Author: John Keegan

Change Log jgkeegan.com July 1, 2021—August 22, 2021

Posted on by John Keegan in Change Log, jgkeegan.com

Added two articles to site check list templates Lookbrew Scam and Internet Platforms, User Rights, and Section 230.

While not part of Change Log, the list templates are used track of changes made to the site as a whole such as changing the copyright year on every page, which has to be done manually since switching to Visual Studio code.

Added links to blog posts Confederate Monument Removal, and Change Logs
keegan.wiki, and jgkeegan.com to home page.

Changed out regular quotes for smart quotes in the entire article Genetic Dragnet Constitutional?

One of my earliest articles, published in 1998, I am still finding typos and other things that need to be fixed in it. As I explained in an earlier post, content maintenance is a continuous process even for articles that have no external hyperlinks.

Updated links on The Prisoner page. Additionally, centered the audio element.

Updated links on Star Trek page. Additionally, added video trailer for Star Trek: Picard Season 2.

It is extremely difficult find placement links for Star Trek content, which makes the Wayback machine very important.

All links work on Doctor Who Links page. Nothing needs to be done.

This was a unique experience. Coming across a page in a maintenance cycle where nothing needs to be done.

Updated Education Links page. Removed dead links and added new ones.

Added links to updated pages to updates section of the home page.

Updated links to Rodger Ebert interviews of Groucho, and Rodger Ebert homepage on
Groucho Marx: The Writer page. Additionally, added a review of the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup.

Changed link to John H Watson MD to a link from the Wayback machine on The
Secret of Sherlock Holmes page. While the original URL still leads to a page, the entire website has been taken down and appears to be under construction or major update.

Updated the Why Audio link, an episode of the Keegan Podcast, on the home page because it wasn’t functioning properly.

Changed Web of Fear bookmark Season 5 of the Doctor Who Guide to the complete URL with bookmark because the bookmark was not functioning properly.

Corrected in end note 11 on page Internet Platforms, User rights, and Section 230 because of typo in URL. Additionally, added link to blog post Running Websites and The Second Law of Thermodynamics to the home page.

Added link to article Groucho Marx: The Writer to the home page because links were added and updated several weeks ago.

Added link to post MyPollow Cyber Symposium to the home page.

MyPollow Cyber Symposium

Posted on by John Keegan in Science and Technology

Post in Word Formaticons8-microsoft-word-48

I am an historian of United States History my focus is twentieth century history. I am not a cyber security expert; however, I do maintain two websites and this blog. As a result, I am familiar with the process of looking for anomalies in code. It is tediously slow and time consuming. No one, not even a cyber security expert can look at scrolling information on a giant screen, and find anomalies let alone evidence of election fraud. Mike Lindell held his three-day cyber symposium last week at which he promised to provide “non-subjective evidence” that the 2020 election was hacked by the Chinese.1 The symposium began on Tuesday, August 10, 2021, and concluded on Thursday, August 12, 2021.

Mike Lindell is the CEO of MyPillow, rabid Trump supporter, and far right conspiracy theorist. Since November 3, 2020, Lindell has echoed the baseless claims of Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani that Dominion voting machines were somehow compromised causing Donald Trump to lose the election. These claims were rejected by the Federal courts by judges appointed by Donald Trump. Dominion is now suing Mike Lindell, Sydney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani as well as several media outlets because of their false claims for 1.3 billion dollars.2 When Lindell became aware of the court ruling, on August 11, 2021, he was on stage at the symposium, and he abruptly left.3

Lindell had additionally claimed that after the symposium and the publication of the irrefutable evidence, Trump would be reinstated as President of the United States. The problem is that there is no mechanism either in the Constitution of the United States or in Federal statute that would allow such a thing to take place. Not even a ruling of the Supreme Court. The Vacancy in offices of both President and Vice President; officers eligible to act 3 USC § 19 (a) and (b) state:

    1. If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.
    2. The same rule shall apply in the case of the death, resignation, removal from office, or inability of an individual acting as President under this subsection.
  2. If, at the time when under subsection (a) of this section a Speaker is to begin the discharge of the powers and duties of the office of President, there is no Speaker, or the Speaker fails to qualify as Acting President, then the President pro tempore
    of the Senate shall, upon his resignation as President pro tempore and as Senator, act as President.4

Now, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the United States Senate are both members of the Democratic Party. The law says nothing about and does not allow for action taken by the Supreme Court; therefore, no action will be taken by the Supreme Court.

