I consider this to be an important post, and I encourage everyone to read it all the way through.

This morning I was pumping gas on the way to work. A uniformed police officer approached me and informed me of a brutal rape that had happened two nights ago, and wanted to know if I had any information about it.

What happened was a man knocked on the door of a co-eds apartment, at 12:30 in the morning and asked for her roommate by name. When she opened the door for this person, he subdued her with a stun gun, a pair of handcuffs and a gag.

He beat and raped her, and left shortly before her roommate got home.

Now, cops and I usually get along pretty well, so we got to talking. He told me that it looks like the rapist could have gotten all the information he needed from her Facebook and Twitter pages. Specifically, what apartment complex she lived in (they have a group for the complex) what her roommates name was and what her roommates work schedule was.

There is a type of criminal behavior that is referred to as “pretexting”.  Even though this term originated with people exploiting the phone system in the 80s, it has recently moved into use for other crimes. A pretext is a plausible reason for being somewhere, doing something, or talking to someone that does not raise suspicion.

Examples are easy to think of: 1) The kidnapper that asks a child for help finding a lost dog. 2) The robber that dresses in the uniform of a moving company and drives a moving van 3) The rapist that asks for your roommate by name to get you to open the door.

Almost all sexually based crimes start with a pretext, a reason that will, if only for an instant, get you to let your guard down long enough for your attacker to gain the advantage.

This is now the fourth law enforcement officer in the last year that has warned me about the rise of criminals that are using social networking sites to get information before committing a crime.  They are using these sites to locate and select victims, learn their schedule, and determine the few pieces of personal information they need.

Frankly, predators have to look at these sites as the magic kingdom.

When I have warned people about the danger of these sites in the past, I am usually met with the following comment: “It’s okay, I’m careful. And anyway…”

1) I lied about my age.

2) Used a fake name.

3) Only friends can see what I put on there.

4) I don’t put anything up that someone could use.

5) No one can find me.

Because I see this as so very dangerous I am going to address these arguments one at a time.

1)     I lied about my age. So what? You have pictures of yourself on line. Someone could look at the picture and approximate your age. But that isn’t the scary part. If you take nothing else away from this post, take this one sentence: You never know what details a crazy person will pick out of a picture.

2)    I used a fake name. Okay, the chances are you used a fake name when you signed up for the service. Which is a fine precaution, but not all that helpful. Remember you have friends and family members on these sites that call you by name, you call them by name, you refer to people, places and things that can all lead someone back to you.

3)   Only friends can see what I have on my “wall”. Oh boy, this one is my favorite! First, the term friend is used loosely in this case. This is not your life long friend that you have known since grade school, rather just about anyone that went to the same school, works with you, lives in the same apartment complex, etc.  The vast majority of women are raped by someone they know, not by a stranger. Of the roughly 800,000 children in the United States that go missing (if only temporarily) each year, only about 115 are abducted by strangers. The concept that was fed to us of “Stranger-Danger” is crap. Most crimes, specifically the most horrible ones, are committed by friends, family members and acquaintances. Keep this in mind next time you look at your friend list.

4)      I don’t put anything up that someone could use. Yes you do. You just look at it from the standpoint that everyone is your friend. You have to assume that ANYTHING you post on these sites will be seen by exactly the wrong person, and used for the wrong reason.

5)      No on can find me. Yes they can. Likely they already know who you are, it’s someone you know.

I won’t deny that I am a fairly paranoid person. I was raised that way, and have fostered it in adulthood. I am a very security conscience person, and at time I take it too far.

All that being said, I’m not wrong. These sites are dangerous.

Take a moment to think about the information that you have on your sites. Think about that you tell people about yourself, and think about it from the point of view of the most sick, twisted mind you can imagine.

Now look at the pages of your significant others, your family, and your children.

Do you really want someone to have all this information about you?

I don’t really think of myself as a feminist. Hell, I really doubt many people would think of me as a feminist. I’m a pretty far right wing conservative and proud of it. As far as the illustrious writers of WetWired go, I’m probably the farthest right.

However I believe that women are equal to men in every way, with the exception of them being weaker and less intelligent. I also believe that women are every bit as capable as men, as long as the crying and the temper tantrums and the emotion bombs don’t get in the way.

But I work at it.

What I don’t believe is that women should ever be hurt or abused. For any reason. Ever.

As gentlemen it is our job to quietly tolerate their mood swings and “estrogen logic”.

