Everything Else

Call me a flip-flopper, but I cannot decide if "Lurch" or "Easter Island Head" is more accurate. ;-) But either way he's preferable to Alfred E. Newman a.k.a. Howdy-Doody.

The extension is very humorous. The updated version, however, does not do justice to many.

The updated version makes fun of government employees instead of GW. That is not fair. It seems more reasonable to criticize the presid*nt (i.e. freedom of speech) who makes the "idiotic" decisions rather than criticizing the homel*nd security personnel for doing their job.

The previous version is much better.

Thanx for updating your extension to point to the DHS. I just updated mine, and hopefully Mozilla will get the update up there soon.

The service that the older versions of our extensions used is averaging over 2 million hits a day. Right now, that's not an issue, but I would rather DHS get that traffice than me.:)

BTW - You don't kow comments. Have you checked out mine recently? My original must be the most commented on extension on Mozilla. Check out some of the hatred that spews forth.
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=352&vid=1084&page=comments

Superb extension! Serves no practical use whatsoever. But at least it lets us check at a glance the panic level in Fortress US, and with descriptions that are far more apt. Just one thing, the only one I've seen so far is "scared" (yellow), but what are the other levels?

Haha. I'm keeping the other threat levels secret - or at least as secret as they are going to be to anyone not wanting to bother unzipping the extension and seeing for themselves =P

Firefox protected my computer by not allowing this program to install. Hmmm...I know, I should be more of a techi but...I have the older version. Guess that will do.

How do I get the older version. And how can I get the code to put it on our website. I'm not much of a programmer but am learning. I managed to hack the Iraq Body Count and the Cost of the Iraq War as small banners on our site.

Thanks for the necessary humor. I'm sorry for all of us that the US Public is acting like the German Public of the 1930's.

Long live Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell!

If you like check out our site:

www.renoimc.org

[quote]That said, there is a difference between arguing one's point of view and flat-out saying "you're wrong, I'm right, period." While it's arguably true that referring to George W. Bush as "an idiot" falls within this category, I'd have to say that lampooning our political figures is very much a time-honored tradition in this country. Remember poor Gerald Ford? The public really believed that the man couldn't take two steps without tripping over his feet. Not to mention some of the jokes that went around about John Kerry - I think calling him "Lurch" was pretty funny, personall[/quote]

You call the Presedent of the country in which I live and idiot. Well you are the freaking idiot. Your extension servers no purpose, you might as well just change the name of it to I hate Bush. The diffeance about the Kerry name calling is that he was not a sitting president. Bill Clinton has the morals of a whore and he WAS impeached.

Ben, thanks for reminding the world why Republicans should not be in the presidency (and incidentally why the US still votes them in). To follow your logic, it's OK to make fun of and trash anyone who dares challenge an incumbent president for office, but don't you dare talk about the person who is being challenged. What utter nonsensical bullshit. Cheers!

Mr. Bazankchik wrote:

You call the Presedent of the country in which I live and idiot

Unfortunately, this typifies the general level of debate in this country (the US for those of you fortunate enough to live elsewhere). If you read it a little more carefully, you'll find that in fact the reference is to the act of calling Bush an idiot - the poster did not say "Bush is an idiot".

Clinton did do something disgusting and disrespectful and stupid and... (add your own adjectives describing Clinton's actions here). What does that have to do with Bush's crimes? (And yes, I am calling Bush a criminal - it's clear that he did break the FISA law by deliberately choosing not to seek warrants for listening in on the telecommunications of Americans). Calling attention to Clinton's misdeeds or crimes doesn't get Bush off the hook. That's like killing someone and then claiming that you shouldn't be punished because other people do it too.

Great stuff i love a bit of humour, we could do with a bit more. Why is it that people add an extension that is mean't to be funny and then get all huffy. Losers. Even from 12000 miles away it's funny wish we had an Aussie version. It would be so easy to take the piss out of our Prime Minister (he's a little prick fair dinkum) Thanks dude. B

I would point out that Saddam Hussein was being showy about what he might have and completely evasive about the issue, and that if someone is pointing a pistol at you and saying how much he doesn't like you, you aren't going to wait to see if a bullet or a flag that says "BANG!" is going to come out, but this is not the forum for that.


This is the forum, however, to say that, even as a member of the more conservative side (I consider myself a centrist, which is not quite a moderate), I quite enjoy poking a little fun at our government, especially when it proves a point. This doesn't really prove a point, but I like it anyway, and would be interested in seeing a table of all the outputs for all the various panic alert levels.

