Congratulations to the Raleigh Police Department for arresting a suspect in the Stephanie Bennett murder case. As each year dragged on, I became less and less convinced the killer would ever be found. Drew Edward Planten could be that killer, and today he’s behind bars.

Through the magic of DNA testing and RPD’s gumption to keep knocking on doors and asking questions, the streets are a little safer today. Let’s hope that if Planten is the killer, he gets put away for a long, long time.

I’m taking the day off today to join the family at the State Fair today. With a forecast of sunny and mid-80s, it should be a fun time.

Blog y’all later.

P.S. I found out today that the fair got a mention on Boing Boing for its yummy fried strawberries. (The yummy was sarcasm, in case your sarcasm web filters are on … you … you techno-geek.)

So Judith Miller finally sprung herself from jail by agreeing to testify about her sources in the Valerie Plame affair. Being that the First Amendment is sacred to me, when it comes to protecting sources I’ll take the side of the press every time. However, there’s something more with Judith Miller. Something just doesn’t smell right.

Miller was a tool for the drum-up to the Iraqi war, publishing a series based on anonymous souces which later turned out to be pure fantasy. Whether she was inadvertently used for this or was a knowing accomplice is up for debate. It seems to me she was connected on the inside – and is she was willing to serve those purposes.

Yesterday, I was astounded to learn that her testimony revealed Miller has a security clearance! Yes, a secret-level security clearance! So, what business does a newspaper reporter have needing a security clearance? And who in their right mind would grant it to a reporter?

One cannot go out and buy a security clearance. It must be sponsored by your employer, who must be working on a government project requiring such clearance. Miller supposedly got hers as an embedded reporter in Iraq.

How did Miller earn enough trust to acquire a clearance? Has she been a tool of the administration all along? Or was this a “clearance” meant to dazzle her, in order to earn her trust and win favorable coverage?

This revelation raises a lot of questions. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this investigation.

Halloween is approaching quickly and I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with some scary house decorations. Because, number one, I’m cheap, and number two, I’m lazy, I think I’ll take a different approach this year and rely more on imagination. Rather than build a bunch of stuff, I plan to distribute speakers around the yard, playing spooky music, sounds, or screams. Maybe just weird sounds that aren’t identifiable. I figure if kids hear a spooky sound coming from under the front porch, their imagination will do the rest.

One project I do want to build this year is a see-through ghost. I actually dreamed this one up last year, but there was a lot going on at the time. It’s a trick used on Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride, where a sheet of glass makes a ghost appear to float in mid-air. I’ll shine a black light onto a ghost laid out on the floor of the porch, hidden from view. Then I’ll hang a thin sheet of glass (or plastic more likely) over this ghost at an angle. This will reflect the ghost’s image into the space above it, making it translucent and appear to float in the air. I’ll probably add a small fan near the ghost to make it billow for effect.

The great thing about this setup is that it’s cheap: the glass and light are the only real investment. Its also easy to set up. The bad thing is that I have to find an appropriate reflective surface. I don’t want to hang a sheet of glass anywhere nosy (or mischevious) kids could break it and hurt themselves. If I can find a plastic sheet which is transparent enough, that’s the way I’ll go.

It could turn out to be really lame. But not doing anything at all is guaranteed to be lame. Worth a shot, eh?

This spam/virus message is making the rounds. I got a copy today. I’m hoping that “your services near to be closed” will become the next All Your Base.
—
* To: arla-commit-web-archive@stacken.kth.se
* Subject: WARNING MESSAGE: YOUR SERVICES NEAR TO BE CLOSED.
* From: mail@stacken.kth.se
* Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 19:48:02 -0400

Dear Stacken Member,

Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of unsolicited spam messages during the recent week. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to cancel your membership.

Virtually yours,
The Stacken Support Team

This is dedicated to all those stupid TV weatherpeople who don’t have the sense to come out of the raging storm.

(Hat tip to The Margarita Lounge)

I finally got elected to something last night: a seat on TriLUG‘s steering committee. It’s the third time I’ve run for a position in this great group and this time I got it.

I’m grateful to have been asked to help lead it. TriLUG has always been a very important Linux resource. The caliber of people in the group is beyond compare. Perhaps its no surprise that TriLUG’s last two system administrators were snapped up by Google.

I hope to do accomplish some great things with TriLUG.

The Asterisk community has changed considerably within the past week. Some key developers have become frustrated at the lack of leadership shown by Digium. Specifically, some claim that Digium is dragging its feet on accepting patches and new code. These developers have since gone on to fork the Asterisk code into a new project called OpenPBX.

I read through a long thread discussing the split, a thread which quickly devolved into a flamefest. Still unclear for the need for the new project, I surfed over to the blog of the main developer in the OpenPBX project, Brian West (bkw). Brian sums up his frustration with Digium in his blog post, basically saying how it seemed Digium’s focus is not on improving the code.

I don’t know whether its true or not, but I don’t think any harm will come from a separate project. I’ve had interactions with Brian on IRC and have always found him to be very helpful and knowledgable. While some Asterisk users are unhappy with the split, I am not betting against Brian and the OpenPBX crew. A little focus can go a long, long way.

When deep in the middle of another project a while ago, a thought popped into my head. It’s actually taken up until now to properly put it into words.

The essense of it is this:

“If you want to work together, stop dividing yourselves!”

How appropos.

Us versus them. Left-wing versus right-wing. Pro versus anti. All of this dividing only sets us back.

No one get anywhere if only one side of the boat is rowing.