But it never ever ceases to amaze me that the whole feminist movement cannot ever seem to get behind the women in the middle east for the horrible atrocities they suffer at the hands of the men there, and a stupid, ancient religion that promotes violence.

In Saudi Arabia you get beaten, raped or murdered for wearing the wrong scarf, and it’s called justice.

So this weekend I had the opportunity to bring this topic up to two card carrying members of N.O.W. I asked why they seem so mad about the horrible atrocities here in this country like unequal pay (the horror) but don’t seem to care when Muftis force a group of school girls to burn to death because they are wearing inappropriate clothing.

Here is the answer I got; word for word: “Oh, that’s horrible and everything, but that’s their culture, they don’t know any better.”

WHAT THE FUCK????

Two weeks ago, I opened the door for one of these “ladies” and got chewed out for 20 minutes in front of my whole church, and they can burn women to death because it’s their culture?

Here is the new deal: from now on, no one gets to talk to me about women’s liberation, or equality until they first talk to me about what they or their group is doing for women in the Middle East, Central Africa or South East Asia.

Otherwise, I want a God damned refund!

I am including this article in it’s entirety, because this is the best headline I have ever read.

Seriously.

“Extra anus kills four-legged chicken”

‘I think he got glugged up’

By Lester Haines

New Zealanders are today trying to come to terms with the tragic death of Forzie the four-legged chicken.

I went out on a date last night, which I guess is a good thing. I met her through my job, and she seemed nice enough. She’s a little younger than I am, and very perky. She’s one of these “shiny, happy up with people” types that can be fun to be around for 10 to 15 hours before you lay open an artery. (Yours or theirs, it really doesn’t much matter.)

So anyway, I asked her out, and she got kind of bubbly at the prospect of the date. That was pretty gratifying. The easiest way to arouse a guy is to play to his ego, and I’m no exception.

I always pick dates up. I’m old fashioned like that. So I clean out my truck, pretty myself up and set fourth on what I hope will be a very pleasant evening.

She’s a little nervous at her apartment. Again, that’s nice. The ride to the restaurant is the typical first date nonsense: how long have you lived here, where is your family from, I really like your shoes. (Yes ladies, it really does work.)

We get in, and order our drinks and everything goes to shit. What started as a pretty decent evening rapidly digresses into an exercise in endurance. By the end of the first drink she was engaged in a monologue about Brad Pitt and whatever it was he did to Angelina. I don’t care. Then we go into why he should have never left some other person that was perfect for him. I don’t care.

Then we order dinner, and another round of drinks. (I’ve switched to ordering doubles at this point.) I try to feel out a few topics of legitimate conversation. I start off with President Obama’s first 100 days. She parries with a diatribe on his wife’s clothes. I don’t care. I deftly pivot to the economy, she counters with a fashion designer that went out of business and how sad that is. I don’t care.

I finish my steak, and she finishes her… I don’t remember what she ate. Before she can order dessert I make the grand mistake of the evening. In a wild, flailing, hail Mary pass to talk about anything other than stuff I don’t care about I ask her if she has seen any good movies lately.

Then she launches spectacularly into the most flamboyant bloviating epic novel on who is dating who in Hollywood, and why they should or shouldn’t be doing that. How she gets so sad when she reads about some actress I’ve never even heard of divorcing someone else I’ve never heard of and isn’t is just such a shame that that gay singer has to keep denying it…

I don’t care.

The drive back to her place was an oral history of the different celebrities she has had her hair styled to look like. My anxiety level kept climbing because I was subconsciously thinking that there was going to be a quiz later. “Question One: How many times have I dyed my hair to look like someone on One Tree Hill?”

I don’t care.

When we get there she tells me how much fun she has had, and invites me up for a drink.

And as much as I knew I would regret it later, as much as I marshaled all of my strength reserves I just couldn’t work up enough enthusiasm to walk up her one flight of stairs to get laid.

I just didn’t care enough. Not about her, not about her hair and certainly not about Brad Pitt.

It was like going on a date with the Weekly World News. How am I supposed to see a person inside of all of that when I went 46 straight minutes without uttering a word, and the conversation never dies out?

Samuel Beckett once wrote that “Every word is an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness” and until last night, I really don’t think I understood what he meant.

I’ll tell you one thing though: Monday morning is going to be awkward!

