Diary of the Mad Pigeon

When Spam isn't a mere Annoyance

It started about two weeks ago, when we received our first phone call from a fellow inquiring about the "free car."

"Eh?  What free car?" I replied.

"The car mentioned in the email promotion... this is 666-867-5309, isn't it?"

"Yep... bu this is a roost, not a car dealership.  Sorry buddy, but I think you've been owned."

The fellow then hung up, leaving me to scratch my head.

Anyways, this scenario's played itself out at least once a day since then, to include 6:30 AM this morning.  Who calls to claim a prize at O'dark thirty?

On a whim, the Hummingbird typed our phone number into Google, and Bam!  There it was... plastered all over the internet as the "winning ticket number for a brand new car!"  (note ticket number, not phone number... but folks call it anyway).

The oldest reference I found was a year old... thus I'm surprised this started just a few weeks ago.  Regardless, if it goes on much longer I might have to change our number, which would really suck pigeons.

What's even more alarming is folks are falling for it.  Shouldn't folks know by now email prizes are quick paths to an empty bank account?

As with my recent post on phishing, the reason such scams still exist is the world is still full of suckers.

Ah, Returning to the Good ol' Days...

I'm offline until Monday.

I'm helping the Hummingbird with her soaps tomorrow at the Colorado Hummingbird festival.  No, I'm not kidding--a hummingbird festival!  Talk about coincidence.  I'll be pulling double duty as her mule and conducting a literature review (have a foot thick stack of articles to read and annotate).

Then Sunday, of course, is Mother's Day... so I'll be taking care of the Hummingbird in style:  breakfast in bed, hitting Manitou Springs for a Mother's Day lunch, wander around Manitou, hit the bookstore for tea later, and otherwise engage in the higher order of the roosting arts.

But I can't in good conscience leave you for two days without something... so here's an article after MOGS', Antitool's and The Violence Worker's heart:

Russia Displays Military Might at Parade

Damn if it doesn't look like the Cold War again--and just in time for Vladimir Putin's handoff of the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev. 

Anyways, I'll see everyone on Monday!

How to Identify Phishing: "IRS" Case Study

Thank god I have experience with computers.  You see, I got this in my email this afternoon; and no, my spam trap didn't catch it (click to enlarge):

Sure looks legit, doesn't it?  Says it's from "not-reply@irs.gov,"  has an official looking banner...

But when I put my cursor over the "Click Here" hyperlink, it said (slightly edited to keep folks from clicking it):  ht*p://w*w.firenice.us/catalog/images/banners/secure/help.php

That's odd... why would the IRS employ a site called "firenice," let alone a non-secure site (i.e. http rather than https)?

I clicked anyway to see what was up. I wasn't concerned about inadvertently downloading malicious code since I figured the scammers wanted information, not a infectable host.  Clicking the link came up with this (also slightly edited to avoid accidents):

h*tp://203.231.156.2*2:7722/http.irs.g0v/irfofgetstatus.htm

Here's what the landing page looked like:

Also looks official, doesn't it?  The URL even says IRS.gov!  But look closer:

1.  Once again, it's not a secure website (look for https).
2.  Domain is an IP address, not language characters.
3.  IRS.gov is, in fact, spelled IRS.g0v.
4.  I smell phishy phish....

Then I clicked on "CONTINUE,"  and zoinks--look at all the info the "IRS" is looking for! 

Holy [PIGEONED]... mother's maiden name, credit card number. card security code... why does the IRS want my credit card?

Alas, the reason crooks still flood our email inboxes with phish is because they work.  I hate to imagine how many people will fall for this, and the people I really worry about are the ones who just want the computer to work and aren't willing to take time to understand the technology they're using.  All this coming from a pigeon who doesn't even own a cellphone!

Please pass this information on to those you think need it.  In fact, if you find any more IRS phishing sites the real IRS has a page where you can report it:  http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=155682,00.html.  And yes, this link is legit!

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ITN: Miley Cyrus, the star of Disney Channel's TV show Hannah Montana, is to write her autobiography at the tender age of 15.  Cyrus who is still not even old enough to legally smoke or drink has been given a seven figure sum by the group.  It'll focus on her road to fame, growing up in Tennessee and how her musician dad Billy Ray - famous for his song Achy Breaky Heart - and mum Letitcia keep her feet on the ground. 

The singer and actress says she hopes it inspires her fans to believe their dreams.  CONTINUED

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I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am of seeing Miley's face plastered everywhere.

I will conceed, though, that it helps she's got far more talent and wholesomeness about her than the combined might of Paris, Britney, Lohan, and [insert drugged out talentless slut here].

