how the skepticism the tech community exhibited toward SOPA/PIPA should be applied to all proposed legislation. See The Lesson the Tech Community Should Have Learned from SOPA. His point is that the tech community's opinion about SOPA/PIPA was based on their expertise in their field. But proposed laws about subjects out of their field of expertise may be just as destructive, they just don't know it.

It’s true that proponents of state power often have well-polished pitches for why their favored program will work. Yet we usually lack the knowledge to fully evaluate their claims. ...

This ignorance—which we all suffer, for there is just too much for any one person to know—forces us to either accept at face value what our legislators tell us or to adopt a general attitude of skepticism. ...

One hopes that next time a nice-sounding bill comes along (something like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), those millions of geeks who applied their expert knowledge to SOPA and found it wanting will look past the name, will recognize their own ignorance about the particular policy area, and will instead evince a heavy dose of libertarian skepticism. SOPA was not the exception to the rule. Instead, it was just how things are done in Washington.

With so much more access now to what lawmakers are up to, and with all the ways voters now have to communicate through the internet then maybe, just maybe, voters themselves can exert a little bit more control over the people who are supposed to be representing them.

Obama's tool: Warren Buffet's secretary

Michelle Obama's seat mate at BHO's state of the union address tonight will be none other than Warren Buffett's secretary. She, you will recall, was said by her boss, Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, to be taxed at a lower higher rate than Mr. Buffett. And this was provided as a home spun rationale for the Buffett Rule which would result in a surtax on millionaires.

Arthur Laffer does a pretty good job of skewering Mr. Buffett's idea:

Putting aside all the oohing and ahhing over Mr. Buffett's selflessness, his effective tax rate on his true income would hardly budge if this "Buffett Rule" were applied. What's worse, raising the highest tax rates would most likely worsen the budget deficit and lead to a further weakening of the economy. Everyone would suffer.

But Barack Obama needs a political issue, and demonizing the rich is the issue he is running on. Never mind that the people with high incomes are already footing the bill for government spending.

So it's Buffett's secretary who tonight will be the face of the American who is so unfairly treated by the tax code. She pays higher taxes than the super rich because the Republicans so unfairly punish the poor and reward the rich. Into the breach, class warriors. You're the 99%, go and take what's rightfully yours.  It's only fair.

As for Warren Buffett, Arthur Laffer makes a telling observation. It seems that one of Mr. Buffett's conditions of his $1.6 billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was that the Foundation satisfy all legal requirements qualifying the gift as free from all taxes. Laffer:

Incidentally, I'm not the first to question Mr. Buffett's commitment to "shared sacrifice" in balancing the federal budget. In a 2007 CNBC interview, when asked why he shelters his money through tax-free strategies rather than writing big checks to Uncle Sam, Mr. Buffett responded: "I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter's foundation, my two sons' foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government." [Emphasis added.]

They'll do a better job than the government. Exactly. But that's his money. What he wants others to do is something altogether different.

[Updated:  Dumb mistake corrected.  HT JH.]

Lubbock Federal Judge takes narrow view of 2nd amendment

Last week U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings in Lubbock threw out a lawsuit brought by the NRA and some individual plaintiffs in Jennings v. McCraw that challenged the Texas gun law which prohibited non-military personnel under 21 years of age from obtaining a concealed handgun license. LubbockOnline.com:

In Thursday’s order, Cummings cited appellate-court precedent, stating it was unclear whether the Second Amendment protects the possession of handguns for other than defensive use in the home.

Cummings also wrote of how Texas’ gun laws were more permissive, actually, than what the Supreme Court addressed in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, which stated the Second Amendment was an individual protection of one’s right to defend one’s home. ...

He declined to expand the meaning of the Second Amendment beyond what the Supreme Court has previously recognized.

He was referring to District of Columbia v. Heller, but not everyone agrees that the Heller ruling was confined to guns in the home, the NRA for one. And the NRA is off to the 5th circuit to appeal.

Are they sorry again?

Remember those "I'm sorry" photos from way back in 2008? It was a website where Democrats could post photos of themselves holding signs expressing regret for having that mean old George W. Bush as president. In case you missed, here's the link to sorryeverybody.com.

