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Party 1: Yay, impeachment!
Party 2: Boo, impeachment!
Me: Mmmm, peach cobbler...

That said, it's also clearly not just her, or even primarily her. It's her parents, who are professional propagandists, and a whole team of paid professionals all around her who are clearly running the show. She's effectively a child actress, and that often turns out to be a very difficult thing. I hope her parents are more concerned with her welfare than they appear to be.

That comment brings up the question of why is it working? She's got a great act, even if a fair number of people find it obnoxious. And it's allowed her to go to fancy meetings, meet heads of state, and get anointed by the media (Time Person of the Year and Nature's Most Influential Person in Science for 2019 as a "climate catalyst"). It quite clear that Thunberg gets a lot out of these events. Publicity is good for her and her cause. The real question is what do the other sides get out of this? Not just anyone can walk into a Davos or UN meeting and rant.

She's not an expert in climatology or its effects on civilization. There's nothing she will say that the experts in the field haven't said already and better. Nor as I'll note in a bit, does she really have that much to say.

Instead, I think she is a Joan of Arc figure. France in 1429 was on the ropes with victory by the English near at hand. She won several key victories in short order and her capture and execution provided a martyr for the French cause, resulting in France finally end the Hundred Years War on their terms. Her appeal was purely religious. They needed something to fight for, and she provided that.

I think the same thing goes on here. Environmentalist advocacy is losing the war on climate change. Unless circumstances change, there's no way that 2 C thresholds (much less 1.5 C) will be met. They need someone to galvanize their side. Thus enters Thunberg.

Moving on, let's consider her message. For example, consider the transcript of her September 2019 speech to the UN Climate Action Summit:

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in ten years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting up irreversible chain reactions beyond human control. Fifty percent may be acceptable to you, but those numbers do not include tipping points most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution, or the aspects of equity and climate justice.

They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us. We who have to live with the consequences. To have a 67 percent chance of staying below the 1.5 degree of temperature rise, the best odds given by the IPCC, the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on January 1, 2018.

Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 that entire budget will be gone is less than 8 and a half years. There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us, but young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this, right here, right now, is where we draw the line. The world is waking up, and change is coming whether you like it or not.

So a great tale of woe and betrayal. But where is even lip service to the remarkable society that allowed her family to live well and her to sail around the world giving speeches? This is paperclip maximizing, measuring a society solely by its greenhouse gases emissions rather than its achievements or other flaws.

To get to the point where hundreds of world leaders can be scolded by a young girl, a lot of stuff has to go right. Yet this never gets into the viewpoint. It's all about this imaginary betrayal. So what happens when this dogmatic, unyielding viewpoint runs over things like poverty, overpopulation, and war? I think it won't be pretty and we probably would be worse for it than if they didn't try at all.

As a final remark, what is wrong with expecting future generations to carry the load? They will be adults by then. Sorry, I think Thunberg's generation is quite capable of handling several C increase in global temperature (definitely more than 2 C). Instead, shouldn't we work on making our societies more resilient, adaptable, and wealthy rather than merely emitting less CO2? That's a far better gift for the future.

93 Virginia Jurisdictions are Now Declared Second Amendment Sanctuaries

Multiple sites are carrying that blurb, which I quote here in it's entirety.

Not happy with the blurb, I tracked down the original source, which is little more than a blurb, itself.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/virginias-second-amendment-sanctuaries-an-update/

Last week I wrote about the spread of Virginia’s “Second Amendment sanctuaries” — counties, towns, and cities that vow not to enforce state gun laws they deem unconstitutional, in the wake of the Democrats’ taking control of the state government. There are a few new developments worth noting.

For starters, the sanctuaries have spread dramatically. They’re up to 93 jurisdictions — covering roughly 40 percent of the population, by my quick spreadsheet tally. That’s huge, though the biggest victory, in Prince William County, is likely to be overturned when the county board flips to the Democrats, and some of these places have passed vague resolutions in support of the Constitution rather than the more aggressive language proposed by the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

As I noted in my previous piece, these resolutions have limited legal effect; local governments are basically subordinate to state governments. But defiance like this can put political pressure on moderate Democrats — and, failing that, can force the state government to either (A) take drastic action to stamp out resistance or (B) give up and let these places refuse to enforce new gun laws, possibly ramping up state-police activity there as a replacement.

On the politics, it’s worth noting that the state Democrats have already caved on confiscating “assault weapons,” modifying a bill so that it would still ban sales going forward but would require current owners to register their guns rather than turning them in.

It’s also worth comparing this map of sanctuaries:

. . . with this one of Virginia senate districts. (Click here to see the interactive version via the Virginia Public Access Project; I chose the senate because it’s much closer politically than the house.)

