Wesli @ Nuits D'Afrique 2010

Aw: boyfriend sends girlfriend a ‘viral love letter’

In an interesting experiment to see how the internet’s social media outlets can connect two individuals separated by hundreds of miles, a guy named Walter May recruited his roommates to put together this YouTube love letter/song for his girlfriend.

Gizmodo has the scoop:

[The video] was posted on YouTube yesterday and has since then been tweeted about by May’s friends, random strangers, and even Katy Perry.

But May’s girlfriend, for whom the video was made, hasn’t seen it yet.

That’s because May wanted the video to reach her organically—through tweets, links passed between friends, and blog posts. He wanted to show his girl that they “can feel close without having to be close every day,” and that their relationship can remain strong even though they’ll be thousands of miles apart over the next two years.

Innovative and romantic — I like it.

And if, by chance, Walter May’s girlfriend reads The Blaze, I hope she enjoys it.

View the original article here

Are we missing something in the Wikileaks story?

I received a curious e-mail from reader “X” regarding the Wikileaks story. I‘ve decided to hide X’s true identity because he claims to be former military and government with vast security knowledge, and some may not be happy regarding the information he sent. According to X, it would have been impossible for a Private such as Bradley Manning to sneak out the secret, classified information he did without the approval of some high-end officials. X explains:

I’m telling you that there is no way that this data could be released without the approval of the highest levels of the State Department and the White House. The PFC was military intelligence, he only had access to DoD systems and communications, and they are highly compartmented.  The State Department has a completely separate system of communications, and he COULD NOT have had access to both at the same time.  Also, this BS about him taking Lady Gaga CDRs in and then erasing data off of them and then copying the cables onto them is absolutely BS.  Having a CDR drive on a PC in either the USA or State Department on classified systems has been strictly controlled going back to the 80s.  Then, there are physical searches on leaving the building.  Compartmentation of data means that he would only have had access to in theater information.  So how is it that he had information on North and South Korea, China, and all of the other countries?

Let’s take a timeout here to address the “CDR” (more specifically a CD-RW, or rewritable) issue. According to The Guardian, Manning apparently recognized that the ability to rewrite data using government computers was odd and a problem. He said as much during a set of instant messages with hacker Adrian Lamo:

(2:00:12 pm) Manning: everyone just sat at their workstations… watching music videos / car chases / buildings exploding… and writing more stuff to CD/DVD… the culture fed opportunities

(2:12:23 pm) Manning: so… it was a massive data spillage… facilitated by numerous factors… both physically, technically, and culturally

(2:13:02 pm) Manning: perfect example of how not to do INFOSEC

(2:14:21 pm) Manning: listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltratrating [sic] possibly the largest data spillage in american history

Either a) the CD-RW capability is “impossible” as X says and Manning is lying; b) the capability actually does exist and Manning was allowed to do so as X suggests; or d) the capability exists and Manning was tacitly allowed to do so and tricked everyone just like he says. All are interesting thoughts. Back to the e-mail:

A State Department Cable is an e-mail, just like this one.  In order to have access to it you have to be the sender, or an addressee.  If you access it and you aren’t the sender, or the addressee, [then] you have to access the mail servers which are in DC at Foggy Bottom.  And the individual e-mail accounts are encrypted, and you have to have the master key to access them.  The people who have that access, have extremely high level clearances and are heavily monitored by the systems that that they are accessing.  Remember the missing e-mails from the Clinton Administration?  The White House and the State Department both use Lotus Notes.  E-mails on Lotus Notes can’t go missing, they are all maintained and archived on the servers.

Timeout again. The Clinton e-mail issue X refers to is a set of missing messages that came to light during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A similar event occurred during the Bush years. X seems to be alleging that those e-mails didn’t just “go missing” — something bigger was at work. Maybe. Or you could look at this like this: in light of the two incidents, it should be even more surprising that a Private could steal e-mails. One would think that after previous e-mail fiascoes the government would have taken even greater precautions to make sure something even remotely related never happened again. It appears it didn’t, or did and failed. I’m not sure what option is more worrisome.

X ends his e-mail with this:

Jon, this stinks like high heaven. I haven’t disclosed any classified information here, but as an old spook, this pains me to have to tell a reporter. But I’m a combat vet, risked my life for this great nation, and I’ll be damned if I will watch them push the world into chaos.

I think Liz Stephens, our own Scott Baker’s partner over at The B Cast — a daily news roundup show — may have been on to something this afternoon. During today’s webcast, Liz mentioned that something doesn’t feel right about the Wikileaks story. To paraphrase, she said this incident seems like it could turn into the justification the government needs to start controlling private websites. And while she didn’t go as far as to suggest the government created the controversy, X does.

For now, I’ll hold off until more information becomes available. But if Liz and X are right, and X is who he says he is, this sure makes things a lot more interesting.

View the original article here

An unconventional Christmas gift

Looking for that perfect gift for that one person who seems to have everything? The AP has the answer to your holiday prayers:

The British Royal Navy is selling a decommissioned aircraft carrier to raise money in the face of impending budget cuts. The HMS Invincible, which played an important role in the 1982 Falklands War, will be auctioned on a military disposal website. No price has been set. The military said in a statement today that all options – including the sale of equipment – will be considered during these challenging financial times. The Invincible was decommissioned in 2005 after 25 years of active service.

View the original article here

Brad Thor wanders by The Blaze to talk hot women fighting bad guys

The Blaze is only three months old so it’s hard to call anything a pattern. And you can’t call twice a trend. But we follow up our “Vince Flynn uncut” post with another unplugged interview with thriller author Brad Thor.  He’s clearly a slacker — he only writes two books a year.  And maybe someday his website will have some production values.  So we put equal effort into this production with the decision to interview him in a hallway.
Before you click play on the interview, let’s contemplate the cover of his new book, “The Athena Project”:

I know it sounds boring…four athletic, attractive, intelligent women doing hard and dirty work in impossible situations to protect freedom…but you might want to give it a chance. It’s not like this is going to be some big, Hollywood movie or anything. Right?
And the problems with this interview are compounded because Thor is so reticent to say what he really thinks.  Maybe someday he won’t be afraid to just lay it all out there.  So, anyway, you probably won’t want to watch this:

View the original article here

Democratic ad on China utilizes gongs and fortune cookies

Let’s consider this the latest in the “can you imagine if a republican did this?” parade of commercials we’ve seen this year.    Also, follow the link for a very satisfying moment of hypocrisy featuring Bill Clinton.  Unfortunately, it will leave you hungry for more in twenty minutes.
View the original article here

Ironic: ESPN anchor cusses while explaining ‘bleep’ function

This is unfortunate, and very ironic. While setting up Derek Anderson’s profanity-laced tirade from yesterday, ESPN’s Stewart Scott (who is one of the best anchors in sports TV) was describing how important the “bleep function” is for times such as this. Except he didn’t say “function” — instead he used a four letter word that starts with “F.”
Here’s the obligatory CONTENT WARNING: this video contains an inadvertent cuss word:

(H/T: HuffPo)
View the original article here

Lauer loses it over ‘package size’

Apparently there’s an immature 13-year-old in us all. The incessant laughter over a guest’s line about a “package” so crippled NBC‘s Matt Lauer he couldn’t even finish the segment. The segment, interestingly enough, was about rising food prices. The package talk starts at about 1:30:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View the original article here