More problems with Windows XP Service Pack 3

A couple of weeks ago I posted a warning about Windows XP Service Pack 3.

It now looks as if things are even worse than was first reported. ComputerWorld reports that the upgrade also clobbers some network cards and connections, and fills the registry with junk entries.

Two weeks ago, after Microsoft launched Windows XP SP3 on Windows Update, users started reporting that their network cards and previously crafted connections had mysteriously vanished from Windows after updating with the service pack. The Device Manager had been emptied, they said, and Windows' registry, a directory that stores settings and other critical information, had been packed with large numbers of bogus entries.

Most users who posted messages on Microsoft's XP SP3 support forum said that the errant registry keys — which started with characters such as "$%&" and appeared corrupted at first glance — were located in sections devoted to settings for Symantec products. Not surprisingly, they quickly pinned blame on the security company.

Earlier this week, Symantec denied that its software was at fault and instead pointed a finger at Microsoft.

On Thursday, Cole said Symantec engineers had connected the current problem to a Microsoft file named fixccs.exe. According to information on the Web, fixccs.exe stands for "Fix CCS MaxSubkeyName mismatch," and appears to be part of both XP SP3's and SP2's update packages.

Cole wasn't sure exactly what function fixccs.exe serves. "But it caused similar problems with the Device Manager after SP2. It looks like it's reared its head again," he said.

Two Microsoft support documents — KB893249 and KB914450 — both describe a problem remarkably similar to what users have reported recently. "After you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) on a Windows XP-based computer, the Device Manager window is blank or some devices no longer appear," reads KB893249.

The fixccs.exe file attempts to make changes to the registry, said Cole, but in some cases, it also adds large numbers of unnecessary keys. When asked why so many users had reported seeing the errant entries in sections reserved for Symantec products, Cole called it "the luck of the draw. We have a fair number of keys in the registry, and we're on a lot of systems. This is not exclusive to Symantec."

Others have noted that too. A user identified as MRFREEZE61, who posted the first message on the Microsoft support forum thread two weeks ago and later came up with a workaround, said as much today.

"The reported problems are not just limited to those using Symantec products," wrote MRFREEZE61 in a comment added to the original Computerworld story. "Folks on the forum report this specific registry corruption with no Symantec products installed at all. Some find this corruption in device control set enumerators associated with UPNP (Universal Plug and Play) and other 'legacy devices,' others from users of Avast [Antivirus]."

I've already disabled automatic updates to Windows. They're going to stay disabled until Service Pack 3 is fully debugged and reliable.

One would think Microsoft would have at least some concern about their customers, and the reliability of their systems . . . but it's becoming increasingly clear that they don't. They're focusing on getting Windows Vista on as many systems as possible. Those of us who don't want to upgrade can be left to dangle in the wind, at the mercy of any buggy upgrade they care to release. After all, if we're not upgrading, they're not making any more money off of us - so why should they care?

Peter

A bulletproof vest isn't only proof against bullets

I'm very happy for Officer Larry Ashley of Dallas, TX - and for his family.

Body armor is designed to shield police from flying bullets. But the protective gear took on an unexpected function late Thursday night after an officer's squad car tangled with a suspected drunk driver in Oak Cliff.

As it turns out, the bulletproof vest is also fence post-proof.

Just before midnight, two squad cars were driving south in the 800 block of Westmoreland Avenue when, police say, the suspect's Chevrolet Tahoe turned in front of them.

One cruiser collided with the SUV; the other police car crashed into a fence.

A six-foot fence post jammed into the chest of Officer Larry Ashley, 30, but his bulletproof vest kept it from impaling him.

Officer Ashley was in stable condition Friday morning with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

There are more details and a video report here.

Yet another reason for my law enforcement friends to wear their body armor. I've heard many of them complain that it's hot and uncomfortable in the summer months - but without it, Officer Ashley wouldn't be going home to his family.

Think about that, LE buddies. Please.

(Kit, Lawdog, Matt, this means you!)

Peter

Strange attraction

I've heard of unrequited love, where the object of one's affections doesn't return them . . . but this one is really, really weird.

A man who claims to have had sex with 1,000 cars has defended his "romantic" feelings towards vehicles.

Edward Smith, who lives with his current "girlfriend" – a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not "sick" and had no desire to change his ways.

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," he said.

"Maybe I'm a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like Herbie and Knight Rider, where cars become loveable, huggable characters it's just wonderful.

"I'm a romantic. I write poetry about cars, I sing to them and talk to them just like a girlfriend. I know what's in my heart and I have no desire to change."

