Defeat the Conficker Worm Before it's Too Late.

Sunday night, Sixty Minutes warned us about the insidious worm, Conflicker, which will begin trying to connect to 50,000 web domains to receive further instructions tomorrow, April 1. It's anyone's guess as to what those instructions will be.

A complete analysis of Conflicker worm including a list of all the sites you will not be able to access if infected by Conflicker can be found here.

How to diagnose and defeat the dangerous Conficker worm from USA Today's blog provides more links and information regarding the Conflicker worm.

If you can't get through because the web address or URL contains one of the hundreds of names Conflicker blocks you can click on this Microsoft malicious software removal site, which doesn't contain "Microsoft" in the URL. Here, you'll find a free all-purpose malicious software scanner.

Additional tools:

F-Secure Easy Clean

Enigma Software Free Conflicker Removal Tool

Norton Conflicker Removal Tool

Microsoft says they are checking into this and suggested this last-ditch option: contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support at no charge, using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-PCSAFETY.

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Proof For the Existence of God?

Thomas Cahill's eloquent speech at an anti-death penalty event, with South Africa's Archbishop Tutu in attendance, gives additional details of Dominique Green's life as well as illuminating the kind of man Dominique Green became despite the never-ending brutality that was his life.

Dominique Green, after enduring years of torture at the hands of a mother who used to hold her son's hand over a gas flame when she disapproved of something he had done - a mother who was an alcoholic, a prostitute, and who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and multiple personalities disorder - was abandoned at the age of 15. With no place to go, he took up residence in a storage bin, until he was arrested and sentenced to death three years later, for a crime that all evidence suggests he didn't commit.

Yes, he did sell drugs, and he did rob and steal, but mostly to support himself in a world that failed to trickle down its wealth, and a world that never allowed him to think, speak, or play as a child, but fully expects that he "put away" what he never had in the first place.

Once on death row, Dominique became and avid reader and writer. Archbishop Desmond Tutu's book, No Future Without Forgiveness, impressed Dominique most of all. After reading the book, he did all he could to spread Desmond Tutu's message of love and forgiveness, spending all of his time trying to make life a little better for those, who, like him, knew only of man's inhumanity to man.

Despite Dominique's, what can only be called, miraculous transformation, considering his existence to this point was completely void of love, and despite the fact that he did not commit the *crime he was being executed for, and despite the video plea of the victim's entire family to commute Dominique's sentence, sent to the bloodthirsty state of Texas ( Thus far, in 2009, the state of Texas has executed twelve people. The other 49 states combined executed 7 people in total.) Board of Pardons and Parole, and to Gov. Rick Perry - "determined to exceed the number of executions of his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose number of executions on a per year basis remain virtually unequaled in American history" - all but one from the board called for Dominique's execution.

Moments before his own execution, Dominique said, "To think Archbishop Tutu came here. Nobody thinks we're anything...He came all the way from South Africa."

Logical and rational thought would dictate that a child, exposed only to violence, hatred, chaos and hopelessness, would render that child incapable of selfless love. In fact, many children raised in warm, nurturing environments are incapable of selfless love. Dominique's life, by defying valid reasoning, proves there are other forces operating outside the realm of logic, or at least, cannot be explained, without the grace of God.

“The souls of the just are in the hands of God, and the torment of malice shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, but they are at peace. If, as it seems to us, they suffered punishment, their hope was rich with immortality. Slight was their correction. Great will their blessings be.

God was putting them to the test and has proved them worthy to be with him. He has tested them like gold in a crucible and has accepted them as a perfect holocaust. In the hour of judgment they will shine in glory and will sweep over the world like sparks through stubble.

They will judge nations, rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their King forever. Those who trust in him will come to understand the truth. Those who are faithful to him will live with him in love. Only grace and mercy await them. All those, in His compassion who God has called to himself.”-- Book of Wisdom

* "that, before they could find the prisoner guilty they must be satisfied, 'not only that those circumstances were consistent with his having committed the act, but they must also be satisfied that the facts were such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that the prisoner was the guilty person'"

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Is Capital Punishment a Preordained Ritual?

At the age of 18-years old, Dominique Green was arrested for the fatal shooting of a man during a robbery, outside of a Texas convenient store. Green admitted to taking part in the robbery but insisted he did not pull the trigger, which was also the testimony of the only independent eyewitness.

Did Dominique Green receive a fair trial?

No. In addition to the only independent eyewitness not identifying Dominique as the killer, the police made a deal with the only white male involved in the robbery at the scene of the crime. The district attorney interfered with any attempts investigators made to interview this man, and he went free, never charged with a single thing. Meanwhile, the other black man present went to prison, and Dominique, alone, was sentenced to death. The testimony of a psychologist - called by the defense - well known for his views that African Americans and Latinos are more prone to violence than others are, sealed his fate.