Your point of view is fair enough, and thank you for feeling able to present it without shouting =]

With regard to the other threat levels, I'll leave only a hint: firefox extensions consist of nested zip files. The .xpi is a zip, as are all the .jar files inside. Anyone with enough curiosity (as well as the chops to go to tools, folder options, uncheck "hide extensions for known file types") can find them out rather quickly.

I had fun making them.

I'm new to this website, and really thought strongly about downloading this extension, as a fun way to look at the sad state of events in our world today. But having read several of the comments, as well as the authors, I have decided against it, as it would lend some sort of credibility to the left wing liberal idealisms, hell bent on destroying the privileges and freedoms we have here in the United States.

I'm so tired of hearing about how we were "duped" into this war on terrorism, and that we had "no right" in invading Iraq, or Afghanistan. We were at peace on 9/10/2001 - not at war, not with any conflict going on in the world, though we had just been attacked a few months earlier outside of Yemen, where homicide bombers took a small boat full of explosives and gutted one of our Navy carriers killing a lot of brave servicemen.

Then came 9/11/2001 - I was working as a trauma nurse in a major level 1 trauma center where I'd been the past three years. I will remember forever exactly where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt that day, when word came in of the World Trade Center being struck by an airliner. At first I thought, what a terrible air accident, but then about 7 minutes later when another airliner hit the other the second trade center, I knew something was terribly wrong. I could write a novel about what transpired in my own personal life that day, and how it affected my life, my job, my family, but will spare the space.

My point is this, the radical Islamic groups, chose to start this war, NOT America. They killed over 3 thousand Americans that day, without warning and without provocation. We let them do it for years, and years before this, and we stood by and did little to nothing, emboldening them to try bigger and bigger attacks, killing more and more people. We had been able to keep these attacks off of our shores until that day.

These radical Islamic jihadist do not care about morals, ethics, character, or anything else related to modern civilized people. They only care about their warped sense of a religion in which they are rewarded for killing innocent people in the name of their religion. Yet we don't see too much written about their evil plans for the world, or see them being held accountable for the attrocities they've perpetrated on innocent women, children, and men...........NO we only VILLIFY the men and women of the armed forces when they are putting their lives on the line for this country everyday, and we display them like common criminals when the actions of a few, which amount to no more than a college hazing of incoming freshmen, occurs during a time of war where US contractors, and soldiers are beheaded, their bodies mutilated and drug down the streets of Iraq, and hung in public display while the video is shown in the Middle Eastern News circuits, only to find it's way to the US Media, who pompously refuses to air it as it is "too horrific", yet shows all the pictures of the hazing of Iraqi prisoners and calls these troopers disgraces, and seeks their hides to be nailed to the door. Yeah, that seems right, doesn't it. And thanks to the great wisdom of the US Media for deciding to air those photos, our US service men and women have been attacked non-stop by a rising insurgency, and their support by the Iraqi people plummeted to the ground, because they feel that ALL the US soldiers disgraced the Iraqi people. That is the reason the war in Iraq continues today, because we continue to air any indiscretion perpetrated by anyone in uniform, and we continue to turn a blinds eye to what this war is about, and that is the systematic destruction of western civilization, and ways of life - because it is not a shared idealism of the radical Muslim world. They do not have the capabilities to coexist in peace. They thrive on death, where we thrive on freedom and life.

It's time this country remembers why we went to war. Go back and relive those moments 5 years ago, and ask yourself, is AMERICA TO BLAME, for the attacks perpetrated that day? If you say yes, then I invite you to pack your bags, and go to another nation (any nation you so choose, with the exceptions of those countries that have a similar philosophy on freedom), and live in that country, under it's laws, for at least a month, and see just how good you have it here in the United States. Espouse the rhetoric there that you espouse so fluently here, and see if it is accepted in the same way, or see if you do not end up in a prison, or whisked away in the middle of the night, away from your family and security of your home, to live in a rotted jail cell, or better yet executed for disagreeing with the government of the country you are staying in.

We may have not executed a well thought out plan in Iraq, but we DID have the right to invade, as we started this war on terrorism, not only to get the ones who hit us that fateful day, but to get those regimes who support terrorist with safe haven, financial support, training, etc... and Iraq has proven it is one of those regimes. Saddam Hussein killed tens of thousands of his OWN people during his tyrannical dictatorship.........why aren't you CONDEMNING THAT! No, you'd rather vilify your own countries armed forces for the unfortunate deaths of civilians, for which the vast majority are being killed by the insurgents of their own people, NOT by US service people.