He added: "I'm not sick and I don't want to hurt anyone, cars are just my preference."

Mr Smith, 57, first had sex with a car at the age of 15, and claims he has never been attracted to women or men.

But his wandering eye has spread beyond cars to other vehicles. He says that his most intense sexual experience was "making love" to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf.

As well as Vanilla, he regularly spends time with his other vehicles – a 1973 Opal GT, named Cinnamon, and 1993 Ford Ranger Splash, named Ginger.

Before Vanilla, he had a five-year relationship with Victoria, a 1969 VW Beetle he bought from a family of Jehovah's Witnesses.

But he confesses that many of the cars he has had sex with have belonged to strangers or car showrooms.

His last relationship with a woman was 12 years ago - and he could not bring himself to consummate it, although he did have sex with girls in his younger days.

You want to know the scariest thing? He's not alone.

Mr Smith is now part of a global community of more than 500 “car lovers” brought together by internet forums.

I just don't know what to say about this. I mean, I have certain mechanical objects that I enjoy, or appreciate, and others I want to buy . . . but to have a sexual relationship with them? Ugh! Shudder!

Maybe we need to get this guy a Toyota Prius. With all that electrical power on board, he'll probably shock himself as well as shocking others!

Peter

Thanks for the memories, John Denver

I found the video below on YouTube this evening, and it's brought back a flood of memories.

I was born and raised in South Africa, and many of the experiences of my younger days are captured in John Denver's songs 'Rocky Mountain High' and 'Calypso'.

The mountains of South Africa are different to the USA's Rocky Mountains in many respects, but they offer the same majesty, the same closeness to nature in the raw. I've slept under the stars in the Cederberg (Cedar Mountains) and Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains); been snow-bound in a cave on Cedarhoutkop (Cedar Wood Kop, or Hill); drawn water from Crystal Pool, which is as clear as its name suggests; dived into streams of snowmelt (and come out looking like a shrunken popsicle!); spent many an evening around the campfire with my friends; walked through Vogelgesangvallei (Bird Song Valley), in its grey blasted granite devastation, and looked at the mountain leopards watching me from their rocky perches (and doubtless wondering whether I'd be good for lunch - fortunately none of them bothered to find out!); watched the clouds forming on the peaks above the trail, and sweep down to cover us in grey stillness . . . many, many memories.

The same goes for the sea. I spent a couple of years on the water. When you've been close to the sea, in a yacht or small patrol craft, you see it 'up close and personal' in a way that a larger ship simply can't convey. I've watched the Great White sharks hunting seals in False Bay; lain down right at the bow of a small craft and had dolphins leaping and curling around the bow-wave not three feet away from my face, and felt the wind and smelt the fishiness of their breath through their breathing holes; dived for kreef (lobster) on rocky reefs just offshore; enjoyed nights on the beach, with a fire to warm us, the waves crashing a few feet away, and the smell of the sea wafting over us; and been scared witless by some really nasty storms at sea, particularly off Cape Point, with the small ship tossing, rolling, pitching and jerking, so that one daren't move without clinging to lifelines, and it was truly a life-threatening activity to move on the upper deck. John Denver's tribute to Jacques Cousteau and his research ship, Calypso, a converted minesweeper, also brings back many memories.

I'm partially disabled now. Just walking around isn't all that easy sometimes, and I'll never again hike through the mountains. I may swim gently in the surf, but I'll never again clamber nimbly all over a sailing craft, or walk forward to the bow and lie down to be close to the dolphins. I hate that reality . . . but I still have my memories, and those two songs brought them flooding back tonight.

I hope you have such memories too. If so, here are the songs, to bring them back for you.





Peter

Operation Fruitcake

I'm told that fruitcake is one of the least desirable gifts.

I don't know about this. My Mom had an absolutely delicious recipe for fruitcake, which she'd frequently make for the family. To add to the flavor, she'd sometimes wrap the cakes in foil, soak them with half a bottle of Guinness, and let them sit on the shelf for a few weeks to let the cake absorb all that dark goodness. The result was incredible! It'd melt off a fork, and tasted heavenly.

(Runs to bathroom to wipe drool from mouth.)

Anyway, I was amused to discover the Web site of Operation Fruitcake. This discusses (and films) various ways of disposing of fruitcake. It's sponsored by a commercial company, and the advertising clips for their services are a bit annoying, but the videos of the many and varied ways of killing these things are quite funny nonetheless.

They've fired them from cannons, launched them as rockets, exploded them, cooked them in microwave ovens, seared them with welding torches . . . the list is almost endless. The site has video of most of their attempts. If you hate fruitcake and want to indulge your loathing, it's worth a visit.

