Happy Halloween

/just don’t overdo it

Al Gore Wasn’t Even There 40 Years Ago

Internet Turns 40 Today: First Message Crashed System

Everyone surfing for last-minute Halloween costumes and pictures of black Lolcats today—what you might call the 40th anniversary of the Internet—can give thanks to the simple network message that started it all: “lo.”

On October 29, 1969, that message became the first ever to travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet.

The electronic dispatch was supposed to be the word “login,” but only the first two letters were successfully sent before the system crashed.

Still, that humble greeting marked the start of a phenomenon that has become such an important part of modern life that many experts argue access to it should be a right rather than a privilege.

ARPANET — The First Internet

The ARPANET was the first wide area packet switching network, the “Eve” network of what has evolved into the Internet we know and love today.

The ARPANET was developed by the IPTO under the sponsorship of DARPA, and conceived and planned by Lick Licklider, Lawrence Roberts, and others as described earlier in this section.

The ARPANET went into labor on August 30, 1969, when BBN delivered the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) to Leonard Kleinrock’s Network Measurements Center at UCLA. The IMP was built from a Honeywell DDP 516 computer with 12K of memory, designed to handle the ARPANET network interface. In a famous piece of Internet lore, on the side of the crate, a hardware designer at BBN named Ben Barker had written “Do it to it, Truett”, in tribute to the BBN engineer Truett Thach who traveled with the computer to UCLA on the plane.

The UCLA team responsible for installing the IMP and creating the first ARPANET node included graduate students Vinton Cerf, Steve Crocker, Bill Naylor, Jon Postel, and Mike Wingfield. Wingfield had built the hardware interface between the UCLA computer and the IMP, the machines were connected, and within a couple of days of delivery the IMP was communicating with the local NMC host, an SDS Sigma 7 computer running the SEX operating system. Messages were successfully exchanged, and the one computer ARPANET was born.

. . .

The first full ARPANET network connection was next, planned to be with Douglas Engelbart’s NLS system at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), running an SDS-940 computer with the Genie operating system and connected to another IMP. At about 10:30 PM on October 29’th, 1969, the connection was established over a 50 kbps line provided by the AT&T telephone company, and a two node ARPANET was born. As is often the case, the first test didn’t work flawlessly, as Kleinrock describes below:

At the UCLA end, they typed in the ‘l’ and asked SRI if they received it; ‘got the l’ came the voice reply. UCLA typed in the ‘o’, asked if they got it, and received ‘got the o’. UCLA then typed in the ‘g’ and the darned system CRASHED! Quite a beginning. On the second attempt, it worked fine!

– Leonard Kleinrock, The Birth of the Internet.

Below is a record of the first message ever sent over the ARPANET.

See also:
Internet’s 40th anniversary marked in U.S.
Internet turns 40 with birthday party
How 40 years of the Internet changed the world
Internet Pioneer Celebrates 40th Birthday Of Brainchild
Internet Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary
DARPA Celebrates Internet’s 40th Anniversary With Balloon Hunt
DARPA Celebrates Internet Anniversary with Bizarre Balloon Challenge
DARPA issues balloon-hunting $40k ‘Network Challenge’
ARPANET
History of ARPANET
DARPA
DARPA

Thank God for military research, it not only keeps us safe, it improves our lives, money well spent.

/we’ve come a long way from 50 kbps phone lines baby!

In The House Corner . . . Weighing In At 1990 Pages . . . The Affordable Health Care For America Act

From behind the closed doors of Nancy Pelosi’s office, submitted for your perusal . . .

Affordable Health Care for America Act

If you start now and read several hundred pages a day, you might be able to get through it by the time they start to debate it on the House floor next week. As with all these bills, written in legislative gibberish that would make a challenging read for a lawyer, pack a lunch and leave a trail of bread crumbs.

Oh look, PBS has already posted a summary of the bill only a few hours after it was unveiled. I wonder who they got that from, Pelosi and the Democrats? PBS staffers certainly haven’t had time to read the bill for themselves yet.

Bill Summary: Affordable Health Care for America Act

House Democrats on Thursday unveiled the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The 1,990-page legislation is a combination of bills passed by three House committees earlier this year. Key tenets include:

· New regulations | New insurance industry regulations would prohibit insurers from rejecting customers based on pre-existing conditions. The regulations would also prohibit annual or lifetime caps on benefits.