They updated it shortly after Obama got elected, and looking at it today, it's rather sad. Check out the updated site. All those naive waifs expressed such joy that O was elected president. That would make the world love us again, right?  It's a depressing snapshot of our electorate, as least as it was in '08 and '09.

So I wonder. Now that we are three years into the Obama administration, are they the least bit sorry that they got swept off their feet so easily?

Where do internet users pick up viruses?

The answer Zonealarm.com would give to that question is "Facebook." The infographic found at that link says that Facebook intercepts 600,000 attempts at login hijackings per day.

It also says 20% of Facebook users have been exposed to malware. Although, being exposed to one and downloading one would seem to be two different things. My public email address gets emails with attachments that look very suspicious, but they don't get downloaded. So it's conceivable that the 20% exposure rate doesn't equal the infection rate. People have gotten a lot smarter about clicking suspicious links.

But when the viruses do get attached, the result doesn't look very pretty. Businessinsider.com describes some of the things they can do, installing key-loggers to steal passwords, for example.

Something that should probably worry all of us in the free world is the possibility that some enemy nation has figured out how to infect our computers with their own special virus. If it has not yet been discovered by the anti-virus companies then their protection programs would be useless against it. Then one day someone pushes a button, all of our computers become zombie participants in DDoS attacks, and the internet shuts down.

It's a cyber-jungle out there.

Washing their hands of SOPA

The mass digital demonstration the other day by some of the internet biggies against SOPA and PIPA had stunning results with many in Congress changing their minds about their previous support of those bills. It was an amazing thing to watch.

As for SOPA and PIPA, the proposed laws that would put immense power in the hands of intellectual property owners over anyone they suspected of violating their rights, there's a very rational discussion at Dilbert's, er uh, Scott Adam's website. He notes that Republicans and Ron Paul in particular are responsible for the growing distrust of government. He expands from there ...

It's a simple rule of thumb: The more the government interferes, the worse off we are.

By that filter, the SOPA question boils down to this: What is worse - allowing legitimate businesses to be robbed of their intellectual property, or having the government try to stop it? There is so little trust in government that most people prefer being robbed over the alternative of having the government get involved and making things worse.

Bottom line: If you apply the "more government is bad" rule of thumb, SOPA is a bad idea.

It's hard to argue with that bottom line.

Another interesting aspect of the SOPA deal was the money paid to Congress members for their vote. Maplight.org has a breakdown. Lamar Smith, the Republican Representative from Texas, sponsored SOPA and gets credit from most sources as the spear head of the effort to get the bill passed. How much does it cost to get that kind of support for a bad bill. The aforementioned Maplight.org says he took in $388,599 from interest groups that supported the bill and $27,000 from interest groups opposed to the bill. So it looks like around $400,000 could do it.

But what is the lowest amount that it would take to buy a Congressman? Our own Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway hauled in $74,614 from pro-SOPA groups according to the linked source. And he's shown by SOPAtract.com to be undecided, so it must take more than that. But there's a good chance that the bids might stop unless something breathes new life into the bills. So as a cash cow this one may have gone out to pasture.

In any event, this turn of events was an amazing thing to witness. And it makes one wonder what else an organized effort by websites could do. Hopefully, their efforts will be directed toward freedom and liberty not regulation and restraint.

Foot wear for sinking ships

Land lovers stared in amazement at the photos of the Costa Concordia reclining on its side in shallow waters. And the question in our minds was, "What should I pack for my next ship cruise?"

Answer: Floating shoes.

Not long ago we talked about the mystery, now solved, of the human feet that washed ashore on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Link. Seems that the feet belonged to suicide jumpers. As a submerged body deteriorates the joints begin to come apart. And feet in sneakers that float might eventually make it to shore.

So floating shoes are a ship board must. That way the descendants might have an easier time collecting the life insurance in case they can't find a body right away. It's for the children.

One more thing. It's best to head off any problems early on, so ask to see the captain's driver's license. And make sure it's good for "ships." If he can parallel park a ship, then you might be OK.

Where Glocks came from

Daniel Horan reviews Paul M. Barrett's book, "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun," in today's Wall Street Journal, and it provides a short and interesting summary of the history of the Glock handgun.

