Verifiable Truths

Pakistani Taliban Leader Expected Dead

essentialthought — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:44:55 +0000

A drone attack (air strike) has to have ended the life of the leader of Taliban forces in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud as confirmed by an official earlier this morning. Kafayat Ullah, a Taliban commander, told the associated press that “I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan.”

This news will be of inspiration to Pakistani and US forces, as Mehsud conducted a number of suicide bombings and the like within Pakistan. Yet this only leaves open a spot for one of his lieutenants to take over his position, hopefully creating a small among of argument over the position, allowing for an increased chaos within the organization.

The CIA was responsible for the attack. Mehsud has been suspected in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

DOW Up After Job Loss Numbers Released

essentialthought — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:06:28 +0000

At the current time the DOW is trading above 100 points with the news of a decrease in the number of job losses this month. The data shows that a 1% decrease in job losses has occurred leaving the nation unemployment index at 9.4%. This has resulted in an increase in the trading that has occurred today, showing the up-spike in the value of the DOW. This news comes after a relatively large drop in the DOW of 24.71 and trading as low as -50 earlier during that day. Due to the recession and the stimulus bill the market has become very unstable despite the fact that the market has an upward tendency it still experiences large gains and losses. This is expected to slow over the coming months as business no longer reporting in the red becomes an increasingly common norm.

24.71

4th Season of Psych to Air August 7th

essentialthought — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:57:32 +0000

Tomorrow at 10 pm EST Psych will premier its 4th season. Psych has been re-contracted for 16 new episodes. If your big into this show don’t miss it.

Psych is a show about the son of a former police officer who possesses an eidetic memory. he uses this memory and the powers of observation granted to him by his father after drilling lessons into Shawn’s head. Shawn then uses these abilities to solve police cases, yet fooling the police into believing he is psychic. Also his friend Gus helps him, as Gus possesses a myriad of knowledge about differing subjects and what is referred to as the “Super Sniffer” and ultra powerful nose capable of distinguish separate odors.

The old seasons of psych may be found here at http://www.flickpeek.com/tv-shows/Psych/ (just copy and paste the link), if you are interested.

Twitter & Facebook: DoS Attacks?

essentialthought — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:01:39 +0000

Today, early in the morning August 6th, Twitter and Facbook became the subject of two large scale DoS attacks. DoS attacks occur quite often on smaller sites. Yet the magnitude of people required for a large scale DoS is staggering. DoS or denial of service attacks occur when the servers of a website are flooded with so much traffic that they begin to overload. Initially this results in a slowing of the site until enough servers are crippled such that the site is effectively shut down.

Twitter so far has posted on its own blog updates throughout the day. Earlier today they posted the following: “On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.” (Twitter Blog at http://blog.twitter.com/) The site has returned to operating status having worked with other companies to establish increased defenses against DoS attacks.

Facebook was the subject of a Dos Attack as well experiencing some problems with its perephial programs and problems with individuals logging onto the website. Both Facebook and Twitter have returned to operating at near full capacity.

At the current time hackers are speculated in the attack. Also they may have been attacks directed by the Con-flicker C virus (also known as Downandup C), controlling computers that have previously been infected,but at the current time such claims are unsubstantiated and cannot be verified.

Sotomayor Confirmed As New Supreme Court Justice

essentialthought — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:34:49 +0000

At around 3 pm EST on August 6th Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the newest Supreme Court Justice. With a vote of 68 to 31 Sotomayor was confirmed to have won, the announcement made official by Al Franken, the newly elected Senator of Minnesota. Sotomayor makes history today being the third woman and the first Latina to be elected to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor will be sworn in this Sunday by the Chief Justice.

Obama made comments today about the event referring to it as “historic vote”, that shows the Senate is aware of “…the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind…” Sotomayor possesses. Obama then proceeded to commend Democrats and Republicans for making the confirmation occur so quickly.