· Insurance exchange | The bill would set up a new national health insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals who do not have employer-sponsored insurance would be able to shop for plans. The exchange would also be open to small businesses, and more would be able to join each year. Companies with 25 or fewer employees would be able to join in 2013, companies with 50 or fewer employees could join in 2014, and companies with fewer than 100 employees could join by 2015.

· Public insurance option | The health insurance exchange would include a government-run public plan. Federal officials would negotiate payment rates with doctors and hospitals that accept the plan.

· Employer mandate | Employers with annual payrolls greater than $500,000 would be required to either provide health insurance for their employees, or contribute 8 percent of their payroll to a federal fund to help subsidize employees who purchase coverage through the exchange. Employers with payrolls less than $500,000 would be exempt from the mandate.

· Individual mandate | Individuals will be required to purchase health insurance, or pay a penalty fee. Some people would be eligible to apply for a hardship waiver.

· Medicaid expansion | Medicaid would be expanded to cover everyone whose income is below 150 percent of the poverty line, or about $33,000 per year for a family of four.

· Affordability subsidies | People who earn between 150 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level would be eligible for subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase insurance through the exchange. Those subsidies would ensure that people who make 150 percent of the poverty level would not have to pay more than 3 percent of their income in premiums, while those who make 400 percent of the poverty level could pay up to 12 percent of their income in premiums.

· Out-of-pocket expenses caps | New regulations would cap yearly out-of-pocket medical expenses for individuals at $5,000 and families at $10,000. Those who earn less than 400 percent of the poverty level would have lower caps, on a sliding scale.

· Tax surcharge | The bill would help pay for itself by imposing a 5.4 percent tax surcharge on individuals earning more than $500,000 per year and families earning more than $1 million.

· End-of-life counseling | The bill retains a controversial provision that allows Medicare to pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling

Oh yeah, and did you catch the part where Pelosi said that the House bill would cost less than $900 billion? Would it surprise anyone to know that she’s lying her ass off through her Botox induced permagrin teeth?

CBO: House Bill Costs $1.055 Trillion

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of the House Democrats’ health care bill. The headline number — likely to be widely cited in media accounts — is that the bill costs $894 billion over 10 years. But in reality, the CBO says that the gross cost of the bill will be $1.055 trillion. The $894 billion number reflects the taxes being paid by individuals who don’t have insurance and employers who don’t provide insurance.

In addition, the bill relies on some of the same budgetary gimmicks as the Senate Finance Committee’s bill. Once again, we see that the Democrats backload the spending provisions into the final six years of the CBO’s 10 year budget window to make it appear cheaper. Specifically, the CBO says the bill’s gross spending will be $60 billion in the first four years, and $995 billion in the next six years (or 94 percent of the total).

Also, while the CBO says that the bill will reduce deficits by $104 billion over 10 years and keep reducing the deficit (albiet slightly) beyond that, it cautions that these estimates assume that proposed budget cuts will actually get enacted by future members of Congress. “These longer-term projections assume that the provisions of H.R. 3962 are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation,” the CBO director Douglas Elmendorf wrote. “The long-term budgetary impact of H.R. 3962 could be quite different if those provisions generating savings were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.”

The CBO estimate doesn’t include the more than $200 billion it will cost to prevent scheduled cuts to doctors’ payments under Medicare, which Democrats intend to pass through separate legislation.

The bill would also add 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls, costing states an additional $34 billion over 10 years.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the CBO report doesn’t say anything about whether the bill actually bends the health care cost curve. To be clear, while it estimates — with caveats — that the bill will reduce deficits, that isn’t the same thing as reducing national health care expenditures, which is how people derive all those statistics about how high of a percentage of GDP we spend on health care compared with other countries. If you hike taxes high enough, you can get the CBO to say it reduces deficits on paper, but that’s a lot different from bringing down the actual costs of health care to our nation.

Wait a minute, it’s not just Pelosi who’s lying about the 2000 page path to socialized medicine . . .

See also:
House Democrats announce health-care bill
Statement from President Obama on the Affordable Health Care for America Act
House health bill clocks in at 1,990 pages
House Dems unveil health care bill
House Democrats unveil healthcare legislation including public option
House Dems announce health bill
Pelosi Unveils House Health Care Bill
House takes another step on healthcare reform
Details on health care bills in House, Senate
A 1,990-Page Medical Monstrosity
It’s alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill
Clyburn: ‘Cadillac tax’ in healthcare would violate Obama’s pledge
House Healthcare Bill Longer Than ‘War and Peace’
Democrats’ Unhealthy Reform Plans
1502 Pages Of Senate Deficit Deepening, Health Care Razing Gibberish

Of course, this monsterous sham has to be passed by the House and then Reid has to come out from behing his closed office doors and unveil the Senate’s gigantic mockery of health care “reform”, which will have to be passed by the Senate. Next, Pelosi and Reid will have to take the ~4000 pages of both bills behind closed conference doors, to conjure the final bloated shamockery bill, that’ll need to pass both houses of Congress.