Dominique’s own mother, repeatedly diagnosed as a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder, took the stand per the request of Dominique’s “defense”. When asked if she thought her son was capable of murder, she said, “Of course he is, he’s just like me.” Later at the sentencing phase, when she was asked what should be done with him, she said, “You should impose the full extent of the law.”

The widow of the man murdered attended the trial, and said, “This isn’t a trial, this is some kind of preordained ritual where they know exactly how it’s going to come out in the end. This kid has nobody on his side, and he’s not being defended properly.”

One of the sons of the victim, Andre Lastrapes, said,

"I felt it was dirty and the state will have their chance to face a higher authority that is God. The hell with Texas and the justice system. I'm speaking from the heart. I really mean that. Andrew Lastrapes was my daddy in the first place. I forgave Dominique. I know God has a place for Dominique in heaven. I know the person I met doesn't deserve to die. He became close to me and I pray that he goes to Heaven."

Green was convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Extraordinarily kind and patient, during his 12 years on death row, he became an inspiration to those around him. Dominique was able to do for others what he could not do for himself. He became a legal expert and was very helpful in getting a number of people off of death row.

In a theological sense, Thomas Cahil, author of, A Saint on Death Row, believes Dominique Green is a saint, because many people who met him in his last years still consider him instrumental in their lives. In some ways their lives were transformed by that meeting, and rather than being dead and gone, they consider him a living presence. A few weeks before he died Dominique wrote and published More than Just a Rosary

Thomas Cahill, in Germany at the time of Dominique Green’s execution, received a call at 2:30 A.M. to tell him Dominique was gone. After he put down the phone, he looked out across the street where an enormous, elaborate gate, made of huge stones, put in place by slaves of the Romans in the second century A.D. stood tall, and he thought of the similarities between the Romans and present day Americans.

“The Romans knew that they owned the world, that they were the greatest…what they didn’t know was that they were extremely cruel. The enjoyed blood sports, the gladiators in the ring, poor devils being eaten by wild beasts…but they never let themselves know how cruel they were and I have to say, that I feel the Americans have replaced the Romans as the great leaders of the world who also hid from themselves their own cruelty.” -- Thomas Cahill

Dominique Green's Final Words:

"I am not angry, but I am disappointed that I was denied justice. But I am happy that I was afforded you all as family and friends. You all have been there for me; it's a miracle. I love you...I am not as strong as I thought I was going to be. But I guess it only hurts for a little while. You all are my family. Please keep my memory alive."

There are still jurisdictions in this country that do not have Public Defender offices. In those areas, any lawyer, regardless of the type of law he specializes - real estate, divorce, etc. - may be drafted or conscripted to handle, for example, every 6th, 10th or 15th case. In addition, there are jurisdictions where there is a limit on the amount of money that court appointed lawyers may receive. For example, in Mississippi - $1,000 is the maximum doled out for death penalty cases.

In another case, in Houston TX, Calvin Burdine's trial only lasted 16 hours. His lawyer, Joe Frank Cannon - ten of his clients were sentenced to death - fell asleep every afternoon during Burdine's death penalty trial. The prosecutor urged the jury to kill him because "sending a gay man to prison would be like setting a kid loose in a candy store" (There are restrictions for injecting race into a trial but no such restrictions exist when it comes to homosexuality). Responding to Burdine's lawyer napping, the Chief Criminal Judge said: “The constitution says you have a right to a lawyer but the constitution doesn’t say the lawyer has to be awake”

For almost 20 years, Burdine struggled for legal recognition of what should be obvious to anyone: that a sleeping lawyer is no lawyer at all. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that that was no reason to set aside Burdine's conviction. Finally, on June 7, 2003, the United States Court of Appeals, considering the issue on habeas corpus, disagreed, by a vote of 9 to 5.

These two cases are not rare, especially in the state of Texas. As Thomas Cahill said, well known for his knowledge of ancient civilizations, capital punishment in America is akin to human sacrifice.

"I don't think the death penalty has anything to do with justice. All of us are going through this incredible national drama where bankers and hedge fund managers have stolen everything from everybody. I wonder how many of them will go to prison. Very, very few, and outside of someone like Bernie Madoff, maybe no one. Why is that? Because they can afford good lawyers. So, why do we sacrifice the poor and minorities on this altar, which is basically an altar of human sacrifice. It's like something out of prehistoric times." -- Thomas Cahill

The Innocence Project has found that "one in eight juries makes the wrong decision – by convicting an innocent person."