Peter

They call cops 'pigs' - but what happens when pigs become cops?

I had to laugh at this.

Police in Schwerin, Germany, were chasing a couple of car thieves. The bad guys made it easier for the cops when they drove smack into a police cruiser. Not a career-enhancing move for thieves, that.

The police nabbed the passenger, but the 18-year-old driver fled into the woods. A search ensued.

"Then he ran into the family of boars, and the head of the family squared up to him," a police spokesman said on Friday. "So he stood there, put his hands up, and called for help."

Officers rescued the man from the boars, then arrested him.

In view of the fact that cops are so often called 'pigs', I found it deeply ironic that pigs should turn into cops (or, at least, assistants thereto).



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #25, #26 and #27

We have a rich crop of Doofi to close out the week.

First, there's Doofus #25: Andrew Kellett, described as 'Britain's dumbest criminal'.

Andrew Kellett, 23, was branded the city's "dumbest criminal" by Leeds City Council after posting more than 80 videos showing himself and others committing a range of offences.

The videos included leaving a petrol station apparently without paying, trespassing and shouting abuse, dangerous driving and racing at high speeds, as well as taking class A drugs.

Yesterday, Kellett, of Stanks Drive, Swarcliffe, Leeds, who has been previously convicted of various offences, received an interim anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) at Leeds Magistrates' Court to stop him showing unlawful activities on the video-sharing website.

Under the terms of the order, which will last until a full Asbo hearing next month, Kellett cannot post any image or description of unlawful activity on the internet.

He is also banned from taking part in dangerous or anti-social driving on private land or public roads, which includes driving in excess of the speed limit, racing other vehicles on the public highway and failing to observe traffic regulations.

And the order states he cannot act in a manner which causes alarm, harassment or distress to any person in England and Wales.

I don't know who's dumber . . . the criminal for incriminating himself, or the council for thinking that a piece of paper saying 'don't do it again' is going to deter him! It seems that Kellett doesn't take it seriously either.

Kellett opposed the interim Asbo, claiming he was simply a bystander filming and the offences would have happened whether he was there or not.

He also claimed the Asbo would potentially breach his human rights by restricting his right to free expression.

Sheesh!

OK, on to Doofus #26. We don't know his name, but his conduct earns him the temporary appellation of 'Doofus' - and, soon, 'convict', perhaps?

A St. Louis man is accused of making a 911 call to try and help a friend avoid a ticket.

Dashcam video showed an officer pulling a car over for an expired license plate.

As the officer walked up to the car, he noticed the passenger on a cell phone.

Authorities said the passenger was calling in a bogus report of an armed robbery at a nearby convenience store.

"The passenger was apparently trying to help his friend get out of a ticket. And what I later found out was this passenger had heard this done before -- and he was going to call in some sort of emergency call," an officer said.

An alert dispatcher heard the officer's voice in the background and figured out what was going on.

Another officer responded to the gas station and discovered there was no robbery.

The passenger was arrested and charged with filing a false police report.

Uh-huh. Real smart idea, that.

Doofus #27 (also anonymous) decided that since he'd run short of cash, he'd offer to pay for his purchases with drugs. Might have worked, too . . . except that he forgot to look round.

A New Zealand man had a novel idea when he found himself in a queue at a service station counter with no money, could he pay with marijuana instead?

Unfortunately he didn't get a chance to discover whether the attendant would accept his offer, as the person behind him in the queue was a police officer, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.

The man's attempt to buy two packets of M&Ms and a packet of potato chips to satisfy his "munchies" was caught short when he was arrested.

He must have been hungry, as he failed to notice the police patrol car sitting on the station forecourt being filled with petrol, the paper reported.

Peter

It's a chimp, dammit!

I'm astonished to read about a case that's going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

His name is Matthew, he is 26 years old, and his supporters hope to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

But he won't be able to give evidence on his own behalf - since he is a chimpanzee.
Animal rights activists led by British teacher Paula Stibbe are fighting to have Matthew legally declared a 'person' so she can be appointed as his guardian if the bankrupt animal sanctuary where he lives in Vienna is forced to close.

An anonymous businessman has offered a substantial amount to cover his care, but under Austrian law only humans are entitled to have guardians.

The country's supreme court has upheld a lower court ruling which rejected the activists' request to have a trustee appointed for Matthew.

So now 36-year-old Miss Stibbe and the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories have filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Organisers could set up a foundation to collect cash for Matthew, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years.

But they argue that only personhood would ensure he is not sold to someone outside Austria, where he is protected by strict animal cruelty laws.

