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French Navy bests the pirates again
Wow, the French Navy is on the ball. They aren’t taking any crap from those Somali pirates. Just a short time ago, they stormed a yacht that had been hijacked by pirates and re-took the vessel. Today, they tricked three boats full of pirates and arrested all 11 of the pirates on those boats.
The deception was classic: realizing that three boats were coming their way, a French frigate, the Nivose, headed into the sun to camouflage its identity long enough for them to turn around and send two small craft, full of commandos, and a helicopter out to intercept the pirates. The chopper provided necessary air cover.
The helicopter fired two warning shots at the three boats who, a short time later, surrendered.
You can read more about the incident here.
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Virginia patient data held hostage
An extortionist, allegedly, is holding the data from the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program hostage. He/She is demanding ten million dollars. According to a message left by this person, they have 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. The data is on an encrypted ‘back up’ which this person will gladly hand over, along with the password, for that ten million dollars.
The site was broken into last week and has been down. A criminal investigation is underway. Huh…I wonder what criminal…the person who supposedly is holding the data hostage or the nitwits who allowed it to happen.
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This just in…major breaking news…Apple [GASP] rejects Nine Inch Nails iPhone app update!
Stop the press! Apple rejected the application because of references to a son…wait, what? Why is this news and why the hell do we care what applications Apple deems un-worthy? It is a freaking phone people! Get over it.
Nothing more to see, move along.
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GM ‘in talks’ to sell off Saturn
So, lets get this right: General Motors is trying to sell a car company that has lost billions over the last few years and has never shown a profit. Boy, where do I sign up? Last week, they announced that they were shuttering Pontiac…a brand with far more cache than Saturn. A brand that, when you speak its name, conjures up visions of powerful automobiles, the GTO and that most famous of movie cars, the Bandit. So, a division that has shown a profit in the past, oozes performance and name recognition, is going the way of Oldsmobile while a beaten down, unprofitable shadow company like Saturn might get sold? No wonder GM is in the boat they are in. That boat already struck the iceberg and is taking in a ton of water…I don’t think the fire brigade can pump out enough water to keep it afloat.
ye old Half Byte blog 
Well if you are trying to stay afloat you get rid of the dead weight – why would GM sell a brand that can (potentially) make them money and hold on to one that doesn’t? Though I wouldn’t say Saturns are value-less – the "Saturnians" are kinda like Apple folk – very loyal to a minority brand. Still maybe the loss of control by Detroit will open the auto market a bit and we might end up with more choices in terms of car makers – hopefully we will be able to get lots of independent car-makers with niche markets and alternative fuels hitting the roads.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the Saturn vehicles that are out now. We nearly bought an Acadia when they came out. But, Saturn has never made money where Pontiac has and the Pontiac name certainly has more recognition than the Saturn brand. Ah, I guess I am still a Pontiac man at heart. My first two cars-that I bought-were both Pontiac Grand Prix’s. Man, I loved those cars. Still, GM needs to do more than sell or kill off brands. They need to make cars people want, they need to make cars that lessen our dependence on oil and they need to make cars that will last.