CHRISTIAN TOTO: Ed Helms’ Apolitical Fake News Can’t Help Bashing Guns.
Can’t or won’t?
Archive for 2017
December 12, 2017
THE MYTH OF THE FLIGHT 93 ELECTION:
If our great American experiment fails it will because we’ve crumbled from within. We’ve failed to demand ethical leadership, and moreover, we’ve failed to be ethical in our personal lives. If the Christian church in America fails it won’t be because we didn’t win critical elections. It will be because we’re a nation of faithless, biblically illiterate Christians with weak churches and morally compromised leaders. Increasingly in the eyes of unbelievers, the Republican Party has replaced Jesus as the face of the Church. We’re known more for our politics and commitment to men like Roy Moore and Donald Trump than for our commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now more than ever, Christianity needs to divorce itself from partisan politics.
Hmmmm. Read the whole thing.
PRIVACY: Some HP laptops are hiding a deactivated keylogger.
“Some time ago someone asked me if I can figure out how to control HP’s laptop keyboard backlight,” wrote Myng. “I asked for the keyboard driver SynTP.sys, opened it in IDA, and after some browsing noticed a few interesting strings.”
The strings led to something that appeared to be a hidden keylogger – a program that sends typed characters to an attacker – in a Synaptics device driver. Given that the decompiled code prepared and sent key presses to an unnamed target, Myng was fairly certain he had something interesting on his hands.
Luckily, HP responded quickly.
“I tried to find HP laptop for rent and asked a few communities about that but got almost no replies,” he said. “One guy even thought that I am a thief trying to rob someone. So, I messaged HP about the finding. They replied terrifically fast, confirmed the presence of the keylogger (which actually was a debug trace) and released an update that removes the trace.”
Good on HP for a quick fix, but how did they release a laptop with a dormant keylogger installed?
DEALS GALORE IN the Amazon Fire TV Family.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON THE CHEESEHEAD STASI, AND LESSONS FOR THE MUELLER PROBE: Governmental accountability board? More like Wisconsin’s Secret Police.
WELL, WHEN YOU HAVE A CLIMATE OF MASS HYSTERIA, THIS KIND OF THING WILL HAPPEN: The Destruction of Matt Taibbi. “Matt Taibbi has never been accused by any woman of sexual assault or impropriety. The women he is accused of harassing (those who weren’t fictional) based on satirical passages from a book he co-authored nearly two decades ago, have all denounced the allegations. It’s the same with Ames, who actually wrote the passages. And yet, as soon as the baseless claims went mainstream, people were quick to try to connect them to an unrelated office conflict from Taibbi’s days at First Look. The speed with which this narrative formed and solidified in the national consciousness should give every reader pause.”
But, you know, when you write something that purports to be a nonfiction memoir, you can’t really blame people for assuming that you did what you say you did. And in our world, what seems edgy and funny and over-the-top at one point can become crime think overnight. It would be better if people had more in the way of proportion and humor, and less in the way of rushing to judgment. But social media (antisocial media?) have pretty much eliminated those in public discourse.
SO I JUST HAD AN INTERESTING EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH THE SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PRESS OFFICE:
Me:
I’m hearing from a source that Lisa Page was involved in approving Peter Strzok’s warrant requests to the FISC and possibly elsewhere. Can you confirm or deny if this was the case? And please tell me what her job title and function are in your office. Thanks.
Them (via spokesman Joshua Stueve):
Lisa Page, who was an attorney on detail to the Special Counsel’s office, returned to the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel in mid-July.
Me again:
Thank you but that doesn’t answer my question. What role did Lisa Page have in the handling of warrant applications, and in particular those involving Peter Strzok?
Them again:
I’ll decline to comment further.
Well, then.
Page, remember, is the FBI lawyer with whom Strzok was having an extramarital affair and exchanging anti-Trump texts. Perhaps someone with more resources than I will be able to get to the bottom of this. (Bumped).
THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY: Did Elizabeth Warren Just Call Her Fellow Senator a Slut?
IT REALLY HAS BEEN: Big media’s sad and extremely horrible week.
PROCUREMENT: First Japanese-built F-35A lands at Misawa AB.
Maj. Elijah Supper piloted the brand-new aircraft from the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Komaki South F-35 Final Assembly and Check Out facility, and was quickly joined by two F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 115th Fighter Wing, Wisconsin National Guard, there to escort the new jet across the Pacific.
“This F-35 is one of the most clean and well-built aircraft I have ever seen,” Supper said. “The Japanese take great pride in this aircraft and have ensured it’s made to the highest standard.”
Although the aircraft is a Japan Air Self-Dense Force-owned jet, it is required to go through final function tests in the United States to ensure all future F-35A’s produced in Japan are up to standard.