Seems that in 1980, Gaston Glock was the manager of a car radiator factory with a side business of making knives and bayonets for the Austrian army. He managed to get authorization to bid for a contract to provide the Austrian army with handguns. Quote:

He knew next to nothing about firearms. Less than 20 years later, he was the world's leading manufacturer of handguns, and the business born in his garage had annual revenues of more than $100 million.

The story goes on to tell us that before he built his own gun he first bought some handguns and took them apart to see how he could improve on them. He eventually came up with the Glock 17, and now Glock handguns are everywhere.

But you can see where he went wrong. Having worked on car radiators, knives and bayonets, he knew the advantage of simplicity and probably saw the manual safeties on the guns he disassembled as a bunch of unnecessary parts. After all, an efficient Austrian army man wouldn't need one. "You know zee penalty for failure."

I've gone on and on about how the lack of a manual safety on Glocks has probably resulted in more negligent discharges than we care to count. Click the guns category and scroll down for posts at this blog about Glock accidental/negligent discharges. But Glock owners are a passionate bunch, and I'm shouting at the wind on that topic.

In 1984 a former Austrian named Karl Walter who worked in the U.S. as a traveling gun salesman visited Mr. Glock in Austria with the idea of selling them in the U.S. Another quote:

Mr. Walter arranged for the Glock 17 to be featured in the October 1984 issue Soldier of Fortune magazine, and product placements in films and television shows soon had Glock pistols showing up in the hands of Hollywood's biggest stars. Innovation had spawned fascination. Once Glock pistols were adopted by the FBI, the Secret Service and major American police departments, sales to the public began to eclipse those of even Smith & Wesson, the venerable American gun maker, which nearly went out of business as a result. ...

Glock sold its five millionth handgun in 2007, and its pistols remain the world's most popular.

Yup, they're everywhere.  Anyone reading this blog probably already has a good grasp of the gun safety rules, but let's take another look at Richard Fairburn's Causes and cures for the negligent discharge for old times sake:

1. All guns are always loaded. (Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.)

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist “this particular gun is unloaded,” see Rule 1.)

3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. (This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.)

4. Identify your target, and what is behind it. (Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.)

Glocks have a light trigger pull so #3 is doubly important.

Eric Holder, Voter ID, and Texas

Most of us out here in flyover country have trouble understanding just what the problem is with requiring voters to show a photo ID. More to the point, we have trouble with people like Attorney General Eric Holder who want to allow people to vote who don't have the wherewithal to get a photo ID.

WeaselZippers points us to this Politico story that tells us that Eric Holder used Martin Luther King day to wail against state laws requiring voters to show photo IDs. Holder, you'll recall, is the guy who refused to prosecute two Black Panthers who got video taped intimidating voters in Philadelphia on election day in 2008.

Holder is holding up Texas' voter ID law by requesting more and more information. And one has to speculate that his concerns would have never materialized if the Texas law didn't go into effect until after the November 2012 election.

Just how hard is it to get a photo ID in Texas?  We aren't talking about driver's licenses, although it's the same application form. We are talking about a simple photo ID issued by the state of Texas and which is basically a driver's license that excludes the license to drive. It requires filling out the aforementioned application form and producing some identification, the requirements of which don't look that harsh. By the way, disclosure of the ID applicant's social security number is optional.

According to the DPS fee page, the price for the initial card is $16 for anyone under 60 years of age and it's good for six years. For those 60 and over it's $6 and has an "Indefinite Expiration date." ( Not sure if that means "til death" or "to infinity, and beyond.")

Let's see, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, voter ID. Going back to application form, here are some interesting lines:

Would you like to complete a voter registration application form today? You must be eligible.
(¿Le gustaria llenar la forma de registro de votante hoy? Tiene que ser elegible.)

Someone applying for the ID can register to vote at the same time.  No problemo. So Mr. Holder, what is your real motive?

Cheers for Sears

The good news for Sears is that it plans to close a bunch of unprofitable stores, and hopefully that action will help the bottom line enough to allow it to cut prices and compete with Best Buy, Walmart, and online competitors.

