There is a new yardstick for the size of the universe. It is approximately equal to the size of Kanye West’s ego.

Kanye West’s Hip-Hop Sci-Fi Space Odyssey Comes to the Garden

A number of readers complained to me or to Harper’s about that delightful Hillary-as-Hitler video I posted the other day, which was created by comedian James Adomian. But the public has spoken (or rather, clicked), and the critics appear to be in the minority:

First uploaded to YouTube May 7, “Hillary’s Downfall” has tallied more than 300,000 views. The bump in views skyrocketed Adomian’s account to the sixth-most-viewed comedian slot this week, into the realm of YouTube web comedy staples like Michael Buckley and College Humor’s video channel…”I don’t have the resources to release my complaints in real time, like on a talk show,” said Adomian. “So I thought it was cathartic to imagine what it would be like in Hillary’s bunker when they got the bad news [that she’d lost the nomination].”

On That Hillary–Hitler Video: The verdict is in

Criminal organizations and individuals frequently use the telecommunication systems of the United States to further serious crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping, extortion, organized crime, drug trafficking, and public corruption. One of the most effective tools law enforcement agencies use to acquire evidence of these crimes is electronic surveillance techniques.1 However, continuing advances in telecommunication technology have impaired and in some instances prevented law enforcement from conducting some types of authorized electronic surveillance.

With advances in telecommunication technologies and law enforcement’s growing concern about the ability to conduct authorized electronic surveillance, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994. The purpose of CALEA was to enable law enforcement to conduct electronic surveillance despite the deployment of new technologies and wireless services that have altered the character of electronic surveillance. To facilitate CALEA implementation, Congress appropriated nearly $500 million to the Telecommunications Carrier Compliance Fund (TCCF). The Attorney General was designated to reimburse telecommunication carriers for the cost of modifying equipment, facilities, or services installed or deployed on or before January 1, 1995, to assist law enforcement authorities in carrying out its surveillance activities. In February 1995, the Attorney General delegated CALEA management to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

To integrate all FinCEN activities, this plan focuses on three mission-critical outcome goals for the next 5 years: financial systems resistant to criminal abuse; detection and deterrence of money laundering, terrorism financing, and other illicit activity; and efficient management, safeguarding, and use of BSA information. The plan also outlines five cross-cutting principles that will serve as the foundation for all our work:

1. A quest for maximum efficiency and effectiveness in both our internal operations and our external impact;
2. A commitment to create value for the wide range of government customers that rely on the BSA data and analyses of that data;
3. Partnerships and collaboration with a host of external entities as well as among FinCEN employees with different areas of expertise;
4. A global perspective; and
5. Use of secure, advanced technology to facilitate all our operations.

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Strategic Plan for 2008 - 2012

This research covers the discovery of a server controlled by hackers (Crimeserver) containing more than 1.4 Gigabyte of business and personal data stolen from infected PCs. The data consisted of 5,388 unique log files. Both email communications and web-related data were among them.

This analysis contains findings indicating that Crimeware has reached a new level of sophistication. We detected a Crimeserver which was used as a command and control for the Crimeware that was executed on infected PCs. This Crimeserver was also used as the “drop site” for private information being harvested by that Crimeware. The Command & Control applications on this Crimeserver enabled the hacker to manage the actions and performance of his Crimeware, giving him control over the uses of the Crimeware as well as its victims. Since the stolen data was left unprotected on the Crimeserver, without any access restrictions or encryption, the data were freely available for anyone on the web, including criminal elements.

Malicious Page of the Month

This document is intended to assist organizations in installing, configuring, and maintaining secure servers. More specifically, this document describes, in detail, the following practices to apply:

* Securing, installing, and configuring the underlying operating system
* Securing, installing, and configuring server software
* Maintaining the secure configuration through application of appropriate patches and upgrades, security testing, monitoring of logs, and backups of data and operating system files.

