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Hacked! Seven tips for fighting back!

In this post, which will soon become a permanent page, I share what I’ve learned in battling back from hacking and spamming attacks to regain control of my website and make it secure. This brings to mind the wider issue of the internet’s vulnerability, which I will address in follow-up posts. During the last six [...]

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Live blogging TEOTWAWKI: The Grapes of Wrath II

“On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment. . . . In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” (The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939) “I feel the outlook for a [...]

Asides

• "Earth 2100," ABC's two-hour "journey through the next century to explore what might be our worst-case scenario," aired on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Through a graphic novel format, the program follows generations of an American family during a 21st century in which "the 'perfect storm' of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change converge . . . with catastrophic results." How bad could it get? "Life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind." When the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) is the subject of prime time television network news, one can only hope the powers that be and the general public will take notice. #
• In "The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold" (The Nation, May 26, 2009), Andy Kroll writes, "That $700 billion bailout has since grown into a more than $12 trillion commitment by the US government and the Federal Reserve. . . . Seven months in, the bailout's impact is unclear. . . . What cannot be disputed, however, is the financial bailout's biggest loser: the American taxpayer. . . . So far, the bailout has favored rescued financial institutions by subsidizing their losses to the tune of $356 billion . . . letting companies take taxpayer money without a coherent plan for how they might return to viability. . . . The newer bailout programs rolled out by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner give private equity firms, hedge funds and other private investors significant leverage to buy "toxic" or distressed assets, while leaving taxpayers stuck with the lion's share of the risk and potential losses. . . . It's not your health that the government is focused on, it's theirs-- the very banks and lenders whose convoluted financial systems provided the underpinnings for staggering salaries and bonuses, while bringing our economy to the brink of another Great Depression." #
• ". . . Our economy, indeed our entire civilization, is based on an obviously false assumption that we can have growth without limits. Even if we were able to restart the economic engine and push the pedal to the floor, we would not get far before we ran out of gas. And fresh water. And fertile soil. And food. And a lot of other necessities of life that we have taken for granted, without consideration of the future. We live on a small planet with limited resources, and we are using them up at an alarming rate. In just my lifetime, our population has grown from 2.2 billion to 6.7 billion, over three hundred percent. There's a kind of desperation that growth rate breeds. We need more houses, more TVs, more cars, more highways, more food, more iPods, more energy, more everything every year, to keep up with growth, to keep investors happy, to keep the economy thriving, to keep from . . . from what? Is it like that bus in "Speed," or that character in "Crank," that you die if you slow down? What if it's just the opposite? What if this economic downturn is nothing compared to the crash we were heading for if we had continued full speed? I don't think the economy will ever be what it was, but maybe that will force us to change our assumptions about what it should be." (Gib on oftwominds.com) #
• "Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society," reports USAToday. " The research, conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100, compared to a previous 2003 MIT study that forecast a rise of just over 4 degrees." MIT's latest computer modeling confirms the worst-case scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007. #
• "The purpose of the Wall Street financial system is to help well-connected Ivy League grads form business-to-business and business-to-government patronage networks for mutual personal enrichment. Any benefits to the real economy are purely incidental." (Comment on Grasping Reality With Both Hands) "It's time to set aside the myth of the mega-bank as victim. These banks aren't 'too big to fail,' but simply 'too politically connected to fail.'" (Bill Buzenberg in the Huffington Post) "These phony stress tests might be laughable if only the truth behind them wasn’t so terrifying: Our own government is clearly cooking the books— using these false criteria to deceive you; hoping you’ll trust banks that are clearly hanging by a thread." (Martin Weiss in Money and Markets) #