But what must really hurt is the highly public announcement that CIT Group Inc. would quit extending credit to Sear's vendors. See Sears Supplier Loans Are Said to Be Halted by CIT Starting Today. Therefore, Sears would have to pay those vendors up front for orders. That sounds bad, but the report says merchandise financed by CIT accounts for only 5% of Sears' inventory. So unless other creditors follow suit, it shouldn't hurt that much.

I've got a soft spot for Sears. I admit it. The stores have always been a reliable place to buy tools, car batteries, tires, and plenty of other stuff. At one time wrenches and other non-electric tools bought at Sears carried a lifetime warranty. But times change, and that was back in the day when a tool would last a lifetime.

Hang in there Sears. Your fans are rooting for you, even those of us who sought out the cheaper prices elsewhere. If the store closures can bring down those prices, then the game is still on.

Making it political

The Sears store closings will inevitably result in employee layoffs and put those people out there looking for new jobs. The political issue of the day is Mitt Romney's work for a restructuring company that took over failing businesses and -- gasp -- laid off employees. So basically Sears is doing on its own what countless other businesses have done. That's the way the market place works. And thankfully no one is asking for a Sears bailout or some other form of government intervention.

Also, there's this nagging question. Lefties have left no doubt how much they hate Walmart. So would they cheer if Walmart was hurting? What about if Walmart decided to close a bunch of stores, would lefties continue to cheer big employee lay off? Just wondering how that all works together.

Released Gitmo detainee sues for damages -- Judge says No

Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak Al Janko must have thought he would have an easy time with his case when he got the same judge who signed his release to hear his case for damages for his time served.

Mr. Janko was captured in Afghanistan as a suspected suicide martyr and was kept for seven years at Gitmo. He filed a habeas corpus petition in 2005, and U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Judge Richard Leon granted his release in 2009. Seems that Janko may not have been the al Qaeda terrorist they thought he was. Suicidal maybe, just not a suicidal bomber.

Janko sued for damages alleging that during that time he was "subjected to inhumane treatment that included striking his forehead; threatening to remove his fingernails; sleep deprivation; exposure to very cold temperatures; humiliation; and 'rough treatment.' " Furthermore, he alleged that he had attempted suicide 17 time during that time.

He probably thought he hit the lotto when the same judge who released him heard his case. But the Judge tossed him out of court. See Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Brought by Former Gitmo Detainee. Quote:

“War, by its very nature, victimizes many of those caught in its wake,” Leon wrote. “Innocent civilians are invariably killed, and sometimes even mistakenly imprisoned. Our legal system was never designed to provide a remedy in our Courts for these inevitable tragedies, especially in a conflict like this where terrorists cunningly morph into their surroundings.”

Sorry pal. What happened to you was a tragedy.  Blame the Patriot Act, but others have faired far worse.

Assimilating with the majority

There's a provocative article at physorg.com that notes a study conducted at a couple of college campuses with the purported conclusion that people in the majority expect minorities to assimilate. But the people in the majority don't want to assimilate when they themselves become a minority.

That sounds about right.

Whites are still in the majority in most of the United States. But Hispanics are gaining, and some speculate that in the next few decades whites will be in the minority. Even then proclaiming oneself a White-American will still be frowned upon. So we'd best get used to being the minority, and early adopters can start assimilating.

But think of it this way. There will be lots more holidays to celebrate!

Many of the Mexican holidays will catch hold here. Already some celebrate Cinco de Mayo which commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862 when the Mexicans defeated a French army that was leaving anyway but not fast enough. The French came back a year later and whooped up on 'em. But that part doesn't get celebrated.

July 4th celebrations will go away, but Constitution Day on February 5 with celebrations of Mexico's 1917 Constitution will take their place. But once Mexico proper becomes a full fledged narco-state it might denote nostalgia for the old days.

Then there's my favorite, the Day of the Dead, a holiday so fantastic that it takes two days to celebrate it. Who can resist the sweet lure of a delicious sugar skull. Mmmmm, sugar skulls! Muy deliciosa!

Muchas gracias y adiós, mi vecino.

The 99% consume what the 1% create

They make it look so easy, those dang one percenters that the occupiers are so obsessed with. It's tempting to suggest that the occupiers are really just resentful of the people who have the talent to see possibilities the occupiers can't see.

