<![CDATA[[SecurityRatty] tag: soul]]> http://securityratty.com/tag/soul Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:00:26 +0000 iRatty Engine http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[We will miss you Paul Newman]]> http://securityratty.com/article/0087551a911fab9d09a604e70f4ff977 http://securityratty.com/article/0087551a911fab9d09a604e70f4ff977 You did good Paul. Thanks for all the good you did. You have a great soul.
Take care.
clipped from www.mercurynews.com
Legendary actor Paul Newman dies at age 83
WESTPORT, Conn.—Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as the anti-hero of such films as “Hud,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Color of Money”—and as an activist, race car driver and popcorn impresario—has died. He was 83.
  blog it

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]]> Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:57:47 +0000 paul newman paul cool hand luke cool race car driver popcorn impresariohas moneyand westport films We will miss you Paul Newman <![CDATA[Baseball, baseball, baseball]]> http://securityratty.com/article/38719590135fe54054c5e5e6e5020151 http://securityratty.com/article/38719590135fe54054c5e5e6e5020151 manny It may be the dog days of summer, but it is the height of the baseball season and the trade deadline just passed.  Not without some blockbuster deals going down though.  The biggest one is the a 3 team deal involving the Dodgers, Pirates and the Red Sox.  The BoSox give up the heart and soul of their championship team, future hall of famer, Manny Ramirez. In exchange they get from the Pirates, Jason Bay. A few other players involved, but who cares.  Does this mean the Sox are giving up on this season?  As a Yankee fan I can’t tell you how happy I am not to see Manny so many times a year.  I also think Joe Torre will do a great job of managing Manny out in LA. Good luck to Manny.  Though he killed us for years, I respected his talent.

Speaking of the Yankees, they have made a few moves for the pennant run.  In addition to their own trade with the Pirates to get Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte, they pulled off a great deal yesterday getting Pudge Rodriguez to fill in as catcher for Jorge Posada.  This could be a huge deal for the Yankees.  They gave up Kyle Farnsworth, who while threw well this year, gave up home runs like candy.  I am flying up to NY with my two sons tomorrow and will be at the Stadium tomorrow night to watch the Yanks play the Angels, who also made a big trade for the Braves Mark Teixeira.

Another future hall of famer, Ken Griffey, Jr was also traded to the White Sox today.  Wow! What a day in baseball. I can’t wait to sit in the temple that is Yankee Stadium with my two boys tomorrow. It is like a dream come true, similar to taking them to a Steeler game last year.  With all of the action going on around baseball it is also a great time to do it.

]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:13:20 +0000 baseball sox manny ramirez baseball season manny red sox trade deadline future hall trade Baseball, baseball, baseball <![CDATA[Coding Spyware and Malware for Hire]]> http://securityratty.com/article/1dbd4bddd9e4248009d0273ad7cae5dd http://securityratty.com/article/1dbd4bddd9e4248009d0273ad7cae5dd What type of antivirus evasion do you want today? For the past several years, we have been witnessing the emerging customerization applied in malware and spyware for hire services. What used to be a situation where the malware authors would code and then start promoting a piece of malware including features that he thinks his potential customers would want by generalizing a cybercriminal's needs, is today's "listening to the customer" win-win situation that they've reached already.

The whole maturity from a product concept to customerization is in fact so prevalent these days, that malware authors wanting to preserve their intellectual property are forbidding their customers from reverse engineering their malware modules, presumably fearing that remotely exploitable flaws like this one in one of the most popular Ebanker malwares for the last two yers Zeus, could be discovered due to the malware author's insecure coding practices. Moreover, limiting the distribution of a single license they are given to more than three people will result in the malware author ignoring any future business relationships with the party that ruined the exclusiveness of the malware, thereby leaking it to the public, something that's been happening and will continue happening with web malware exploitation kits.