Lindell may not be aware of or understand Title 3 quoted above. Additionally, he may not remember that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated, on November 12, 2020, that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history….” “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”5 Furthermore, Lindell may not know of or may have discounted Attorney General Bill Barr’s conversation with Trump on December 1, 2020, when Barr told Trump to Trump’s face that Trump’s election fraud claims were “bullshit.”6 Earlier Barr gave an interview to the Associated Press (AP) in which he made clear the “Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.” In other words, Barr stated as of the date of the interview … “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”7 Two weeks later, on December 14, 2020, Barr resigned.

For nine months Lindell has claimed the 2020 election was stolen and he has terabytes of evidence to prove it. As an historian this claim sounds familiar. In February 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy from Wisconsin stated in a Wheeling West Virginia speech he had a list of communists working in the State Department. The number of people on that list varied from 57 to 205 to a lot. The fact is McCarthy never had such a list.8 McCarthyism is a prime example of the illogic of waste—time, potential; resources all to advance a single person’s career or agenda. In Lindell’s case, for communists read election fraud. At least, Lindell’s symposium did not last as long as McCarthy’s hearings. In the end, McCarthy’s search for communists produced nothing, except the addition of a new word to the English language–McCarthyism.9

Did the Sioux Falls South Dakota cyber symposium produce any evidence that China interfered with the 2020 election? No. The symposium did not get off to a good start, on Tuesday, August 10, 2021, because of technical difficulties, which Lindell claimed were due to the attacks of hackers.10 The event went downhill from there. On Wednesday, August 11, 2021, the invited cyber experts lost interest as Lindell incessantly spoke about his “evidence,” but produced nothing.11 Even former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was charged on August 20, 2020, with defrauding donors to an online fundraising campaign to build a border wall and pardoned by Trump, said Lindell should produce the evidence. “You’ve laid a theory of the case that is very powerful, but in laying that case out, you’ve got to bring the receipts.”12 Adding insult to injury, Josh Merritt cyber expert on the team hired by Lindell told the Washington Times Wednesday, that “packet captures are unrecoverable in the data and that the data, as provided, cannot prove a cyber incursion by China.” Merritt added, “So our team said, we’re not going to say that this is legitimate if we don’t have confidence in the information.”13

In the end, Lindell’s cyber symposium is another prime example of the illogic of waste—time, potential; resources all to advance a fantastic notion that had absolutely no chance of becoming reality. Lindell’s symposium produced no evidence of election fraud and Trump will not be reinstated. So, for a majority of the country nothing has changed; people go about their lives as before. But, what of Trump supporters? They were promised evidence that would support their belief, and they were given none. Will they alter their views to fit the facts? Or alter the facts to fit their views? What of Lindell? Was the symposium just a con to sell pillows? Or was Lindell the victim of a con man? Lindell has been silent since the end of the symposium on Thursday, August 12, 2021, will he fade into the background and concentrate on his legal defense in the Dominion lawsuit? A lot of questions, damn few answers.

Notes

1 Mike Lindell Promises to Show ‘100% Non-Subjective Evidence’ of Election Fraud in August, Newsweek, June 26, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/mike-lindell-promises-show-100-non-subjective-evidence-election-fraud-august-1604409.

2 “Judge Rules Dominion Case Can Proceed against Trump Allies,” AP NEWS, August 12, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/business-election-2020-fdb8faaacdbc06b241e55ebb37fbff61.