Jim Powell at Forbes explains it in The Genius of "One Percenters" Is Their Amazing Command of the Obvious. He summarizes a few successes and notes how the people who created popular products and successful businesses were observant enough to discover and then fill a need. Examples include:

Fred Smith who saw the need for overnight delivery and created Fed-Ex.
George de Mestral who took a close look at the burrs that stuck in his pants and invented Velcro.
Ray Kroc who saw the demand for fast food and created McDonalds.
George Crum, whose customers wanted fried potatoes that wouldn't go saggy, invented the potato chip.
Peter Dunn and Albert Wood were looking for drugs that might reduce blood pressure, and they came up with -- boing! -- Viagra.

Many of the examples Mr. Powell cites required a basic knowledge in some field to get to the point where they knew enough to conduct experiments in that field. And in some cases they came up with a product then had to figure out what it was good for. But they thought they could do it, and they did it. Anyone who thinks they can't do it probably can't.

Paparazzi 1950

One of the treasures in my neighbor's box from her time in Europe in 1950 was a photo of a genuine celebrity, Constance Bennett, 46 years of age in this photo. My neighbor lived in Wiesbaden, Germany, at the time while her husband worked in the Air Force Counter Intelligence Corps.

The handwriting says "Constance Bennett movie star - Nov. 1950 Now Mrs. Coulter, her husband is a colonel stationed here - I went to a "Tea" at her house the 22nd Nov."

Ms. Bennett's IMDB.com page says, among other things, this:

Her last marriage, to a U.S. Air Force colonel, was happy and gave her a key role coordinating shows flown to Europe for occupying troops (1946-48) and the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), winning her military honors. Still young-looking, she died suddenly at age 60 shortly after completing the last of her 57 films.

Quite a looker, she was. For more photos from this series click Europe 1950.

Spy vs Spy

Funny how this spy cases come in opposing pairs. It's almost as if the countries involved are trying to one-up each other. First, a U.S. spy drone wanders over Iran, gets snagged and is showed off like a bowler's trophy.

Then Amir Mirza Hekmati, of Iranian lineage but born in Arizona, gets put on death row in Iran for alleged spying for the CIA. See Yahoo news. Any reports of a confession in Iran should be taken with several grains of salt. So when we read that he "admitted to having links with the CIA but denied any intention of harming Iran," we have to admire Mr. Hekmati for holding up that well under the kind of pressure they exert to get confessions.

Then along comes Livia Antonieta Acosta Noguera, the Venezuelan consul in Miami and formerly the second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. InterAmericanSecurityWatch.com reported last month:

U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.

Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language TV network Univision, which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.

Since she's a diplomat all they can do is boot her out of the country. And sure enough, that's what they did.

The CIA should arrange a going away present for her -- a nice thumb drive to use at her office back Venezuela.

Virus robs bank account, covers tracks

Eat your hearts out, Bonnie and Clyde. There's no bloody trail from these bank robberies.  It's a Trojan type virus that not only steals money but also manipulates the online bank statement to hide the fake transaction.

The Sophos' NakedSecurity alerts us about the discovery by Trusteer of this technique they call a "post transaction attack." It differs from previous robber-viruses in that it hides the theft. From Trusteer:

e. The next time the victim visits their online banking site, the malware hides (“replaces”) the fraudulent transactions in the “view transactions” page, as well as artificially changing the total fraudulent transaction amount to balance the totals. As a result, the deceived customer has no idea that their account has been ‘taken over’, nor that any fraudulent transactions have taken place

Of course, if the victim still receives statements through the mail, the transactions will eventually be detected. However, with many customers encouraged to ‘go paperless’, it could take many months before the fraudulent activity is identified. (Emphasis mine.)

Indeed. Banks, credit card companies, brokerage firms and practically all other entities that handle our money are constantly badgering us to go paperless. Makes a person want to go computerless.

What goes up -- bullets fired in the air

Some cultures have a practice of shooting a gun into the air as a form of celebrating something, New Year's Eve, for example.

A few years ago the Mythbusters explored a myth about whether such a falling bullet would come down with lethal velocity. Their experiment found that if a bullet is shot straight up then it would likely reach a stall speed, and the falling bullet would reach terminal velocity which might not be fatal if it struck someone.

