Xeni Jardin: Shannon Larratt, founder of the body modification online publicatoin BMEzine, points us to a first-person essay by a person named Yard[D]og regarding the deceased, adoptive father of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove (the younger Mr. Rove is shown in the image below).

About the essay's contents, Mr. Larratt says, "Karl Rove's father was not only gay, but a part of the early body piercing scene and a regular at 70s piercing parties... There are pictures of him on BME."

Here is an excerpt from the essay. It is published in entirety on BMEzine with detailed photos said to depict the elder Mr. Rove's numerous genital piercings.

I have no way of verifying the claims in this essay, or the source of the photos, but I do know that Mr. Larratt is familiar with the author (a known participant in the body modification community), and with the story.

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Louie loved his piercings, they made him smile. People who are pierced will understand.

So there on the floor in his library, amid teaching videos on piercings and piles of [Piercing Fans International Quarterly], I listened to one man’s account of his travels through the Los Angeles piercing community in the 70’s and 80’s — the “piercing parties” with folks getting pierced on coffee tables in private homes, nurses that helped, and a guy named Jim. I knew about Jim. I had both my nipples pierced at The Gauntlet.

Louie also knew about play piercing; I wanted to learn and so he taught me. And so between splashing in the pool, brunches, visiting his volunteer list of AIDS patients, eating at all numbers of restaurants, visiting friends who lived around the area, birding at the Salton Sea and eating TV dinners, we explored needles and the effect they have on you.

During the day I was told the names of piercings ... I hated the words but I wanted to know about each kind. To this day I’ve never gotten a dydoe because Louie told me it was a hard heal. I never copied Louie’s piercings but I never got them out of my mind. Some years after I last saw him, I found another friend, a professional piercer name Sque3z who took me on another journey recounted here on BME. Louie would be proud.

Louie and I exchanged gifts over the years. He really liked those stainless ball weights and I like gold jewelry ... so I have a 14 karat gold cock ring that once belonged to Louie, and he had a bunch of ball weights that belonged to me.

So who cares about one man’s journey into piercing? For me it is not about a gossipy story, though some people will take it that way. It is not about telling secrets or things left best unsaid; it is about a little piece of history. Perhaps in telling this story someone else will be able to tell a better one another day.

The “Jim” in this story is the Jim Ward who started the piercing industry. Louie is Louis Claude Rove whose adopted son’s first name is Karl. Louie died quietly in Palm Springs as his very secular, not-believing son ran President Bush’s campaign for President of the United States that energized the Christian evangelical base around the wedge issue of gay marriage...

As I watched the news this week, I saw a Karl Rove standing beside the President, his voice crocking, talking about his love for Bush and his country but over that “noise,” I heard the memory of Joe Koons whispering in my ear.

“You do know who his son is?”

     ... Oh My God!

And now I wondered if that son ever cried for the man who raised him and watched him grow up? I’d be curious as to how Karl Rove would ever explain his pierced, gay father? He never told the people in Louis’ phone book that he had died, nor invited them to a service if there was one. No one even knows where he is buried.

As for me? Well, I am the proud owner of Karl Rove’s father’s pure, solid gold cock ring! I’ve put it away with a few memories and pictures of his father. And in my garden grows a nasty, prickly little cactus from Louie’s backyard ... alive and well.

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Link to full text. NSFW advisory: Contains links to photographs of the pierced genitals of Karl Rove's father, with a "modesty mosaic" imposed over the thumbnail images at that main link.

FWIW, Wikipedia has this to say about Mr. Rove's father:

Rove was born the second of three children in Denver, Colorado, and later raised in Sparks, Nevada. His biological father abandoned the family early on and his mother remarried. His new adoptive father, Louis Claude Rove Jr., was a mineral geologist, and his mother, Reba Wood, was a gift shop manager. His older brother is Eric P. Rove, and his younger sister is Reba A. Rove-Hammond. His adoptive father is of Norwegian descent.

strider2004 writes to tell us that Barrapunto, the Spanish version of Slashdot, has outed two TV stations in Spain, one public and the other private, for engaging in Wikipedia vandalism for the sake of a story. (The link is in Spanish; Google translation here.) The public station introduced falsehoods into the Wikipedia entry for John Lennon; the private one vandalized the Elvis Presley entry. Both stations said they were performing an "experiment" to check the reaction time of Wikipedia. Both articles were promptly corrected by other editors.

