Tag: bug

West Nile and You

West Nile and You

Mosquito_Tasmania_crop

For the last several years West Nile has made the news.

image

West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne zoonotic arbovirus belonging to the genus Flavivirus in the family Flaviviridae. This flavivirus is found in temperate and tropical regions of the world.

You….

What can you do to a: protect yourself and your family and B: the community in which you live?

Someone told me that there were not that many mosquitoes in my area to worry about anything other than myself.  Use pesticides with Deet to protect myself and don’t worry about it.

I however did not believe them, and I also care about my neighbors; and the small animals that live outdoors and become food for those winged vampires of the night!

I installed not one but two bug zappers in my back yard.

maxresdefault (4)

Each bug zapper is good for an acre and my back yard is rather small city sized lot.

After one night of operation here are the results:

bug zapper 1
bug zapper 1
dead mosquitoes
Bug zapper 1 after one night
IMG_2621
Bug zapper II 25 feet from bug zapper 1
dead bugs
Bug zapper II twenty five feet from bug zapper 1

So, now what can you do?

Buy a bug zapper or two and install them, especially if you are in an area with West Nile.

They are on eBay, Amazon and a host of other places and if your hold your mouth right the local hardware store may actually have them, I would not count on that however.

The trick is that these things attract bugs.  You know “go to the light…..”

So you need to hang them far enough from your door that they actually draw them away from your house.

Nope, they are not cheap.  Anywhere from $50 to $80.  What is your health worth?

-Best

PS. Are you itching yet?  I am just looking at this…. ZAP!

Update 6/11/15

I have no idea who besides me is interested in this such as this but…..

The next day both bug zapper were about half full...  No biggie; use compressed air and blow out the dead mozzies and put the zappers back in place.

Expecting that they would not be as full today I could not have been more wrong.

 

IMG_2639 IMG_2638

Today …Day 3 of the great bug barbecue the zappers were both chock-a-block full of fried Mozzies!

Today the newest Zapper arrived, I replaced the oldest with a “clog-proof model.” 

Tomorrow will most undoubtedly bring more Fried Mozzies but will there be less, or more or about the same….?

Yes, Mosquitoes were harmed during the making of this blog!

Yes, there were a few other critters that met their maker as well but 99% were mosquitoes!

Stay tuned for more Mozzy mayhem…..

-Best

 

 

© All Rights Reserved 2015

www.guard-protect.com

Advertisement

#Gods and #Insects

Gods and Insect

 The text below contains some graphic language and situations that some might find offensive.

Seventy three years after one of the greatest tragedies to ever befall this country was perpetrated; we find ourselves in the midst of yet another struggle for mankind.

The word “Mankind,” has a hollow ring to it as I write it.  In light of recent events unfolding around the globe, I often wonder how it is that we have not managed to destroy ourselves.  We have enough nuclear material to kill all living things on this earth many times over.

More than the WMD, we have a never ended supply of hate.  We cherish the hatred, and feed off of it like it was some tonic that would cause destruction to our enemy’s.  We see heinous crimes committed against our fellow man, and feed off the anger.  We are taught to love our enemy but, that is a little tough when your heart is full of anger, isn’t it?

We see Americans who hate America and everything that it stands for.  We watch as innocent people loose their livelihoods because someone ran afoul of the law and paid the ultimate price.  We have lost trust in our governing bodies, and indeed don’t trust the man on the street, who we hire to protect us, from those that would harm us.

We have celebrities who for whatever reason think it necessary to foment racial tension using their celebrity status and while they are at it, desecrate the flag.  I wonder how many wounded warriors and vets saw that; and would love to have been there to visit with you about that.

Our government lies to us, and the media covers it up.  We have folks on either side of the isle that are either stupid, or ideologues, or just plain brainwashed into believing that communism will work “this time.”

Communism never has worked.  The people at the top enjoy living like a king, and everyone else is subjugated to supporting them and their reckless endeavors while surviving on what is not taken from them.

There was an analogy that I heard the other night that made sense.  If you think of the people as gods and insects, some are born gods, the rest insects.  The gods don’t worry about stepping on a few ants!