In dismissing the activists' request to get a guardian for Matthew, a lower court ruled that the chimp was neither mentally impaired nor in danger - the legal grounds required for a guardian to be appointed.

It did not directly address the issue of whether a chimpanzee can be considered a person.

Eberhart Theuer, the animal rights group's chief legal adviser, said there is a legal precedent to appoint a guardian for an individual incapable of expressing himself.

'As long as Matthew is not recognised as a person, he could be sold abroad or killed for economic reasons,' Theuer said.

'His life depends on this decision. This case is about the fundamental question: Who is the bearer of human rights? Who is a person according to the European Human Rights Charter?'
it deserves a full-blown hearing.'

The mind boggles . . .

The fact that this chimp - lovely, friendly animal that he may be, and all that sort of thing - is in need of protection is not, repeat, NOT a reason to try to classify what is clearly non-human, as human!

If this moonbattery goes through, think of how else it could be applied:

• You're two hours late feeding your dog because you got stuck in traffic? You're guilty of a canine-human-rights violation!
• You run over a squirrel in your car? That's a murder charge!
• You use spurs when riding a horse? You're guilty of an equine-human-rights violation!

(Then again, I know people who wear spurs and use them on each other when they . . . um, never mind.)

Sorry, Ms. Stibbe. Human is human. A chimp ain't.

Peter

The need for speed?

Courtesy of boingboing, we learn of Robert Maddox.

He's developed a pulse-jet that can be fitted to a bicycle, and which (he claims) can propel you at 75 mph. It's available on eBay right now. At the time of writing, the high bid was $861.




According to the auction description, it generates 50 pounds of thrust - and 140 decibels of noise! Ear-plugs are not offered as an optional accessory.





I'm afraid the geek in me is fascinated by this. My parents went through the V-1 bombardment of England in 1944/45. The pulse-jets of that first-ever cruise missile remained in their memory forever, and they described to me how they'd wait and listen for the engine to cut out. As long as you could hear it, the V-1 was still flying, and would head away from you. If the engine cut out, it was diving - and the next thing you heard would be the blast of its warhead. If the engine stopped within hearing, the rule was, duck and cover!




If you want to know what it sounded like, this site has a recording of the V-1 flying overhead, its pulse-jet cutting out, and, after a few seconds, the explosion of its warhead. Chilling listening. It helped me understand what my parents went through.

I'm not sure what would happen if I drove a bike with a pulse-jet engine within hearing of my Dad. He'd probably open fire on it out of sheer instinct!



Peter

Walter Williams hits another home run

Readers may be familiar with Walter Williams, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, VA, and a regular columnist.

His latest column, Control Criminals Not Guns, is a winner.

Every time there's a highly publicized shooting, out go the cries for stricter gun control laws, and it was no different with the recent murder of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, in a letter to the state congressional delegation demanding reenactment of the federal assault weapon ban, said, "Passing this legislation will go a long way to protecting those who put their lives on the line every day for us. … There is no excuse to do otherwise."

Gun control laws will not protect us from murderers. We need protection from the criminal justice system politicians have created. Let's look at it.

According to former Philly cop Michael P. Tremoglie's article "Who freed the cop-killers?" for the Philadelphia Daily News (5/8/08), all three murder suspects had extensive criminal records. Levon Warner was sentenced in 1997 to seven and a half to 15 years for robbery, one to five years for possessing an instrument of crime and five to 10 for criminal conspiracy. Howard Cain was convicted in 1996 on four counts of robbery and sentenced to five to 10 years on each count. Eric Floyd was sentenced to five to 10 years in 1995 for robbery, rearrested in 1999 for parole violation and later convicted in 2001 for two robberies.

If these criminals had not been released from prison, long before they served out their sentences, officer Liczbinski would be alive today. So what's responsible for his death: guns or a prison and parole system that released these three criminals?

. . .

If there is one clear basic function of government, it's to protect citizens from criminals. When government failure becomes so apparent, as it is in the murder of a police officer, officials seek scapegoats and very often it's the National Rifle Association and others who seek to protect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We hear calls for stricter gun control laws when what is really needed is more control over criminals.

There are many third-party liability laws. I think they ought to be applied to members of parole boards who release criminals who turn around and commit violent crimes. As it stands now, people on parole boards who release criminals bear no cost of their decisions. I bet that if members of parole boards were held liable or forced to serve the balance of the sentence of a parolee who goes out and commits more crime, they would pay more attention to the welfare of the community rather than the welfare of a criminal.

Hear, hear!

Go to the link above to read the whole column. It's worth it.

