Alarums and Excursions

Robert M. Jeffers pours out the wine of his wrath upon Richard Dawkins, with excellent results. (Obligatory caveat: I don’t dislike Dawkins because he’s an outspoken atheist; I dislike him because he’s shallow, sloppy, and a lousy writer. Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Echidne talks about new research on the vulnerabilities of Diebold voting machines, and wonders what would happen if everyone exploited them. It’s a good question. Apropos of which, here's Bruce Schneier on hackers:

I believe the best computer security experts have the hacker mindset. When I look to hire people, I look for someone who can't walk into a store without figuring out how to shoplift. I look for someone who can't test a computer security program without trying to get around it. I look for someone who, when told that things work in a particular way, immediately asks how things stop working if you do something else. We need these people in security, and we need them on our side.

Alicublog discusses the conservatarians’ attempted rehabilitation of the racialist, anti-American loon Enoch Powell (which just goes to show that David Brooks was right: Conservatives are "acutely conscious of their intellectual forebears"). I’m thinking Eric Clapton could help this cause by recording a new single of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” backed with Skrewdriver’s “The Evil Crept In.”

Speaking of loons, Cryptome investigates an odd compound in the mountains of New Mexico. And Orcinus posts a photo of a GOP billboard from 1949.