I am not condoning the actions of several service men and women who went outside the boundaries of military conduct and perpetrated true crimes, there will always be those who commit crimes. Hell, just look at the national statistics of crimes committed by those NOT in uniform. But to vilify ALL service men and women, making statements of their responsibilities in the loss of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or anywhere else our services are deployed to, is IRRESPONSIBLE, REPREHENSIBLE, and OUTRIGHT WRONG. And that statement serves for their Commander in Chief as well. He didn't seek office to go out and pick a fight with Hussein, and he didn't make decisions based on some vendetta staged since the end of the first gulf war. He made decisions based on what he thought would keep America from being hit again, and I for one support him and our military in that endeavor. I would rather fight them over there, then have my grandchildren learn of the attrocities of war first hand here at home!

It's not a matter of IF we'll be struck again, it's only a matter of WHEN. If we cannot reach these radical islamists and find a way to coexist with them, they will continue to recruit and attack western civilizations until the muslim religion is the only religion in the world. Us ladies can then look forward to walking ten paces behind our husbands, brothers, fathers, etc, and can look forward to no education, no careers, no right to speak opinions, and become the second class citizens we fought so hard to defeat during equal rights for women earlier in our nations history.

SO KEEP ESPOUSING how you hate this war, hate our President, hate what this country stands for...........but remember, you ALWAYS have the freedom to leave.........our military preserves that right for you, as you preserve the right to speak your mind, and protest funerals of our fallen soldiers, and to protest outside the fenceline of our President's home estates in Washington, and Texas. Next time you exercise that right, thank an "all volunteer" military - they're over there now, so you can have that right! But in the end, if the radicals win this war, because we as a country could not stand united and support this war on terrorism - guess what? That right you so freely enjoy will be a distant memory, and your children and grandchildren, I'm sure will thank you for that!

I am the proud wife of a United States Army NCO, who is due to retire in a year. My children and I have sacrificed our time, our memories and many other things, so that he could serve this great country, and preserve our freedoms, that we so gladly take advantage of. You never know what you have until it's ripped from you without warning. Don't learn of it this way. I implore you to support our troops, to win this fight in Iraq , Afghanistan, and Kosovo (three battles being simultaneously fought in the overall war on terrorism). Yes, I did mention Kosovo. Remember it? It was 1998 when then President Bill Clinton commanded an air attack on the former balken states and Slobidon Milosovic, who committed genocide so that his race of people would survive and take the bulk of land from the former Yugoslavia. President Clinton remarked after the air battle was over, and the ground troops moved in for "peace keeping" that the US presence there would be no longer the 2 years. Well my husband just returned from a 1 year deployment in that "peace keeping" role, preceded by a 6 month training in Fort Hood, Texas for a total of 18 month deployment, there (the name K-FOR 7 - 7 being the 7th year of our deployment there). Why aren't you up in arms about that???

They say the Albanians will be the "new" face of al-qaida, since they're european caucasian, and not as likely to draw the "racial profiling" scrutiny that now exists for middle eastern men. If this is true, as my husband has provided me evidence of, then the WHEN will be sooner than anyone expects, and the costs will make 9/11 look like not so big a deal - both in lives and economic repercussions.

I'm not a doomsday advocate, I'm a realist who looks at history, and sees something very troubling in this world. If we don't all pull together and create an atmosphere for change, we will ALL LOSE, and this great country will be in danger of losing it's freedoms!

Stop being part of the problem, and be a part of the solution. Let's bring our soldiers home, but let's make sure that we do it right, and that we don't allow terrorists to seize an opportunity to inflict another blow to our country and to our people!

In reply to Trauma Momma, I have to say that this is exactly what I was referring to when I put the word "Polemics" in the title of this post. At any rate, I'd like to correct a few inaccurate assumptions that she seems to have made:

• I have never criticized our moving into Afghanistan, only our lack of focus on finishing the job there.
• I have never denigrated our soldiers. On the contrary, when one of them mentioned in a forum I frequent that he missed having good coffee, I sent him large quantities of excellent bean. When another soldier (marine, actually) finished his enlistment, much of which was spent fighting in Iraq, I helped him orient himself in the civilian world, get a job, and find a place to live. I never once questioned any decision he made: like most of our soldiers, he had a job to do and conducted himself professionally and efficiently. He's not the problem - the civilian leadership in Washington is.
• Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.
• Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.
• Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.