I won’t exactly say that I grew up in strip clubs, but I was sneaking into them when I was 17. Certainly it would be fair to say that I learned a lot in them. These were important lessons, like when to keep your hands to yourself, and when not to. I learned how to fold a one so that it didn’t go limp, and how to make a single drink last all night. Most importantly, I learned to duck when a clear acrylic platform high heel is flying at your head. (Those things are almost invisible in a room lit only by black light and broken dreams)

And at some point, long ago, I learned to truly love the smell of stripper sweat and shame. Ahhh, the subtle nuances of shame. There is the shame of taking your clothes off for the first time in public. There is the shame of degrading yourself to buy coke from some shady guy in the bathroom who wants to watch you pee. There is the shame of blowing guys in the parking lot to have enough money so your boyfriend (who really loves you, baby) doesn’t knock your teeth in when you get home. All good, all special, all perfect.

There are basically three strip clubs near my house, in the lovely town of Prairieville, and each of them serve their own purpose and clientèle.

Let’s review them in reverse order.

The first is Southern Cumforts. (No, I didn’t misspell that one). This is the seedy, shady, bar with the sticky floors that the skeezy old biker chicks dance at. Now, I admit, I am not a big fan of this place. But some nights, you aren’t looking for the perfect fantasy. Some nights, you want to be kicked awake by some hairy chick that looks like the wife on Dog, the Bounty Hunter, and told not to puke on the stage again. This is the place for this experience!

The second on the list is Kitten’s, previously known as Cinnamon’s, previously a concrete factory. Kitten’s is a different animal all together. Where as the women in SC’s may be large and burly, the women in Kitten’s are a little more feminine, a little more addicted to heroine and coke. These are the women with rock hard abs from smoker’s coughs. They have that romantic look in their eyes that says they don’t even remember what dignity is, let alone something being below their dignity.

I’ll admit, there is a draw here. I’ve been a few times, and on the right day, at the right time, sometimes that’s just the way life goes.

Then there is the granddaddy of them all, the place you went when you actually want to see a girl you would enjoy seeing naked, there is Escapades.

Ohhh, Escapades…

This was the first club I ever walked into, and when I realized I could see a naked woman do unspeakable things to herself for my entertainment for only a dollar, well, life just seemed to make sense that night.

Sure most of the girls blend together into a seamless phantasmagoria of naked skin and sequined panties, but there are a few that stand out to my mind for one reason or another.

The first one is Kate. She was this dye job orange haired trailer park girl that used to only dance to Ozzy Osborne songs. Her gimmick was to bang her head to the music so violently that her tits popped out of her top. She had a Danzig tattoo (why?) and I drove her to the hospital one night when she was so drunk she fell off the stage and hit her head on one of the old wire spools they used for table dances. There is something about a girl bleeding from the head in you truck and saying “If you see a cop, don’t let them pull us over” that makes you see the world for what it is.

I remember Jessica, the classically trained ballerina that fell in love with my friend. She wrote him beautiful poetry about being abused as a child. I mean come on, how does he NOT fall for that?

There was Lisa, whom I dated for a while. When a girl is so messed up in the head that she makes ME uncomfortable, that’s an accomplishment that you should write to your high school news letter to let them know about.

Maybe the one I remember the most clearly is a girl whose name I never knew. I just happened to be there on the first day she was working, and I saw her shaking like a leaf on a tree as she went up for her first dance. I’ll hand it too her, she got all her close off before she bolted for the door. I will always, always remember the look of stark terror on her face as she ran out the door starkers. The other dancers laughed at her after she was gone. She left her clothes on the stage, and I have always been curious where the key was that let her get into her car.

All these memories are now regulated to the realm of the past, and nothing more. The club has closed. It was raided several times over the summer, and shut down. When it applied for a license to reopen, it was denied one for exotic dancing, because over the years, daycares have opened up on either side of the building. (Who the fuck opens a day care right next to a strip club?) and according to La law, you can’t have a club that promotes nudity within 900 yards of a school, library, nursery, or church.

The club itself has reopened under a new name of course. It was completely remodeled, and now stands as Silhouettes, as opposed to Escapades. But it’s not the same. It has the flavor of a clean, legitimate establishment now. Gone is the feeling that this place was torn from the shady little corner of your Id that no one but you knows about.

The girls were another problem. I enjoy women of all shapes and sizes and colors. I celebrate large ones and small ones. I love breasts, of all sizes, but these girls were so flat chested they could have been mistaken for 19 year old guys, or mastectomy patients.