3 Cheryl Teh, “My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell Fled the Stage at His Cyber Symposium at the Same Time News Broke That Dominion’s Billion-Dollar Defamation Lawsuit against Him Would Proceed,” Business Insider, accessed August 12, 2021, https:// www.businessinsider.com/mike-lindell-ran-off-stage-cyber-symposium-dominions-lawsuit-proceed-2021-8; John Whitehouse, (@existentialfish), “Moments after a Federal Judge Ruled That Dominion’s Lawsuits against Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, Giuliani, and Others Can Proceed, Lindell Himself Hustles off Stage,” Twitter, August 11, 2021. https://twitter.com/existentialfish/status/1425583724138225669.

4 “3 U.S. Code § 19 – Vacancy in Offices of Both President and Vice President; Officers Eligible to Act,” LII / Legal Information Institute, accessed August 13, 2021, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/19.

5 “Joint Statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees | CISA,” accessed August 13, 2021, https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election.

6 Jonathan Swan, “Off the Rails: Inside the Disintegration of Trump’s Relationship with Bill Barr,” Axios, accessed August 13, 2021, https://www.axios.com/trump-barr-relationship-off-the-rails-b33b3788-e7e9-47fa-84c5-3a0016559eb5.html.

7 “Disputing Trump, Barr Says No Widespread Election Fraud,” AP NEWS, accessed August 14, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d .

8 John Keegan, McCarthyism, jgkeegan.com, accessed August 14, 2021, https://jgkeegan.com/mccarthyism.htm, 2-3.

9 Keegan, 2. “Generally, McCarthyism was a serious assault on the Western political system and its antidemocratic aspects posed a genuine threat to that system. McCarthyism was, at its simplest, intolerance backed by power. Specifically, it was the use of unsupported charges and smear tactics to destroy someone’s reputation and career.”

10 “Mike Lindell Delays ‘Cyber Symposium’ After Saying He Was Hacked,” accessed August 15, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/mike-lindell-delays-cyber-symposium-after-saying-he-was-hacked-1618010.

11 Zachary Petrizzo, (@ZTPetrizzo) “As Mike Lindell Talks about His ‘Evidence’ on Day Two, the Crowd Wasn’t Having It and Has Mostly Left.” Twitter, August 12, 2021, https://twitter.com/ZTPetrizzo/status/1425614163276189697.

12 “Steve Bannon’s Fraud Case Dismissed after Months of Haggling over Trump Pardon,” Washington Post, accessed August 16, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/steve-bannon-case-dismissed/2021/05/25/8f1e0422-93e7-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html; “‘This Is a Mistake’: Steve Bannon Slams Mike Lindell’s Symposium for Not Proving Voter Fraud,” Newsweek, August 11, 2021. https://www.newsweek.com/this-mistake-steve-bannon-slams-mike-lindells-symposium-not-proving-voter-fraud-1618546.

13 “Cyber Expert Says Team Can’t Prove Mike Lindell’s China Election Hack Claims,” Washington Times, accessed August 13, 2021, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/11/mike-lindells-lead-cyber-expert-says-they-cant-pro/

Eric Clapton, After Midnight, and Amazon Music

Posted on by John Keegan in Science and Technology

Clapton_is_God

I have an Amazon music subscription. I listened to a lot of radio when I was a kid; I had a radio show in college, so I have a good number of song titles in my head. I’ve been listening to a lot of Eric Clapton lately, and why not? There’s a particular version of After Midnight that I like. It’s the 1988 version used in the Michelob commercial. It is also on Disc Number 4 of his Crossroads Box Set (it is listed as After Midnight) not a terribly useful title when you’re trying to distinguish it from the original cover version. All I can play on the Amazon Echo is the original cover version. There is no way for me to verbally distinguish between the two versions. I have tried (1988 version of After Midnight), (extended version of After Midnight), and (After Midnight from the Michelob commercial) Any suggestions? I suppose there is a bright side, the problem does force me to continue to use my iPod.

Running Websites and The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Posted on by John Keegan in jgkeegan.com, keegan.wiki, video

View PowerPoint

icons8-microsoft-word-48Post in Word Format

Those who run websites have two equally important responsibilities. First, Content Creation and second Content Maintenance, making certain that the content looks and functions the way it should, and that means dealing with a physical quantity called entropy, which measures the degree of disorder in a system.1 Entropy increases with the passage of time. So, at some point, any website will exhibit signs of disorder and dysfunction. Maintenance should be a continuous process.

