H4CBlog » Kibbitz

Remote “Kill Switch” coming to Intel-based PCs

admin — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:35:32 +0000

Remote ‘kill switch’ added to Intel’s newest processor

Jason Douglass

Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processor can be remotely disabled by a hardware/software combination known at Anti-Theft 3.0. Systems can be disabled over 3G networks, even while the OS is not running. Even when the hard drive is replaced, the critical systems will still be terminated.

At first this sounds great: if an owner loses a laptop it can be remotely disabled to ensure no sensitive data is compromised. But essentially we are giving up control of our computers and putting that control in another’s hands.

With the Patriot Act in place and and legislation like the ‘kill switch’ bill, many of the rights we took for granted are threatened. It is well within reason to fear this type of technology as it could be used as a means of control and censorship.

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Pakistani Extremists Ambush and Murder Christians

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:59:23 +0000

[ More breaking news from the Religion of Peace™.... ]

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Islamists Shoot Five Christians to Death in Pakistan

SUKKUR, Pakistan, July 29 (CDN) — A dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.

Pastor Aaron John and church members Rohail Bhatti, Salman John, Abid Gill and Shamin Mall of Full Gospel Church were leaving the church building after meeting to discuss security in light of the threats they had received, said the pastor’s son, Shahid John.

“As we came out of the church, a group of a dozen armed gunmen came and opened fire at us,” said Shahid John, who survived a bullet in his arm.

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Oliver Stone blames “Jewish Dominated Media”

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:21:53 +0000

Oliver Stone: ‘Jewish-Dominated Media’ Prevents Hitler from Being Portrayed ‘in Context’

Director Oliver Stone belittled the Holocaust during a shocking interview with the Sunday Times today, claiming that America’s focus on the Jewish massacre was a product of the “Jewish domination of the media.”

The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the “powerful lobby” of Jews in America.

Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series “Secret History of America,” seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

“Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told Sunday Times’ reporter Camilla Long.
Stone said that, “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”

The Sunday Times interviewer then asked why there was such a focus on the Holocaust.

“The Jewish domination of the media,” responded Stone. “There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.”

The director, who recently met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, also slammed the U.S. policy toward Iran as “horrible.”

“Iran isn’t necessarily the good guy,” said Stone. “[B]ut we don’t know the full story!”

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Oy Vey… Flipping Halachah

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:25:27 +0000

Religious row as Orthodox Jewish couple sue neighbours for ‘imprisoning’ them with automatic hallway light

A Jewish couple are suing their neighbours in a block of flats, saying an automatic security light is keeping them prisoner in their home because it forces them to break their Sabbath rules.

Dr Dena Coleman and husband Gordon claim they cannot leave their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they do they automatically trigger the light in the communal hallway – contravening a religious ban on turning on electrical items from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday because it constitutes ‘creating fire’.

They say their human rights are being breached and are now suing the flats’ management company – their neighbours – for failing to accommodate their religion.

The other 35 owners of the seaside flats are liable to pay court costs if the claim is successful.

Dr Coleman, a 56-year-old headteacher at a Jewish orthodox school in London, has been visiting the £200,000 holiday flat in Bournemouth, Dorset, with her husband for six years.

The management company fitted the motion-sensing lights six months ago in a bid to save energy and money.

The Colemans have offered to pay for an override switch to disable the light sensors during the Sabbath.

But the Embassy Court Management Company – which represents all residents and whose three directors also live in the block – said this would set an ‘unacceptable precedent’.

In a letter sent to occupants of all of the other 35 apartments in the block, the Colemans said: ‘Faced with a situation where we could never again have full use of our flat, we were left with no alternative but to seek legal advice.’

The couple said they would drop the case if an override switch was installed and the management company paid their legal costs and compensation.

The argument has sparked controversy between the other residents.

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Please Take the Poll

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:09:23 +0000

I am considering dropping this blog site to focus on other, more important issues. You can indicate your preference in this poll:

Shroud of Turin Genuine?

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:33:41 +0000

New evidence suggests the Turin Shroud could have been the cloth in which Jesus was buried, as experiments that concluded it was a medieval fake were flawed.

Radio carbon dating carried out in 1988 was performed on an area of the relic that was repaired in the 16th century, according to Ray Rogers, who helped lead the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STRP).

At the time he argued firmly that the shroud, which bears a Christlike image, was a clever forgery.

But in a video made shortly before his death three years ago, he said facts had come to light that indicated the shroud could be genuine.