But even the most inebriated of celebrants would not shoot a bullet straight up and risk being caught out in a bullet rain storm, lethal or not. And it's reasonable to believe that any celebrant with a minimal sense of self preservation would point the gun at an angle other than 90 degrees from the ground. There's your problem, as Jamie would say.

A bullet fired at an angle won't reach stall speed but will travel a long distance at a lethal velocity. And so .22LR bullets say on the box, "Dangerous within 1.5 miles."

So what is this all about? What we have in the photo is an object that was found on my patio a few days after the new year began. It appears to be a .22 short lead bullet. That one wasn't lethal, and no property damage was detected -- not even a chip in the cement. But the landing distorted the bullet a small bit which you can see on the right side of the tip. Lethal or not, I wouldn't want to have been the thing that brought that projectile to a stop.

Ice fishing optical illusion

It's almost an optical illusion, and it makes a clever scene. The label says it's in a lake in Vaala, Finland. And what you see is some guys in wet suits and scuba gear walking around on the surface of a frozen lake. Only thing is, they are under the lake surface walking on the bottom of the ice cover.

The world's turned upside, I tell ya. Click this Youtube video link to see it.

News Flash -- most interesting man in the world not that interesting

He's Jonathan Goldsmith, born Jonathan Lippe on 9/26/38 in NY, NY. And he plays the character in the Dos Equis commercials called "the most interesting man in the world" which has probably provided him more face recognition than anything else he has done.

But he's not really that interesting.

To his credit, he did play bit parts in a over a hundred TV shows beginning with "Naked City" in 1963 and including TV classics like "Bonanza," "Dragnet," "Knots Landing," and "Dallas." See his IMDB page for a more complete list.

Things slowed down after the 1980s, but here's an interesting match-up. It's a role in a TV movie called Another Pretty Face (2002). Look way down on the list of cast members and there's old Jonathan. The most interesting man in the world meets another pretty face. It's symmetrical. It's poetical. No, it's semi-poetrical.

The sad story of Trey Scott Atwater

There are no winners here, unless it's those who hate military personnel.

Today is the third consecutive day that the Midland Reporter-Telegram has plastered Mr. Atwater's mug shot on the front page.

According to the article, he told FBI agents that as a special forces demolitions expert he was required to carry at least two blocks of C-4 with him while on operations in Afghanistan. Although he has been back in the U.S. for nine months, he forgot one was still in his bag when he attempted to board a domestic airline in Midland, Texas, after the Christmas holiday to return to North Carolina. Additionally there was a smoke grenade in there which was confiscated on Christmas eve at the airport where he boarded a flight to Midland.

Apparently he has a problem keeping track of stuff. Isn't there a reality TV show about that?

The MRT has the complaint in PDF linked here which provides much more detail.

Mr. Atwater is being charged with violating 49 USC §46505(b)(3) which says this:

(b) General Criminal Penalty.— An individual shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, if the individual—
...
(3) has on or about the individual, or has placed, attempted to place, or attempted to have placed on that aircraft, an explosive or incendiary device.

There is nothing so far that suggests he intended to use any of this stuff except on official military operations. However, the statute conveniently omitted any requirement that the accused actually has any criminal intent. So he is basically being made a criminal for not being able to keep track of his weapons. But what do you do with someone like that? One would think that the military has rules against taking bombs off the base. And one would also think that since there is zero evidence that he intended to hurt any civilians that a military tribunal should have jurisdiction over any procedure violation. But instead, local officials are making a federal convict out of him.

One more thing. (Added 1/5/12) -- Contrast the treatment Mr. Atwater got at the North Carolina airport with the treatment he got at the airport in Midland, Texas.

The screeners at the airport in North Carolina probably have experienced a lot military personnel accidentally packing military weapons in their carry-on bags. And they seem to have a sensible procedure in place -- confiscate the items and send the soldier on his/her way.

Not here. Civilians treat military personnel as heroes out here. The welcome mat is out.  But apparently the airport screeners have such little experience with them that a careless soldier gets sent immediately to jail.  Not a very warm welcome after all.

Updated 2/20/12: Case dismissed. See Kudos to U.S. Attorneys in the Trey Scott Atwater Case.