Every communistic country has gods and insects!  North Korea, a xenophobic country run by a 20 something year old god, or son of a god; keeps its people ignorant of the rest of the world and literally in the dark.  They are the worker bees in that bee hive and there is one queen, well leader.

Kim Jong iI was truly given god status.  His legacy includes the fact that he never defecated.    Gods don’t poop.  On his first ever game of golf he scored a 38 under par with no less than 11 holes in one! This God was enthralled with movies.  While he enjoyed King Kong movies it is reported that he owned somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 DVD movies.  He enjoyed Pornography, and had a huge stash of same.

This God had a fear of flying, so he traveled everywhere by armored train car.  While millions of North Koreans were starving to death, this god had shipments of live lobsters shipped to his train as he traveled. Dignitaries that traveled with him from time to time noted that whatever kind of food you wanted, was delivered.

His list of accomplishments goes on to say that he composed 6 operas in 2 years

This god liked the spirits to the tune of $800,000.00 in one year. Cognac Hennessy and Burgundy red wines from France were also shipped to his train.

Officially, Kim was born in Siberia while is father Kim-iL Sung was in exile. The “official Korean story is” that He was born in a log cabin on North Koreas highest mountain, where the event was marked by a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky.

This particular God had a reverence for the King, Elvis Presley.  He had several jump suits and even had glasses that looked like the kind that Elvis wore.

After his death, his son took the rains and it is reported that his son went and had plastic surgery to look more like his father.

While they call it the “Democratic Peoples republic of Korea,” that is where democracy ends.

There are gods, and insects.

Some other not so nice gods were:

Talat Pasha. 

As the Grand Vizier of the Sultan in the Ottoman Empire circa 1917 – 1918 Talat declared an order to wipe out the Armenian Race.  They were forced into concentration camps, force to trudge naked with no food or water and when they could no longer continue they were killed.  The entire male population of Angora was exterminated.  The methods of their killing were bayonets, clubs, axes, hammers, spades, saws, and scythes.  Many were mutilated via their genitalia.  Tens of thousands were burned, drowned, poisoned, crucified, boiled and beaten to death.  Talat is accredited for killing over 1.5 million Armenians.

Josef Mengela

This physician was known as the Angel of Death in the Auschwits concentration camp.  His job was initially to choose which Jews were to be sent to the concentration camps to be killed.  He experimented on them like lab rats.  This “person” is accredited with killing over 400,000 Jews by various methods including torture.  Much like the Syrians he would torture children to see how long they could live while being tortured.  He would choose twins and see if there were any differences.  He escaped to South America where he died of a stroke in 1985.

 Does this new Universal health care have such things in it like death panels?  There is indeed a small group that will decide when they have spent enough on keeping you alive or when they should just let you die.  How far have we really gotten away from playing god?

Reinhard Heydrich

This person was the Chief of the Reich Main Security Office and second most powerful person in the SS. His actions caused the death of millions of people.  He was responsible for the mass murder of Soviet Officials and Russian Jews.

Saddam Hussein

This congenial fellow was responsible for the death of over 2 million people. He authorized chemical attacks killing over 5000 people.  His other campaigns killed between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds. Torture included such things as the gouging out of eyes, sever beatings, and electric shocks.  This nice guy had 40 of his own relatives murdered.  He executed over 400,000 Iraqis.  Many were tortured and he had the sessions filmed so he could watch it later at his home.

Maximilien Robespierre

Here is a swell fellow who was the leader of the French Revolution. Originally he wanted the people of France to have freedom and rights but when he gained power all of that changed.  He became fascinated with cutting off peoples heads! From reading his history there were most probably mental issues “paranoid schizophrenic” as he saw everyone as his enemy and thus cut off their heads via the guillotine.  He had no favorites; from Aristocrats to ordinary folks he killed upwards of 40,000.  Under his orders his men attacked Vendee, killing well over 100,000 men women and children.  He believed that it was better to kill someone, than to forgive them.