What would be the price of a custom malware module coded on demand? How much does it cost to have a built in email harvester that would sniff all the incoming and outgoing email addresses from the infected host to later on include them in upcoming spam and malware campaigns? Would the malware author also provide a managed hosting service for the command and control and the actual binaries on a revenue sharing

Here's an automatically translated, and fairly easy to understand random proposition for coding spyware and malware for hire, aiming to answer many of these questions, clearly demonstrating that today's malware is coded in exactly the same way the customer wants it to :

"As you can see in the history of its development turned directly into the combine, while almost no raspuh in weight, full-size pack аж 18 kb and minialno 5 kb, for all nampomnyu again, all descriptions below can be done as otdelnym bot, and any combination of cross except for a few restrictions. This product is targeted at mass-user and will not be all prodavatsya row. So, you can choose from:

Actually loader - is able to load a file from adminki, by country and other characteristics, such as the number of animals on board with a specific bot, a country group of countries, the availability of certain authors or Fire, sredenemu time online, etc. etc.. You can adjust the speed of shipping limits for each file, can load 1 as well as how files simultaneously
300 €

FTP and not only Graber
Analyzes user traffic and collects from the ftp acclamation, that is ftp acclamation would you regardless of how the customer uses ftp user, thus can be obtained most valuable ftp aka (even those to which the password is not saved), you can also grab other in a way not only acclamation acclamation and other tasty things more)
150 € 

Assembler spam bases
Analyzes user traffic and collects from all email, snifit http pop3 smtp protocols, keeps records unikallnosti locally on each boat to reduce the burden on the server as well as globally on a server has 2 mode of operation - ie passive with only collects user to please and active - the very beginning to download the entire inet) in search of soap
220 €

Socks 4 / 5
Normal soks with competently implemented multithreading, is activated only if the user real Ip, otherwise not. And also optional, depending on the connection type and speed ineta.
70 €

Indicates
The primitive method, contamination fleshek avtoranom gives 2-3% increase in the first week and up to 7% in the next, a pleasant trifle)
35 €

Scripts
Loader supports internal scripting language - jscript, to carry out arbitrary actions on the victim machine, whether recording data in the register, setting authentic hon-Pago, opening URL in your browser (it was done so to please with 90% punching)), apload arbitrary files on a server, even theoretically possible to form and grabing inzhekty in IE) has only to write the script zaebetes, vobschem lyuboye actions soul who wish)
70 € basic functionality

Assembler passwords
Collects data such as passwords pstorage IE, MSN, etc., will be added at the request of other sources of passwords
70 €

Mini-AV
When installing loadera wheelbarrows to remove BHO shaped three, zevso-shaped, the majority of shit from all avtoranov, render most keylogerov until all) forward proposals to improve
70 €

File-default
In exe loadera program URL (in adminke) to the file which once progruzit 1 and run at first start loadera on wheelbarrows, while simultaneously helping progruzke Trojan for example, in its entire botnet that does not paired with challenges in adminke, the module operates in 20 seconds after the mini - av which excludes the removal of your Trojan bot, after progruza this exe bot continues to normal activities.
35 €

Form Graber
While in beta version, robbed IE. Sends logs in adminku, folding country. Logs are like logs agent. It consists of:

Graber certificats
On the idea is part formgrabera but could work and of itself, actually there is nothing to describe)

Injections
Literacy sold inzhekty, did not begin work after full progruza pages (as in bolshistve three) and immediately supported injection yavaskript code, which allows avtozalivy and DC inzhekty for data collection. For example not to yuzat acclamation at all is not yet introduce the necessary number of Britain, after which inzhekt ceases to operate. Вобщем mdelat can be anything and in any form) rather than the meager request field pin) And also inzhektov subspecies - a substitute for the issuance of search enginee.

Graber balances
Makes loot aka balances at the entrance to the user acclamation, detail added to the logs.

Screen
Universal method to grab information from absolutely any species and varieties klaiviatur screens, in particular html, flash, in one picture, with a drop-down fields after choosing your encrypted, as well as information such as "enter 3 yu secret letter word" etc. as well as any information which is visible a user but not seen in the logs. Screen settings of adminki, set URL where do screen as well as the type of screen: for virtual keyboard (done several small images of areas around the clique) or to "enter 3 yu secret letter words" (makes 1 full shot). With the withdrawal screen recorded in the log entry with the name of the file to the screen this position.

