It's a video from March 11th of this year but it didn't come to my attention until just now. (h/t Wiserbud).

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:20 PM | Comments (143)
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Ricochet.com's Jon Gabriel (a/k/a ExJon) joins Ace, Gabe, Drew, John and me to discuss the fake outrage over Phil Robertson, the Juicebox brigade's even more fake babies for Amazon.com discounts, this week's NSA rulings and the Obamacare footie pajama guy.

There was, miraculously, no big fight between Drew and Gabe, but I promise they'll make it up to you soon.

We wrap up the episode with quick hits and Q&A from the Moron Mailbag:

Joseph: This is a question for Ace: for a while Ace, you were ending a lot of posts with your 'in your mouth' joke. I was hoping you could read one of them aloud so that we know what it sounds like when you're writing it. Thanks!

tsrblke: What do you guys actually think of the Horde? Do you hate us? Tolerate us? Ignore us? (Be honest).

Elle: Why aren't some of the other cobs on the podcast?

Submit your questions & comments here: Ask the Blog

Referenced in this episode:

• Another Day, Another Progressive Moral Panic


• The First Rule of Holes


• The Three Worst Things About The Pantene Ad Everyone Is Talking About


• Explaining the Flaw in Kevin Drum's (and Apparently Science Magazine's) Climate Chart

[MP3 Download] | Subscribe: [RSS] | [iTunes]

Follow on Twitter:
AoSHQ Podcast (@AoSHQPodcast)
Ace (@AceofSpadesHQ)
Drew M. (@DrewMTips)
Gabriel Malor (@GabrielMalor)
John E. (@JohnEkdahl)
Andy (@TheH2 and @AndyM1911)

Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 07:00 AM | Comments (235)
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Nothing could possibly go wrong if the US Treasury's IT systems were penetrated and disrupted, right? Un-possible. The Treasury is a veritable fortress of security and stability, right?

TOP MEN baby, top men.

We found that default factory-preset administrative usernames and passwords were present in OCCÂ’s systems. In one test we conducted, we discovered a default username and password of an internal service account on an OCC server which had local administrator privileges. We used those privileges and deployed our penetration test toolÂ’s agents to the host server. That server contained password hashes for local and domain administrator accounts. Using these hashes, we obtained a domain administratorÂ’s password, which we then used to log on to the network domain controller. With full access given to a typical domain administrative account, we created a domain administrator account and thereby had full control of OCCÂ’s
network.

In accordance with our Rules of Engagement, we did not attempt to perform actions that would disrupt OCCÂ’s operations, such as deleting data, powering off servers or other resources, locking out accounts, and similar activities, any of which could have resulted in interruption or shutdown of devices or services. However, malicious attackers would have no such restrictions against performing these actions

Because systems and devices connected to OCCÂ’s internal
network could freely communicate between one another, with very little internal partitioning, we successfully attacked multiple OCC systems in a very short amount of time from a single workstation.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:22 AM | Comments (187)
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Piling on from BenK's post about the Oregon Health Insurance Exchange fail.

Remember those advertisements for Cover Oregon? So sweet, so full of naive idealism about the power of state projects to bring happiness to the land.

So charming and darling, so minty-fresh, so heart-strainingly earnest and optimistic.

And yet, artistic expression could not prevent corrupt failures of actual execution. Below the fold, Oregon hippies.

Below the fold, we rub it in. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 05:47 AM | Comments (381)
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The head of the Oregon Obamacare exchange resigned just this week. The state spent $160 million dollars on the website and didn't hit their targeted numbers, assuming their targeted numbers were greater than zero.

It was Lawson, chief information officer at the Oregon Health Authority, who decided the state could manage the complex exchange project itself, rather than hire a private-sector systems integrator, a decision since criticized by her superiors. Lawson also was close to Oracle Corp., the California technology giant that has been blamed for doing shoddy work and repeatedly missing deadlines.

Nearly three months after the federal deadline for a functional health exchange website, Oregon’s exchange has emerged as a technological train wreck and a PR nightmare. The state has paid more than $160 million and a fully functional site remains weeks — perhaps months — away.

State officials have been forced to spend even more money gearing up a massive system of temporary employees and contractors to manually process paper applications for health insurance.

Oh and she made $178,992 a year. Everyone should work for the government, they over pay and don't expect results.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:03 AM | Comments (181)
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Happy Friday.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:39 AM | Comments (347)
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So all but one of my computers are currently down while I'm restoring them which means I've got nothing really. So you'll get whatever scraps I happened to have lying around and you'll like them.

Who Disapproves of ObamaCare?

Well mostly the very people it was supposed to help - the health care uninsured.

Fifty-three percent of the uninsured disapprove of the law, the poll found, compared with 51 percent of those who have health coverage. A third of the uninsured say the law will help them personally, but about the same number think it will hurt them, with cost a leading concern.

Moreover the uninsured really don't like the idea of mandated coverage and many are foregoing the mandated insurance either because they can't afford the new plans, just don't think they need any, or are philosophically opposed to being forced to buy insurance just for living in the US.

Seventy-seven percent of the uninsured said they disapproved of the mandate, compared with 65 percent of those who already have health insurance.

...Of the uninsured who said they were not likely to sign up by the deadline, fully half said it was because of the high cost. Twenty-nine percent said they planned to go without coverage because they object to the government's requiring it, and 11 percent said they did not need health insurance

Just one more layer in the giant FAIL onion of Obamacare: Even the very people it was designed to help hate it.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:46 PM | Comments (573)
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Obama is now saying that 500,000 people who previously had insurance now don't have it, and that is is a lie. The number is much higher. As Andy points out, for this number to be true, every other person who got insurance from Obamacare would have had to have been one of the 4-7 million people who had it taken away from them.