Peter

How do you punish these boys?

I don't know whether readers have picked up the tragic story of two-year-old Milagros Belizan.




Milagros was a two-year-old child, living in the shanty-town Almirante Brown neighborhood of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Two brothers, age 7 and 9, told psychiatrists they slowly, coldly tortured a 2-year-old girl to death, a revelation that has reopened a debate in Argentina over how to punish juvenile delinquents.

Judge Marta Pascual said Tuesday the children confessed to slaying Milagros Belizan, their neighbor in a poor shantytown south of the capital city. But Argentine law prohibits the prosecution of anyone under 18 years old.

“They understood her pain but it did not move them,” said Pascual, a youth judge for Buenos Aires’ Lomas de Zomara district, after meeting with psychiatrists who examined the boys. “In some form it gave them pleasure,”

Belizan disappeared from her home in the Almirante Brown neighborhood on Sunday and her family later found her body in a vacant lot 10 blocks away.

She had been stripped naked, beaten and strangled with telephone cord that was left around her neck. The discovery prompted neighbors to attack an adult suspected of the crime — until the two boys confessed.

It's very easy, in one's loathing and stomach-turning horror at such a crime, to get vindictive and say that the two boys should be locked away for the rest of their lives . . . but that misses the point.

How is it that they were allowed to grow to that age, either not knowing right from wrong, or allowed to think that it didn't matter?

Where were their parents?

Authorities have not released the identities of the boys who confessed, but said the two were neighbors of the Belizan family.

The newspaper Clarin reported that neighbors said the boys were frequently beaten by their mother and had been out of school for two years. They were often seen throwing stones at other children and cars passing through the neighborhood’s dirt streets, neighbors said.

I honestly don't know what to do about the boys. I certainly believe they need to be taken away from their parents. Whether confining them in a youth institution until they turn 18 would do any good, I don't know. I suspect whatever moral damage they've suffered during their upbringing thus far may already be irreversible.

However, I have no doubt that their parents should be prosecuted as accessories to this crime. If they did nothing to bring their kids up the right way, they must surely share responsibility for their actions.

May Almighty God have mercy on the soul of Milagros Belizan . . . and on those two boys. Whether they have a future of any value, or not, can't be determined right now: but this will almost certainly haunt them for the rest of their lives.

It should.

And it should haunt us as well.

Right now, in any state in America, kids are growing up with the same lack of parental control, the same lack of moral guidance, the same lack of understanding of right and wrong. I know. In my work as a prison chaplain, I saw them a few years later, when the consequences of such lack came home to roost. They were morally damaged almost beyond repair (some of them far beyond repair).

If you're nauseated, disgusted, horrified, sickened by what those two boys did . . . think about this.

There are children like that living near you right now.

What to do about it? If you have the answer - a practical answer, one that will work in the real world - you're a wiser person than I.

Peter

Great piloting skills!

I hate to see vintage warbirds crash. They're pretty much irreplaceable nowadays, so when one goes down, it's lost for all time.

However, the pilot of this 61-year-old Australian-built P-51 Mustang did a great job. His landing gear wouldn't come down properly, leaving one undercarriage door partly extended. He circled the airfield for forty minutes, burning up fuel and letting ground control check it out visually, then came in for a belly landing on the dirt. Whilst the aircraft was damaged, it was minimally hurt, and it'll fly again. Great skills!

(This is one of the rare two-seater conversion Mustangs, and he had a novice with him who'd been given a flight as a birthday treat. I love his reaction!)





Peter

OK, readers, put on your creative hats!

I see that the USAF is inviting its servicemen and -women, as well as civilians in its employ, to name the new KC-45 airborne refueling tanker.

As you probably know, the Airbus A330 won the KC-X competition to provide the USAF's next-generation refueling tanker, but the decision is being protested by Boeing, whose 767-based offering lost. I guess it'll be some months before we know the outcome of the protest.

The thing is, no matter who wins, there will be a new refueling tanker aircraft. I'm not in the Air Force, and I imagine the same applies to most of my readers: so here's a challenge. Think of a suitable name for the new tanker aircraft, and post it here as a comment. If we get some good ones, I'll forward them to a USAF buddy for submission.

I'll start the ball rolling. How about painting the thing white? Then you could call it Moby-Dick!



Peter

Sonar's come a long way

I've been fascinated to discover the advances in high-resolution imaging sonar that have come along over the past few years.

My interest was sparked by the recent discoveries of the wrecks of HMS Hunter in a Norwegian fjord, and HMAS Sydney off Australia. Both were located by sonar, and have been photographed.