Sorry to repeat that last, but it is something that the fans of Faux News Channel seem to be too willing to forget. When I complain that this country was led down the garden path to war in Iraq, it is exactly this bit of misdirection that I am talking about. Iraq had exactly nothing to do with 9/11 or even terrorism. It was a stalinist, tin-pot dictatorship, just like many other countries in this world. But it was not the country that assaulted us so terribly on September 11, 2001 (and yes, I also remember exactly where I was and what I was doing at that moment). When we went after Saddam, we took our sights off Bin Laden, and thus let the murderer of 3000 people on that dark day slip into hiding, from which he occasionally sends us taunting messages. You're darn right I blame this administration for letting him get away. They took their eye off the ball to satisfy some larger political agenda, and as a result, not only has Bin Laden escaped, but nearly three thousand of our professional American soldiers have perished in the quagmire of Iraq. I'm not sure what our mission was there - was it to find WMD? to topple a dictator? control middle-east oil? draw terrorists to Iraq so that we can fight the war on terror on two fronts instead of one? The target or goal here keeps changing, and now we're so far beyond any of that that we really don't have a clear mission in Iraq. Just go out, fight, die, bring in more troops to fight, die, and possibly wonder what the hell they're supposed to be fighting for, anyhow.

You're right: I'm disgusted with the Bush Administration. They had a real opportunity in 2001 to make a positive difference in the world, which was solidly behind us. Not only did they blow that opportunity, but they did so in a way that has screwed things up in the worst way possible. It's not unpatriotic to say so - it's simply the plain, bald truth. Terrorism is worse now thanks to them, the middle east is destabilized, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has worsened as the two sides have taken hard-line positions against one another, our allies are abandoning us, Iran is ready to build a nuke and North Korea already has, there's no effective way for the US to take a leadership role on either situation any longer after the credibility hit we took over Iraq, and Bin Laden got away.

I'd say "what a bunch of clowns" in reference to this administration, but clowns are supposed to be funny. These guys are anything but.

Hi there! I've been using the "Homeland Insecurity" extension for Firefox for about six months, and discovered something that raised some concerns.

I just installed a new firewall that allows me to track network traffic by IP/URL. Looking at the log, I noticed right away my computer was connecting every several minutes to www.dhs.gov -- Homeland Security's live site.

After a moment of paranoia I realized it was the extension checking to see if the threat level had changed. But data was going both ways, with packets ranging from 400 bytes to as much as 20Kbytes being sent to the DHS server.

I disabled the extension, which caused it to send off a flurry of data -- like 8 or 9 rapid fire connections with a total of several hundred K of data being sent to the DHS server.

I'm sure this is innocent, but I'm very curious to know just what data from my computer this widget has been sharing with the DHS server for the past six months or so I've been using it.

Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated, as I am leery of reinstalling the (very cool) extension until I understand better what's happening there.

Regards,
-- PrivatePud

Hey Private,

Thanks for sharing this, and I certainly appreciate your concerns - I don't trust these guys either. What I can assure you is that, unless there is something about the XMLHttpRequest syntax that I'm not aware of, there is no data being sent to DHS regarding this extension. I'm not sure what is causing the traffic you're seeing, perhaps just ordinary SYN/ACK stuff for the standard data request. Did you tear the packets apart with WireShark or the like to see what the data was?

To be clear, here is the snippet of code, the only snippet of code, that talks to the DHS server, in ../chrome/content/idiocylevel/idiocylevelOverlay.js:

function loadThreatLevel() {
gXMLHttpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
gXMLHttpRequest.onload = updateThreatLevel;
gXMLHttpRequest.open("GET", "http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/getAdvisoryCondition");
gXMLHttpRequest.send(null);
window.setTimeout(loadThreatLevel, 1800000);
}

As you can see, the program is using a simple HTTP GET command to DHS's web service - originally I was using Boyzoid's web service, but he mentioned that it was generating insane amounts of bandwidth, so it was agreed to point the extension directly at DHS. To see what's on that page, you can use an ordinary web browser to go to that link, and then use the "View Source" command to see what is there - not much!

Since verification is important in such matters, I encourage you to check this out on your own: grab the extension from Mozilla or better yet look at the version that's already in your Firefox profile directory, and look at the code yourself. The .jar files are zip files - you can either unzip them from the command line or rename them .zip and unpack them as you normally would. The code in there is simple and straightforward, and not only that, you'll also get to see for yourself what the other threat levels are named :)

Again, thanks truly for bringing this concern to me - I'd hate to think someone thought I was distributing some spyware-for-the-spooks kind of thing, because that's just not what I'm about.