/hopefully, there’s still enough hoops to jump through and divisions between Democrat factions that, somewhere along the line, they’ll come up short on needed votes and the entire national debt boosting travesty will collapse under it’s own socialist weight

Domestic Contingency Operation

Remember when the Obama administration replaced the phrase “global war on terror” with the ridiculously politically correct euphemism “overseas contingency operation”? Well, here’s a counterterrorism operation that could have occurred anywhere in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it didn’t, this counterterrorism operation (but don’t dare call it that) took place today in Dearborn, Michigan, USA.

Detroit mosque leader killed in FBI raids

The leader of a Detroit mosque who allegedly espoused violence and separatism was shot and killed Wednesday in an FBI gun battle at a Dearborn warehouse.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was being arrested on a raft of federal charges including conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods, and firearms offenses.

Charges were also filed against 11 of Abdullah’s followers. Eight were in custody Wednesday night awaiting detention hearings today; three remained at large.

A federal complaint filed Wednesday identified Abdullah, 53, also known as Christopher Thomas, as “a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group.” His black Muslim group calls itself “Ummah,” or the brotherhood, and wants to establish a separate state within the United States governed by Sharia law, Interim U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg and Andrew Arena, FBI special agent in charge in Detroit, said in a joint statement.

“He regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit. “Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting.”

The Ummah is headed nationally by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a state sentence for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.

Early Wednesday afternoon, FBI agents and local police from the Joint Terrorism Task Force surrounded a warehouse and trucking firm on Miller Road near Michigan Avenue where Abdullah and four of his followers were hiding, said Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit.

When agents entered the warehouse, four of the men obeyed orders to surrender but Abdullah opened fire and was shot to death, Berchtold said. An FBI dog was also shot and killed, she said.

Through a 45-page complaint filed in the case alleges Abdullah “calls his followers to an offensive jihad” and preaches that every Muslim should “have a weapon and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed,” charges in the case to not include terrorism or national security crimes.

So, Abdullah and his nationwide group Ummah advocate violent “offensive jihad” against the United States to establish a separate state governed by Sharia law, they engage in active weapons acquisition and training and encourage every Muslim to have a weapon and be prepared to use it in furtherance of the jihad, and today he kills an FBI dog while shooting at law enforcement. Phew, I’m sure relieved that there was no no need to file terrorism or national security crime charges against anyone in this case. That might look like we’re acknowledging that we have some type of larger problem with Muslim jihadis within our own borders.

See also:
Detroit Imam Killed, Six Arrested in an FBI Raid
Feds: Radical Islam group leader killed in raid
F.B.I. Raid Kills Islamic Group Leader in Michigan
Feds: Leader of radical Islam group killed in raid
Leader Of Islamic Group Killed In Raid
Leader of Detroit mosque killed in FBI raid
Radical Islamic leader killed in FBI raid in Detroit
FBI kills Islamist preacher during shootout in latest terror raid
Feds: Leader of radical Islam group killed in raid
Photographer attacked at mosque whose imam killed
Photographer from the News assaulted
Building Islam in Detroit :: Masjid al Haqq
H. Rap Brown

/the global Muslim Ummah and Jihad doesn’t recognize national borders or governments, the war overseas is the same as the war at home

Missed Us By That Much

Asteroid smashes into atmosphere

AN asteroid exploded over Indonesia with the force of three Hiroshima bombs – and no one on Earth knew it was coming.

The New Scientist website reports the dramatic explosion over South Sulawesi, Indonesia, on October 8 underscores how blind humanity is to the danger of giant space rocks.

NASA estimated the explosion was the equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed.

However, this time we were lucky – the blast caused no damage on the ground because it occurred at high altitude, 15 to 20km above Earth’s surface.

While the explosion was heard by witnesses in Indonesia and picked up by international nuclear explosion detectors, the asteroid only became visible after it exploded.

