Monthly Archives: May 2004

Programme Updates: Two Utilities Necessary to Surf Safely

Web & Tech

TECH-TUESDAY

A short column this week. Down to business, with a couple of updates to enhance your computing life.


SPYBOT

Patrick Kolla wrote Spybot: Search & Destroy, a free download that is one of VanRamblings’ most recommended programmes. Spybot is an anti-spyware scanner that finds and cleans out adware on your PC so your private information can’t be transmitted. The software is so popular worldwide that user donations support Kolla’s company, Safer Networking Limited, which he runs with help from his father, Dr. Michael Kolla, and Team Spybot, a group of computer science students.
This week Team Spybot released a new, and far superior, version of Spybot. Go here to download the programme. You won’t be sorry you did.


SPYBOT

And, while you’re updating your security programmes, now is as good a time as any to update your version of McAfee Stinger. McAfee’s Stinger programme is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist PC users when dealing with an infected system. It utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations, and as such should be a regular part of your PC maintenance protocol. Go here to download version 2.2.7.

NBC’s Fall Schedule: Actors Devouring Genitalia of Dead Animals

Television


Click on the graphic above for more info on NBC’s fall schedule

From the Defamer: Happy to derive its laughs from aspiring actors devouring the genitalia of dead animals on Fear Factor and from hopeless nerds trying to lay third-place beauty pageant contestants on Average Joe, NBC’s fall schedule will go light on the sitcoms.
The only new comedies on NBC will be the animated, Siegfried and Roy-inspired (and, disappointingly, mauling-free) Father of the Pride, and Friends spinoff Joey. NBC head Jeff Zucker is banking on Joey to deliver big ratings numbers in the Friends timeslot; if it falters, expect Matt LeBlanc to ingest a yak labia just before each commercial break.
For a somewhat less catty take on NBC’s proposed 2004-05 television season read Daniel Fienberg at Zap2it.com, who writes that the motto for NBC’s upcoming season ought to be ‘Comedy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’.
Gary Levin, at USA Today, indicates that NBC seems to not to have much faith in their coming season, given the large number of mid-season replacements that are on order.
Kimberly Potts at E-Online offers this, while Lisa de Moraes, at The Washington Post, suggests that the proper way to appreciate NBC’s fall schedule would be to have a stiff drink in hand.
For the remaining fall television schedules for the major U.S. networks, click on the following direct VanRamblings’ links: ABC, FOX, the WB, and CBS.

See No Evil: Childhood Experience and The Politics of Denial
A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and
childhood punishment play in politics

Politics



What is the relationship between the Iraq prison scandal, and the impulses that drive all of us, for good or bad, including those that have driven President Geroge W. Bush? In a Newsweek magazine story, reporter Brian Braiker interviews Michael Milburn, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, for an answer to that question.
Co-author of The Politics of Denial, Dr. Milburn explores factors determinant in forming political attitudes, the role of emotion in public opinion, and the effects of the mass media on political attitudes and social behaviour. When discussing President Bush’s formative experiences, Milburn offers …

Bush is really fascinating. There was a televised interview with Barbara Bush during the [2000] campaign. She was talking about her son and relating this one incident where he had come home drunk and his father was walking out to talk to him. W was saying, “OK Dad, right now, let’s do it.” Clearly there’s a tremendous amount of anger there. Not that this explains everything that’s going on, but it’s clearly, to me, a factor in his “I’m gonna get the guy who threatened my dad but I’m also going to show my dad that I can do stuff that he couldn’t do [attitude]”.

Anger and resentment appear to be playing an increasingly important role in politics. To what degree is the political process in the United States determined by unresolved negative emotions (such as fear, anger and helplessness) that remain from punitive parenting, and by the politicians and conservative religious leaders who exploit those emotions?

Provincial Lie-berals: One Year To Go On The Road to Defeat

BC Politics

LIBERAL-DEFEAT

This weekend marks both the Liberal anniversary — it was three years ago that the B.C. Liberals swept into office with the largest majority in provincial history — and the one-year countdown to the next election, May 17, 2005.
By any measure, the last three years have been marked by turbulence, a dramatic downturn in the economy, and chaos in government. Tens of thousands of jobs have been cut, hospitals and courthouses across the province have been closed, delivery of health care services has become increasingly privatized, B.C. Rail and B.C. Hydro have been sold off, and children, the poor and the disabled have found themselves under almost constant attack from, perhaps, the most right-wing government on the continent.
In the process, the Lie-beral government has battled with major segments of the population, including teachers, students, seniors, nurses, doctors, health care support workers, lawyers, judges and public sector unions. Strikes and other labour disputes have forced the cancellation of thousands of surgeries and medical procedures, ferries and transit services.
As a result, the government has lost public support from almost the moment they were elected. At present, the B.C. Liberals and the New Democrats are locked in a dead heat in popularity numbers, setting the stage for a political dogfight. Over the course of the next year, VanRamblings will continue to chronicle the litany of government abuses to which the Lie-berals have subjected British Columbians.