But that's what they're willing to admit to.

Less than a half million people whose health insurance was canceled under President Barack Obama's new law have not yet found other coverage, the administration said Thursday.

However, officials said that figure could shrink in the coming days. Americans have until Dec. 23 to purchase insurance and ensure they have no gap in coverage if their current plans are among those that will be canceled at the end of the month.

The cancellations have become a nagging problem for the White House, compounding the widespread technology failures that marred the rollout of the nation's health care law.

Since the law's passage in 2010, President Barack Obama repeatedly promised that people who liked their insurance would be able to keep it. However, the law set minimum requirements for coverage, meaning people who obtained subpar plans after the law was passed would have to find new coverage.

More than 4 million people have had their plans canceled because their coverage does not meet the new standards. Some of those people are purchasing new plans through their insurance company or the government exchanges.

So, this is an embarrassment, yes? The law intended to insure the uninsured is instead uninsuring the insured.

Must be time for Obama to make a Speech Law.

Little problem: Most of those who had plans before had good plans, comprehensive plans.

They will now be allowed to purchase catastrophic plans... but at comprehensive plan prices.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Obama administration said Thursday it would allow millions of Americans whose insurance policies had been canceled to purchase bare-bones plans next year, in another eleventh-hour tweak to the law likely to cause consternation among insurance carriers.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a group of six senators in a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal that people whose policies had been canceled because of new requirements under the health law would be allowed to purchase 'catastrophic' plans. Those plans had previously been restricted to people under the age of 30 or individuals who qualified for a set of specific hardship exemptions.

Does Obama really think that insurance companies can write these policies, advertise them, get sign-ups and get a first payment in 11 days?

I believe he doesn't believe that.

None of these fixes are designed to be fixes. They're designed to appear to be fixes, so when people are uninsured, Obama can say, "I tried. I gave them options."

Just never the option of what he promised: Of keeping health insurance they liked.

Posted by: Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (430)
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There is some question about this. Some people are claiming it's not a Christmas movie, but rather "just a movie set at Christmas."

I say yes it is a "Christmas movie," at least by the standards set by other acknowledged "Christmas movies," but only because I'm bored and I don't feel like writing about Obamacare.

The Naysayers claim that a Christmas movie must be about, you know, Christmas, or mostly about Christmas. Which seems like a reasonable position to take, until they begin listing the movies they call "Christmas movies:" Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life.

But are these movies really about Christmas?

I'm afraid people playing the Traditionalist Card here have exposed themselves to trump by another Traditionalist Card: a real Christmas movie is about the birth of Jesus, yes? That is, after all, the Reason for the Season.

So why are corporate fantasias like Miracle on 34th Street said to be "Christmas movies"? Santa is -- well, let's put it out there. Santa is a pagan wood spirit who was called "Saint Nick" during Christianization of Northern Europe in order to bring the Germans, Norsemen, and other Odin-worshippers along.

"Santa" is not Christmas. Santa is greeting card bullshit.

A Christmas Story is based on a series of short stories, most of which had nothing at all to do with Christmas, which were written together as a single movie, with "Christmas" serving as unifying device and bookend for the episodic material contained within it.

The movie begins with a trip to Santa at the store, and ends with Christmas. Almost nothing between these Christmas bookends has anything at all to do with Christmas. The opening, the Red Ryder BB gun parts, and ending are all from the same story, which are arranged before, in between, and after the other unrelated episodes to give the film a sense of narrative coherence.

Furthermore, it's, again, about the corporate notion of Christmas-- presents and greedy children.

It also contains strong sexual imagery.

This is your idea of a "Christmas movie"? Those lamps look like special orders for Satan's Bordello.

It's a Wonderful Life is Christmas-themed, but the story, obviously, has little to do with Christmas tradition. The Christmas setting is incidental-- George Bailey obviously could have chosen to commit suicide after January 1st. In fact, we all know now that that's when he would have been more likely to do so.

Christmas does not enter into the story at all, except in terms of background props and imagery. In fact, Christmas imagery is used to create an ironic contrast with Bailey's suicidally-depressive inner state and outward rage. (And yeah, he rages, drunk and ugly.)

These movies are chiefly not "Christmas stories," but other sorts of genre movies which are simply set during Christmas for thematic reasons.

Which is what Die Hard is. What's Die Hard about? Well, it's about a man who travels during the Christmas season to reunite with his family. That is very Christmassy. The dramatic arc is about being a better person for one's family, and the movie ends with a marital reconciliation.

In addition, a black cop redeems himself by shooting a German to death on the street.

The main story in Die Hard, sure, is about opposing a Greedy Thief who's executing a complicated hostile takeover and making the hero's life hell. But then, that's also the story of It's a Wonderful Life.

Sure, the Christmas stuff is mainly background props and music and people occasionally mentioning Christmas.

But how is that any different that the acknowledged "Christmas movies"?

Oh I know, I know: "You can't have a Christmas movie that features so many people being violently killed."

Ben Hur just emailed me to disagree.

Can't say the f-word in a Christmas movie?

Well, Ralphie says it, doesn't he? Yeah I know, he says "Fuuuuudge" but we all know what he really said.

Posted by: Ace at 02:58 PM | Comments (292)
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Of course.

It was right there. I don't know how they missed it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (244)
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