So what's the beef?  Well...

This year USAFA produced the first Rhodes Scholar from Puerto Rico, a young lady who's off to Oxford for a doctorate in medicine when she graduates this spring.

We also have a kid who invented and patented a new metal alloy for use in high-performance aircraft.

One of my students is in New Mexico readying a student-built satellite for launch into orbit.

We have a 2004 graduate who's giving a guest lecture next week on his 100-page senior thesis which has since influence policay at the 4-star combatant commander echelon.

We have a prior-enlisted cadets who have served in combat zones, and have the medals to prove it (nothing like seeing a freshman with 12 medals on his uniform).

We have a student almost killed in a fall two years ago who fought through months of grueling rehabilitation so he could come back and graduate.

We have a student who's published a book, and a group that gave up spring break to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

Here at USAFA I work with amazing, talented and brilliant young men and women, who's hard work goes beyond our halls in Colorado.  Indeed, many will grow to be tomorrow's senior policy makers.

Meanwhile, what does Miley do?  She sings, dances and acts.

Don't get me wrong:  USAFA has it's fair share of talented singers, dancers and actors.  But none of them have a rich dad on the side to buy favors for them.

I have students busting their butts beyond comparable civilian expectations.  About half of my students will be walking across a stage to shake Pres. Bush's hand in a few short weeks, a day marking the end of school and the beginning of at least 5 years of service to state. 

And some of my students may lose their lives in doing so.

Yet as a culture we worship entertainment.  We gobble up the biography of a 15-year old girl who smiles into a camera, while two 2001 graduates killed in action are left only with their names etched on a memorial wall.

It goes back to my feelings on Jeffersonian meritocracy:  I like to see people rise to the top from their own hard work.  What can Miley say in her biography besides having access to the family checkbook?

Yup. May Day

Well, I'll give the bastards credit for one thing. They had a hell of a national anthem.

So tovarish, who ended up in the "dustbin of history?"

The P-word. No not that one!

A plague of process

By TigerHawk at 4/29/2008 09:36:00 PM

American society has made process as important as outcome, and it is sucking the energy out of us. It is increasingly true that it is not what you did that matters, but how you did it. It is making us slow and cautious, and that will be fatal to us because the competitive advantage of Americans is in being fast and risky.

There are countless examples in the business world, from Sarbanes-Oxley to ISO-everything to endless compliance training lest one quotes Jeremiah Wright or an episode of Seinfeld in front of an easily offended employee. Process is now so sacrosanct that we are not actually allowed to question its importance; if an executive were to speak out against the status of process, he would be deemed to have undermined the "tone at the top," which is taken to be a critical element of -- you guessed it -- a robust process.

Suffice it to say that I am not questioning the importance of process. But if I were I might notice that one big problem with the cult of procedure is that it gives officious people a lot of power.

(More)

I don't usually write about anything work related, because I think it's a foul, professionally, to air anything like dirty laundry in a public forum such as this. Not stemming from any sort of snobbery or superiority, or a desire to hide from public scrutiny, but because more so I believe firmly in minding one's own business and yes, in the concept of "need to know." Still, this isn't really dirty laundry, this more looking at a troublesome culture, something that I think has tripped us up and instead of fostering all the things it was created to promote: fairness, accountability, safety, integrity, and mission accomplishment, I think what we often get instead is a sense of mission accomplishment IN SPITE of, not because of, the "way we do things."

Okay, the above is probably confusing and meandering, well I don't have a lot of time, but if I don't get this written down it's gonna bug me. Let me be blunt: If I NEVER hear the words "well, sure you got the job done, but I want to understand your process better," I can die a happy MOGS. And to really get the effect, you have to draw out the word ppprocesssssss, as of to emphasize that should trump everything.

There are two types of people in business, the military, government and formalized schooling: "process men" (to use an old management term I can not remember the source of at the moment) and "results men." Rather than just disparage one and blindly praise the other, let me say this: both are necessary. I mean this. No BS. Sincerely. As much as it pains me, and it does trust me, Lt and even young Capt MOGS would have sooner cut himself emo-stylee than admit that.

I consider myself a "results" man, I've gone so far as to give basic mission-type orders to trusted, capable subordinates that consisted of no more than "get it done. Don't break the law. Back brief me in two days/six hours/whatever timeframe. Off you go." That is honestly my preferred methodology of leading and managing. But, unless your people come to you pre-built with that much autonomy, skill and will, you need to employ "process" to get them there. Some people will NEVER get there, no matter what, and that's how they're wired I think. No harm no foul, but I think people have particular abilities and talents: some which can be altered or improved via training, some through fostering individual growth (education, etc). Sometimes, you top out at "go here. do this. do this in this way. do this in this way in this timeframe." End of story.

