Security

More Palin Drama

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I often deal with questions about Sarbanes-Oxley and how information security helps a company keep accurate books so an executive can sign with confidence. Palin presents the American public with the opposite vision — shop ’til you drop and do the numbers later. Note this update on the Palin clothing story:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Those are GOP aides complaining about Palin’s ethics. Clothes for her husband, her kids…missing clothing; she appears so careless and aloof that the idea of humility or ethics are completely lost. Again I am reminded of Imelda Marcos and her shoes.

The magazine goes on to say that McCain almost never spoke with Palin during the campaign and refused to let her join him in his final speech.

Why again was she nominated to be a candidate?

The lack of communication might have contributed to another problem:

Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain’s advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

Make your own conclusions but it appears to me this woman was not fit to be in the White House, and may even be unfit to serve as Governor.

Food, History, Security

Potato pancakes

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I just ate some Kartoffelpuffer, also known as latkes, or draniki, or even Placki kartoflane (Platski). Fried food is not my favorite, but I have to admit there is something deeply comforting about hot potato pancakes. Perhaps it is the habit of eating them with family and friends, or the time of year when they are most often served. Speaking of things that have strange translations in other languages, I recently noticed that the Polish word for laxative is Srodek przeczyszczajacy. Perhaps the theory is that if you can say it clearly then you don’t need it. Not sure how that came to mind…oh, right I was talking about latkes.

There seems to be an abundance of thinking about latkes in the world. I have noticed some argue potatoes are only a recent development — a New World ingredient. This suggests latkes as a concept much broader than the potato pancake. Yet I know of no modern latke without potatoes. You? Moreover, this same article argues that Holofernes, a general of Nebuchadnezzar, was beheaded by Judith after a meal of latkes. Really? A general was put to sleep by latkes? I think the regular story of a general who drank too much and let his guard down is more likely. It is not just history that comes up in the latke texts. I also found philosophy. The famous debates have seen latkes used as a vehicle of metaphysics:

  • Latkes necessarily exist. (Classical metaphysics.)
  • Whatever there are, some of them are latkes. (Free metaphysics.)
  • In every possible world there is a latke, though perhaps not the same latke. (Modal semantics.)
  • Necessarily, there is an x such that x is the square root of 2, and there is another x which is a latke. (Technical modal mathematical logic.)

All this thinking about potato pancakes is interesting, but to be honest I really just like to eat them. Nothing like a good Kartoffelpuffer with a seasonal Bock — Weihenstephaner Korbinian to go with wild-boar sausage and a side of sauerkraut, Spätzle and of course potato pancakes…yum.

Poetry, Security

Bright Star

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by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

The ever present question…constellation or shooting star?

History, Security

The Long View

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Rob Brezsny has many funny things to say, and they are often enlightening as well. I like this bit:

Roshi’s wisdom reminded me of an anecdote told by Henry Kissinger, an American politician who was Secretary of State in the 1970s. Kissinger once asked Chinese premier Zhou Enlai what he thought of the French Revolution, which had happened two centuries earlier. “Too soon to tell,” Chou answered.

If only we could apply this logic in the SIEM or even incident market. I was just given a few weeks to investigate a serious incident…can it be done? Where is Inspector Poirot when you need him? Those TV detectives always seem to resolve things within one episode or two at the most.