The most common ways entropy manifests itself in websites are Dead Links and Link Rot.2 These terms describe the same thing in different ways. Links stop working for any one or a combination of four reasons.

  1. Websites go down
    1. Because of server failure or
    2. Non-payment As a result, links to those sites die.
  2. Sites and pages are moved, and no one puts a redirect into the .htaccess file either out of neglect or because their content management system does not allow them to do so, and those links die.
  3. Just as often syntax errors occur during creation, editing, and updating. For example, updating a site to responsive design, HTML 5, or routine maintenance such as checking for and replacing dead links.
  4. Weird stuff happens for no apparent reason.

Experience demonstrates the fourth reason happens most often. The second most common reason is that URLs change.3 Syntax errors, errors in coding, are third in frequency and are usually internal. The least frequent is neglecting to write a redirect into the .htaccess file.

The need for redirects suggests major changes in website architecture such as changing servers, adding or deleting directories, or changing content management systems. For example, some years ago I was hosting two WordPress instances as part of jgkeegan.com, but they required constant updating and I was unable to keep them up-to-date; so, my service provider would periodically shut them down. As a result, I purchased a new domain, keegan.blog, and moved both the Keegan Blog and the Keegan Podcast to WordPress.com. While the content of both is much easier to maintain, and it is much easier to post on the go; weird stuff does happen. Recently, I was routinely checking the blog for link rot, and discovered numerous errors in one of my older posts Intelligent Design is a Social Theory4 Opening the editor to start correction, I found that in both editing views only a third of the content was present. However, all of the content was present when viewing the post in the browser. That did not make sense. Not wanting to risk the loss of two-thirds of my content, I copied the post from the browser and coded it again making corrections as I went, which solved the
problem.

Checking for link rot and other Content Maintenance should be continuous, but stuff happens and, at the very least, routine checks should happen about every three months. Dead links are the most common maintenance issue on websites. Each outgoing link on a website should be physically inspected and replaced if it does not function. On large sites, anything over 250 pages, some type of automatic link checker should be used. I was reluctant to use an automatic link checker because there is no substitute for physical inspection. However, and automatic link checker does give an author a place to start. Recently, I searched for an automatic link checker and found Free Broken Link Checker–Online Dead Link Checking Tool.5 It has two features which are useful. It lists the broken URLs in a table; providing a link to the originating page, and it allows the author to view the code. It does, however, have a major drawback. The checker does not recognize changes immediately. That is, if a check is run on a domain and dead links are found and changed, and the checker is run immediately it will return the same information because not enough time has passed for the changes made to be recognized.

Once a broken link is found, what happens next? If the link is important enough the link text should be searched for, and if the same information is found the link should be replaced. If the same information is not found, then the URL should be put into the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, and the most recent snapshot of the information should be used.6 There are instances, however, when the Wayback Machine has not archived a page or site. In that case, and if the page is a list of links, the dead link should be removed and replaced if possible. If the dead link is in a footnote, which is part of an article or academic paper and cannot be found it should not be removed that is why the access date is given in the footnote.

Content Maintenance is as important to a website as Content Creation, and a functioning server. Content Maintenance should be a continuous process for a website to maintain its usefulness. Entropy increases with time.

Notes

1 Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), 102.

2 PCMag Encyclopedia, s. v. Dead Link accessed July 24, 2021, https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/dead-link. A hyperlink on a website that points to a Web page that has been deleted or moved. Also called an orphan link, it may also be a temporary condition if the Web server is down; PCMag Encyclopedia, s. v. Link Rot accessed July 24, 2021, https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/link-rot. Invalid hyperlinks on the Web. The more years go by, the more link rot because pages are moved to new locations or deleted.

3 PCMag Encyclopedia, s. v. URL accessed July 24, 2021, https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/url. (Uniform Resource Locator) The address that defines the route to a file on an Internet server (Web server, mail server, etc.). URLs are typed into a Web browser to access Web pages and files, and URLs are embedded within the pages themselves as links….