The booze is expensive and most disturbingly the girls have to wear pasties. As if a quarter sized piece of self adhesive paper is going to protect the little school children from nipples.

Pasties!!!!

I do not need to be protected from tits. It always bothers me that the government thinks it can protect us from ourselves. I checked the hours of the nursery’s when I was there the other night. They are both open from 6AM to 6PM and Silhouettes is only open from 8PM to 2AM. The three places never even overlap in hours of operation. Not to mention, the club was there first.

Something has gone seriously wrong here my friends. When you can no longer openly degrade women for a simple dollar, and the government decides to get involved in the free market economy of supply and demand, the days of your freedom have evaporated.

84 hours

Zero Sleep

Woo Hoo!

Dear Allah,

I recently read about your good and faithful servant Muzzammil Hassan, and how he beheaded his wife to preserve his family honor when she wanted to divorce him for beating her. I was so moved to hear that there are still men in this world so devout to you that they are willing to kill, to murder their wives for reasons of honor.

I mean, let’s face it, women are evil and cunning (Qur’an 12:28), right? I mean that’s why you told us that they only have half of the value of a man. (Qur’an 4:11) Women are dirty, filthy creatures. They are so dirty, that you have instructed us not to pray if we have recently touched a woman, or used the toilet, and if we have to pray, we should scour ourselves with dirt which is cleaner. (Qur’an 4:43, 5:6)

Truly all these rules make sense, and we are thankful to you for providing them to us.

I wonder why in your infinite wisdom, you never thought to make women clean, and equal to men so that we could avoid problems, like the sickness of menstruation. (Qur’an 2:222) However, I feel sure you had your reasons. After all, if women were not made by you to be less than men, then who would we be allowed to beat when we are angry? You put us in charge of the beatings of women, because you made us better than them. (Qur’an 4:34)

Thanks for that. It would really suck if it had been the other way around.

However I have a modest proposal about the beheadings. I understand that there are times when your servants will need to kill their women so that they may continue to honor you, and worship you. That’s just the type of God you are, Allah. However, can we set up Designated Beheading Zones? I think this is a good idea, because if we did, then we would not have to worry about the health hazard caused by leaving so many filthy, vile, dirty women dead all over the place.

Also, if beheadings only happened in The Zones, then we could properly equip them with: swords, axes, machetes, and “Beautiful virgins, with wide, lovely eyes” (Qur’an 52:20) This would also make it much easier for your followers to commit “Emergency Beheadings”. This way, they would not have to plan the whole ordeal in advance. Really, is there anything more irritating than showing up to kill your wife for letting another man see her face, (Qur’an 24:31) and realizing that you left your axe at home?

Now, I know I am an infidel, and I come from the land of The Great Satan, so forgive my confusion. However, it may look to some of us like your subjugation of women may not be for their own good, but more for your sexual gratification. I know this shows my ignorance, and belies my own inner evil. However, it seems to me that the only men I know that are this scared of women are either impotent, or have a one inch cock.

(In metric that is 25.4mm)

Certainly, these problems of the flesh do not plague a god like yourself, so I ask myself if there may be another cause for it.  Obviously the answer can’t be that you simply have a preference for men. Maybe a secret preference that you have been denying for 3,000 years.

Allah, what are your preferences? Are your curious?

You know, maybe all this anger comes from being in the closet for the last 30 centuries, and denying that which really makes you happy? If that’s the case, maybe you should take some time off from telling some desert nomads how to live and realize that it’s 2009. Let your freak flag fly, man!

Have you considered therapy? If you just can’t get over this rage and need to beat women, maybe some time on the couch is all you need. I know a great Jewish psychologist. Of course she’s a woman, but not to worry, she only wears skirts that come past her knees.

Anyway Allah, if nothing else, please consider my suggestions on the Designated Beheading Zones. It’s really a win-win for every man involved. Until then, please feel free to go back to instructing your followers to murder innocent children and women for your glory.

Allah Akbar!

Sincerely,

Beerslinger, the Infidel.

When I was in Corpus Christi this weekend, visiting my family, I scanned the radio stations looking for something that didn’t suck, and I landed on a station playing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Nirvana isn’t my favorite, but it isn’t bad either, so I left it there. The next song up in the line was Pearl Jam’s Black. Rock On! I love Pearl Jam.

Then the station break happened and this is what was said: “Corpus Christi’s Golden Oldie station, the sound track of your youth!”

Holy what the fuck Batman!

When the hell did the songs that came out my freshman year in High School become Golden Oldies? When did this happen, and why wasn’t I pre-warned with a memo? or something…

Okay, for those of you that don’t remember (because apparently it’s been a while) in 1991 Pearl Jam and Nirvana came out and they were CUTTING EDGE social commentary. Sex drugs and Grunge! Pearl Jam’s name was so vulgar, my friends and I lived in constant fear of our parents decoding it’s meaning and confiscating our albums. Nirvana’s album had a naked baby on the cover for God’s sake. A naked baby!

STP’s entire first album Core was about rape. Not even really an analogy for anything either.

And now these are Golden Oldies? The sound track of my youth?

Okay, well if the sound track of my youth is already written, that means I am no longer young, right? Well if I am no longer young, then I must be old.

(Logical process of elimination)

So I’m old. I have to live with that. Nirvana has now been rerecorded as Muzak (I heard Come As You Are arranged for strings and synthesisers in an elevator over the summer. Seriously, this is enough to make you vomit.)

If I am old, what do I have to look forward to?

I’ve come up with a list!

1) Depends. On the surface, this may sound like a negative, but in reality the freedom to shit anywhere, anytime you want is the hallmark of civilization. Joy is never having to worry about finding a restroom again.

2) Erectile Dysfunction. Okay, again, you have to stretch for this one, but think about it. When Pearl Jam’s Ten came out, one of the principle scourges of my life was inappropriate arousal in public, and premature ejaculation. Nobody notices your E.D. unless you pull a Bob Dole and advertise it.

3) Dirty Old Man: You see, a 30 year old can’t get away with grabbing girls in public and making comments about their bodies, but a 90 year old man can. They think it’s cute! I’ve been practicing in the mirror at night, just to make sure I’m ready when the time comes: “Hey baby, come give me some sugar.”

4) Retirement Communities: This is like the promised land for old guys. Nobody works, and the ratio of women to men is usually 17 to 1. Now that’s my kind of odds. Low crime, low rent and if your lucky the nurse they send to whip your ass is cute, and makes little cooing noises at you.

5) Medications: If you’re old, you’ve got drugs. And I’m not talking allergy medication, I’m talking stuff that makes LSD look like Sanka.

6) Dementia: Ohhh, ohh this is the brass cupcake right here. This is the grand prize. Hey, you remember that time you did that really embarrassing thing in high school, and everyone laughed? Not anymore! Remember that time your wife cheated on you with your best friend? When was I married? Stabbed with a fork by your ex girlfriend, and all your left with is wondering where the scar came from.

So here’s to it boys. I give you incontinence, erectile dysfunction, opiate pain killers and Alzheimer’s.

May all of us be so lucky.

Wetwired is actively looking for new writers to fill out our ranks. If you think you have the chops, then we would like to hear from you!

What qualifications do you need? Not many. We need some people to write original content for the site. We give a lot of leeway as to the topics, and content of your posts. They need to be original, and fit the over all “feel” of WetWired meaning: news, techie stuff, pop culture and social commentary.

But spaces are limited, so hurry up and email us.

Yes, it has to be interesting. Generally the things that you post, if they are really interesting to you, they will be interesting to others as well.You must use proper grammar, or I will make fun of you. (Not to say we won’t make fun of you, even if your grammar is perfect. However, bad grammar is just asking for it…)

We would like to add a couple of female writers to our site. We have several excellent women that contribute right now, but their posts are infrequent, and we have always wanted to have a regular female voice to counteract the testosterone laden rants we sometimes get into.

Here is the biggest qualification: You must be willing to work for the grand sum of Zero Dollars. Hopefully that may change some time in the future, but for now you would be able to enjoy the profound religious experience* that comes with doing a job extremely well and being grossly underpaid for it.

So here is the deal: if you think you want to give it a shot, email me and we can talk about it. Don’t even worry about having something prepared, just drop an email and we will take it from there.

Beerslinger1@gmail.com

*Profound religious experiences vary from person to person. Profound religious experiences may very well be mistaken for seizures, intestinal distress or wandering bladder. Profound religious experiences are void where prohibited (ie. China and France). See local religious cleric for details.

Cryptography is the stuff of legends, war stories and bad TV programs. All of us know that there is something out there called cryptography, and that it can hide messages, but few of us truly understand what it truly is.

Let’s start with a simple explanation: Cryptography comes from the Greek words meaning “Hidden Writing”. It is a method of taking something you want to keep secret, and disguising the message so that only people that know the code can access it.

Most modern crypto is based on very complicated math, that disguises the message as nonsensical data, and then converts it to plain text with the use of a special key.

Not all crypto is the same.

Bruce Schneier PHD in Applied Cryptography writes “There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files.”

TrueCrypt is the latter. It is an incredibly strong encryption program, that cannot be cracked by conventional means, such as a brute force attack.

So why on earth would you need this kind of protection? For the same reason you put love letters in envelopes, and you don’t speak every thought you have to whoever happens to be around. Some things are just private. Some things are no one else’s business but yours.

Cryptography is the linchpin of free speech in this new millennium. It is the thing that allows us to make sure that our right to privacy is really assured.

If you are not encrypting your private financial data, personal documents, trade secrets, private writings, you really have to ask yourself why not.

Before 1993, the United States government, under the direction of the National Security Agency outlawed all forms of cryptography more advanced than 8 bit encryption. This time from the mid 70’s to 1993 as known as the Crypto War. Where Americans fought to ensure our right to have the most advanced cryptography on the planet.

We won.

Lets get down to business. How does TrueCrypt operate?

Truecrypt creates a file container, that meaningless data is written to. That file container can then be mounted as a drive on your computer, and files, folders and programs can be copied to it. TrueCrypt then encrypts that data, and writes it over some of the meaningless data in the container. When you dismount the container, it goes back to looking like an ordinary file.

You can make these containers small enough to be emailed, or large enough to encrypt a 1.5tb hard drive.

Encrypt a whole drive? No problem. Encrypt your computer’s operating system? Sure thing.

The best part of TrueCrypt is that it also allows for plausible deniability. This is basically a file container within a file container. Someone forces you to give them your pass word, give it to them. But give them the one that decrypts the outer file with the false information you put in it.

Since all of the container, including the free space is encrypted, no one can tell how much information is really stored there.

TrueCrypt can be downloaded here, free of charge.

Open Office may very well be the crown jewel of all open source programing. Sure, others may argue that title goes to Linux, but I disagree. I think Sun Microsystems truly out did themselves when they made the ability to create, save, and develop ideas free to everyone with Internet access.

For those that don’t know Open office is a complete suite of office and productivity software that is comparable to Microsoft Office Professional, and it is 100% free.

Just because it is comparable to MS Office, doesn’t mean it’s the same. No there are some very nice differences.

Lets start with the down side first: The appearance of Open Office is not as slick or as nice as the Microsoft product. But that is the only down side I can find.

The up sides are these:

- Open Office is free.

- The tools in their Writer (equivalent to MS Word) and their Math (equivalent to MS Excel) are every bit as powerful. Specifically the spell check is considerably better than Word. However Open Office also includes a program called Draw for CAD work, and one for writing and solving complex equations.

- File Conversion: This is a big one. Microsoft word will not open some of it’s competitors files, and most office suits have the same policy. However Open Office will open ANY commonly used document file, and let you save it as any other. This feature has saved me many times just for the ability to take a file saved from one branch in one format and convert it to another to send to a different branch that can’t read the original. This program would be worth it just for this feature.

- Document recovery: This is a really neat feature that I can’t believe no one else has thought of yet. If you have a document that is corrupt for one reason or another, when you try to open it with Open Office, it will automatically try to repair the damaged sections of the document. The really crazy thing is how well it works. I had a file on my computer for over a year, that had been damaged in email, but it was valuable, so I didn’t want to destroy it. Open Office was able to recover it without a problem.

The long and the short of it is that Open Office is a truly fantastic program. I am continually impressed by Sun Microsystems making this program free to anyone that needs it. I think of the power of an office program, and the benefits it can have to people that may not be able to afford commercial office programs. Think of students in public schools, writers and artists, and all they will be able to accomplish because of a generous donation of software.

My favorite part of this is the first line of the EULA for Open Office: “Open Office is free to anyone to use for any reason.”

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 – $419.99

Open Office 3.0 – Free of charge to all who want it.

Open Office can be downloaded here.

Since 2008 is behind us, and not a moment too soon, I decided to share with you my favorite new website of the year.

Actually, this started out as my top ten favorite new websites of the year, but the truth is that none of them could really compare to this one site.

So I give you Daily Lit.

Daily Lit lets you sign up for an email that will send you a small installment of a book every day, at the time of your choice.