Kim Il Sung

We have already referenced This “god” who killed over 3 million people as a result of the Korean war which he started.  After the war he brainwashed the people of North Korea into loving him.  Subsequently he killed all of his officers and rivals.  More than 200,000 people were forced into concentration camps for offenses as small as dropping a picture of Kim.  A crime committed by a father would not only cost him his life but that of his children and their children.  Of over 22 million people, up to 3.5 million died due to starvation.  His death was brought on by an argument with his son who has proven to be worse than his father.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

This person was a religious leader from 1979-1989  He was the leader of the Iranian Revolution which killed up to 60,000 people.  Shia law is a strict law which removes individual’s rights. Among strict dress codes there were harsh punishments for breaking any of them.  One could be imprisoned and tortured for listening to music.  People were lashed 100 times for kissing in public.  Failure to believe in Allah meant death.  Death could be met in a few different ways which included hanging, stoned, stabbed in the chest blinded, shot or burned alive to name a few.  If you steal something your hand is cut off.  Clubs cutters and acid were other methods they use for killing people.

Emperor Hirohito

Emperor of Japan from 1926-1989 This wonderful fellow and his army killed countless Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos and Indochinese.  It was he who committed the war crimes known as the Rape of Nan king which alone killed over 300,000 people.  200,000 Women were sexually assaulted.  Husbands were sometimes forced to rape their wife’s and or daughters.  Young girls were raped and if they were too young to be penetrated, a bayonet was used first.  A total of 10 million Chinese were forced into slavery. Many of these were tortured and some were eaten! Many of these were killed in various ways including beheading, burned, boiled, roasted, buried alive, and impaled.  Some were hung by their tongues on iron hooks while some were used for bayonet practice while still others were cut in half by a sword.

These were not nice people.  As the crimes piled up they outdid themselves by disemboweling, hacking, crucifying and dismembering men while similarly women were tortured by having a long stick of bamboo or sword through their vagina.  Thousands were frozen to death and still others died from chemical attacks.  4 million people in Indonesia died from famine and 2 million in Vietnam. 400.000 died of disease and another 580,000 died after being human experiments.  The Sook Ching Massacre killed up to 90,000 Chinese.  Another 100,000 civilians in the Philippines died from the Manila massacre.

In fact, his men had orders to kill burn and loot all Chinese.  Over 20 million Chinese and 10 million Asians in other countries were killed.

Nero

5th Emporer of Rome in AD54 to AD68

He is responsible for the ruin of the empire.  Not only did he kill his entire family the way that he did it was semi-unique in that some were killed in searing hot baths!  He often raped women and cut off their private parts as well as the genitalia of men.  Nero more than likely started the great fire that left its citizens destitute. He blamed the Christians which were then summarily starved to death, burned, torn apart by dogs, fed to the lions, crucified and even used as torches.  Did he fiddle while Rome Burned?

Caligula

Romes 3rd Emperor was a wild and crazy guy underscore Crazy! He liked sexual adventure.  He became ill and his mental facilities were impaired.  He believed that he was god.  Under him the law became an instrument of torture.  His belief was that all prisoners should have a painful death.  He began to brutally murder folks for fun.  He forced families to attend their children’s execution which often consisted of strangulation and decapitation.  This man was truly sick as he would have people sawed vertically from their crotch to their chest.  This man actually chewed on peoples testicles.  People often preferred to die of suicide, versus being one of his victims.

Genghis Khan

Here is another lovely fellow.  He conquered most of China.  He killed people by pouring molten metal in their eyes and ears.  Genghis and his army killed up to 60 million people or up to 30% of the world’s population.

Leopold II of Belgium

King of Belgium from 1865-1909  He ruled the Congo free state and he lied to the world telling them he was helping them. Nothing could be further from the truth.  His men tortured and slaughtered millions of Congolese.  Hundreds of thousands had their hands, feet, noses ears and heads cut off for not bringing enough rubber. Many villages were burned forcing them to flee into the jungle.  His men flogged, raped and ate the natives.  They slaughtered the children to the tune of hundreds of thousands. Leopold and his men are accredited for killing up to 10 million Congolese during his rain of terror.

Tomas de Torquemada

No paper on assholes would be complete without this man.  This was the Grand Inquisitor of Spain.  This man is responsible for the Spanish inquisition which many of you may reference in a time of rebuttal with someone but, I wonder how many really know what this was about.