See also:
Asteroid blast reveals holes in Earth’s defences
Asteroid explosion over Indonesia raises fears about Earth’s defences
Meteor hits above Indonesia
Cosmic Blast Rattles Indonesia
Asteroid Impactor Reported over Indonesia
Blast in Bone a result of falling meteorite: Experts
Air explosion hits Bone, South Sulawesi
Mysterious Explosion Panics Locals in South Sulawesi, Police Still Investigating
Indonesia police investigate Sulawesi explosion
Police investigate Indonesia blast

Events like this are humbling and put the fragility of life in perspective.

/it’s just a matter of time, one of these days, sooner or later, we won’t be so lucky

Launch It Quick, Before Obama Cancels It

NASA’s Ares 1-X Rocket: Space Shuttle Replacement?
Or Rocket to Nowhere? NASA Preps for Test, Though Obama Could Cancel Program

This isn’t your daddy’s space ship — but it is something your grandfather might recognize. The Ares 1-X rocket sitting on the launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center is ready to go, scheduled for launch Tuesday morning, if the weather holds.

It won’t go far on this trip, but NASA hopes it will eventually take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and — someday — on to Mars.

This launch follows a less-than-wholehearted endorsement by the Augustine Commission, the presidential panel that spent this past year reviewing the future of the U.S. space program.

The Ares is supposed to replace the 30-year-old space shuttle, which is scheduled to quit flying by the end of 2011 after six more missions. Ares, the commission concluded, will cost too much and take too long to really be a practical replacement. The plan was to have it ready to fly by 2015, but 2017 is more realistic. NASA’s only option, meanwhile, to get astronauts to the space station is to buy seats on the Russian Soyuz.

Augustine Commission: NASA’s Plans ‘Unsustainable’

To get to the moon and then eventually go on to Mars will take much more money and technology than the U.S. space program has now, according to a report released today by an independent panel convened, at White House request, under former aerospace executive Norman Augustine.

The Augustine Commission made several recommendations today for NASA:

. . .

The panel said it might be an option to scrap the Ares 1 booster, and use other rockets instead.

See also:
Ares I-X Liftoff Set for Tomorrow Morning
Ares 1-X test flight cleared for launch Tuesday morning
NASA Unveils Ares 1-X Rocket for Historic Test Flight
The NASA Ares 1-X rocket is set for launch — but watch those clouds!
Will Weather Ground Ares 1-X Rocket Test Launch?
Nasa unveils Ares 1-X rocket amid doubts over future funding
Ares 1-X Rocket Scheduled To Launch
Obama Considering Ares Cancellation, Orion Scale Back
Obama May Cancel Space Shuttle Replacement
Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee
Ares I-X

So, we’ve got six more shuttle flights to go and Obama’s thinking of cancelling the replacement program. Priorities, Obama can spend a trillion dollars on Democrat pet projects and call it “stimulus”, but he can’t seem to finde a few billion dollars for NASA.

/be sure and watch tomorrow’s launch, future American space flight could become a rarity

Weekly Watch List

GMCR
PCLN
NEU
BUCY
BIDU
MELI
SIRO
INT
CFSG
ISRG
SHOO
PEGA
ATW
LFT
GOK
BWY
GES
IBN
VRX
LPS
BCSI
ADVS
GOOG
JOSB

Additions:
ADVS
JOSB
LPS

Subtractions:
AM
NVEC
RKT

Last week the market fed the bear a snack, added distribution days, and closed under 10,000. The Dow inched lower 0.2%, the S&P 500 lost 0.7%, the NYSE gave up 0.9%, and the Nasdaq faded 0.1%. Although watch list stocks fared better than the general market, last week’s action was enough for the IBD outlook to be changed to “uptrend under pressure”. Exercise caution with new purchases and keep your portfolio on a short leash.

This week, GMCR is once again the only stock on the watch list that’s in buy range. GMCR, trading at $74.64, is now 4% extended from its $72.10 buy point and is still in buy range up to $75.70.

/as usual, your mileage may vary, always do your own homework

Sharia Law Lashes Out At Women

Saudi journalist sentenced to 60 lashes

A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist Saturday to 60 lashes for her work on a controversial Arabic-language TV show that aired an episode in which a man bragged about his sex life, two sources told CNN.

The court in Jeddah also imposed a two-year travel ban on Rosanna Al-Yami, according to a Saudi Information Ministry official, who could not be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media. The ban prevents her from traveling outside Saudi Arabia.

This official identified Al-Yami as a fixer, who helps journalists obtain stories, and a coordinator for Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., the network that aired “A Thick Red Line,” a popular show on social taboos.