The two need to be balanced. There NEEDS to be some level of friction between the two approaches, life does not need to be happy happy kumbayah blah blah blah.

Process though, when it's NOT tied to a result, when it exists for itself and itself alone, is not only painful it is FRAKKING USELESS!!!!! Let me say that again, USELESS, not only useless, it gets in the goddamn way.
On the flipside, when you let "results" run unfettered though, all of sudden options in the name of "operational needs" and "expediency" can come on the table, and some of them aren't necessarily safe, and in extreme cases ethically questionable. What's worse, is it's difficult to pass along things that actually work without any emphasis at all on capturing what you did, how you did it, and maybe figuring out just how and why it worked.

Process also, when it's allowed to spiral out of control, quickly creates little empires which metastasize, get entrenched, create jobs and authority for well, people who really shouldn't have jobs and authority. "Process" can have the tendency to create sclerosis. Policy grows, but the earlier foundations and scaffolding usually remains too. You very rarely hear about things being "rescinded" or dismantled, but built upon, boy that's nonstop. The problem with that sclerosis, it chokes innovation, it punishes maverick thinking, and eventually creates the scenario for the results-minded folks to do the things I mention above, or get caught in a quandary that might cost them their jobs, or if they're wrong, someone's life. At the very least, it creates annoying controversial loudmouths like John Boyd, the Military Reform Movement, you get the idea.

I call this scenario, and you're going to want to write this down Antitool, and Pidge, for all your your Lts and Lts-to-be reading this, this is good future bar napkin discussions when MOGSY comes to town for his reunion or whatnot, the difference between a "risk" and a "gamble." There's a discussion in an article I found on the website for Parameters at the Army War College that referenced this idea in terms of Gen Patton's Third Army in France. I'm damn willing to take risks. Gambles are more like Vegas odds: needless to say, you ain't never gonna beat the house.

Does that mean I need a frakkin' "ORM" program? Does that mean I need anything derived solely from the aircrew side of the house and applied to all of directly in the 1g mach 0.0 environment?

Let me put it this way: I've been involved in training, instructing, and evaluating for the VAST majority of my 13 years in the service, in one uniform or another. The Air Force aircrew way of doing things: a structured training program, with phases, stoplights, benchmarks, yes/no type points in the "process" of creating a fully qualified knife-in-the-teeth Yankee Air Pirate sticks around because of one very simple reason: it works. I've been heavily involved in helping to implement a version of it into Pidge and mine's core career field. It ain't been pretty overall, but I think, for once, it's helping to build a new credibility and an "operator" mindset where one hasn't always lived.

The downside to doing things the "operator way" is the foregone conclusion that everything needs checklists. That everything needs "standardization and evaluation" (Stan/Eval), that everything need TTPs. That everything needs "process." Well, let me be the first to tell you that sometimes, like I told a mentor and friend of mine some years ago at the 'Deid, sometimes you need to say "Frak process!" (If you really think the word was "frak" you're a bigger nerd than I gave you credit for).

Not everything needs to be done that way. Part of the problem with the "aircrew" model is that is also brought with it a lot of things that don't necessarily translate all that well outside the cockpit but that hasn't stopped well-meaning, well-intentioned people from trying. From trying to control things that well, you can't reach into everybody's heads and control. Yes, I am talking about things like the Safety Empire, the Operational Risk Management (I remember when it was Cockpit or Crew Resource Management) Empires, all the ancillary training in the world (which when you boil it down is very much a permanent fixture of technocratic/bureaucratic mindsets - liability avoidance aka CYA aka "it ain't OUR fault, you were BRIEFED after-all" training), and shudder..TQM and "Process Improvement Management." At some point, you have to look at someone and say - if you don't wear a seatbelt or whatever, you're an idiot. It's your fault. I don't care how many briefings, how many "blood on the highway" videos we see (and man, they CAN be effective I won't lie), you are NOT going to get the accident rates down to zero.

I would also say that it can breed another legalistic and moral fallacy, the "Zero Tolerance" culture. Zero tolerance makes for GREAT rhetoric, and lousy policy. For one thing it's a lie, as I don't think I've ever seen it applied, fully, anywhere civilian or military, and two, because it ties the hands of leaders to deal with problems on an appropriate level - a "just response" turns into "well, we've talked ourselves into a corner, and now we have to follow through." Furthermore, because the consequences of "zero tolerance" can be so high, who's to say how many times someone has said "well we'll let this slide" - that's dangerous too. I won't go into "realistic" expectations, because I have other things to do, but you can see what else this touches.