If an area is blue in both maps, it’s both a sanctuary and represented by a Democrat, suggesting a senator who might experience this movement as pressure from home. Such places do exist, though often the sanctuary jurisdictions make up only a minority of the Democratic district’s population. (See, e.g., districts 18, 21, and 25.) However, the senate is split 21–19, so it doesn’t take a lot of side-switching to stop a bill.

Finally, on how the Democrats will respond in the event they pass new gun laws and many local law-enforcement agencies refuse to enforce them, the governor has threatened “consequences,” and other Virginia Democrats have floated everything from prosecutions of local authorities, to cutting off state funds, to National Guard deployment.

Fun times.

Blurb, or no blurb, the important thing is, people are refusing to comply. Is it time to dance yet? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Breakin2.jpg

It's only fair to note that the whiners at slate dot com consider these sanctuary counties to be different than liberal sanctuary cities.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/second-amendment-gun-sanctuary-movement-constitution.html

But some Virginia localities have gone further, indicating that they will not enforce state law that they deem unconstitutional. Some proponents have even resurrected words like nullification and interposition, terms first used extensively by Southern secessionists prior to the Civil War and more recently during the “massive resistance” to federal laws requiring desegregation in the 1960s.

Pope lifts 'pontifical secret' rule in sex abuse cases

The Pope has declared that the rule of "pontifical secrecy" no longer applies to the sexual abuse of minors, in a bid to improve transparency in such cases.

The Church previously shrouded sexual abuse cases in secrecy, in what it said was an effort to protect the privacy of victims and reputations of the accused.

But new papal documents on Tuesday lifted restrictions on those who report abuse or say they have been victims.

Church leaders called for the rule's abolition at a February Vatican summit.

They said the lifting of the rule in such cases would improve transparency and the ability of the police and other civil legal authorities to request information from the Church.

Information in abuse cases should still be treated with "security, integrity and confidentiality", the Pope said in his announcement. He instructed Vatican officials to comply with civil laws and assist civil judicial authorities in investigating such cases.

The Pope also changed the Vatican's definition of child pornography, increasing the age of the subject from 14 or under to 18 or under.

Things are going well in the Snow household.

My wife and I went for our first ultrasound for our new baby last week. SURPRISE! The baby is further along than expected. Should be due beginning of June. Apparently the first ultrasound is done to look for Down's syndrome, but our baby is too big to do that test, so we have to wait until the 19 week ultrasound. I'm not too worried about that. I think we are pretty low risk, so we'll just wait an see.

It was pretty cool seeing the baby. It feels more real once you get to see the baby and see it move. We brought our daughter and and sat on my lap and watched the ultrasound. (At least for the first 5 minutes until she got bored).

L and I have been doing well too. We have been spending a lot of time together. We both had some vacation time remaining, so we used some of that last week. We spent much of the week baking and preparing cookie boxes that we gave out for Christmas. We both really enjoy baking, and we both had a great time baking cookies together. My wife made two different types of roasted nuts and nuts & bolts which perfectly rounded out the cookie tin. It was really awesome creating this great gift that we all worked together for.

Things between L and my wife have been progressing well. Every Monday, L comes over to our house. Sometimes we make a family dinner, and other times my wife and I will go out for a date night while L takes care of my daughter. L is really amazing. She recognizes that it's important for me and my wife's relationship to be good and strong, and does things like this to help. So, tonight my wife and I are going out to a restaurant for dinner.

When L is around the house, things seem to work so much smoother. It's soo helpful having another adult around the house. Two of us can make dinner while one looks after my daughter, or my wife can relax while we clean up from dinner. Without the help, it feels like we are just treading water, but when L is around, it feels like we can actually make progress on things. L is so great with my daughter. They really like each other.

Last week, my wife and L went for breakfast together. Without me there. That was a first. I didn't get much details, but from the little I heard, it went well.

Christmas is coming, and L will be spending all of Christmas Day at my place with my wife, daughter and I. I made her a stocking that I plan on surprising her with on Christmas morning. I'm really excited for that. I also bought both her and my wife new PJs that they can wear together around the house.

My wife's mom knows about and has met L. I have mentioned L around my family now, and they will meet her in person at my daughter's birthday party in about a month. I'm excited for them to meet her and for her to meet them. (They won't know the details... she will be introduced as a close family friend for now.)

So, things are going amazingly well. We still have tough conversations pretty frequently, but they go well and feel rewarding. Everyone is trying to make this work.

Oh, and one more thing. We went to a community event thing and they had a free photo session. They had a couch setup outside and decorations around it. We all (me, wife, L, and daughter) got on the couch and got an amazing group photo! It would make a great Christmas card. That was very special to me. I really cherish that photo.