Antiabuznost for botneta
Feachem adminki, keep botnet enables fast, normal, bezglyuchnyh NEabuzoustoychivyh hosting, with features that you forget what abuzy, nohistory week saporta "abuzoustoychivogo" hosting inaccessibility host to half ineta etc., etc., also with the help of the supplement will be able to keep huge botnety (over SL) at 1 dedike with 512 Lake) and well on the price of hosting a savings, not $ 500 a month and 150. It may use this feature to stroronnim development, Trojans, bots, etc., actually is a separate product. And incidentally, if you do not understand the theory that nenado ask "and how does it work?" imagine that it works and point and neubivaemo in pritsnipe.
600 € +
 
All prices are in euros, the calculation is made at the rate of CB on the day of purchase. ps I will not disappear as most authors after months of sales, I DONT how to please you get to the assembly ftp, I DONT how many soap collects soap-graber, I DONT what otstuk from loadera, I DONT soksov how many will be from 1 to downloads, and how best To work load a file is not dead quickly, if you are confused my ignorance - that my loader so you do not need more tries)

Rules / Licence
-- Customer has no right to transfer any of his three 3 persons except options for harmonizing with me
-- Customer does not have the right to make any decompile, research, malicious modification of any three parts
-- Customer has no right where either rasprostanyat information about three and a public discussion with the exception of three entries.
-- For violating the rules - without any license denial manibekov and further conversations"

This malware coder seems to be participating in an affiliate program with a malicious ISP that is offering hosting services for the entire campaign, not just the malware binaries, so you have a rather good example that incentives and revenue-sharing models result in value-added services, a all-in-one shop for a customer to take advantage of without bothering to approach a third-party.

Cybercrime is getting even more easier to outsource these days, and with the malicious parties improving their communication and incentives model, the resulting transparency in the underground market

Related posts:
The Underground Economy's Supply of Goods and Services
The Dynamics of the Malware Industry - Proprietary Malware Tools
Using Market Forces to Disrupt Botnets
Multiple Firewalls Bypassing Verification on Demand
Managed Spamming Appliances - The Future of Spam
Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand
E-crime and Socioeconomic Factors
Russia's FSB vs Cybercrime
Malware as a Web Service
Localizing Open Source Malware
Quality and Assurance in Malware Attacks
Benchmarking and Optimising Malware
]]> Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:52:14 +0000 malware malware author malware authors malware binaries malware attacks ftp ftp user collects malware industry Coding Spyware and Malware for Hire <![CDATA[Your 419 Mail Roundup]]> http://securityratty.com/article/cac739eb23af3ee3d5ecd500b5815c6f http://securityratty.com/article/cac739eb23af3ee3d5ecd500b5815c6f Subject:
FROM THE DESK OF MR. STEVEN JAMES
From:
"Steven James"<steven@fristbnkngplc.net>
Date:
Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:17:03 +0100
BCC:

FROM THE DESK OF MR. STEVEN JAMES
CHAIRMAN INTERNATIONAL RELATION
FIRST BANK OF NIGERIA PLC
# 1 BANK ROAD WUSE FCT
ABUJA-NIGERIA.
PHONE: +234-80-66520277
Email: stevenjames809@live.co.uk 


Very Urgent Attention,

Please permit me to introduce my humble self to you, my name is Mr. Steven James, I am the Manager of International Relation with First Bank of Nigeria Plc, I 'm 38yrs old, and I got your email address from a friend of mine, and my confidence reposed on you. I hope you read this message carefully and reply me immediately. Although we have not met before, but I suggest that this transaction will bring us together.

My dear, we had a customer, a foreigner but base here in Nigeria, his Name was Mr. Hamilton Creek. He is from Atlanta Georgia United State of America, but based here with his wife and his two children, Mr. Hamilton has being banking with us for the past 4yrs and some time in August 2002, Mr. Hamilton was on his way to his house, and unfortunately ran into a Trailer load of Groundnut Oil, and died   immediately, Their car got burnt, no single soul was saved, Mr. Hamilton Creek and His entire family was confirmed dead.

My Board of Directors and the Management of First Bank has mandated and instructed me to look for Mr. Hamilton Creek? Relation(s) and his Next of  Kin to come and claim his fund, Since August 2003 till date, I have been looking for his relation's or his next of Kin to come and claim his fund which he Deposited with our bank, I have contacted his Embassy and after 3days, his Ambassador told me that Mr. Hamilton Creek has no relation and no next of Kin, their Ambassador told me that he used his first son as His next of kin, but it is quite unfortunate that Mr. Hamilton Creek Died with all his family members.