"It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind." ~George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs." ~Elbert Hubbard

Links:
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Texas Abolition Blog
But in Texas, we sometimes execute accomplices...

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Our Nation's Capitol on Video.

MetaVid allows users to keyword search every word spoken (transcript search) of legislative proceedings on the floors of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate and then listen to the audio and/or watch the video.

FedNet - Get the latest and archived video broadcast from our Nation's Capitol.

C-Span Video Library. - Over 125,000 hours of C-SPAN programming, every program aired since 1987, are contained in the C-SPAN Archives and immediately accessible through the database and electronic archival systems developed and maintained by the C-SPAN Archives.

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Beauty and Greed.

"Beauty and Greed" by Marcy Ugstad. The Alaska Pipeline in stark contrast to its beautiful surroundings.

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Color of Wealth Gap is Now a Canyon.

For every $1 the median white family owns, the median Latino family owns .12 cents, and the median black family, only one dime (Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances completed in 2007). This is an alarming acceleration in the growth of the racial wealth divide – the large gap between the value of the assets that are controlled by people of different races - in the last 30-years, especially in the last ten.

How can this be, when, more than ever before, African Americans and Latinos are taking part in the educational process, therefore earning more than they ever earned in the past?

Part of the answer lies in our tendency to confuse wealth and earnings income. Wealth goes beyond education and earnings, and is the broader measure of prosperity, or the total value of all material possessions and resources owned by an individual or group. Wealth or asset growth require time and opportunity, and gradually build through inter-generational inheritances and transfers.

Whereas, many white families have had the opportunity to build wealth through past generations, African Americans and Latinos, if educated and earning a decent salary, are not only put in a position of making up for the legacy of wealth stripping that defined their past, they find themselves in a place of providing for the future, as well.

In the past, slavery, forced relocation and the confiscating of tribal lands served to expand the wealth of some groups while suppressing the growth of wealth in other groups. Today, in much the same way, government policies are set in place, or removed, in order to continue and grow the wealth divide.

Over the last ten years, the reversal and erosion of progressive fiscal policies originally designed to include the working poor amongst the middle class, combined with tax code, created to encourage asset building for the affluent, have transformed the racial wealth gap into a racial wealth canyon.

Today, the two-day Color of Wealth Policy Summit kicks off in Washington DC. The economists and policy experts will discuss ways to close the racial wealth gap.

Sources:

Barbara Robles author of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide, and one of the people attending the summit, along with minority businessman Earl Stafford who "paid $1 million for more than 300 rooms and an array of amenities to create opportunities for less-fortunate guests to take part in the inauguration of Barack Obama" joined NPR's Tell Me More.

The Wealth Gap gets Wider

Links:

Redlining in Philadelphia in 1934

Wealth Building Links

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Bushido Culture, AIG Bonuses, Wall Street and Accountability

"Your Highness, if you believe I am your enemy. Command me. And I will gladly take my life." - Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai"

Senator Chuck Grassley needs to take a refresher course in Japanese culture. Hara-kiri, ritualistic suicide, common amongst samurai warriors in feudal Japan's Bushido culture, pretty much died out a while back. In addition, Bushido is associated with seven virtues, these being: Gi (Rectitude), Yu (Courage), Jin (Benevolence), Rei (Respect), Makoto (Honesty), Meiyo (Honor), and Chugi (Loyalty), all of which are an anathema to Wall Street culture.

While it's true, that after World War II, business employees followed something similar to Bushido Code, where company loyalty was considered extremely important, businessmen did not commit hara-kiri when they failed to uphold company policy, they simply resigned their positions.

So, back to reality. Behind the scenes, as outrage over AIG bonuses grow, investigators are in looking into whether there are grounds for criminal prosecution — not just in the AIG case, but across the broad spectrum of Wall Street and corporate America. Why? Well, in the case of AIG, the reason is that AIG agreed to dole out millions of dollars in bonuses, early last year, despite multi-billion dollar losses, that either they knew about, or should have known about.

Yesterday, in response to a subpoena, documents received by Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, show over $218 million, paid out in AIG bonuses. From that total, "at least $1 million were paid to 73 people, and five received more than $4 million."

How much did AIG know at the time that they made this decision? How will we find out? Well, the CEO of every publicly traded company is required to make a statement to the shareholders, every quarter, and as the economy worsens, it becomes more difficult to remain positive without, giving false testimony. However, if it's found that, there is a huge discrepancy between what’s been said in private conversation, emails, etc. and what's been said to shareholders, the CEO opens himself up for prosecution which could result in civil fraud, and possibly even criminal fraud, if the company goes into bankruptcy.

