MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL

I'll say one thing for conservatives, once they get their marching orders they know how to fall in line and beat a meme to death.

Anyone who has read any gun threads lately knows the RW talking point is "oh sure, we're all for gun control... for the mentally ill."

The RW think tanks come up with a canned response, conservative blogs post it and robot minions parrot it all over the web no matter what is said to them.

It's actually quite efficient.

How do the recent java vulnerabilities affect Android and programming?

Accurate responses?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14298116/how-do-the-recent-java-vulnerabilities-affect-android-and-programming

New Suspected Cases of Gang Rape Show Threat Facing Indian Women

Source: Bloomberg

Indian police are investigating two new cases of possible gang rape, including one with parallels to the assault and murder of a student in New Delhi that sparked a sustained debate about the lack of safety for women.

In one of the latest incidents, a 29-year-old woman was attacked as she traveled alone on a bus operating illegally in the northern state of Punjab, police said. Seven men have been arrested for raping the woman on Jan. 11, police said. In a separate case a day later, a woman was found hanging from a tree half naked in Bihar state. Police suspect she was raped.

“It is a tragedy but at the same time I am not particularly surprised,” Manpreet Singh Badal, a former finance minister of Punjab, who has started his own political party, said in a phone interview today. “Until men fear the law then these types of crime are going to continue.”

The incidents will put further pressure on the government and police to crack down on sex crimes after nationwide protests that were triggered by the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old medical student in the national capital last month. The woman, who was picked up along with a friend after leaving a city cinema, died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital, leading to weeks of soul-searching around India.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/new-suspected-cases-of-gang-rape-show-threat-facing-indian-women.html

"Leftists" and "the left" are not the same thing.

On the inconsistency of leftists

It's easy to know which side leftists will back in any conflict: Whoever the West is fighting. In Syria they're outraged that the West is backing al Qaeda. In Mali they're outraged that the West is fighting al Qaeda.

That's the problem with having to identify an angel and a devil in every conflict. It's hard to be consistent.

In California, It's U.S. vs. State Over Marijuana

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
The New York Times
January 14, 2013

STOCKTON, Calif. - Matthew R. Davies graduated from college with a master's degree in business and a taste for enterprise, working in real estate, restaurants and mobile home parks before seizing on what he saw as uncharted territory with a vast potential for profits - medical marijuana.

He brought graduate-level business skills to a world decidedly operating in the shadows. He hired accountants, compliance lawyers, managers, a staff of 75 and a payroll firm. He paid California sales tax and filed for state and local business permits.

But in a case that highlights the growing clash between the federal government and those states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, the United States Justice Department indicted Mr. Davies six months ago on charges of cultivating marijuana, after raiding two dispensaries and a warehouse filled with nearly 2,000 marijuana plants.

The United States attorney for the Eastern District of California, Benjamin B. Wagner, a 2009 Obama appointee, wants Mr. Davies to agree to a plea that includes a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, calling the case a straightforward prosecution of "one of the most significant commercial marijuana traffickers to be prosecuted in this district."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/us/14pot.html

Forget Oracle's Latest Java Patch. Just Kill The Program In Your Browser For Good

After months of inaction and even a warning from the Department of Homeland Security, Oracle has finally released a fix for yet another security vulnerability in its ubiquitous and notoriously buggy Java software. But there’s already been a fix available that’s remain simpler and far more effective: Kick your Java habit altogether.

Despite Oracle’s new patch, which the company posted to its website Sunday–more than four months after it was informed about the bug by Polish security firm Security Explorations–Java watchers in the security industry are recommending that users give up on the endless cycle of the program’s bugs and fixes and instead turn it off in their browsers for good. “Users should simply disable it,” says H.D. Moore, chief security officer at the security firm Rapid7 who has tested numerous Java exploitation techniques over the last year. “The amount of utility it offers is so much smaller than the risk it creates for users. It’s much safer to leave it off.”

-snip-

The bug was just the latest in a series that wracked Oracle for much of 2012. In August a flaw in the software, also reported months earlier by Security Explorations, was exploited by hackers installing malware including the Poison Ivy trojan on target PCs. When Oracle released a patch, Security Explorations quickly found another flaw in the fix that would allow the new security measures to be bypassed. And the company followed that revelation with the discovery of yet another critical bug in the program.

-snip-

Java in many ways goes against all the security trends that have made browsers harder to exploit in recent years. It still requires manual updates, despite several browsers’ moves to automatically download and install new versions of themselves. And despite modern browsers’ attempts to prevent websites from gaining access to a PC beyond a limited “sandbox,” Java can in many cases allow attackers to escape those restrictions, access the full hard disk and making network connections with remote servers. “The attack surface is so big,” Kandek says. “In many ways, you don’t want Java to be able to do all the things that it does anymore.”

More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/01/13/forget-oracles-latest-java-patch-just-kill-the-program-in-your-browser-for-good/

Oracle releases software update to fix Java vulnerability

Source: CNET

Oracle released an emergency software update today to fix a security vulnerability in its Java software that could give allow attackers to break into computers.

The update, which is available on Oracle's Web site, fixes a critical vulnerability in Oracle's Java 7 that could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code. The attack can be induced if someone visits a Web site that's been set up with malicious code to take advantage of the hole.

Oracle said the update modifies the way Java interacts with Web applications.

"The default security level for Java applets and web start applications has been increased from 'medium' to 'high," Oracle said in an advisory today. "This affects the conditions under which unsigned (sandboxed) Java web applications can run. Previously, as long as you had the latest secure Java release installed applets and web start applications would continue to run as always. With the 'high' setting the user is always warned before any unsigned application is run to prevent silent exploitation."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57563730-83/oracle-releases-software-update-to-fix-java-vulnerability/

Why does MSN use Fox Sports

and not NBC Sports?

Pentagon report cites "lack of maturity" of Lockheed F-35 jet

Source: Reuters



WASHINGTON - Lockheed Martin Corp's's new F-35 fighter jet has completed over a third of its planned flight tests, but it Still faces problems with the helmet needed to fly the plane, software development and weapons integration, according to a report by the Pentagon's chief weapons tester.

The 18-page report, sent to Congress on Friday, included a detailed account of those issues and others, which it said underscored the "lack of maturity" of the $396 billion weapons program, the Pentagon's most expensive ever.

The program exceeded the number of flight tests and specific system tests planned for 2012 but lagged in some areas due to unresolved problems and newly discovered issues, the report said. It said Lockheed did not accomplish all the tests planned for 2012, but boosted the year's total of specific tests by bringing forward some evaluations planned in later years.

Lockheed is building three different models of the F-35 fighter jet for the U.S. military and eight countries that helped pay for its development: Britain, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia and Norway.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/13/us-lockheed-fighter-idUSBRE90C00D20130113