Having blogged about both, I began investigating the 'state of the art' in sonar location of shipwrecks. I found that an outfit called Adus, in the UK, has developed some astonishing technology that produces sonar pictures as clear, if not clearer than, underwater photographs. This is particularly important for deep-lying wrecks, or those where there's not much light, as a camera's field of vision is strictly limited. On the other hand, a high-resolution imaging sonar can capture a picture of an entire wreck without difficulty.

I've put together a selection of pictures to illustrate the point. First is the battleship HMS Royal Oak, sunk by a U-boat in Scapa Flow in 1939. In life, she looked like this (click this and other pictures to enlarge):




Her wreck now lies on the seabed of Scapa Flow, and is a designated war grave. The four photographs (or, rather, sonar scans) below show her clearly.




You can clearly see where the first torpedo blew off the underpart of her bow, and on her starboard side can be seen the hole torn by the remaining three torpedo hits.

Also in Scapa Flow are the wrecks of several German warships from World War I, which were scuttled there in 1919. Here's SMS Dresden, a light cruiser, as she was in life:




And this is how she looks on the bottom. The white oval highlights where her armored deck has begun to peel away from the hull near the bow. The damage near her stern is the result of salvage efforts to recover her engines and other heavy metal items. She'll disintegrate in due course, as all wrecks do, but she's still remarkably well preserved.




Next is the battleship SMS Bayern. Here she is in life:




And what little remains in death. Her hull rested upside-down on the sea-bed. When it was salvaged, in 1933, her main gun turrets fell out as it was raised, and they now rest on the sea-bed. The second depression in the sea-bed, above the turrets, is where the Bayern's hull was dropped during the salvage! It hit the sea-bed hard enough to make the big dent that's still visible. I'm amazed that sonar can show it so clearly.




Finally, here's SMS Brummer, a minelaying cruiser, as she was in life:




And as she now lies on the bottom of Scapa Flow:




Note that in the first density scan, her funnels and superstructure are visible as 'shadows' on the sand. They're actually either buried beneath the sand, or rotted away, leaving only traces of iron oxide where they once were. They're not visible in the second, high-res scan for that reason: but the first scan shows their former presence. Fascinating stuff!

You can see more pictures of the sunken warships in Scapa Flow in an article on the Divernet Web site. There's a good article about this technology here. Adus has also launched another Web site, Wrecksight, which will host more such pictures in future.

Peter

Men's and women's brains

Via e-mail from Mark T. we have this wonderfully funny video. It's about ten minutes long, but worth every moment!







Peter

Is Mexico spinning out of control?

I don't know how many readers keep an eye on what's happening South of the Border, but you might want to start paying close attention to developments there.

It looks like the 'drug wars' between the Mexican government and security services on the one hand, and the drug cartels on the other, are spinning out of control - and that's having a direct and immediate impact on the border area. Don't expect it to stay confined to that part of the country.

To give you just a few examples of developments this month:


1. May 7th: Mexican drug cartels openly recruit fighters.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- The job offer was tempting.

It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any "soldier or ex-soldier."

"We're offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families," it said in block letters.

But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.

2. May 14th: US-trained forces reportedly helping Mexican cartels.

WASHINGTON — As many as 200 U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have defected to drug cartels to carry out killings on both sides of the border and as far north as Dallas, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, told Congress on Wednesday.

The renegade members of Mexico's elite counter-narcotics teams trained at Fort Benning, Ga., have switched sides, contributing to a wave of violence that has claimed some 6,000 victims over the past 30 months, including prominent law enforcement leaders, the Houston-area Republican told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The slaughter has gained urgency amid high-profile assassinations of law officers in Mexico since May 1, claiming six senior officers, five of them with the federal police.

3. May 14th: Mexican police seek asylum in US as violence escalates.

MEXICO CITY — With the U.S. Congress debating whether to send hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Mexico's crackdown on drug cartels, American officials said Wednesday that three Mexican police chiefs have sought asylum north of the border in fear for their lives.

Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Enforcement, told the Associated Press that the officials had sought asylum "in the past few months."

Citing privacy issues, Ahern did not identify the police. A senior Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the asylum requests to the Houston Chronicle but provided no details. "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern said in Washington.

4. May 15th: Mexico police battle lethal cartels.

A week ago, Mexico's top policeman, Edgar Millan, was shot dead outside his home in Mexico City.

It is the equivalent of killing the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, or the director of the FBI in the US.

Two other senior officers were then killed in the space of two days, the murders blamed on Mexico's powerful drug gangs.