The best Bay of Pigs joke ever -- Peter Falk in The In-laws

The 1979 movie The In-Laws was a perfect showcase for the character acting talents of the late Peter Falk.

That movie flew under the radar and didn't really catch on until long after the theatrical release. At least that was my experience, having missed the first run but catching it a few years later at a theater specializing in old or overlooked movies. And what a surprise it was.

Fast forward to the other day.  TCM has a practice of showing movies starring the recently deceased, and consequently, The In-Laws got some face time.

The movie starred Peter Falk as a rogue, possibly disgraced, CIA agent whose son was about to get married to the daughter of a successful, mild mannered, and accommodating dentist played by Alan Arkin. Within minutes of their first meeting, Falk's character has Arkin's character up to his eyeballs in illegal intrigue.

No plot spoilers here, just a punch line spoiler. (Aside -- It's hard to find a good joke about the Bay of Pigs, the half-assed attempt by the Kennedy administration to displace Fidel Castro. It failed. And Castro and his enablers took full advantage of the opportunity to embarrass the U.S.)

But the movie pulled off a Bay of Pigs joke. Just about the time the dentist realizes he is in deep do do, Falk tried to reassure him by impressing him with his friendship with the late President John F. Kennedy. Falk had a photo of JFK on his office wall inscribed with, "Thanks for your help. At least we tried. JFK." The dentist was impressed. But then Falk tells him why he was being thanked:

Sheldon: You were involved in the Bay of Pigs?
Vince Ricardo: Involved? That was my idea.

Not quite the reassurance he was hoping for. But it sure was a funny scene.

Anyway, that's the only spoiler you'll get here. See the movie for the full effect. And as for jokes about the Bay of Pigs, good luck. This is the best one the internet has to offer:

Travel tip: Avoid any Latin American Tour named Bay of Pigs, Two.

See what I mean?

Procrastinators, setting a deadline might help

My resolution for 1/1/13 is going to be to stop procrastinating.  That's not a typo, it might work better to plan ahead for an early start next year. Besides, setting a deadline works, according to Dan Ariely, a teacher who devised a scheme to pull on his students. See The Magic of Procrastination.

He told them at the beginning of the course that they would be required to submit three papers before the end of the course, but each student must set the deadline for his/her papers, and a missed deadline would result in a penalized grade. Excerpt:

Now a perfectly rational student would set all the deadlines for the last day of class—after all, they could submit papers early ... If the students were not rational and knew it, then they might set early deadlines and by doing so force themselves to start working on the projects earlier in the semester.

Interestingly, we found that the majority of students committed to earlier deadlines, and that this ability to commit resulted in higher grades. More generally, it seems that simply offering students a tool by which they could pre-commit publically to deadlines can help them achieve their goals.

Well, OK. That's one way to get 'er done.

Here's another one from a philosopher named John Perry. He explains this very simple theory in How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done. Make a long to-do list with the most important things at the top. Doing the things farther down on the list is a form of procrastinating. But those lesser things get done, thus achieving something through procrastination. That idea won an IgNoble prize which provided the following summary.

To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.

So if you are a procrastinator, relax. Simply make a list, but first, set a deadline for making that list.

Soldier at Midland Airport carrying explosives?

The newspaper headline screamed at us this morning that a member of the U.S. military attempted to board a plane at Midland International Airport Saturday with explosives in military grade wrapping. See the revised online version at Man found with explosives at Midland International Airport.

The print edition said "officers found the explosives while he went through the X-ray machine." However, the online version clarified that it was the carry-on bag that went through the X-ray machine.

If MPD sergeant Brian Rakow says the item was a real explosive, then I'll believe him. However, the TSA has built such a reputation that skeptical observers will want to wait for official test results. There's at least a strong possibility that it was a gag gift wrapped to make it look explosive -- salsa, candy, four-alarm chili, for example.

The guy was supposed to have been in town visiting family for the Christmas holiday and was said to be returning to North Carolina, so one has to wonder about a couple of things. First, if he had it with him when he came to visit his family, had it already passed through the TSA once before? And if not, and if Santa didn't leave it under the tree, where would one acquire explosives in military-grade wrapping in Midland, Texas?