An Open Letter to Spammers

Good grief! Can you guys get any more stupid? Look, I shouldn't do this, but I'm going to do you a favor. Listen very carefully, because I'm only going to say this once:

• There is no part of my body that I feel needs to be made bigger. If anything, certain portions of my body need to be smaller, and I already understand that's only going to happen through diet and exercise.
• If I feel the need to deal with erectile disfunction (or have any other pharmaceutical need), I'm perfectly capable of having that conversation with my family doctor. I'm not going to have it with someone I don't know, and sending me hundreds of email messages doesn't mean we have a trusted relationship.
• I happen to work in the Information Technology industry. I'm not going to open emails that appear to come from ME, or from info@ or webmaster@ or administrator@ a domain that I control when I know I didn't send the message to myself. You couldn't possibly be more obvious if you put "THIS IS A SPAM MESSAGE" in the subject line.
• Speaking of the subject line, I'm not going to read email messages where the subject line is in Russian, or when the subject line consists of nonsensical phrases like "HoracioPuffyDick" or "Pendulum Butterfly" (I'm not making these up - these are actual messages that were blocked by my spam filter), or when it consists of a random string of characters, 0r wh3n u c1ever1y m1x l3tt3rs and numb3r$ t0 try t0 g3t ar0und my f1lt3rs. Whoever told you these were good strategies was lying to you.
• Emails that come from email addresses that consist of random characters (e.g., szosqisje@[some domain name]) will never, ever, be opened. Ever. Geez, at least most viruses and worms are clever enough to pretend to come from some real person that I might know. See previous comment about liars. Same goes for nonsensical domain names (e.g., hilarie0rax@olgafilippova.com).
• The most obvious of all are the ones where the nonsensical address is associated with a nonsensical subject line, e.g., an email from "petitioning5@kajconsulting.com" with the subject line "TamaraBodypartWhopping." (Once again, I'm not making these up, I'm looking at them right now in my spam quarantine folder.)
• I'm not going to buy cheap software from you. I know that what you're selling is, if not counterfeit, then being sold illegally, e.g., "OEM" licenses that can only be legally sold with a new PC. See previous comment about working in the IT industry. I am, in fact, hoping and praying that Microsoft tracks you down and nails your sorry ass to the wall.
• I'm not interested in a counterfeit Rolex watch. I outgrew the need to be pretentious several decades ago.
• I don't care about your opinion on which penny stocks are going to go through the roof next week.
• Sending me several identical emails in a row is actually counterproductive. (I'm sorry, that was a big word, wasn't it? It means that it makes it even less likely that I'll actually read one of your messages.)
• I'm not interested in helping you transfer several million dollars out of some third-world country. My God, are people still actually falling for that one? It's been around since before there was e-mail! You'd have to have been living in a cave for the last ten or twenty years to not know this is a scam!
• I'm not looking for an on-line institution of higher learning to sell me a diploma, and I'm even less likely to be interested when the email you send me about said institution is riddled with obvious misspellings. (But you can keep sending me those - at least they're good for a laugh when I'm having a tough day.)
• I'm not going to fall for the phony PayPal or [fill in the blank] Bank message telling me that I have to change my password right now or you're going to shut off my account. I'm particularly not going to fall for it when you send it to an on-line hosted email account (like Hotmail or gmail) that I have never associated with any of my bank accounts and/or when it claims to be from a bank that I've never done business with. What I will do is forward your email message to the fraud division of the institution in question with, once again, a fervent prayer that they track you down, lock you up, and throw away the key.

Look - you're not clever. You're not funny. You're not cute. You're just sad and annoying. Do the on-line world a favor: give it up and go get a real job. But I know you won't. You're not smart enough to know how stupid you are. Your only accomplishment is the creation of a very lucrative market for spam filtering software and services. Since I am involved in selling those, I suppose I should thank you, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Thanks for listening - I just needed to get that off my chest.

A Little Christmas Potpourri

Greetings from the Left Coast! Today I thought I'd just share a few thoughts that have been running around in my mind that don't necessarily merit a full post of their own:

'Tis the Season for Political Polls
Obama is "surging" in Iowa! The latest poll shows him leading Hillary by 4 percentage points! Oh, by the way, if you read the fine print, it says the poll has a margin of error of +/- 4%. Now you might think that means that the worst case for Obama is that they're tied. But that's not what it means. You have to apply the factor to both candidates. In other words, Obama could have four percentage points more than the pollsters think, and, at the same time, Hillary could have four percentage points less. That would actually add up to an eight point swing...and that could go in either direction. So Obama could be 12 points ahead of Hillary, or Hillary could be 4 points ahead of Obama, and it would still be within the margin of error of the poll. So - do we really know who's leading in Iowa? Does this poll really mean anything at all? Well, it does mean that I got to share a little math lesson with you, but that's about it.

