Police ‘resisted’ de Menezes inquiry

Scotland Yard “initially resisted” the independent police watchdog leading the inquiry into the fatal shooting by police of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, it was confirmed today.

Contrary to early reports of the shooting, the leaks indicated that Mr de Menezes had done little to arouse suspicion other than to emerge from a block of flats in south London that had been under surveillance.

“There are lies that have been told and lies that have been allowed to remain uncorrected. He was not wearing a bulky jacket … he did not run.”

And an officer already had him in restraint when they shot him seven times in the head. Which seems like cold-blooded unjustifiable murder to me.

Our previous post has more details.

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My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

– Mother Jones

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed a secret lawsuit against Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham that contends he should forfeit his Rancho Santa Fe home [in San Diego] to the government because it was purchased with illegally obtained money.

And right behind them no doubt will be the IRS.

Cunningham’s troubles started with another home sale in 2003. He sold his Del Mar-area home to defense contractor Mitchell Wade for $1.675 million. Wade, who put it back on the market shortly after he bought it, sold it at a $700,000 loss.

Cunningham also lived on Wade’s yacht, the Duke-Stir, while in Washington, D.C.

Wade’s company, MZM Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based company that was sold yesterday for an undisclosed sum, has received $163 million in defense contracts since 2002.

Sue, who is a forensic accountant says, don’t try to play hide the money with real estate deals because the paper trails are enormous and obvious. To do so is really really dumb.

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Fresh from visits to Canada’s Yukon Territory and Alaska’s northernmost city, four U.S. senators said on Wednesday that signs of rising temperatures on Earth are obvious and they called on Congress to act.

“If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something’s going on, I just think you’re not listening,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Dubya, even your own are saying global warming is real and we need action now.

PS Santa Claus asks for global warming relief

Santa Claus is coming to towns early this year, fleeing the North Pole in his kayak to raise awareness about global warming. Due to changes in global climate conditions, Santa’s Arctic homeland is rapidly melting and threatening the elves’ workshop. This summer, Santa and an elite group of his elfin assistants will dash into major cities to educate citizens, politicians and business on ways to prevent global warming.

“I don’t want to be ho-ho-homeless!” said Santa, in an emotional pre-event interview.

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ZoneAlarm still gets top ratings as a security suite. And things were fine until they released version 6.0.

WARNING, it shrieks, popping up an obnoxious red box, this application is showing DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR. This happens way too often in the new version, generally when an application is using Internet Explorer to access the Net. Well, lots of apps use IE to access the Net, and for good reason too, and ZoneAlarm 6.0 appears incapable of determining what’s a legit app and what isn’t.

I’ve gotten The Shriek from ZoneAlarm warning me about such sinister programs as the Counterspy antispyware program, Adobe PhotoShop Elements, Windows Update (yes, it is so muddle-headed it said Windows Update might be dangerous), and most brain-dead of all, it actually warned that ZoneAlarm was showing dangerous behavior. That’s right, it reported on itself. Erroneously, one assumes.

For geeks and coders, well, we know ZoneAlarm is acting stupid. Read the message, of course. Determine that it is reporting on a harmless app and then ignore it. But what about the less tech-oriented who will read the message, panic, mark the app as dangerous, and then soon wonder why programs that used to work no longer do. It’ll be because ZoneAlarm is blocking them from acting, that’s why, and Windows Update is definitely something you want functioning and not disabled by a clueless program.

Also, the excelllent WindowsSecrets reports ZoneAlarm 6.0 has serious install problems.

The latest version of ZoneAlarm products is beset with reports of incompatibilities and other problems.

Zone Labs’ user forum has been humming with complaints from users that version 6 of the company’s software has disabled other applications, interferes with POP3 e-mail downloads, and has other issues.

Still, they advise, hang it there, it’s still the best security suite, and they’ll fix the bugs.

I hope so, else ZoneAlarm will go the way of Norton Security Suite, a once great program that is now so bloated and buggy it’s barely worth using.

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