Medary.com

Snookums loves Cher, who is retiring after a three-year farewell tour.

Will she stay retired? We'll see . . .

Lots of Sprint Center news recently. There are from concert promoters that 18,000 seats is too small. There are worries that $250 million isn't enough.

Now, a Kansas City Star story by Randy Covitz (not yet published on the Web) says that it's more likely an NHL team will become the prime tenant of the building vs. an NBA team. Wonderfully snarky comment from NBA bigwig David Stern:

"We didn't tell them to go do a building," Stern said before joking, "Maybe they can have a WNBA team."

Well, the NBA sucks anyway. I would much prefer watching real basketball as played in the WNBA versus the cartoonish bomb and bam thugfest which is the NBA. Heck, I have found this year's NHL season (which wasn't played) more entertaining than the NBA season. That should give you a pretty good indication of how much I want an NBA franchise in Kansas City.

"Federal Report: Marijuana Causes Mental Illness" screams one headline, WebMD.

But if you read the article, it talks about marijuana use by children under 12 years of age.

So, drug use affects the development of children.

Duh.

Up on SANS.org, the latest edition of The SANS Top 20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities.

The "Top 20" is actually two top 10 lists, one for Windows users, the other for Unix users. Obviously the Windows list has little impact on Unix and vice versa. Also, some of the Windows vulnerabilities are focused on Windows servers (which I imagine few people actually run at home).

The short recommendations for Windows users:

1. Stay current with the latest versions of operating systems and software, especially web browsers and anti-virus software.

2. Don't use peer-to-peer software (i.e. Napster, GNUtella, KaZaa) unless you know what you're doing (both technically and legally).

3. Implement a firewall between yourself and the Internet--either a software firewall on your computer, or a firewall on your network at the Internet connection point--preferably both (i.e. "defense in depth").

4. Avoid using the Microsoft products Internet Explorer (the web browser), Outlook, and Outlook Express (the mail clients) if at all possible. The Bad Guys target these programs, and they have a long nasty history of serious vulnerabilities.

5. Don't open any e-mail (the message itself or an attachment) from anybody you don't recognize. Delete suspicious e-mails immediately. Don't use the "preview feature" -- that's the same as opening the mail message. Turn on e-mail checking in your antivirus software. It will slow you down a bit. Getting infected will slow you down a lot more.

6. Don't use instant message unless you know what you're doing.

More on the SANS Top 10 for Windows:

Doing my part to keep culture jamming alive, here's the link to votefortheworst.com, the site which spawned the current rage of voting for the worst American Idol participant.

Go for it, guys, Scott Savol rules! Woo-hoo! An-Ark-EEEEEEE!

Snap Generations-style analysis: Boomers think culture-jamming is "sticking it to the Man,", GenX'ers just think it's funny.

Oh, please . . . don't try to tell me that dark chocolate candy is in any way heart-healthy. Blah blah blah "flavonoids" blah blah blah.

Have you ever tried to eat dark chocolate without using about a metric ton of sugar per ounce of chocolate?

For a huge segment of the population (including Filbert, but Snookums not so much), "It's the carbs, stupid!"

Go ahead and enjoy dark chocolate, but good luck convincing me that it's good for you.

The Royals may be miserable on the field, but by golly, they're finally making money. Don't you feel better now about that $6.25 beer?

Now that I've got the knee-jerk cynicism out of the way, this is actually very good news. Maybe the Royals can figure out a way to keep their stable of young players and grow the team's income and the players' salaries together. Everybody knows that pro baseball is seriously broken from a financial as well as a competitive point of view. The two are directly related to each other.

Bowling ball display delights and bewilders.

It seems that Larry and Carol Ann Parker have a field full of bowling balls on sticks. If you're over by Freeman, Missouri, come on by and have a look.

N.C. Man Finds Finger in Frozen Custard.

In this editorial in the Wall Street Journal, MFS Financial Advisors Chairman (and Dem.) Robert Pozen answers some of the critics and nay-sayers of Social Security reform.

Some excerpts:
If the litmus test of a reform plan is not cutting scheduled benefits for any significant group of workers, then no viable plan to restore Social Security's solvency will pass muster.

. . . median workers would be able to buy 14% more in goods and services with their monthly checks from Social Security under progressive indexing in 2045 than they can with these checks today. That does not sound like a "benefit cut" in terms of real purchasing power.

And the money paragraph:
If Congress is attracted by a package of Social Security reforms combining a milder form of progressive indexing with a 2.9% surtax on earnings above $90,000, it must provide high earners with retirement benefits attractive to them. One possibility would be to devote 1.45% of the surtax to Social Security solvency, and to allow the other 1.45% to be allocated to a personal account invested in market securities. Since such an account would not divert existing taxes away from Social Security, it would not involve any increase in government borrowing. In short, the combined approach would let both parties win--Democrats would get a mix of higher taxes and progressive benefit changes, while Republicans would get personal investment accounts and constraints on benefit growth. And the solvency of Social Security would be restored for all American workers.

If you think you have an opinion on Social Security, you need to read and understand this article. It may change your perspective on the issue.