Calling all Constitutional Scholars
The media is full of scare stories about how your rights are being eroded by the Patriot Act, or by government surveillance targeted at terrorist communications, but I would submit to you that the one single part of the Constitution that has been more abused over the years than any other is the Tenth Amendment. In case you don't remember it from your civics class, here's what it says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Founding Fathers were justifiably concerned that the federal government would gradually exert more and more power over the states, so the Constitution was specifically amended to say that if the Constitution doesn't specifically grant a particular power to the federal government, or specifically deny that power to the states, then that power belongs to the states or to the people, not to the federal government. This, by the way, is the objection that a lot of people have to Roe v Wade: it's not that the federal government should outlaw abortion, it's that the federal government shouldn't be involved. It should be a matter for the states to decide through their respective state legislators who answer to the people of that state. But I digress.

What I really want to know is this: Given the inconvenient language of the Tenth Amendment, what Constitutional authority does the federal government have to dictate to private industries (in this case, the automobile manufacturers) what gas mileage their cars have to get? Isn't this something that market forces should decide? Or at the very least, the individual states? California has, of course, had more stringent emissions standards than anyone else for many years. I'm OK with that. Those laws were passed by the representatives of the people of California, and if the people of California don't like them, they can elect new representatives to change the laws. The way I read the Tenth Amendment, that's how it's supposed to work.

The Mainstream Media Just Can't Stand Good News From Iraq
In case you're still doubting that most of the media in this country has been ignoring anything out of Iraq that might actually be good news, and focusing on anything it can possibly find to advance the quagmire/failure/lost cause angle, consider this:

Mediaresearch.org monitored all of the Iraq stories that aired on the "big three" evening newscasts (that would be ABC, NBC, and CBS) for the period of September 1 - November 30. Turns out that in September, hard on the heels of General Petraeus' progress report (which they all were duly skeptical about), they aired 178 stories on Iraq, 42 of which were filed from Iraq itself. In October, they aired 108 stories. That's a 40% drop. Only 20 of them were actually filed from Iraq. In November, the number of stories dropped to 68, with only 11 filed from Iraq. So, as it became obvious that the troop surge was working, and things were getting better in Iraq, the coverage of the war declined - not just by a little bit, but precipitously! Coincidence? If you think so, I'd like to talk to you about this beachfront property I have for sale in New Mexico.

He Didn't Block a Single Document!
You know, sometimes you just have to shake your head and laugh. After Hillary was questioned in an October debate about whether certain documents from the Clinton presidency had been withheld, Bruce Lindsey, the former president's "official representative on records issues" released a written statement that said, in part, "Bill Clinton has not blocked the release of a single document." In a story that ran today in the New York Sun, we find that what Lindsey said is literally true: he didn't block a single document, he blocked 2,600 of them. Is anybody surprised by this? After all, even their old buddy David Geffen (who was a strong Clinton supporter until 2001 when Bill refused to pardon David's other buddy Leonard Peltier as part of his orgy of pardons as he left office) is on record as saying, "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." Can someone please explain to me why these people have any credibility about anything?

Thanks for listening...and Merry Christmas!

I Never Thought I'd Say This, But...

Kudos to Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen of the Washington Post!

Greetings from the Left Coast! It isn't very often that you'll hear me say nice things about the content of the Washington Post, but Warrick and Eggen should be commended for the piece that ran on Sunday, December 9, and exposed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senators Bob Graham and Jay Rockefeller as the deceitful scoundrels they are. (I would have just said "liars," but I'm trying to be nice here.)

These three Democrats are among those condemning the Bush administration and the CIA for using "torture" in the interrogation of prisoners at Guantanemo Bay and other locations. Now we find that they knew of the practices way back in 2002 and 2003 Here's what the article says, in part:

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange...long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings. "But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.' "

(You can read the full article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?sub=new, although you'll have to register with them to get to the content.)

So, when 9/11 was fresh in everyone's mind, they had no objection. Now, when they think there's political gain to be had by accusing the Republicans of condoning "torture," they're all too happy to do so. Graham claims that he has no memory of ever being told about the harsh interrogation techniques. Pelosi now claims that she thought that the techniques were only in the planning stages and had not been put into practice. They naturally assumed that no one would call them on it. For once, they were wrong.

Thanks for listening.

There's a Reason It's Called an Estimate

Greetings from the Left Coast! Hoo, boy, life has been busy. There’s been so much going on lately that I want to write about, and I just haven’t had time to do it. I hope I can get somewhat caught up during the Holidays.

First of all, you may have heard that we have a newly-released National Intelligence Estimate. This is a rather thick document produced by the National Intelligence Council. It is a collaborative effort of sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies. There is generally a set of “Key Judgments” presented, together with the “confidence level” assigned to each, and then a whole bunch of background detail that was used to arrive at the Key Judgments. Keep in mind that the NIE is a classified document. Although frequently some of the Key Judgments will be declassified and released, all of the detail will not be – because to do so would risk compromising the methods we used to gather the intelligence.