Let's talk about risk-avoidance and responsibility: you can't save everyone, no matter how hard you try and well-intentioned. We spend more time trying to avoid lawsuits and bad press than we should. The downside to being overly-results focused, and it IS possible...("Code Red" anyone? YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT I DID!") is that WHEN you fail at something, you tend to fail SPECTACULARLY. Failures of process can be just as bad and dangerous, but the beauty of those are the guilt tends to get spread around, and focused more on "systemic" problems than say "personality" or "scapegoating" of any one individual. Just my opinion.

The Air Force operates based on training. On standards, on measurable and quantifiable results; objective criteria and "metrics." That's all fine. I've been a part of building and defining those very things, but we need to remember something. I don't care what all the retired O-6 or whatever contractors say, "process" doesn't kill anyone. A "kill chain" doesn't kill bad guys. Men and women with guns, or bombs, or whatever, kill bad guys and build schools, water pumps, and whatever else we're told to build. A training _program_ doesn't produce finely honed tools of war and peace. Trained personnel are those tools. Process is just that; _process_, and god help the poor, tiny souls mired in it. I don't count them in the "first to be eaten" mostly because paper is a great insulator, and because it'll take the zombies a while to dig through all that.

I don't claim to have all the answers, and I don't claim to be universally right. I do think though, that I have earned the right to soapbox a little on these issues, as do all leaders at all levels, no matter what you do.

Think I'm wrong? Or callous? The floor's open, it's your turn.

V/R

MOGS

The Chinese Approach to Mass Transit

I'm grading papers this evening, so I thought I've leave you with a short video. 

Think of this next time you make fun of a US subway system...

Download trains_in_china.wmv

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More Political Photography Goodness

So say we all.

If you recognize the subject line, you'll know where this is going.

The Defense Department is doing some really cool biology. Why? Because body armor works. As a result, sucking chest wounds aren't that prevalent anymore. Extremity injuries, however, are now quite common. Thus, the DoD's entry into "Regenerative Medicine".

Disregard the text of this article--while good, it's simply beyond the scope of the post--just look at the pictures.

So....where's the spot for "Battlestar" or "Cylon" on my assignment preference worksheet?

Bloody Hell...

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 21, 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”

(snip)

“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.

Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.

“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace...”

Read the rest

MOGS Mode Engaged.

You know, there's days when I have to look around me and wonder. As hokey and corny as this may sound, there's times when I look around this country and find parts of it are difficult to recognize. The historian in me is what usually keeps any alarmism in check, because well, shortages have happened, and likely will continue to happen as long as there's a human race walking the planet Earth. That's not what worries me. What worries me is the nagging feeling that everything I've sworn to protect for my entire adult life now is going to start slipping away all around me (and for any lefty trolls who happen to be reading this, please take any discussions of "Itz all Booooosh's faultz! elsewhere, you're barking up the wrong tree around these parts, you know what, I have a delete button on comments and I make you NO promise about not using it).

I actually tend to think, again as an aspiring historian only, that history is going to vindicate W to a large degree...in about 20-30 years of course, assuming that there's a United States left that cares by then. I look at in the same vein as how it's taken Harry Truman a long time to earn the respect he deserves, and similarly, for Woodrow Wilson and FDR to get a second, more critical look than the bona-fide "byes" they seemed to have earned previously. If only people would get their head screwed on straight about Kennedy too, but I digress).

I mean this is America right? We're not supposed to have food shortages. I found myself talking to some grad students the other day. They kinda of scared me. They seemed to possess the belief that no one was entitled to self-defense (this was a discussion about the Virginia Tech incident - let's save this for another day, it's not my focus here), the idea of "personal responsibility" seemed rather alien.

I told them point blank that I actually thought that people were far, far, far more capable and smart than they gave credit it for. The looks of incredulity I received, just the blank eyes and metrosexual beta-male pouts that ensued was enough to make me smirk and walk off. They're going to Princeton or something.

It's sad to me. Of course "everybody has their opinion" and "you're not always right MOGS," I get that. "Not everyone can be you." Yeah, I've heard that too, and as much I as don't like it, I am not a completely independent self-sufficient mammal myself. No one is. But the idea of just lying there like a sheep, believing that you're not even entitled to raise an arm to protect you own self...

The idea was so alien to them......I felt as if I was talking to H.G. Well's ELOI. And the odd thing is, Wells was one of the far left's patron saints for a long time. He even coined the phrase "liberal fascism" and he didn't mean it in a condescending or negative way.