NIST Guide to General Server Security

Apparently Bush, too, wants to see an end to the race for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name, and the White House said his remarks were not aimed at the senator. But in a lengthy speech intended to promote the strong alliance between the United States and Israel, the president invoked the emotionally volatile imagery of World War II to make the case that talking to “terrorists and radicals” was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis.

From the archive:

"You can't talk sense to them," Bush said, referring to terrorists.

"Nooooo!" the audience roared.

See also, Hillary's Downfall.

Bush Issues Veiled Attack on Obama

Fred Salvucci ponders the role of contingency in history, and in the evolution of Boston and its transportation system. He starts from the time the glaciers pulled back from Boston, leaving a soggy near-island and a river for the first white settlers to contend with. “The reason the city is here because of an accident of history,” he says. In the 1600s, “when the English first came, they made a mistake,” Salvucci reports. Thinking that the Charles would run deep and wide for a thousand miles inland, offering vital trade routes, the English hunkered down.

Once they realized their mistake (the Charles is about a foot deep in Watertown, MA, six miles away), the settlers built on the resources at hand, which included enormous stocks of cod and good ship-building lumber. The “poverty of a place forces skills, which in turn makes the place not poor,” says Salvucci. These Protestant settlers also set about, in near record time, establishing schools like Boston Latin and Harvard.

Boston’s rapid expansion and prosperity led to innovations such as filling land, which in turn led to unexpected transportation developments. The first commercial use of rail in the New World, Salvucci tells us, was to haul in granite for the Bunker Hill monument, and to bring dirt from the suburbs for Boston builders. When people realized they could use the new technology to transport farm products, the Boston & Worcester Railroad was born. But the idea of moving people around didn’t emerge until the 1800s, when the concept of living one place and working in another led to streetcars in Boston and elsewhere. Around 1900, Boston led the nation with the first subway (“a little dinky one”) running just two blocks. In two decades, the guts of the city’s subway system emerged, making Salvucci’s own Big Dig project appear modest in comparison (adjusting for inflation).

Salvucci remarks on the numerous cases of “indirect causality” through human history, how things “built in ways that are unanticipated and probably unanticipatable.” In 1865, there were no electric street cars. By 1900, U.S. East Coast cities were covered by them. In 1900, there were 2,000 autos in the U.S., and by 1920, there were so many cars that city rail networks began dying out. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can “predict tomorrow based on yesterday plus a small delta,” warns Salvucci.

History of Boston Transportation, 1630-1990

Description from Mtanga:

The video below is, in my view, a very funny, albeit scathing parody of the last days of the Clinton campaign. However, I urge you not to watch it if you are sensitive to foul language, as it is replete with filthy words. Also, it's worth mentioning that the footage used is from a truly superb 2005 film called Downfall, in which Bruno Ganz gives a sensational performance as Adolph Hitler. Highly recommended and well worth renting.

Zer Gut!

During the 110th Congress, under the leadership of Chairman Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), the Committee continued its investigation into the threat of domestic radicalization and homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist ideology. The Committee has held five more hearings exploring a range of subjects, including an assessment of the homegrown threat in the United States, the European experience with domestic radicalization, the federal government’s efforts to counter the homegrown terrorist threat, the role of local law enforcement in responding to the threat, and the Internet’s role in the radicalization process.

This staff report concerns the last of these subjects – how violent Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are using the Internet to enlist followers into the global violent Islamist terrorist movement and to increase support for the movement, ranging from ideological support, to fundraising, and ultimately to planning and executing terrorist attacks. In the second section of this report, we examine the increasing number of homegrown incidents and the judgments of the intelligence and law enforcement communities that there will likely be additional homegrown threats in the future. The third section explores the four-step radicalization process through which an individual can be enticed to adopt a violent Islamist extremist mindset and act on the ideology’s call to violence. Section four identifies the disturbingly broad array of materials available on the Internet that promote the violent Islamist extremist ideology. The availability of these resources is not haphazard, but is part of a comprehensive, tightly controlled messaging campaign by al-Qaeda and like-minded extremists designed to spread their violent message. The fifth section of the report examines how these materials facilitate and encourage the radicalization process.

Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat