Lock Bumping — Our media center has contributors of all professions and ages living all over the United States. So whenever several of them send in the same story, it can be assumed that the subject is a “hot topic.” Today that topic is lock bumping. Before today, most of us had never heard of it.

Wikipedia has carried information about this topic for some time:

Lock bumping is a lock picking technique for opening a pin tumbler lock using a specially-crafted bump key. One bump key will work for all locks of the same type….

The technique involves inserting the bump key into the lock and tapping the key one or more times with a mallet or similar device, while applying a slight turning force (torque) to the key. In some cases, a tap with a finger is all you need. After a little bit of practice, this will open the lock. The skill level required to bump a lock is minuscule compared to other lock picking techniques; bumping is a feasible method for compromising locks by just about anyone….

There’s also a good post on the subject at the weblog Didn’t You Hear?, worth visiting for a very good graphic illustration of the technique, showing key slots and pins.

The current spate of interest results from a video about lock bumping posted on YouTube in mid-January by Memphis locksmith Glen Peifer of Peifer Safe & Lock. And a smart move it was! Tens of thousands of folk are alarmed and looking for ways to upgrade their protection. The video has been seen by almost two million viewers. Ah, the power of the Web.

Glen was interviewed about lock bumping by WMC TV in Memphis. The story is here.

Lock Bumping – Protect yourself

If you think your home is safe just because the door is locked, think again. Bad guys may be able to slip into your house with very little effort, by trying something called “lock bumping.”…

And safety experts say this technique works on more than 90 percent of homes.

“The good guys need to know what to watch out for. The bad guys are gonna find out what to do. So why should the public not know what’s happening?” said locksmith Glen Peifer.

The trick? A special series of cuts on a regular old house key and a tap or a series of taps will do the trick.

Memphis locksmith Glen Peifer says you need to worry about this because it is so easy. Even a ten year-old can do it….

And here is the famous video:

The Blogger Flap — Keeping up with the times, John Edwards hired blue bloggers from the so-called “netroots” community to work for his presidential campaign. Like most of the liberal bloggers, they speak with strident voices. Two of them, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, had made statements critical of the Catholic Church before joining the Edwards campaign.

Earlier this week the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Bill Donohue, called on Edwards to fire the pair. Yesterday during a campaign stop in Charleston, South Carolina John Edwards announced his intention to retain the services of these bloggers.

Donohue’s reaction was described by the Washington Post:

An angry Bill Donohue … criticized Edwards for not firing the two bloggers. Donohue also promised a nationwide public relations campaign in newspapers, magazines and Catholic publications to tell voters what the candidate had done.

“When Mel Gibson got drunk and made anti-Semitic remarks, he paid a price for doing so. When Michael Richards got angry and made racist remarks, he paid a price for doing so. … But John Edwards thinks the same rules don’t apply to him, which is why he has chosen to embrace foul-mouthed, anti-Catholic bigots on his payroll,” Donohue said….

All over the Blogosphere, pundits reacted to this kerfuffle. Dan Riehl has a somewhat chauvinistic take:

As I discovered in college – play a radical feminist just right, and many end up eating out of your hand. I think most of that venom is little more than protection, anyway. Unfortunately, when you grow up, the dysfunction can be a little too much to tolerate.

In a sense, Edwards has solved something of a problem for the Right – better he has to keep an eye on these two, than us. Don’t lose too much sleep over it, John. The campaign fun hasn’t even begun.

Will this be “maccaca” for John Edwards? Or do the same rules not apply to liberals?

Passing — Sadly, the turbulent life of Anna Nicole Smith has come to an end. She collapsed in Florida and and was taken to a hospital, where she died a short time later. Only 39 years old, she survived her beloved son by only a few months. He died last year at the age of 20, while visiting his mother in the hospital as she gave birth to her baby daughter, who is now left without mother or brother.

She began her career as a waitress and topless dancer, achieved fame as a model for Guess jeans, and scandalized the public in 1994 when she married elderly oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II when she was 26 and he was 89. Following his death a year later, she battled with his son by a previous marriage for his estate all the way to the Supreme Court. The son died shortly after the case, which remains unresolved, was sent back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

There’s a lesson in this. The two parties to the lawsuit have both died, but the lawyers for both sides plan to continue the battle. On Anna’s behalf, lawyers will fight to get a share of the estate for her five-month-old baby girl. That’s what lawyers do.

The “Scooter” Libby Trial — Yesterday the prosecution rested its case in the “Scooter” Libby trial, after lengthy testimony by television journalist Tim Russert. (The Washington Post coverage is here.) Some intrepid souls are still trying to follow the intricasies of the case. The rest of us are just thinking, “Thank God I am not on that jury.”

It has been determined that no crime was committed in the affair about which Libby was originally testifying. So the case that remains is only to determine whether Libby lied under oath while giving testimony about a crime that never took place.

Contrast this with the fact that Bill Clinton lied under oath to a grand jury, and got away with it. Oooops, forgive me, it depends on what you believe the meaning of “is” is. And meanwhile, we simple taxpayers watch these unbelievably self-absorbed Washington politicians wasting our money in endless parsing of their grievances.

It is a special time for Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He has been a professional rival of Libby’s for years, and must be savoring his moment in the sun.

Reading the Brain — Well, perjury may not be an issue much longer. The Guardian reports that a team of scientists have the ability to do a brain scan and read a person’s intentions or tell if he is lying.

The brain scan that can read people’s intentions
Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in interrogation
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 9, 2007

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists’ ability to probe people’s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.

The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way….

In the science and technology department, this is pretty amazing stuff. But to put it in perspective, most mothers with small children learn out of necessity to do the same thing by looking into their kids’ eyes.

Palestinian Deal — The Saudis have brokered a deal between Hamas and Fatah to share the government of Palestine. The New York Times reports:

MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 8 — The main rival Palestinian factions agreed late Thursday to form a government of national unity aimed at ending a wave of violence between them and an international boycott.

The agreement, signed here in Islam’s holiest city under Saudi auspices, appeared likely to end, at least for now, weeks of fighting that has ravaged the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but it seemed to stop short of meeting the demands of the international community for resuming relations and support for the Palestinian Authority.

The accord, signed by Khaled Meshal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah, its main rival, is the first time that the two parties have agreed to share authority. It sets out principles for a coalition government, like the distribution of ministerial portfolios….

This is good. One Arab country stepping up to the plate to straighten out another in need of a bit of firm guidance. We don’t have to be everybody’s arbitrator.