According to Roger Parloff, senior editor at Fortune magazine, author of the article, Wall Street: It's Payback Time, the head of the financial products unit, a.k.a., credit default swaps, made a statement that he did not see how they could lose a dollar on their portfolios back in 2007 and 2008. As it turns out, even if the bonds do not default, which many have not, the threat, of default, alone, is enough to require AIG pay out billions of dollars in order to secure the other party's interest. In and of itself, that is enough to destroy the company.

Post Enron and Serbian Oxley, the US Sentencing Commission created more severe punishments under the federal sentencing guidelines for white-collar offenses, which in this case, includes anything from ordinary stock fraud to insider trading to "Bernie Madoff" sized ponzie schemes. Federal sentencing guidelines for securities fraud links the length of a prison term to the size of the size of the financial loss to the public.

So, we're talking life sentences, here, because CEO’s - most of whom are in their 50s or 60s - of publicly traded corporations who engage in some type of crime involving securities fraud, can face up to a life sentence if financial losses are $2.5 million or higher. In today's market, that 's pocket change.

What about the contract obligations that Larry Summers claims are sacred? Why can't we call into question, the validity of these contracts? It's extremely likely that these contracts were induced via fraud, or that fraud was committed by the employees receiving bonuses.

Michael H. Trotter, in his article, AIG and taxpayers' money, brings up some very interesting points regarding “insurable interest” and the legality of the contracts involved:

However, the more important issue is what is AIG doing with the credit default swaps (CDSs) it issued to purchasers that did not have an “insurable interest” in the debt insured? These purchasers without an insurable interest don't lose anything except the “premium” they paid when they bought their swap, but they stand to make a lot of money on the gamble they have taken. An excellent case can be made that these CDSs unrelated to insurable interests are void as a matter of public policy for the same reason “Joe Doe” can't take out an insurance policy on my life. The rule of law should be and probably is: “No loan, no loss to insure.”

If we permit hedge funds or other gamblers to take out CDSs on the debt of a public company, it gives the gamblers an incentive to kill the company that issued the debt. This can be done in a variety of ways including short-selling (why hasn't the Securities and Exchange Commission reinstated the up-tick rule?), spreading of rumors and saying nasty things about a company's products or services, and none of this is in the public interest. The voiding of these contracts would greatly reduce the size of the CDS problem and the problems at AIG. Has either the new management of AIG or our Treasury Department even considered the possibilities?

What would be the amount of AIG's credit default swap obligations if all of the contracts without an insurable interest were canceled? We have been told that the face amount of these contracts outstanding greatly exceed the amount of debt outstanding to be insured. That tells us that well over half of AIG's obligations on these contracts are likely to be unenforceable, which would greatly reduce AIG's financial obligations. For instance, the newspapers report that Goldman Sachs has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the CDS payments to date. Goldman Sachs seems an unlikely candidate to have loaned large amounts to companies that have been unable to pay it back, especially in light of its bets on the decline of the collateralized debt obligation market.

We need to know how much money has been paid by AIG to the owners of credit default swap contracts without an insurable interest and to whom it has been paid.
[...]
Are credit default swaps insurance? Almost certainly! If the debt you insured goes bad, you are entitled to collect the amount of loss you have insured from a third party that issued the policy. The investment and legal geniuses who dreamed up this product went to great lengths to camouflage it to avoid regulation under the insurance laws. Hence we have credit default swaps instead of insurance policies and we have counterparties instead of insureds, but the end result is the same.

As to the enforceability of the bonuses paid to the employees of AIG's Financial Products division, there is an excellent column by Professor Lawrence A. Cunningham of the George Washington University Law School in the March 18, 2009, edition of The New York Times that sets forth the legal issues and theories that should be considered. Among the issues to be considered are the performance of each employee under his or her contract, grounds to terminate the employee for cause, did the employee withhold important information for the employer, did the employee commit fraud, and is AIG functionally insolvent? The government should have insisted that the bonuses be withheld until all of these issues could have been properly addressed in a court of law.

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Celtic Bliss

“May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.”


A church in Gougane Barra - ‘Barra's retreat enclosed by mountains’ - County Cork, Ireland.

"Gougane Barra" comes from Saint Finbarr, who is said to have built a monastery on an island in the lake nearby during the 6th century. The present ruins date from around 1700 when a priest called Denis O'Mahony retreated to the island. During the times of the Penal Laws, Gougane Barra's remoteness meant that it became a popular place for the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass.