This inquisition was to root out heretics, those who threatened the Roman Catholic Church.  Remember during this time the church was not only the spiritual guidance place but it was the school and it was also the government!  His first ploy was to get people to turn on one another.  His spies manage to sew enough discontent that friends turned on friends and sons and daughters turn in their parents. Countless people were tortured, whipped, and forced to surrender all of their personal property.   Children died of starvation.  People were often naked when they were tortured.  Foot roasting and suffocation were some of their favorite techniques.  Others were hanged, burned alive or grilled.

Among some of the methods the rack is most probably one of the worst in that the victim would be stretched, often to more than a foot or more of his or her original height. It was then that the inquisitioner would rip of the victim’s nipples, tongue, ears, nose, and genitals, while others were skinned from their neck to their waste.  You were tortured until you confessed to whatever heresy that you were accused of, and then they killed you.

Sounds a lot like the mob in Ferguson wanting a fair trial for Officer Wilson, and then a hanging!

Up to 10,000 Jews were burned at the stake, many died of starvation.  By one account he killed over 30,000 people.

Mao Zedong

Here is a dictator that had some ambitions.  His goal was to make China a superpower that could Rival Russia or even the US.  In the process he created the largest Famine and genocide in history.  Millions died of execution, starvation and or suicide. 5 million Chinese were executed.  Mao turned neighbor against neighbor and sons against daughters against teachers.  He used fear to root out every last hint of dissent.  A criticism issued privately could lead to your death.  The famine killed up to 45 million.  While people were expected to work until they dropped, being late or unable to function would get you beaten.  Mao killed 70 million of his own people.

I could go on..

If you want more, read about

  • Ivan the Terrible
  • Idi Amin
  • Pol Pot
  • Don’t Forget Adolf Hitler
  • Joseph Stalin

Ok, just one more… 

Vlad “Dracula” The Impaler

All of these people were monsters.  It wasn’t enough to kill someone; it was how horribly painful can I do it.  Vlad would have a pole with a semi sharp end oiled and pushed up the person butt or other orifice.  The person was tied in such a way that they could not get off and slowly the pole would work its way up through the body until it emerged out the persons mouth.  The person could live a couple of days in excruciating pain which Vlad loved!  He is said to have killed over 100,000 people.  History records him eating around naked tortured bodies, drinking blood and many more gruesome details.  Nice fellow!

History is rife with things that we have not bothered to learn.  Had we; we might have remembered some of this stuff and when certain people violated the constitution we might object a little more strenuously.  Instead of protesting the fact that a thug was killed by a cop, you may want to think about protesting a president which makes his own laws.

If you notice, most of these monsters, made their own laws; and they had their henchmen do their dirty work. 

“You are either born a God or an insect.  Gods should not spend time thinking about insects, because it is easier to do the things that gods must do if they don’t have to worry about stepping on some ants.”

I borrowed that last paraphrased paragraph from Hollywood.  It was used in a line on a program on TV and it hit home with me.

Who ever get’s into office should really come from humble beginnings.  I think they should have served in the military so they would think twice about sending them into harms way or at the very least, have the background to know what is feasible and what they are sending them into.

America does not have emperors or kings.  The constitution is as germane today as the day that it was crafted Ms. Ginsburg.  If you don’t think that, you should probably retire.

You see, I believe that all men are created equally.  I believe that we have inalienable rights that are endowed to us by our creator, not government. Respectfully; We are not Bugs Mr. President, and you are certainly no god.

-Best

Security update 11/8/14

The following is an update to the title page on Security

To underscore the need for security and for a security officer, Russia “as in the government thereof,” has been working to place a virus or trojan in the utility networks of this country.  Most probably this Trojan supplants a small piece of code that does something normal however it is waiting to be “Activated” when the time is right to something much more malevolent.

The government is being rather tight lipped about how the bug was discovered but, needless to say we have a big job on our hands to clean all of the systems of this bug.

Programmatically, a bit by bit comparison of each and every program and or file will need to happen to look for and isolate this bug.

Russia if it were so inclined could activate this “bug” which its intent would most certainly be to attack the power grid or other utility making them inoperable at a critical time.

There was show on TV with a similar scenario but here now we have the real deal.

