The Conservatives in Canada have finally rid that nation of its noxious Section 13.
Now Ezra Levant is looking at his next target: broadcast censors. Good luck to Levant on that.
June 30, 2012
June 29, 2012
The Moral Case For Free Markets
This has been a popular topic on the Right over the past few weeks, starting I think with Arthur Brooks’s new book on the topic. The book has drawn a pretty fair amount of attention.
Since then, John Hinderaker notes a Mitt Romney speech, David Weinberger has a good post on the morality of conservatism, and Kevin Williamson has an outstanding post on Detroit’s State-sponsored failure.
As the story goes, Mises blew apart socialism with his Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth and his subsequent, aptly-titled book, but it was Hayek’s moral case which we tend to cite more. Technical arguments are important, but moral arguments sway people more.
June 28, 2012
Parasites Need Hosts
Joe Biden spits out another gaffe which is probably oh-so-truthful: turns out that he and President Obama, as well as their spouses, “[never] would have had any shot” without the coercive force of the State.
June 27, 2012
All…Well, Some…Err, A Couple Of The Above
President Obama’s “All of the Above” energy policy (remember when Sarah Palin was mocked for this?) doesn’t really include coal. But on the other hand, Palin probably didn’t think of the ingenious idea of burning money to generate power—I mean, that’s how Solyndra operated, right?
On the bright side, maybe the inevitable death panels could be turned into a proven energy plan.
June 26, 2012
Powershell: Scheduled Tasks With Excel Fail
I have a Powershell script which performs some data collection, dumps it into Excel, formats the Excel data, and e-mails that spreadsheet. This script worked just fine when I ran it live, but it just wouldn’t work as a scheduled task. It wasn’t that the scheduled task failed as such; it just never finished.
While looking this up, I found an interesting article which notes that you need to make sure that you de-allocate variables before trying to quit Excel. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the answer—I was already closing everything down.
It took a while, but I found several answers…none of which really seemed satisfying.
The real fix is that you need to add a missing folder. Add a blank folder named Desktop in C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\. For x64 systems, also add a Desktop folder to C:\Windows\sysWOW64\config\systemprofile\. After you add that folder, your scheduled tasks will work correctly—Excel (and other Office products) will close as expected and all is well.
June 25, 2012
Autobiography, The Oldest Form Of Fiction
David Maraniss has a new biography out which seems to tear apart a good amount of President Obama’s autobiography. Steven Hayward wonders where vetting has gone, noting that Gary Hart (serial liar) was actually vetted…after an effect.
June 24, 2012
Contempt For Holder
The House Oversight committee voted for contempt charges against Eric Holder. Fast and Furious is getting pretty fast and furious. Paco’s been good at rounding up information on this scandal.
Mickey Kaus makes fun of Eugene Robinson. John Hinderaker points out Eric Holder’s poor legal scholarship, stating that typically, when your argument for executive privilege is so poor, it usually indicates that you’re struggling to cover up something important.
Let’s look at the bright side, though: I’m sure that this has been great for Mexican-American relations.
June 23, 2012
Security Notes Of Interest
- Dan Kaplan at SC Magazine notes that banks and customers are getting better at preventing bank fraud from being lucrative for criminals.
- A PCI compliance scanner for Google Drive. Sounds pretty interesting.
- You’ve heard about the LinkedIn account passwords being stolen, but that’s not the only problem lately.
- So, hey, OAuth is good, but don’t do it wrong.
- Jon Oberheide and Charlie Miller noted ways of getting malicious apps past the Android Bouncer.
June 22, 2012
Still Not Occupying A Job
The Occupy movement ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. A hilarious whimper.
June 21, 2012
An Easy Way To Save A Million Dollars A Year
Joe Biden spends $1 million of taxpayer money each year flying back to Delaware each weekend. Joe Biden makes a bit over $230K per year as Commander in Comic Relief; the least he could do is spend his own money, rather than making us spend ours for him.
