Dickie's Quickies

In The Age (free registration) it is being reported that the Pentagon has announced there will be a parade followed by a concert by Clint Black on September 11th. Said Rumsfeld in an announcement tucked into an Iraq briefing:

"This year the Department of Defence will initiate an America Supports Your Freedom Walk," Rumsfeld said, adding that the march would remind people of "the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation".

Thus deftly tying in the September 11th attacks with the Iraq War and all wars prior to it as part of the long battle for freedom. Does this strike anyone else as neo-Communist propaganda? Why is the Defense Department staging this event? How about treating a few more soldiers in your hospitals and leaving the solemn memorials to the surviving families and friends of those who died in the World Trade Center attacks in New York? (Thanks, Amanda!)

In more politics, Dan Gillmor asks why the MSM is not covering the election fraud stories in Ohio more closely? I think the answer to that is that the MSM thinks that the election is behind us that that viewer/subscriber fatigue has set in and they want the story to be over. Dan's right to be asking the question. He links to a PDF prepared by Congressman John Conyer's staff regarding fraud reports from Ohio. Unfortunately, I think Dan's question is too narrow. For instance, we in Washington State can attest to an abyssmal record in our election offices. I'll bet that each state has their own counties where election fraud or ineptness has become systemic. This is a major, broad story that the MSM should be investigating. Whether it breaks for Republicans or Democrats or some other party, it's not fair to the citizens who go and vote. As Dan notes:

I'm not saying here that John Kerry actually won Ohio or the national election. I am saying that there's an enormous amount of smoke, which has gone too-little noticed by the media. I expect public officials to ignore such things, but I still expect the press to care more. Is that naive in these times?

The Key-logger security breach associated with the identity theft ring reported by Sunbelt earlier this week has been solved, apparently. Sunbelt announced in a press release yesterday that they will issue a tool today that will detect and repair the breach AND that they are sharing this information with other security companies so that they may issue their own security upgrades. I doubt that I've been affected, but I'll be downloading the tool from Sunbelt anyhow. I might even check out their Counterspy product (free 30 day download) which has garnered good press from PC World and done well in Spyware Warrior's testing.

Now, onto the more frivolous:

A Flickr set of photos of the Mighty Thor rolling a joint.

CrochetMyCrotch.com (need I have to say that this may not be work safe?) is exactly what it sounds like. Who would wear these on a regular basis, though?