The reason why I contacted you is thus, Mr. Hamilton is dead, and his only son who supposed to inherit his properties and money also died with him. As at this moment, nobody or person[s] is coming to   claim this Money from our bank. The Board of Directors and management of our bank told me that if nobody or person[s] apply for the claim of Mr. Hamilton Fund, the bank will return the entire Fund into our Federal reserve. In the Light of the above, I want you to stand as the next of kin to Late Mr. Hamilton Creek; it might interest you to know that he had a Domiciliary Bank Account with our Bank and he has a total sum of US$9.2M Nine Million Two Hundred thousand Dollars, this is the exact amount which he had in his domiciliary account before the ugly incident occurred, and this money is still in his account as unclaimed money.

This transaction is very easy and simple, and it is 100% risk free, I'm the Manager for International Relations with First Bank of Nigeria Plc, and the Management and Board of Directors of the Bank are waiting for me to provide to them the Relation or next of Kin to late Mr. Hamilton Creek, of which I told them that I am still searching the next of kin to the deceased. Finally, if you are interested with this transaction, I will front you to the bank as the only next of kin to late Mr. Hamilton Creek, and I will let the bank know that you are the only right person to inherit Late Mr. Hamilton Funds and properties. If you are interested, just email me or call me on my   direct and private line#: +234-80-27536038 and late Mr. Hamilton's Funds will be credited into your account and all his Properties will be released to you either through Courier Services or the Bank will Cargo all his properties to you in any were you want it.

So reply me immediately and feel free to ask any question with regards to this transaction. You will take 50% of the US$9.2M. Which is? US$4.600, 000.00 Four Million Six Hundred Thousand Dollars, while the Balance of the same amount will be mine.

Your swift response will be highly appreciated.

Thanks and have a nice day.

Friendly Regards

Mr. Steven James

*******************************************************************************************

Subject:
REPRESENTATIVE NEEDED
From:
DFS SALES LTD UK <info@dfs.net>
Date:
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:00:55 +0800
To:
undisclosed-recipients: ;


COMPLIMENT OF THE DAY TO YOU.

I am PETER WOODS from DFS SALES LTD UK.(
Website: www.dfs-online.co.uk ) Visit our site

We are into  furnitures and we sell shares to people in
Canada,America, Australia and Europe.

We are in need of a book keeper. someone who can represent our company
in his/her country.

Our client in your location will contact you and make the company
payment to you.

You will be entitle to 11% of every payment been made out to you.

This is because most of our officer are from china and they do not

understand english very well.its hard for them to contact our
customers.

Our head office is located in CHINA. But we have a sub-office in the
uk.

If you are interested, Kindly send the entries for more understanding.

NAME IN FULL :.........
COMPANY NAME: .....
POSITION:......
FULL ADDRESS: .......
CITY/TOWN:........
STATE:............
ZIP CODE:........
COUNTRY:.......
MOBILE:.......
HOME TEL: .....
EMAIL ADDRESS: ........
OCCUPATION: ...........
BANK NAME :.......
AGE:............

You are to send the above details to

NAME : PETER WOODS.
EMAIL : dfs_woods@yahoo.co.uk
PHONE NUMBER : +44-704-575-0212

HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU


*****************************************************************************************

To:
undisclosed-recipients:;

Good day!!!

 We have been waiting for you since to contact me for your Confirmable Bank Draft of ?18 Million (Eighteen Million Pounds sterling) but we did not hear from you since for a couple of weeks now. Then we went to the bank to confirm if the draft that expired or getting near to expire and Metropolitan Police Uk told us that before the funds will get to your hand that it will expire.So I told him to cash the ?18 Million (Eighteen Million Pounds sterling) to cash payment to avoid losing this fund under expiration as I will be out of the country for a 6 Months Course.