Forensic computing allowed us to “see” that the infiltrations were coming from Russia during a typical 9 to 5 day over there; which implicates government workers.  Hackers are not 9 to 5 folks but rather those who burn the midnight oil and are able to work when the phone is not ringing and the world around them is at rest.

Those of you who were not alive during the cold war, well this is it only it once more but, is taking place in cyber space.

This is why it is patriotic to have your computer and associated networks hardened against such attacks.  This is also a real good reason to use anti-virus software that is not created or maintained by Russians, or any other world power that does not like Americans.

While I dislike the fact that this administration appears clueless on foreign affairs; and we are much worse off than just 6 years ago, the world is what it is.

Until this regime leaves office and adults take back the White House, you will need to take the necessary steps to secure your business networks as well as your home computers including your smart phones and other “smart” devices.

Remember the bug may be on your home computers waiting to be activated which could cause a DOS attack on some system somewhere.  Make certain that you use a program that is better than Microsoft Essentials or anything that is free.  Free anti-virus software is not worth what you pay for it! 

If you have any questions regarding this please don’t hesitate to ask.  If I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, most certainly others that read this blog will, or I will do my best get it for you.

-Best

c All rights reserved 2014

The case of the password vs insanity.

Image

 

We have all heard that the definition of insanity is: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  This was not lost on me when recently my password on my home PC was no longer accepted.

Imagine logging in to your own PC, that no one else touches, and the password no longer works.

I cannot tell you how many times that I tried the password that I know that it is supposed to be, and then doubting my sanity, trying every other password that it might be “just in case I changed it” without remembering I did. 

Image

The only reason there was a smidgeon of a doubt is that recently Yahoo forced me to change my password.  They would accept nothing less than a strong password which by the way is so strong that I have trouble typing it while looking at it, and there is not a chance of remembering it.

No longer are the days of the family pet or address or birthday acceptable as passwords.  Imagine having to type a password like this T4^s#hg^9? every time you logged on to your computer!

While the home PC’s password was not quite this strong, there is more than room for error.  This led to a rather frustrating afternoon as one might guess.

The trouble shooting process was difficult as Windows allows little room for error and certainly not much for diagnostics.  My first guess was the keyboard had to be messing up in some way so I changed the batteries.  When that did not bear fruit I hooked up a hard wired keyboard to the USB port and still nothing.  “Incorrect login name or password.” 

Image

Google produced nothing relevant other than an ad for some company that sells some software to recover your password.  Microsoft was no help.  If I were in a decision making role at Microsoft I would make some sort of option on the login screen that would allow for one to make certain that their keyboard is typing the correct letter and that the caps is on or off.  Wireless keyboards don’t have any LED on them to tell you about “num lock” or shift lock and , the screen was not giving me any hint of this either although it normally would.

Windows 7 offers a way to reset the password, but you have to plan for it first and oh yes, it requires the “A drive, a floppy.”  This too needs to be re-thought as few computers today have a floppy drive.

Image

Somewhere in the process of trying to boot into safe mode I get an error that says “keyboard failure.”

At this point I try the wired keyboard into several different USB ports with the same results.  I then installed a usb card thinking that maybe that would work, nope same results.

I could do things in Bios but not in Windows.  The thing that would have helped is a way to check the keyboard, in Bios.  My guess is that Bios is not as picky about what it sees from the keyboard and since you are only using limited keyboard functions, curser movements, enter and tab, one would not have guessed that the USB was having issues.

I just happen to own another machine of identical configuration, so a swap of the hardrive to the other machine rendered a machine that worked with my password that worked all along.

I can only conclude that there is an issue with the USB controller on the motherboard.

I am considering clearing out the Bios on the old board and trying a re-install of the software just to see if that fixes it.  There may also be some sort of update from Dell for that Bios.

For you hardware junkies out there, this is probably standard fare.  While I could have purchased a new machine for the $$ wasted in time to diagnose this, I have a new found empathy towards those who just use the machine and have no clue how it works.

Can you imagine Joe Q User out there that really looks for the “any key” having an issue like this?Image

If I was frustrated (and I have been at this when DOS 1 was new,) I cannot even fathom what something like this would be like for others who have less experience than I.

I hope that this helps someone somewhere possibly saving some time and frustration as this type of bugaboo should not happen.

Image

 

Best to you and those that you care about!