Thankful

A Christmas 1943 Gift

You may know we have to move.

Thus you may know there’s packing to do.

This evening Ruby came across this treasure from 1943, so I took a photo of me holding it:

a Christmas gift from 1943
a gift my Roth grandparents gave to friends for Christmas 1943

How it came into our possession, I no longer recall. I wonder if one of the recipients’ kin gave it to us.

Well, I also scanned it front and back, and thereon lies the rest of the story. Read it all

Critical Security Update for Internet Explorer

I grateful for the Firefox browser. And I’m thankful not to have to use Internet Explorer (except for Web page testing).

But I know the majority of the world still uses IE. So here’s my PSA for you folks:

This security update resolves nine privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 6 on Windows clients, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows clients. For Internet Explorer 6 on Windows servers, this update is rated Important. And for Internet Explorer 8 on Windows servers, this update is rated Moderate.

Source: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-018

HT: Small Business Computing

Blog Attack

Somebody (from Saudi Arabia, apparently) attacked this blog this morning.

First, someone succeeded in breaching my login. Once in there, he changed my login password as well as the email associated with my account. That was at 11:29.

Then he launched four SQL Injection Attacks at 11:31, 11:33, 11:34, and 11:43. Thankfully, those were detected and blocked by my firewall, which also identified the attacker’s IP as 94.97.85.10.

Thankfully, I tried to log in shortly thereafter.

When I couldn’t do so because my password wasn’t valid, my cranial alarm bells went from dormant to frenzied in a NanoSomethingOrOther.

I went straight to my SQL database, changed the email address on my account back to what it should be, then changed the password. I was done with that by 11:53.

I’ve been unable to detect any other damage done to this blog. But this person could have changed posts, comments, and pictures. So I’m warning you: there may be bad content somewhere here.

If you come across evidence of such tampering, please let me know right away.

Thanks.

And may God bless the attacker. Amen.

Asylum for Homeschoolers

We have customers who finally had to move from Germany to another European country for the same reason the Romeikes moved to the US:

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike may have been considered outside the norms of civil society in their native Germany, but not in Morristown, Tennessee, where they and their five children now live. The Romeikes are homeschoolers who are determined to provide the education for their children, ranging in age from two to twelve. In Morristown, that is about as controversial as bass fishing, but in Germany it is a crime.

The Romeike's tale is big news today, with both TIME Magazine and The New York Times devoting major stories to their plight, and to the fact that a federal immigration judge in Memphis granted them asylum — and homeschooling is the reason.

As Campbell Robertson reports in today’s edition of The New York Times, the Romeike’s determination to homeschool their children ran into direct collision with German laws banning the practice: “Among European countries, Germany is nearly alone in requiring, and enforcing, attendance of children at an officially recognized school. The school can be private or religious, but it must be a school. Exceptions can be made for health reasons but not for principled objections.”

Source: Where Homeschooling is Outlawed — Asylum?

I am thankful for the freedom we have in the United States (yet) to educate our children according to the dictates of our conscience.

Haiti: God’s Miracle for Darlene Etienne

Darlene Etienne in Haiti

Praise God! And bless the rescuers!

French rescuers pulled a teenage girl — very dehydrated, with a broken left leg and moments from death — from the rubble of a home near the destroyed St. Gerard University on Wednesday, a stunning recovery 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city.

Darlene Etienne was rushed to a French military field hospital and then to the French military hospital ship Sirroco, groaning through an oxygen mask with her eyes open in a lost stare.

“She’s alive!” said paramedic Paul Francois-Valette, who accompanied her into the hospital.

Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water, little alone more than two weeks.

Source: Stunning recovery: Haitian girl pulled from debris

Bless God for this wonderful miracle!

And kudos to the French rescue team who hadn’t quit yet.

President Roth’s SOTUS

Personal memo to each of you who voted in the 2008 US Presidential election: One at a time, you could have elected me. 😯

In an hour or so, President Obama gives his State of the Union Speech.

But what if it were President Roth (as in, I) giving the address, what could you expect?

  1. No advance copy to anyone (except my wife)
  2. No teleprompter(s)
  3. No Presidential special guests beyond former Presidents willing to attend
  4. No speech writers
  5. No partisanship
  6. No laundry list of my accomplishments or my goals
  7. “Ask what good you can do for you neighbor…then do it.”
  8. “I have asked what good I can do for you. I’ve come up with two things I can promise right now. First, I will veto any legislation that has any earmarks attached. Second, I will push hard for a reduction in income tax rates with matching reductions in federal spending.”
  9. “We have had a hard year. So did the Pilgrims. And they had a time of thanksgiving. For what are you thankful? Fellow Americans, answer the question in your own hearts. Then tell each other. Let’s cultivate a spirit of gratefulness.”
  10. “President Carter, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  11. “President Bush 41, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good thing he did for the country.
  12. “President Clinton, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  13. “President Bush 43, please stand. Thank you, sir, for…” followed by three good things he did for the country.
  14. “I reaffirm my appreciation for our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The Almighty has blessed us beyond measure through the principles and laws established by our founding documents.”
  15. “I am grateful to be an American. We live in an exceptional country. God Himself has bestowed on us freedoms and liberty few nations have enjoyed. We have carelessly surrendered too many of those. We have brazenly abused others of them. And many we have put to good use for ourselves, our families, our communities, our country, and even our world.”
  16. “I asked you about your own thankfulness. You aren’t here to express them in this forum. But your representatives are here. So we’ll have a fifteen minute open mike period in another five minutes or so. In that time slot, Senators and Representatives with a sincere personal expression of gratefulness may have a maximum of fifteen seconds to say one thing for which they are thankful. While you’re thinking, let me tell you some things for which I’m thankful…not as President, but as Mark Roth….”

See what you missed? 🙄

You may be thankful for that also. 😉

Above all, love God!
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