 What you have to do now is to contact FED EX COURIER SERVICES as soon as possible to know when they will deliver of your funds to you because of the expiring date. For your information we have paid for the delivering Charge Insurance premium. The only money you will send to the FED EX COURIER SERVICES to deliver your cheque direct to your postal Address in your country is ?250.00 being Security Keeping Fee of the Courier Company so far. Again don't be deceived by anybody to pay any other money except ?250.00 for the Security Keeping Fee.We would have paid that but they said no because they don't know when you will contact them and in case of demurrage. You have to contact FED EX COURIER SERVICES now for the delivery of your Draft with this
information below:

 CONTROLLER: Mrs.Helen Williams
 NAME: FED EX COURIER SERVICES
 ADDRESS: fedexofficeuk@gmail.com
 PHONE NUMBER: +447024080684

 IF YOU ARE THE OWENER OF THE FUNDS AND YOU WILL SEND YOUR INFORMATION TO US SO THAT WE CAN DELIVERY YOUR FUNDS TO YOU WITHIN THE NEXT 84HRS TIME.IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVED YOUR FUNDS WITHIN THE NEXT 72HRS TIME AND YOU REPORT US THE UK FBI AND THE METROPOLITAN POLICE (SCOTLAND YARD) or YOU CONTACT YOUR LAWYER TO TAKE UP PROCEDURES AGAINST US.

 Let me repeat again try to contact them as soon as you receive this mail to avoid any further delay and remember to pay them their Security keeping fee of ?250.00 for their immediate action. The FED EX COURIER SERVICES don't know the contents of the funds. This is to avoid them delaying with the funds.

 Thanks as you contact them today.

 Yours Faithfully

 Mrs Helen Williams.

(The above actually comes with a nifty graphic that they've thrown in, thinking it makes it all look more legitimate. It doesn't, but here it is anyway):

fedx1.jpg

....altogether now: oooooh. A slightly shorter 419 roundup than usual, but I'm sure I'll have piles of the things next week.








]]> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:11:42 +0000 hamilton fund hamilton hamilton creek draft confirmable bank draft account domiciliary bank account bank hamilton funds Your 419 Mail Roundup <![CDATA[Myrcurial Selected To Speak At Last Hope]]> http://securityratty.com/article/721375fa3c53a4a3aa4ebb5efb627fef http://securityratty.com/article/721375fa3c53a4a3aa4ebb5efb627fef

I had a long crappy day as anyone who might follow my Twitter may have seen. I was wallowing in my own discontent when I met up with Myrcurial for lunch today. The cheshire grin on his face was something to behold. As it turns out, the weasel had been sitting on a rather significant announcement (for the last month) that he alluded to in his earlier posting today.

Myrcurial will be speaking at Last Hope! Very cool brother! His talk entitled, “From a Black Hat to a Black Suit” will be a must see for any propeller heads that have aspirations for a corner office one day.

From the talk summary:

You want it all. You can see the brass ring and you want to jump for it. But you’re scared. You don’t want to put on a suit and watch your soul shrivel like the spot price on RAM. There is another way.In this session, you will learn: why you want to do this to yourself, how to get the first job (which will suck), how to turn the first job into the next job (while still having fun), how to get the top job (sooner than you thought you could), and how to do it all without feeling like a corporate whore. You want to hack the planet? You’ve got to start somewhere.

I’ll be the smart ass in the back crackin wise.

Article Link

]]> Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:26:30 +0000 top job job myrcurial day talk summary suit crappy day black suit talk Myrcurial Selected To Speak At Last Hope <![CDATA[Thoughts on Super Tuesday]]> http://securityratty.com/article/9040d83d600ef02abaec5ca52d5c3f1c http://securityratty.com/article/9040d83d600ef02abaec5ca52d5c3f1c

Vote_2008 Since I chimed in on Super Bowl Sunday, let me press my luck and talk about the primaries of Super Tuesday. I stayed up late tonight switching between CNN and Fox News to really get a "fair and balanced" view of what was going on.  I must say that in all of the years I have been watching presidential races (and the first one I remember was '68), I don't remember both parties having such close races this late in the season.  Without letting my own political beliefs get in the way here is my analysis:

1. The Republicans - They are in a fight for the soul of this party.  Though all three leading candidates claim the title of heir to the Regan revolution, in my mind it is a bit different.  Mike Huckabee, clearly is the choice of the Karl Rove wing of the party. He is the choice of the religious right and the South.  This is the bedrock of the Republican presidential majority.  Taking them on is John McCain who is a genuine war hero, but independent enough to stand for what he believes in and has the record and stature to stand up for it.  He makes no bones that he is all about the traditional Republican argument of being strong in foreign policy and probably a bit less involved in economic matters. Finally, you have Mitt Romney who represents, to me anyway, the traditional Republican big business view.  So who wins this fight for what it means to be a Republican.  Are the Republicans a party of the religious right who vote primarily on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, etc.  Are the Republicans the party of big business/small government which was their traditional stand as I grew up. Or finally are they the party who is best suited to keeping America safe and recognizing our own self-proclaimed "manifest destiny".  I guess the rest of the primary season will answer that question.