I tend to call these folks "the first to be eaten" re: chew toys for Morlocks, zombies, Posleen, xenomorphs, Cylons, Terminators, CHUD, or any other such as far as we know fictional grab-apple that happens to look at Planet Earth and see a nice, fat, ripe snack. I also tend to think this is why, to some of us mid-level geeks, why arch nerd-fests such as WH40K appeal so dang much (no I don't have any models or such, but I do enjoy the Dawn of War series of games and have found the novels by Dan Abnett quite entertaining - the man knows his military history and employs it great effect).

Me own sainted mother thinks, that creepiness aside, the idea of CPS sweeping into people's homes and property is completely justified and okay if its all for "the children" and when I have kids someday I'd "understand that." I kinda hope I don't ever come to understand that. I would hope to god I would raise my kids, starting with any help I can give to my godson, to be better than this. I also tend to think that this divide in opinion is why God made both men and women.

Not surprisingly, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc tend to be....interesting around La Casa della MOGSY.

Oops, I let out a secret. Yup, I MOGSY am not-so-secretly an elitist. I do happen to think that some people are better than others. It's based solely on character. It's based solely on actions, not words even. Words are easy. Even typing here is easy. Actions, now those are tough. "Character is what you are in the dark" an obscure movie character once said. Character is destiny has been the mantra of (old school) philosophy, religion, and psychology. Of course, us moderns are far too good and sophisticated for something as bourgeoise and patriarchal as "character" now aren't we?

It's weird being really young and feeling really, really old at the same time. It's not new, my sister has called me "old man" since we were kids and she's only about 3.5 years my junior. One of her best friends, about the same age has always called me "Uncle Chris" as something of a affectionate putdown. My dad swears up and down I act and think older than him. One of my airmen in Korea told me that I had "an old soul." I don't know where it came from. At age 12 we just starting to notice girls (yes once upon a time they didn't teach sex-ed at 8 and it wasn't THAT long ago), but I also noticed the Berlin Wall fell and that was important, and that some Mid-Eastern nut-job named Saddam Hussein invaded some tiny-ass little country that precocious me had never heard of, and that was also important.

Alkaline Trio have a song where they sing "At when you're only 23 it's not attractive to complain about your sore back." :)

I'm not 23.

I'm a (wannabe) historian for God's sake, who doesn't buy into post-modernism and who despises the "Rape of the Masters" that's had to take place in order to even remotely consider that stupid little ..... from Yale an "artist." And, I really don't care about her right to expression. That's fine, she has every to earn the disdain and outrage of most of the country minus the dimwits whose actually life experience counts for so very little that they could even begin to find her horrid act as any form of "art." My only hope for her is that she earns the full measure of "what goes around, comes around some day," and I've wished that sort of thing on very, very few people.

I've said it many times in the past, but I happen to think Marxism is the greatest line of wishful-thinking ever swallowed by any sizable group of people, it's led thus far to nothing except pain, suffering, tyranny, and the very destruction of the people its supposed to prop up. It's right next to the idea that "one set of values is a good as any other." Really. So, how's that panned out?

There's a lot of things I see that I don't like. Some I can do something about, most I can't. What I don't want to see is my own home changed so irrevocably, given over to the soft tyrannies that I think have already marred one generation too many, (though I think, thank God, Gen-X is starting to wake up and realize that it can't continue to sulk, sit in the corner and listen to Nirvana while the world passes it by).

What can I say? In the last couple years I've gone almost to the right side of Attila the Hun, but I for one think that on principal, libertarian or Jeffersonian views about personal responsibility and minding one's own business first are good things. I realize that I would rather have a country that allows me the freedom of choice to be conservative than mandates it. I also want freedom from a country that robs me blind to "bring about 'social justice' instead of allowing me to be a good human being and contribute to the betterment of my fellow citizens of my own free will. I'm for living in a country which practices the basic mindset of "you break it, you buy it."

I'm tired of "causes," I'm frickin' sick and tired of "awareness" - I think I'm plenty damned aware of everything under the sun now, thanks to all the Yellow-ribbon RIPOFFS out there now for every blessed thing under the sun. I'm tired of being asked to accept that feral kids beating each other up and posting it on YouTube is somehow "normal."

I wonder when the Jon Galt scenario starts to take effect? I've heard many a (resourceful, hard-working soul with means) say "screw 'em, if they keep taxing me to death and punishing me for being smart and successful, I'm just gonna quit."

Alarmist? Chicken-little? You know what? Dear God I hope so. I would rather be a complete cynic who's proven utterly wrong than a Candide` walking around with my head in the clouds and have the rug pulled out completely from under me.

It's just getting scary from atop the rampart. It seems like something's brewing over in the Old Quarter, and I just don't like it, and the men are whispering rumors, centurion.