That last bit sounds like an expensive bit of make-work for Lockheed, or maybe I’m just being too cynical today.
I WONDER HOW MANY NETFLIX EMPLOYEES CAN SEE WHAT YOU’VE WATCHED, AND WHAT ELSE THEY CAN FIND OUT ABOUT YOU? Netflix’s ‘creepy’ tweet is a reminder of how closely it’s watching us. “Of course, Netflix users should expect the company to know what they’re watching and how frequently they watch it. How else could the company come up with super-specialized recommendations? But what seems to have struck a nerve is that Netflix is using information to share viewing habits publicly. The tone of the message is also drawing criticism. Netflix, after all, produced and promoted the movie, which is in the vein of an uplifting, unapologetically cheery Hallmark film. Shaming its subscribers, even in jest, for watching a feel-good film didn’t sit well with everyone.”
Contempt for your customers doesn’t play well. Who do they think they are, the NFL?
I’VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS: Industry house organ Variety reviews Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
If anything, it demonstrates just how effective supervising producer Kathleen Kennedy and the forces that oversee this now Disney-owned property are at molding their individual directors’ visions into supporting a unified corporate aesthetic — a process that chewed up and spat out helmers such as Colin Trevorrow, Gareth Edwards, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. But Johnson was either strong enough or weak enough to adapt to such pressures, and the result is the longest and least essential chapter in the series.
That doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. Rather, despite the success of “The Last Jedi” at supplying jaw-dropping visuals and a hall-of-fame-worthy lightsaber battle, audiences could presumably skip this film and show up for Episode IX without experiencing the slightest confusion as to what happened in the interim. It’s as if Johnson’s assignment was to extend the franchise without changing anything fundamental, which is closer to the way classic television and vintage James Bond movies operate than anything George Lucas ever served up.
Meanwhile, at NRO, Kyle Smith dubs The Last Jedi an “Unoriginal, Tone-Deaf Mess,” and that’s one of the kinder things he says about the sequel. But hey, not every Star Wars movie can live up to the fine special effects and operatic plotting of Star Wars: Empires are a Girl’s Best Friend.
THERE’S NOTHING SOCIAL ABOUT IT: Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society.
Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”
He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”
If you’re on social media for anything more serious than puppy GIFs or sharing pictures of your adorable kids, you might want to back away from the keyboard and/or smartphone.
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: What The Hell Is Happening With These Alabama Polls?
THEY FALL INTO THE TRAP EVERY TIME: Did Elizabeth Warren Just Call Her Fellow Senator a Slut?
NETFLIX THINKS YOUR HOLIDAY LONELINESS IS A PUNCHLINE:
This is the country we have: judgmental and tribal, and it is unlikely to change. But when Silicon Valley starts judging you as pathetic for consuming the products they produce, when media lectures you every day about politics, when Hollywood lectures you on morality, you might just stop watching, start ignoring, and think about turning things off.
Would that be the worst thing?
Indeed – particularly since Netflix is not apologizing for its tweet, and E! News is defending them, and piling on the snark: Netflix Defends Its A Christmas Prince Shame Tweet (Stay Hurt, 53 Viewers).
“BECAUSE THEY’RE BIG, FAT LYING HYPOCRITES” IS A FAIR GUESS: Why did climate scientists emit 30,000 tonnes of C02 this weekend?
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Generic forms of Viagra due to hit market today. When will they make it over-the-counter?
WELL, YES: Justice Ginsburg has some explaining to do.
This is Chapman University’s Ronald Rotunda for WaPo:
We already know what Ginsburg thinks of the president. She told us more than a year ago that she “can’t imagine what the country would be . . . with Donald Trump as our president.” Facing criticism for her apparent endorsement of Hillary Clinton and her attacks on Trump, Ginsburg doubled down, emphasizing in a CNN interview: “He is a faker.” She then went on “point by point, as if presenting a legal brief,” the CNN analyst said.
Her statements are particularly troubling in the context of the travel ban case, in which the crucial issue — at least, according to the lower courts and the plaintiffs — is the personal credibility of Trump and whether he delivered his executive order in good faith — in other words, whether he is faking it. It’s no wonder 58 House Republicans sent Ginsburg a letter calling for her recusal because of her comments before the election.
Given these facts, Ginsburg should heed her critics — either by recusing herself from the case or explaining to the public why she will not.
Ginsburg is the most nakedly partisan SCOTUS justice in my adult lifetime, and after nearly 25 years on the bench, no one should expect her to change one bit.
ON THE UPSIDE, THEIR GENDER-RELATIONS AND PRONOUN SKILLS ARE EXCELLENT: US Navy not ready for major war as they forgot to train sailors to sail and operate ships. 8 years of institutional rot will take a while to undo.