Wesley Howe

Their latest tune? Money.

In the State of the Union speech last night, political rhetoric would be expected. The President, as winner-in-chief, is the nominal head of his party, although the dogs are always nipping at his heels. But his public excoriation of a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (on political funding) during a joint session is nothing but a scrap of raw meat to try to rally the more determined left half of his party.

This was no different politically than Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro blaming social problems on the United States. In this case, he is an elected, term-limited leader who rhetorically is challenging the judgment of a group of unelected, life-tenured judges, who we depend on to referee the important issues for us. Not everybody likes a call that goes against your team, but it is unsportsmanlike to try to dump on the referee, and that  is exactly what he is doing.

This country managed to support two vastly different political parties, with peaceful transitions of power for two centuries without the limits the McCain-Feingold act imposed. But you would think the sky is falling to listen to some of the people that disagree with the ruling, including Mr. Obama.

At the heart of this is the recognition that after the loss in Massachusetts, something has to be done to retain the interest of (and contributions from) the party faithful, by creating a caricature of a new enemy lurking amongst us. The tactic is not new, and not left-wing, other examples include the Roe v. Wade decision (which has raised countless funds for both sides of the argument).

Well, so much for post-partisan politics. It’s like 1977 all over again.

The press is full of reports and opinions regarding attacks on Google from China. while I am no security expert, I have my own email server, and I have seen a huge increase in phishing attempts in the last month.

Like Google claims, these are targeted emails. Some are pretty good, especially the Facebook ones, where they copied the graphics and layout well. Unlike the sad attempts from Nigeria, the English used is generally flawless… business impersonal, but with proper grammar and spelling, and definitely American English, none of the British spellings and phrases.

So while I can do nothing but watch Google and the other security experts, I can be careful about the emails. The Facebook ones were coming even though I didn’t have a Facebook account until a few days ago, and others I have been getting claim that new security measures require me to update my email account. That fails big time here because I administer the email accounts on my server, and the accounts are limited to Kay and myself.

But I don’t doubt that they are catching quite a few phish this way, so don’t click on that link.