Medary.com

Virginia shoppers go bonkers for four-year-old Apple laptops on sale for $50/each:

"It's rather strange that we would have such a tremendous response for the purchase of a laptop computer -- and laptop computers that probably have less-than-desirable attributes," said Paul Proto, director of general services for Henrico County. "But I think that people tend to get caught up in the excitement of the event -- it almost has an entertainment value."

Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she urinated on herself.

Had I been processing information properly this past weekend, I'd have noticed that SANS had moved their "Infocon" threat level to Yellow from the normal "Green" due to the MS05-039 (PnP) vulnerability:

We moved to 'Yellow' on Friday, after we did see a number of exploits released for last weeks Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities, in particular MS05-039 (PnP) which is exploitable remotely.

As expected, we did see various bots, in particular 'Zotob' take advantage of this vulnerability. At this point, the situation is however static. New bot variations keep getting developed, but they do not add any fundamental new variation of the exploit. We expect that most exploitable systems have been compromised at this point.

The last week showed once more that there is no more patch window. Defense in depth is your only chance to survive the early release of malware. In this particular case, three distinct best practices can mitigate the vulnerability:
- close port 445 at least at the perimeter.
- patch systems quickly.
- eliminate NULL sessions.

Neither one of these measures is perfect, and some may not be applicable to your network (e.g. you may require NULL sessions in some circumstances).

Another development brought to conclusion in this event is the lesser importance of 'worms' with respect to more sophisticated 'bots'. We received a number of bots using the PnP vulnerability. Antivirus scanners did not identify most of them. In many cases, the same bot was packed differently or some function where added to evade detection.

Malware can only develop as fast as it is developing in this case because of extensive code sharing in the underground. The only way we can keep up with this development is by sharing information as efficiently. Being able to do so openly will make it only easier to do this sharing. Please join our effort, and share future observations with us. We will continue to turn them over quickly and make them available via out diaries for everybody to read and to learn from.

I would like to thank in particular handlers Lorna and Tom for their extensive analysis of all the malware submitted.

Yes, the Internet is still "broken", but it was never working all that well to begin with. The Infocon is intended to measure change. We can't stay on yellow for ever.

(Emphasis added)

Adjusted for inflation, gas was more expensive at the end of the Carter Energy Crisis than it is today. Eidelblog goes into more detail:

I've before touched on Ludwig von Mises' explanation of what the price system really does: not only does it promote equilibrium when prices are high, it allocates resources to those who value them the most. Obviously the trucker filling up his rig felt that it was worth $500 (actually slightly more), otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Meanwhile, I might cut back on my leisure driving because of higher gasoline prices, and that's perfectly fine. It means that petroleum has become more scarce, and the trucker values it more than I do. He will use it for a more productive endeavor than I will, which seems logical, but how can we determine that? No person should ever have the power to decide which activities are worth more than others, so instead we have the price system. As Mises said, it is how we can make rational economic decisions.

Now, does this mean that gas prices aren't darn high? No, but all the hype about "record prices" is just that--hype.

ABC News reports:

"Al Qaeda recruits in prisons. They really do," said Edward Caden, a retired prison administrator in California. "Prisons are a prime, prime target for terrorist recruiting. It is a ripe population."

The plot, which called for dozens of casualties as part of a holy war against the United States, was foiled after Levar Washington, a former inmate at the Folsom Prison, and his accomplice were arrested for a string of gas station robberies.

Washington had entered prison a convicted thief and left as a militant black Muslim who had sworn allegiance to a violent jihad, according to law enforcement authorities.

We as a society do not need to tolerate this. We need to start trying these thugs for advocating the violent overthrow of the government or treason, and if the latter, lining them up and shooting them.

Hat tip: www.tom-hanna.org.

California guy builds a web site archiving North Korea's propaganda:

But there was no way for them to search the archives of KCNA until Geoff Davis, fighting boredom during a rainy San Francisco spring, decided to hone his Web design skills on a topic he had followed in news reports on the North Korean nuclear crisis. "Their propaganda is often unintentionally hilarious and I couldn't find an existing searchable database of the KCNA on the Web. Thus, NK News was born," Davis told Reuters.

The site is www.nk-news.net and features an Insult Generator using the wacky North Korean's news articles as source material. A sample:

You loudmouthed lackey, your accusation against the DPRK is no more than barking at the moon!

You arrogant militarist, we will mercilessly crush you with the weapon of singlehearted unity!

You bellicose flunkey!

You politically illiterate beast, such a provocation will be regarded as a declaration of war!

Hm, I think the last one may have come from Glenn Reynolds (note: evil lie).

via Fark.

An Army officer involved with the Able Danger military intelligence group offers his opinion on the 9/11 Commission's due diligence in pursuing the story:

WASHINGTON - An Army intelligence officer said Wednesday he does not believe the 9/11 commission pressed hard enough for documentation of claims that military intelligence found a U.S.-based terrorist cell that included Mohamed Atta, who turned out to be the leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, prior to the terrorist strikes.

"I don't believe they ever got all the documents, but then again I don't think that they pressed properly to get all of the documents," Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said on CBS' "The Early Show."

Arizona and New Mexico governors declare states of emergency along their Mexican borders:

New Mexico:

“I’m taking these serious steps because of the urgency of the situation and, unfortunately, because of the total inaction and lack of resources from the federal government and Congress,” added the Governor. “We will continue to work with the federal government in an attempt to get their assistance, but something had to be done immediately. I want the people of Doña Ana, Luna, Hidalgo, and Grant counties to know my administration is doing everything it can to protect them.”

Arizona:

"The federal government has failed to secure our border, and the health and safety of all Arizonans is threatened daily by violent gangs, coyotes, and other dangerous criminals, said Governor Napolitano. "These funds provide our law enforcement community with another valuable tool to fight crime related to illegal immigration."

Target Centermass comments:

Of far greater concern is the fact that our nation is overly concerned about political touchy-feely issues, knowing full well that neither Canada nor Mexico is willing and able to control who is using their country as a means to enter the U.S. And trust me, the radical Islamists know that too.

UMKC releases their men's basketball schedule, featuring a trip to that mecca of college basketball, Frost Arena on the campus of South Dakota State University. (Go Rabbits!).

UMKC's schedule announcement is here.

Schedule table in the extended story (i.e. "Read More").

A fine brief review of how we got here, by space.com.

The melding of civil and military requirements—coupled with the budgetary and political pressures that affect all large aerospace programs—produced the engineering compromises that haunt the space shuttle program to this day. These include the use of an external fuel tank whose foam-shedding problems doomed Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 and cast a cloud over Discovery’s mission.

The future of near-space transportation is private.

Struggling air line sells Atlanta-based regional carrier.

The acquisition of ASA nearly doubles the size of Utah-based SkyWest, which already flies for Delta as a feeder airline under contract at its Salt Lake City hub. Delta and SkyWest said Monday the deal will mean no significant changes in the flight schedules or cities served by Atlanta-based ASA.