Kylemore Abbey is the home of the Benedictine Order of Nuns in Connemara Ireland



Rock of Cashel, Tipperary Ireland


Ross Castle Killarney National Park Ireland


Johnstown castle, Wexford Ireland


Dromoland Castle, County Clare, Ireland

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World Mapper

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

World Population:
In Spring 2000 world population estimates reached 6 billion; that is 6 thousand million. The distribution of the earth's population is shown in this map.India, China and Japan appear large on the map because they have large populations. Panama, Namibia and Guinea-Bissau have small populations so are barely visible on the map.

Population is very weakly related to land area. However, Sudan which is geographically the largest country in Africa, has a smaller population than Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Tanzania.

The size of each territory shows the relative proportion of the world's population living there.
Note: Many of the maps' subjects relate to people, so this map serves as a good reference map for comparison with many other maps.

Wealth:
This wealth map shows which territories have the greatest wealth when Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is compared using currency exchange rates. This indicates international purchasing power - what someone’s money would be worth if they wanted to spend it in another territory. For some their money will gain value when they move - others’ money will lose value. This facilitates the movement of some people, whilst severely limiting that of others.

Wealth, as reflected by GDP per person, is highest in Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland. It is lowest in Ethiopia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Absolute Poverty:
Absolute poverty is defined as living on the equivalent of US$2 a day or less. In 2002, 43% of the world population lived on this little. This money has to cover the basics of food, shelter and water. Medicines, new clothing, and school books would not be on the priority list.

When almost an entire population lives on this little, it is unsurprising if undernourishment is high, education levels are low, and life expectancy short. In both Nigeria and Mali, 9 of every ten people survives on less than US$2 a day.

South America has a relatively small poor population, yet 39 million people have less than US$2 a day in Brazil.

Territory size shows the proportion of all people living on less than or equal to US$2 in purchasing power parity a day.

"Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows." John Kenneth Galbraith, undated
Human Poverty:
Poverty is not just a financial state. Being poor affects life in many ways. The human poverty index uses indicators that capture non-financial elements of poverty, such as life expectancy, adult literacy, water quality, and children that are underweight. The 30 territories of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development use a different index which includes income and long-term unemployment; and not water quality or underweight children. This implies that the poor in richer territories are materially better off.

The highest human poverty index scores are in Central Africa, the lowest are in Japan.

Territory size shows the proportion of the world population living in poverty living there (calculated by multiplying population by one of two poverty indices).

"My field experience of the complexity and variety of country situations made me chary of stylised generalisations about ‘the third world’." Angus Maddison, 2002

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The Dove's Been Shot, and the Olive Branch, Snapped

According to George Lakoff,

Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.

After reading the New York Times article, Obama on the Spot as Rulings Aid Gay Partners, I felt anxious, as if our whole economy hinged on this one decision.

Then, it occurred to me that the reason for my uneasiness was not grounded in reality, rather, the framing of this issue produced my anxious response. Right off the bat, before the reader even knows what it is that's specifically going to be disputed, he is told this "gay" issue is the most sensitive social and political issue of the day, and not only that, it places Obama "in a tight spot". Everyone knows the "tight spot" refers to the economy. It's as if his decision, regarding whether health insurance benefits will be extended to same-sex partners of federal employees, might just transform this nation into a third world country.

Of course, this is nothing new. The right wing, long ago, framed the gay rights issue with neoconservative divisive terms and hollow appeals to tradition that reinforced their position. This effectively limited political discourse on this subject to the arbitrary moral boundaries that they defined.

Instead of allowing individuals to take in the overall content of the issue and decide for themselves, conservatives understood that frames, can be very powerful as they focus the person who is receiving the information on one or two values, many times, creating a visceral reaction in that person, thus hijacking his ability to reason. The news media's responsibility is to present information, as much as possible, without imposing bias. It's not possible to eliminate frames, nevertheless, it is possible to reframe this issue in such a way that creates more balance.

President Obama made a promise to fight for gay rights, and was voted into office, after having made that promise. Why is that promise, all of a sudden, a divisive issue? While it's understood that President Obama wants the support of as many people as he can get regarding his policy to jump start the economy, he has an obligation to keep his promises regardless of threats made by conservatives.

Previously, I blogged that President Obama might be taking a page out of President Lincoln's book. At first he tries to resolve the issue at hand - the economy - in a reasonable and cooperative manner, in hopes that his opponents will respond in the same way. Fully realizing his opposition may snap the extended "olive branch" in half, his initial peace offering should be enough to unite the people behind him, thus giving him the fresh impetus required to tackle the structural changes that must take place for our economy to function in the 21st century.

"Mr. Obama has broad discretionary authority to find ways to ameliorate some of the more blatant examples of discrimination.” -- Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay issues

The dove's been shot, and olive branch, snapped. Time to move on.

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