The BBC News website looks at the violence and its impact in Mexico and also in the neighbouring US.

5. May 19th: ‘Join Us or Die’ - Drug Cartels Threaten Mexican Police - Mexico Violence Out Of Control.

Violence is spinning out of control is areas along the U.S. Mexico border and now drug cartels are sending a chilling message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.

The threat appears in recruiting banners that are hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops are receiving additional threats over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.

In two reports distributed last week, Strategic Forecasting examined the situation in Mexico in depth.


6. May 13th: Mexico: On The Road To A Failed State?

There comes a moment when the imbalance in resources reverses the relationship between government and cartels. Government officials, seeing the futility of resistance, effectively become tools of the cartels. Since there are multiple cartels, the area of competition ceases to be solely the border towns, shifting to the corridors of power in Mexico City. Government officials begin giving their primary loyalty not to the government but to one of the cartels. The government thus becomes both an arena for competition among the cartels and an instrument used by one cartel against another. That is the prescription for what is called a “failed state” — a state that no longer can function as a state. Lebanon in the 1980s is one such example.

7. May 14th: Mexico: Examining Cartel War Violence Through a Protective Intelligence Lens.

Mexico’s long and violent drug cartel war has recently intensified. The past week witnessed the killings of no fewer than six senior police officials. One of those killed was Edgar Millan Gomez, acting head of the Mexican federal police and the highest-ranking federal cop in Mexico. Millan Gomez was shot to death May 8 just after entering his home in Mexico City.

Within the past few days, six suspects have been arrested in connection with his murder. One of the ringleaders is said to be a former federal highway police officer. The suspects appear to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel. In fact, Millan Gomez was responsible for a police operation in January that led to the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, the cartel’s second-in-command. Mexican police believe Beltran Leyva’s brother Arturo (who is also a significant player in the Sinaloa cartel structure) commissioned the hit.

During the same time period, violence from the cartel war has visited the family of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the Sinaloa cartel leader who has the distinction of being Mexico’s most-wanted drug kingpin. On May 8, Guzman Loera’s son Edgar Guzman Beltran and two companions were killed by a large-scale ambush as they left a shopping mall in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Friends, like I said, the situation in Mexico bears watching. Those perpetrating, buying, and orchestrating this kind of violence live within easy reach of almost anywhere in the USA. Our border security is a joke, and the dimwits in Congress and the Senate don't seem willing or able to do anything about beefing it up. Hispanic and other gangs trafficking narcotics are rampant in almost every city you can think of - and they get their supplies from or through Mexico, for the most part.

I wouldn't take any bets that this sort of thing might not spread to a neighborhood near you.

Peter

The mouse that roared?

No, not the very funny 1955 film starring Peter Sellers (in three different roles).

It seems that scientists are using mice as a 'vehicle' for gene transplants.

In a world first, scientists have extracted a gene from the extinct Tasmanian tiger and successfully inserted it into a mouse embryo.

It is the first time a gene from any extinct animal has been brought back to life inside another living creature.

However, the researchers, from the University of Melbourne and the University of Texas, say the technology will not lead to the cloning of an entire Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine.

"It's a nice dream to have, but it's probably not going to happen," said Marilyn Renfree, a University of Melbourne zoology professor and a member of the team.

However, the scientists say it may now be possible to reactivate genes taken from many extinct creatures, including dinosaurs and even the predecessors to modern humans, providing new insights into their biology.

Y'know . . . you might just want to re-think this one, guys.

I mean, we've all seen what happens when genes get mixed. It's not always healthy. Take the 'Africanized bee', for example, sometimes known as the 'killer bee'. It's far more aggressive (and deadly) than its non-cross-bred genetic 'parents'.

You've got a mouse with a Tasmanian tiger gene. So far, so good. But what happens when your friendly lab assistant decides to have fun with some dinosaur DNA - and blends Tyrannosaurus Rex . . .




. . . with ye olde house mouse?




I just don't want to know what kind (or size) of mousetrap you're going to have to invent to take care of that pest!



Peter

Paper Armor

My buddy Lawdog has hit another home run with the bases loaded.

Check out his post on Paper Armor. If you've ever had to defend yourself, or if you think you may ever have to (the odds are pretty good that you will), you need to read this.

Highly recommended.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #24

Today's Doofus is a particularly special one.

First, let me set the scene.

The location is the town of Port Phillip, in the state of Victoria in Australia.

CAROLINE Shahbaz's clients and colleagues sometimes ask if she is a witch. The St Kilda-based change management consultant admits that she jokingly refers to herself as a white witch.