2. The Democrats - Obama has certainly energized a large section of the populace. He is bringing people who never voted or are usually very under represented in elections into the process and that is a good thing.  However, when you examine the wins, a Democratic winning their primary in Utah, Alaska and Idaho is just not very exciting. He has as no chance of winning those states in the general election. On the other hand Hillary has certainly demonstrated her ability to win in the traditional Democratic states (including Michigan and Florida, whose votes will have to count in a close race). But is she electable in a general election.  She is a lightening rod for Republican wrath it seems.  Maybe it is part of that vast right wing conspiracy that she always spoke about.  What is interesting on the Democratic side, is I really don't just see a lot of difference in their positions.  In fact most people I speak to say it would be cool if they would just join up and run as a ticket.  Of course who is on top and bottom is the key to that one, but I don't think it will happen, to much ego there.

So, here we are Super Tuesday is over and still no conclusive answers. This is what I do know.  No matter who wins the primaries, 40% of this country is going to vote Republican and 40% is going to vote Democrat.  It is who the other 20% vote for that will will determine the next President.  But as someone who remembers the Civil Rights movement and the womans lib movement.  I can tell you that I am thrilled as an American to see in my life time that either an African-American or a woman will be the nominee of one of the major parties.  I think it will be a while until we see something like that on the Republican side, but it will come.  In the meantime I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. But this race is not done so yet, it is up to you to decide who wins.  Get out and vote!

]]> Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:44:05 +0000 vote republican vote republican republican presidential majority traditional republican argument traditional republican super tuesday vote primarily party Thoughts on Super Tuesday <![CDATA[Thoughts on Super Tuesday]]> http://securityratty.com/article/7afb0729826be39b74d0acc6644e0182 http://securityratty.com/article/7afb0729826be39b74d0acc6644e0182

Vote_2008 Since I chimed in on Super Bowl Sunday, let me press my luck and talk about the primaries of Super Tuesday. I stayed up late tonight switching between CNN and Fox News to really get a "fair and balanced" view of what was going on.  I must say that in all of the years I have been watching presidential races (and the first one I remember was '68), I don't remember both parties having such close races this late in the season.  Without letting my own political beliefs get in the way here is my analysis:

1. The Republicans - They are in a fight for the soul of this party.  Though all three leading candidates claim the title of heir to the Regan revolution, in my mind it is a bit different.  Mike Huckabee, clearly is the choice of the Karl Rove wing of the party. He is the choice of the religious right and the South.  This is the bedrock of the Republican presidential majority.  Taking them on is John McCain who is a genuine war hero, but independent enough to stand for what he believes in and has the record and stature to stand up for it.  He makes no bones that he is all about the traditional Republican argument of being strong in foreign policy and probably a bit less involved in economic matters. Finally, you have Mitt Romney who represents, to me anyway, the traditional Republican big business view.  So who wins this fight for what it means to be a Republican.  Are the Republicans a party of the religious right who vote primarily on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, etc.  Are the Republicans the party of big business/small government which was their traditional stand as I grew up. Or finally are they the party who is best suited to keeping America safe and recognizing our own self-proclaimed "manifest destiny".  I guess the rest of the primary season will answer that question.

2. The Democrats - Obama has certainly energized a large section of the populace. He is bringing people who never voted or are usually very under represented in elections into the process and that is a good thing.  However, when you examine the wins, a Democratic winning their primary in Utah, Alaska and Idaho is just not very exciting. He has as no chance of winning those states in the general election. On the other hand Hillary has certainly demonstrated her ability to win in the traditional Democratic states (including Michigan and Florida, whose votes will have to count in a close race). But is she electable in a general election.  She is a lightening rod for Republican wrath it seems.  Maybe it is part of that vast right wing conspiracy that she always spoke about.  What is interesting on the Democratic side, is I really don't just see a lot of difference in their positions.  In fact most people I speak to say it would be cool if they would just join up and run as a ticket.  Of course who is on top and bottom is the key to that one, but I don't think it will happen, to much ego there.