On one episode, a Saudi man, Mazen Abdul Jawad, bragged about sex and got into trouble with Saudi authorities for his boasts. Abdul Jawad was put on trial and sentenced to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

Suleiman Al-Jumeii, the attorney who represents Abdul Jawad, also confirmed the sentence against Al-Yami, saying he believes she is the first Saudi journalist ever to be sentenced to lashes.

Two Sudanese women face lashes for wearing trousers

Two Sudanese women were on Thursday sentenced to 20 lashes and fined for committing an act of indecency by wearing trousers, weeks after a similar case sparked worldwide controversy.

The two women were arrested at the same party as Lubna Hussein, a former journalist who was also charged with wearing trousers and publicised her case as part of a campaign against Sudan’s public order laws, Hussein told Reuters.

Judge Hassan Mohamed Ali sentenced each woman to 20 lashes and a fine of 250 Sudanese pounds ($110) in Khartoum East court on Thursday afternoon.

See also:
Saudi woman journalist sentenced to 60 lashes
Saudi female journalist to be flogged over TV show
Saudi TV worker sentenced to 60 lashes
Saudi female journalist gets lashes for sex show
Saudi female TV journalist gets 60 lashes
Lashes for Saudi woman journalist
60 Lashes Ordered for Saudi Woman
Saudi court orders flogging of female journalist
Sudan women face 20 lashes for ‘indecent’ clothes
2 women in Sudan sentenced for wearing pants
Sudanese Women Sentenced For Wearing Pants
Arrest For Wearing Pants Galvanizes Women In Sudan
Flogging For Sudanese Women Arrested With Lubna Hussein For Wearing Pants

Yes sir, Sharia law, meting out draconian, medieval punishment to women for the dastardly crimes of wearing pants and working on a TV show where someone actually dared to discuss sex. The horror! We can’t have that now can we? Sharia, the law of Islam, the religion of sexual repression, says so.

/but don’t worry, Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed says Sharia law is good for women

Real Presidents Know How To Play Poker

/by Andy Thomas

Peek A Boo, China Is Waging Undeclared War On You

Is your computer acting squirrelly, your internet connection spotty? It might not be Microsoft after all, it could be Chinese military sponsored hackers.

Congressional commission focuses on China’s cyberwar capability

In war and possibly in peace, China will wage cyberwar to control the information flow and dominate the battle space, according to a new report compiled for a congressional commission.

Chinese military strategists see information dominance as the key to overall success in future conflicts and will continue to expand the country’s computer network exploitation capabilities, according to the report, titled “Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation.” The report was prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission under contract by Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems Sector.

In a conflict, China will likely target the U.S. government and private industry with long-term, sophisticated computer network exploitation and intelligence collection campaigns, the report concludes. U.S. security agencies can expect to face disciplined, standardized operations; sophisticated techniques; high-end software; and a deep knowledge of the U.S. networks, according to the report (PDF).

The strategy employed by the People’s Liberation Army–China’s military organization–is to consolidate computer network attacks with electronic warfare and kinetic strikes, creating “blind spots” in enemy systems to be exploited later as the tactical situation warrants, according to the report. The strategy, which has been adopted by the world’s other technologically inclined armies, is referred to by the PLA as “Integrated Network Electronic Warfare,” the report stated.

The emphasis on information warfare has forced the PLA to recruit from a wide swath of the civilian sector, according to the report. As is the case with the U.S. military and its new Cyber Command, the PLA looks to commercial industry and academia for people possessing the requisite specialized skills and pasty pallor to man the keyboards. And although it hints broadly at it, the report offers no evidence of ties between the PLA and China’s hacker community.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission reports and provides recommendations to Congress on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

China Expands Cyberspying in U.S., Report Says

The Chinese government is ratcheting up its cyberspying operations against the U.S., a congressional advisory panel found, citing an example of a carefully orchestrated campaign against one U.S. company that appears to have been sponsored by Beijing.

The unnamed company was just one of several successfully penetrated by a campaign of cyberespionage, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report to be released Thursday. Chinese espionage operations are “straining the U.S. capacity to respond,” the report concludes.

See also:
Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation
Evidence Points To China In Cyber Attacks
Report: China building cyberwarfare capabilities
Security report finds Chinese cyberspying threat growing
U.S. report says China engages in cyber warfare
China fingered in cyberattack on mystery high tech co.
‘Huawei continues to receive preferential funding from China’s army’, says US Commission
United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission

/I sure hope Obama and company are putting at least as much time and energy into fighting this undeclared cyberwar with China as they are prosecuting their childish, whiny, crybaby media war against Fox News