This, she says, is due to her special powers of intuition, nurtured over many years training in eastern religion, western psychology, astrology and pranic healing.

"You know, I can walk into a room and pick up what the nuance is," she says. "For some people who are not familiar with that, it can be 'wow, how do you know that? Have you got a crystal ball?'

"That's a competency that's difficult to explain, let alone for a lot of people to understand."

"I have a vast, vast array of interests," she says, spelling out her suitability for the job to The Age. "I'm a student of, you know, what life is. How does matter form? Why are we here? You know, philosophical issues."

Her qualifications and experience include a masters of psychology at La Trobe University, a course with the astrologist Stella Starwoman and excursions to ashrams in India. She describes her corporate logo as a "religious emblem of the unity of body, mind and spirit".

Get the picture so far? That's right. Moonbat deluxe.

Meet Doofus.

. . . the other key player in this town hall tale is Port Phillip's chief executive, David Spokes.

Ms Shahbaz confirmed that the two met on a boat cruise, a social-cum-work gathering hosted by Parks Victoria. Soon after in 2004, Ms Shahbaz was weaving her magic on the corporate conscience of Port Phillip.

Council insiders say Mr Spokes gave the bewitching Ms Shahbaz carte blanche to do as she wished with his administration.

Uh-huh. You read correctly.

Doofus hired Moonbat to do what the hell she liked with his entire town administration!!!

Guess what happened?

Four years after Ms Shahbaz was commissioned to weave a spell of success over it, Port Phillip is on its knees, senior staff say.

Bureaucrats once fiercely loyal variously describe the administration as "demoralised", dominated by a "culture of fear" and even "dysfunctional".

Communication at the most senior levels is said to have broken down. Celebrated for almost a decade as a paragon of local government in Victoria, the left-leaning council is a shadow of its former self.

To make matters worse, instigation of the Shahbaz revolution may have been in breach of tendering laws.

But this internal controversy is not the only factor in Port Phillip's embattled current state. The furious row over its handling of the $300 million redevelopment of St Kilda's prized Triangle site is having a seismic impact locally and threatening to end the political lives of at least some of the elected councillors.

Given the Triangle turmoil, the Shahbaz saga could not have come at a worse time. All the more strange is that it was allowed to.

More bewildered than bewitched were the staff who had to cope with the sessions of "ruthless" honesty, integral to the Shahbaz method.

Complaints flowed, including that Ms Shahbaz outed a gay staff member, yelled and swore at senior officers who questioned her, and encouraged junior staff to criticise their bosses in special "challenge events".

By mid-2007 bewilderment had given way to bother. Staff were rebelling. Formal complaints of bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment were lodged against Ms Shahbaz. Lawyers were brought in to interview about 20 staff witnesses. Some staff were counselled.

Council staff have told The Age that over many months, senior officers advised the chief executive that the Shahbaz engagement did not comply with local government laws requiring that any contract worth more than $100,000 go to tender.

Why am I not surprised by all this?

I guess the magic words in the report are, 'the left-leaning council'. I think Moonbat and Doofus would fit right in with the Code Pink idiots who tried witchcraft on the street outside the Marine Corps recruiting station in Berkeley, CA the other day.

Who knows? Maybe we could trade the Berkeley witches to Doofus for their Australian counterpart. We'd get a witch with an interesting accent, at least. He'd get a lot more moonbats to play with - and with any luck, the Berkeley witches might have a close encounter of the digestive kind with one or two of those nice Australian salt-water crocodiles.

(I know, I know . . . that'd be cruel and unusual punishment. Can't give an innocent crocodile a stomach-ache, after all!)

Peter

When landing a plane resembles a demolition derby

I was amazed (and amused) to see reports of one light aircraft landing on top of one another near Dallas, TX.

For a learner pilot, it is embarrassing enough that you have brought your plane in to land on top of another aircraft that was on the runway.

But when that other plane belongs to your next-door neighbour, the situation reaches a whole new level of humiliation.

Despite the odds, that is exactly what happened at Roanoke airport near Dallas in Texas when one rookie pilot attempted to touch down.

The only problem was that his neighbour, at the controls of a smaller, red aircraft was on the runway and preparing for take off.

A quick chat over the radio and both men thought they had it clear - the other one was going to give way.

Unfortunately of course, neither did, and the undercarriage of the learner's plane became wedged in the top of the second plane's wing when he landed regardless.

Both propellors also smashed together and the planes were badly damaged, although luckily no one was injured.

A video clip of the incident has now been posted on YouTube.





I guess both pilots are incredibly lucky to be alive. They'll be dining out on this story for years!

Peter