4 John Keegan, Intelligent Design is a Social Theory, The Keegan Blog, accessed August 3, 2021, https://keegan.blog/2005/10/30/intelligent-design-is-a-social-theory/.

5 Free Broken Link Checker–Online Dead Link Checking Tool, accessed July 24, 2021, https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/.

6 Wayback Machine, Internet Archive, accessed July 24, 2021, https://archive.org/web/. The Wayback Machine provides access to snapshots of billions of websites that exist and have existed on the Internet.

Change Log jgkeegan.com March 10, 2021-June 22, 2021

Posted on by John Keegan in Change Log, jgkeegan.com

Fixed problem in HTML code on Author’s Note page in The Launching of a New Constitution Unit.

Added the link to Change Log blog post to home page.

Added new posts folder and new article Lookbrew Scam.

The article was originally going to be a blog post, but I could not format it the way I wanted it on the blog; so I put it on the website instead. I did, however, post a video discussion on the blog.

Put index page in all new folders.

I add index pages to folders so that users cannot see the folders contents.

Added Lookbrew links to the home page.

Corrected typos on home page.

Updated links on Forensic Science Links page. Additionally, added new link at the request of a user.

Completed updating links on Forensic Science Links page. All links are active.

Updated links on the Sherlock Holmes Links page and on the Sherlock Holmes Links Notes page. All links are active.

My Sherlock Holmes pages are the hardest keep up to date with good links there are so few out there, which makes me even more dependent on the Wayback Machine. The notes page was one of my first attempts at using footnotes in a webpage. Now, I use them as a matter of course, and footnotes should be used more than they are on the web.

Changed PowerPoint presentations links to lecture links in the unit the Launching of a New Constitution on the Contents page, in the Legislative Branch Lesson Plan,
and the Lesson Plan on the Remaining Articles.

I came up with the idea of doing lectures during the pandemic. When I, like many others, had a lot of time on my hands. I found that making videos and uploading them to YouTube was easier than producing an audio-only podcast. Additionally, it allowed me to present the material the way it should be presented. A complete list of lectures is available at my Document Archive of educational material keegan.wiki.

Updated link in the unit the Launching of a New Constitution on the Contents page Appendix section to a transcript of the Constitution from the National Archives.

Change Log keegan.wiki December 16, 2020-June 29, 2021

Posted on by John Keegan in Change Log, keegan.wiki

Create a new directory resources. Moved Documenting Sources for a Research Paper page to resources directory, and created index page for the directory as well as a CSS file.

Completed updating navigation with link to Research page to all pages. Additionally, updated copyright year on all pages. Also, continued work on Evaluating Web Sources page.

Updating the navigation menu with a long process because I use Visual Studio code, which does not recognize dynamic web templates. So, each page has to be updated individually. I use Visual Studio code because it ‘s free and dynamic web templates are the only feature it lacks.

Created new source page McCarthy Executive Sessions. Additionally, created lecture page for Evaluating Web Sources. Furthermore, replaced embedded video with image and link on Civil War page.

I add source pages because URLs change, sites go down, and in the case of public documents; it’s easier to host them on a site I control. Additionally, most URLs are too long to place in a footnote on small screen devices; not to mention a PDF or a Word document. As I demonstrated in an earlier post. Furthermore, a website that cites source material has more credibility.

Created source page for article Internet Platforms, User Rights, and Section 230.

Completed page for lecture: thenLost Cause and Modern Memory. Additionally, added links to the page on the Civil War page and the lectures index page.

Added How a Bill Becomes a Law lecture page. Additionally, added a link to the lecture on lecture index page.

Added Amending The Constitution lecture page. Additionally, add links and embedded video on the Constitution page for How a Bill Becomes a Law and Amending The Constitution.


Fixed typo in link to Duck and Cover essay. Additionally, added margins and display block to cite tag in CSS.


Fix typos in navigation links on Duck and Cover page.


Created lecture page explaining Presidential Veto Power. Additionally, added link to the lecture to lecture index page and imbedded Youtube video and added links to lecture page and questions to the Constitution page.

Changed color of hyperlink text on Word War II page.