Rogers, a chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said: “I don’t believe in miracles that defy the laws of nature. After the 1988 investigation I’d given up on the shroud.

“But now I am coming to the conclusion that it has a very good chance of being the piece of cloth that was used to bury the historic Jesus.”

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Blog Crash

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:45:27 +0000

Shalom,

Sadly, I lost the last three months of blog entries over here…. I will try to update the blog as I find time.

- John

Bulldozers and Nietzsche

jjp — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:27:24 +0000

The irony of the article below this apparent: Why should a fan of Fred Nietzsche (or any other pagan/atheist, for that matter) care about the “sanctity” of a grave-site? In a “god-is-dead” world where evolutionary forces (i.e., mindless matter+time+chance) all conspire to yield inherent randomness, what does “sanctity” mean? How can one of his followers wax poetic over the injustice of this situation with a straight face? In Nietzsche’s perspective, there is no “ought” — at least no “ought” that is grounded in anything other than the “will to power.” Besides, Nietzsche apparently believed in “eternal recurrence” and therefore has the bulldozer’s blade to look forward to over and over and over again…. Seems like a bit of “poetic justice” to me…

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Friedrich Nietzsche’s grave under threat from search for brown coal

(THE TIMES) Friedrich Nietzsche declared famously that “God is dead!” so it is probably safe to assume that he did not much care what happened to his skeleton. Which may be just as well as bulldozers prepare to turn over the philosopher’s grave and his birthplace in search of brown coal.

The village of Röcken, south of Leipzig, is plastered with posters bearing quotes from Nietzsche’s masterpiece, Thus Spake Zarathustra, announcing “Be true to the soil!” in a desperate attempt to prevent an energy company from turning the region into a lunar landscape.

Ralf Eichberg, head of the Nietzsche Society, said: “We have Nietzsche’s birthplace, the church where he was baptised and where his father preached, the orchard where he played, the school where he learnt to read and write, and the graves; his, that of his sister Elisabeth, his parents.”

Digging the village up — as has happened to 25 east German communities targeted by mining companies since the Second World War — would destroy most of the physical traces of the 19th-century thinker. Röcken, with barely 600 inhabitants, used to be in East Germany and the Communist authorities considered Nietzsche dangerous; a supplier of ideas to the Nazis because his concept of a “Super-man” could be applied to Nordic German heroes.

In fact, Nietzsche thought the idea of a pure Teutonic race to be “a mendacious swindle”. But, no matter, he was put on the Communists’ blacklist and Röcken was earmarked for stripmining in the 1980s.

With the end of communism there was a revival of interest in Nietzsche and suspicions about the merits of brown coal, or lignite. It is dirtier than hard coal and mining it involves ripping up the landscape. But the pendulum has swung again.

“Brown coal makes us less dependent on others for electricity generation,” said Johannes Heithoff, of the RWE Power energy group.

Any attempt to resume a nuclear power programme has been blocked by the Social Democrats. And there is anxiety about gas and oil deliveries from Russia — Germany’s main supplier. So mining for brown coal, though making a nonsense of Germany’s pledge to cut greenhouse gases, is on the rise. And Röcken is standing in the way.

But transferring the bodily remains of one of Germany’s most famous philosophers is, say Nietzsche fans, an act of sacrilege. “The parish is unanimously against this,” said the local priest, Joachim Salomon. Unfortunately for villagers, most of the surrounding region is in favour of brown coal mining. There is 20 per cent unemployment locally and some towns have lost more than a third of their population since German unification. The mining companies employ 2,000 people directly and create work for another 3,000.

“Ultimately this will have to be decided at the political level,” said Andreas Günther, of Mibrag, the main mining company.

And politics is pitted against Nietzsche — and for the bulldozers.

All three leading parties in the region — the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats and the Left party — are in favour of job-creating strip mining, whatever it may do to the environment. Only the Green party is siding with the villagers and the champions of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Source Article

Blog Changes

jjp — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:59:05 +0000

I will be deleting many of my previous blog entries. What I will do with this site is now an open question.

Shalom chaverim

Look at pic – left brain or right?

jjp — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:51:50 +0000

THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test … do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

For more about this, see:http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_tes t.htm

Josiah Says Shalom

jjp — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:07:58 +0000

Josiah ben Yisroel, my two year old, says “shalom” to all of you today. A typical toddler, running, jumping, and playing all day long (he loves his Tonka trucks), Josiah also can recite the Shema and Hebrew alphabet!