Anyways, Merry Christmas to all you Soylentils! I hope you all spend some time with those you that you love and eat some great food!

-- Snow

Defeated GOP governor pardoned violent criminals in a spree lawyers are calling an ‘atrocity of justice’

Matt Bevin is no longer the governor of Kentucky, but his decisions continued to send shock waves through the state’s legal system this week after he issued pardons for hundreds of people, some of whom committed violent offenses.

Bevin issued 428 pardons since his defeat to Democrat Andy Beshear in a close election in November, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. His list includes a man convicted of reckless homicide, a convicted child rapist, a man who murdered his parents at age 16 and a woman who threw her newborn in the trash after giving birth in a flea market outhouse.

He also pardoned Dayton Jones, who was convicted in the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy at a party, Kentucky New Era reported.

It is not unusual for governors to issue pardons as they leave office, but Bevin’s actions boggled some of the state’s attorneys, who questioned his judgment.

[...] Steele said he was particularly disturbed by the pardon of Patrick Brian Baker, whose brother hosted a fundraiser for Bevin and donated to him over the years, the Courier Journal reported.

[...] Not all of Bevin’s pardons stirred controversy. He spared death row inmate Gregory Wilson by commuting his sentence to life with the possibility of parole after 30 years, the Courier Journal reported. Wilson’s 1988 murder trial had been plagued by legal and ethical issues.

Bevin also pardoned Louisville community activist Christopher IIX, who was convicted of possession of a controlled substance in 1990 and theft by failure to make disposition in 1997, according to local reports. In the pardon, Bevin said the activist “has turned his life around after a rocky start many years ago and has paid his debt to society.”

On His Way Out, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin Pardons Murderers, Rapists, Hundreds More

Matt Bevin defends his controversial pardons in twenty-tweet-long Twitter thread

New York’s Attorney General failed to prove that Exxon mislead shareholders over the true cost of climate change, a judge ruled Tuesday, ending the oil giant’s multiyear battle against the state.

“The Office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” Judge Barry Ostrager of the trial-level state Supreme Court wrote in his ruling.

[...]

The case was dismissed “with prejudice,” which means that “this case cannot be tried again on these facts in New York,” Columbia University Law Professor John Coffee said. He added that it could go to New York State Appellate Court and a federal case would be “very unlikely” and “ill-fated.”

What was particularly pernicious about the original case was that it happened merely because Exxon had some researchers look into the matter decades ago. There was no illegal or fraudulent activity in the first place. It didn't matter to the plaintiff, the Office of the Attorney General of New York that the research in question was inconclusive.

This is not the first time that merely looking for problems from a business's activities or products generates liability. But it would establish a precedent that the act of merely looking, even if one doesn't find anything, creates liability.

I had an idea to do a thing or two using NVAPI, knowing nothing about it except that it exists. I started looking through the documentation that nvidia has on their website. Looked pretty good, until I checked NVAPI.DLL on my own system and saw that it only had a few exports. "WTF? Is it going to be some COM crap?" I asked my cat. He didn't respond.

Pretty soon I found this article which told me everything I needed to know and then some. If only finding info on the web was always this easy.

_<no-sarcasm>
Ordinarily, you keep a salted (and maybe peppered) hash function of a user's password in a database record associated with their name, login ID etc.

I have wondered, mused, whether it might be better to keep more than one hash function of the password. Possibly with different salt and pepper.

Database record fields:
* user ID
* user Name
* salt1
* pepper1
* passwordHash1
* salt2
* pepper2
* passwordHash2

Now here is the conjecture. If the database table could somehow be stolen, the attacker must find some plaintext password that hashes to passwordHash1. The plaintext password is prefixed with salt1, suffixed with pepper1, then hashed to the value passwordHash1.

It becomes infeasible to keep precomputed tables of hashed passwords once salt/pepper is introduced. The password "12345" for Jane would have a different hash than the same "12345" password for Joe, because of their different salt/pepper prefix/suffixes.

If there is a second random salt2/pepper2 and a different hash function of the plaintext password, then the attacker must not only find a plaintext that combined with salt1/pepper1 will hash to passwordHash1; but that same plaintext must also work for salt2/pepper2 for passwordHash2. It is important to point out that passwordHash2 is computed using a different hash function as well as different random prefix/suffix.

Would doing this truly increase the security of passwords if the table is stolen? Or is this just spinning wheels and cpu cycles to accomplish little if anything?

Opinions?
^{</no-sarcasm>}

Obviously using 12345 as a password is a well known best practice, no matter what other measures are taken.