So, here we are Super Tuesday is over and still no conclusive answers. This is what I do know.  No matter who wins the primaries, 40% of this country is going to vote Republican and 40% is going to vote Democrat.  It is who the other 20% vote for that will will determine the next President.  But as someone who remembers the Civil Rights movement and the womans lib movement.  I can tell you that I am thrilled as an American to see in my life time that either an African-American or a woman will be the nominee of one of the major parties.  I think it will be a while until we see something like that on the Republican side, but it will come.  In the meantime I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. But this race is not done so yet, it is up to you to decide who wins.  Get out and vote!

]]> Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:59:36 +0000 vote republican vote republican republican presidential majority traditional republican argument traditional republican super tuesday vote primarily party Thoughts on Super Tuesday <![CDATA[Hey, do I know you?]]> http://securityratty.com/article/6d7afe8006acfe9879e70097348b776a http://securityratty.com/article/6d7afe8006acfe9879e70097348b776a a sun-drenched wind-swept Ingrid Bergman kiss, a heart touching romance and a soul companion -- not some sordid meaningless fling. He sagely nodded his head and voiced his hopes that I enjoy the rest of my long life looking forward to dying alone...]]> Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:00:00 +0000 singles bar scene friends soul companion half-empty bottle jack daniels sordid meaningless wild party friend photos Hey, do I know you? <![CDATA[Heroes, the (Fall TV) Legacy]]> http://securityratty.com/article/43493a9f7ec9b776598902323b8f15ba http://securityratty.com/article/43493a9f7ec9b776598902323b8f15ba

I was a big fan of Heroes last year and, to my surprise, it was a big hit even outside of the sci-fi, superhero, geek space.  The combination of the good stories, the new revelations each week and the soap-opera-like connections between the different characters appeared to a bit wider audience than might've been expected.

As Season 2 kicks off tonight, I'm jazzed to watch, but even more jazzed about the Fall TV legacy of Heroes!  What do I mean by that?  Well, when a show is popular and starts getting good ratings, what does it mean?  You can bet that TV executives will come up with shows in the same genre, shows that are similar, shows that try to change very part of the show to keep it similar, but make it just different enough to attract other viewers...  how else to explain the thousands of reality shows that bombard us?

So the legacy of Heroes that excites me is some of the shows in the fall lineup that might not have got the green light without the Heroes success last year.  Here are some I'm looking forward to, including the NBC Super Monday line-up (that is up against my wife's shows - Dancing with the Stars and the Bachelor - thank goodness for Media Center / DVRs).  This is premiere week and here is my lineup:

  • Chuck - Monday 8pm / NBC - A Geek Squad, er Nerd Herd, manager teamed with a hot government agent to protect the nation.  Woot!
  • Heroes - Monday 9pm / NBC
  • Journeyman - Monday 10pm / NBC - about a guy who travels back in time and, presumably, makes changes that affect his life (and the plot) in the current time.
  • Reaper - Tuesday 9pm / CW - What if your parents sold your soul to the devil before you were born?  I think its a comedy ... ;-)
  • Pushing Daisies - Wednesday 8pm / ABC - Ned can bring folks back to life with a touch.  Of course, the downside is a second touch sends them back the embrace of death.  While teaming with a detective, Ned brings back his childhood sweetheart, who he can never touch or she'll die again...
  • The Bionic Woman - Wednesday 9pm / NBC - A new Jaime Sommers hits the screen.  They should have cast Lindsay Wagner as the "Goldman" role...
  • Smallville - Thursday 8pm / CW - Okay, it predates Heroes and probably paved the way for Heroes in the first place...
  • Moonlight - Friday 9pm / CBS - Detective gets bitten by his Vampire bride 60 years ago, now fighting the good fight as undead detective Mick St. John.

At the same time, I'd like to have a moment of silence for Day Break and The Dresden Files, two excellent series from last year that didn't get renewed... and recognize that probably 5 of the 6 new shows I listed above will not make it into Season 2.

]]> Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:00:26 +0000 heroes heroes success legacy detective undead detective mick touch nbc time touch sends Heroes, the (Fall TV) Legacy