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to the site and pick a book.

1. Give them your email address, and select the time of day you want it sent to you.

That’s it. They will ask you to confirm that you are the one that requested the book, and you get your first installment about 24 hours later. At the end of each installment is a button to get the next installment right away, and another to adjust the length of the installments that come in. (You can get them from a couple paragraphs at a time, to a few pages at a time.)

Here is the best part: over 800 books are FREE. No cost at all. You don’t even have to sign up for an account, or put up with Spam. Just give them an email address.

New releases and books that are still under copy right seem to start at prices of around $4. Very reasonable.

But the vast majority of the books available on this site are free.

I’m currently reading two books through this service.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (FREE)

and

Little Brother (FREE)

Little Brother is a techno thriller based in a dystopian future after a terrorist attack on San Francisco allows the government to pass The Patriot Act II. It’s fast paced and interesting, well worth the read, but better suited for this medium rather than a printed book. You’ll see what I mean when you read it.

This website is valuable, and we need to support it. Please take a moment to look at it, at the least, and buy a book from it if you can.

Wetwired is going on it’s 8th year now, and it has always been a wonderful place for the people involved in Wetwired to vent, rant and frolic.

However, we have always considered Wetwired to belong to the readers, not the writers. We try to write stories and articles and posts that are designed to entertain you.

So in the middle of my last bitch session where I was saying “We write it for them, where the fuck are they? We built it, and they ain’t comming!” It occurred to me that we never asked the readers WHAT they would like to read, and what they would like Wetwired to be about.

So here it is: What do YOU want Wetwired to be?

What would you like us to write about? What topics would you like us to cover. More news, or more original content?

I mean, really we are open to suggestions. If what YOU, the reader, wants is close up pictures of our genitals painted to look like Smurfs? GREAT! We can do that!

(This would be easy to do, Finley’s junk already looks like Clumsy Smurf)

Pod casts? Sure! Just tell us what you want us to talk about.

Articles? Oh, we got the articles!

More contests and prizes? Bring it on.

How about a way for The Good Readers (as we refer to you) to request topics on a regular basis. We can do that too.

So, please, PLEASE leave a comment or email me directly at Beerslinger@wetwired.org

Really, his cock is blue and shriveled, with a lopsided crinkled cap. I’m not kidding, it’s Clumsy Smurf.

Thank you for you support.

Wednesday, The United States launches unmanned drone attacks against terrorist encampments inside of Pakistan, at least six people have died.

Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, has become a growing haven for terrorists that are fleeing US troops policing efforts in Afghanistan. Over the last several weeks the generally good relationship enjoyed between Pakistan and the United States has become strained by US troops launching raids against terrorists camps on the other side of the Pakistan boarder.

Emergency diplomatic sessions had to be held when two days ago the prime minister of Pakistan released a general order to troops to fire on any American soldiers that violated the sovereign boarders of Pakistan.

American generals and ambassadors assured Pakistan that we would continue to consider them a partner in our War on Terror, and that we would respect their sovereignty, while simultaneously conducting bombings inside of their boarders.

Pakistan has yet to make a public statement on the bombing.

Okay, this is another of those “New Terms” that have been around forever, but are just coming to the fore front of our national consciousness. We at Wetwired have decided to make a concerted effort to shed some light on these terms as we are basically a news gathering organization and the current monetary crisis is quite possibly the biggest news story of the last 50 years.

(This one is a little more complicated, so try to follow along)

It all starts with Naked Short Selling, or Naked Selling. This is when a someone sells a share of stock, and fails to deliver it.

A Naked Short Sale is a manipulative trading technique. It takes advantage of a loophole in the system. This loophole allows a transaction to occur, and all monies to be paid before delivery of the stock share is made.

It should be noted that a Naked Short Sale is very different than a legitimate short sale. Short selling is an accepted means of selling a share at a price, and re buying it from the person when the price drops. This is a method of making money on a stock whose shares fall. It differs from Naked Short Selling in that it does not attempt to manipulate the market by taking advantage of deficiencies in the existing system.

The SHO List is a daily list required by the Securities Commission to show what stocks and futures have been most influenced by Naked Short Selling. When a stock appears on the list, it is usually considered to be “depressed” and therefore an unwise investment in most cases. The longer something stays on the list, the less chance it has of recovery.

When a stock is removes from the SHO List, it has a better chance of recovery than those on the list, but many stocks never recover from their time on the list.