A previous NIE, back in 2005, concluded that Iran was doing everything it could to develop a nuclear weapon, and we have therefore been doing everything we can diplomatically to make sure they don’t. The new one suggests that Iran actually halted its nuclear weapons program back in the fall of 2003. As you might expect, liberals in general and Democrats in particular pounced on this like a robin on a June bug:

Lee Feinstein, Hillary Clinton’s national security director, said the report’s findings “expose the latest effort by the Bush administration to distort intelligence to pursue its ideological ends.”

Barak Obama issued a statement saying, “The juxtaposition of this NIE with the president’s suggestion of World War III serves as an important reminder of what we learned with the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.”

The Arizona Republic writes, “Our leader is a man entrenched, inflexible, unwilling or unable to change his mind despite any amount of evidence laid before him, even by his own administration.”

The Centre for Research on Globalization in Canada writes, “Here we’ve got a president who lied us into making war on Iraq and who, despite a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is stubbornly trying to lie us into another war against Iran.”

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Bush is a liar. He can’t be trusted. It's just another example of his incompetence. There’s no reason for all the saber-rattling over Iran. They’re not an imminent threat to us. We should concentrate on diplomacy. But what did the NIE actually say? As I’ve mentioned before, the Internet is a wonderful thing, because with minimal effort (like Googling “National Intelligence Estimate”) you can go right to the source. Here’s the actual text, which you can read for yourself at http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf:

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. [emphasis added] We judge with high confidence that the halt…was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.

· We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.
· We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.) [emphasis added]
· We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

Elsewhere in the report, it is stated that, “We cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad – or will acquire in the future – a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material for a weapon.” Barring that, the report states the obvious: Iran would have to make its own fissile material. The report acknowledges that Iran has resumed its centrifuge program, and that they are “continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so.” It goes on to state “with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough [Highly Enriched Uranium] for a weapon is late 2009, but that is very unlikely,” and that “with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010 – 2015 time frame.”

And if all of the above isn’t sufficiently ambiguous, how about this: “We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart the program.” And, oh, by the way, “We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities rather than its declared nuclear sites – for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.” Gee, ya think? Wow, who’d have thought they’d do something like that in secret?

And how about this: “We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult…In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons – and such a decision is inherently reversible.

And, finally: “We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.”

In case you’re wondering what those terms like “high confidence” and “moderate confidence” mean, here’s how the report itself defines them:

“High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A ‘high confidence’ judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.
“Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.”

So…are you clear now on what the situation is over there? Here’s what I took away from the report: We’re pretty sure that their “military entities” stopped trying to make a nuclear weapon in the fall of 2003, but we’re only moderately sure that this represented a halt to their entire nuclear weapons program. We frankly don’t know whether or not they still intend to develop nuclear weapons. We know that they’re continuing to enrich uranium, and to develop other technical capabilities that could be applied to making nuclear weapons. We think that the earliest possible date that they could make a nuke is late 2009 – which, may I remind you, is only two years away – but that they probably couldn’t make one before 2013, which is early in the potential second term of whomever we’re about to elect as President next year. We think that it’s going to be tough to convince their leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons, and acknowledge that, even if they decide to do so, that decision could be reversed at any time. And we believe that if they decide to develop nuclear weapons, they’re eventually going to be successful.

Now – imagine you’re the President of the United States, and the Director of National Intelligence has just laid this report on your desk. You note the glaring coincidence, conveniently ignored by most of the media, that in the fall of 2003 we had just finished kicking the hell out of Iran’s next door neighbor, and you suspect that just maybe, this might have played into their decision to halt their nuclear program. Libya publicly announced that they were halting their nuclear program about that time as well. On one level, the report is an acknowledgement that what we’ve been doing, which is to bring international pressure to bear on Iran, is paying off to an even greater extent than we knew. It is also an acknowledgement that Iran could restart its nuclear program at pretty much any time, and if they did, they could produce a nuclear weapon within two to six years. Finally, it’s an estimate, for God’s sake! There’s nothing there that is definite. And several of our allies have serious doubts as to its accuracy.

So…what do you do? A: Say, “Gee, you know what, I was wrong all along. Those Iranians are swell guys who just want a few nuclear power plants, and I’m sure Ahmadinejad was just kidding about wanting to wipe Israel from the map. I think we should just back off on the sanctions and let diplomacy take its course.” B: Say, “Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. If you want to avoid a really problematic situation in the Middle East, now’s the time…to work together.”

If you answered “A,” then I sure as hell don’t want you in charge of keeping me and my family safe. If you answered “B,” then your name is George W. Bush. Thanks for listening.