Dickie's Quickies

According to the Register, there's a story in the UK's The Sun about how the paper used a mole to breach security at an Indian firm processing credit card information. The weakest link is almost always the under paid or disgruntled employee. For all of the talk these days about driver's license and national ID card security, the hijackers who hit the World Trade Center in New York got their licenses by bribing a state employee. Nothing is going to stop that. The methods we're discussing employing today are costly and more than likely next to worthless to real criminals. It is a tradition in security to place burdens on the masses in the hopes of catching a few, but the problem is that the few don't follow the rules anyhow so they aren't likely to be caught up in the nets. Those who do follow the rules, then, are the ones who are punished. For instance, has Israel ever stopped terrorism? They may have prevented singular acts, but they will not cease the practice using their current methods - some of which the United States lauds and would like to employ.

Aaron Jasinski has a wonderful website that displays his art and accesses his music. This site works very well with IE, but sadly, not so well with Firefox. At least, that was my experience. Still, I enjoy his varied illustrations and paintings.

Allan Tannenbaum documented New York club life in the 1970s with his camera capturing the famous, the outrageous, and the downright sexy as it was defined in the era. Warning: sexually explicit photos are part of this set.

Julian Sanchez offers a reasoned look at smoking bans in restaurants and bars. He focuses on the recent activity to ban smoking in the D.C. area, but his logic applies to all such proposed or enacted bans. I am not nor have I ever been a smoker. However, I deplore these bans as a governmental attempt to infantilize it's citizens.