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An anonymous reader writes "Alienware doesn't think CableCard is ready for the mass market. The Dell subsidiary is coming out with some high-end Media Center PCs but won't sell them directly to consumers because the HD-enabling CableCard 'requires the expertise of a reseller and installer.' CableCard was supposed to be the savior for Windows Media Center, which has been held back by its inability to support high-def content. Alienware made its mark selling tricked-out computers to gamers, so it's telling that the company doesn't think its traditional geeky customer can handle CableCard without professional help."

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An anonymous reader sends us to the www.xakep.ru forum where a poster claims that the worldwide Skype crash was caused by Russian hackers (in Russian). The claim is that they found a local buffer overflow vulnerability caused by sending a long string to the Skype authorization server. You can try Google's beta Russian-to-English translation, but the interesting part is the exploit code, and that's more readable in the original. The Washington Post reports that Skype has denied this rumor.

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rev_media writes to tell us that CNN has a few updates to the Real ID act currently facing legislators. The Real ID acts mandates all states to begin issuing federal IDs to all citizens by 2008. Costs could be as much at $14 billion, but only 40 million are currently allocated. Several states have passed legislation expressly forbidding participation in the program, while others seem to be all for it. The IDs will be required for access to all federal areas including flights, state parks and federal buildings. People in states refusing to comply will need to show passports even for domestic flights.

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0xdeadbeef writes "BlackBerryCool got a tip that not only was AT&T removing GPS functionality from their version of the BlackBerry 8820, they're doing it so it won't show up the iPhone. While carriers crippling phones to stop them from competing with pay-per-use services is nothing new, this might be the first time they've done it to make their other products seem less diminished."

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mrcgran writes to mention that LinuxWorld is running an interview with Alfresco's Matt Asay. "Open source is changing not just how companies make software, but how they sell it. Alfresco's Matt Asay explains the new sales cycle and the skills that today's software sales people need to close deals. [...] 'But you know what? We have worked with Microsoft on interop without doing any sort of a patent deal; as has Sugar and MySQL and Zend and these other companies. We work directly with Microsoft for a customer of ours to insure SQL Server integration with Alfresco. Didn't have to sign any patent deal with them to get that done. We both had a mutual customer. It was in our mutual interest. We both wanted to make money, therefore we did it. But the patent thing is a complete smoke and mirrors, I don't want to say trick, but it has nothing to do with interoperability. No matter how much Microsoft may repeat that, it has nothing to do with interoperability.'"

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seven7h writes "Linux.com currently has an interesting story regarding Microsoft's new Permissive License, which they are currently trying to get certified by the OSI (Open Source Initiative). What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. Microsoft's strategies of creating open source like programs (ie Shared Source) has been called into question and whether the open source industry should become associated with Microsoft. This looks like it may be something to watch as it could allow Microsoft a foot in the door into Linux/Open Source, or define a line between Linux/Open Source and Microsoft."

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Gary writes to mention that the U.S. Army recently unveiled a new hybrid-electric propulsion system for use in a new line of manned ground vehicles (MGVs). The new line will have eight different variants, all using the same chassis. The most unique feature of the new MGVs is that the traditional engine has been decoupled from the drive train and is used only to recharge the battery and power other systems within the vehicle.

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MacNN caught this incredible defection and loss of faith by a former Vista booster, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback, as he steps down from his position. "I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."

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An anonymous reader writes "'Citrix has signed a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource a leader in enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure solutions. The acquisition moves Citrix into adjacent and fast growing datacenter and desktop virtualization markets.' For nearly $500 million, including about $100 million of unvested options, Citrix would be purchasing VMWare's closest competitor in the server virtualization market, with XenEnterprise v4 offering technology similar to VMWare's flagship product — and arguably overtake them as a combined solution, as VMWare offers little in the realm of application and desktop virtualization. Though subject to the customary closing conditions, both boards of directors have approved the transaction, and the deal is expected to close in Q4 of 2007."

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mdsolar writes "In a first for the US, one of three nuclear reactors at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama has been shut down because the Tennessee River is too hot to provide adequate cooling for the waste heat produced by the reactor. This is happening as the TVA faces it's highest demand for power ever reports the Houston Chronicle. This effect has been seen in Europe in the past forcing reduced generation, but the US has, until now, been immune to the problem. The TVA will buy power elsewhere and impose higher rates, blaming reduced river flow as a result of drought."

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An anonymous reader writes "Numerous media outlets have been reporting this story about an ID theft ring which targeted the Forbes list of 400 richest Americans. It seems that Igor Klopov, a 24 year-old Russian citizen, was the ring leader and was caught after attempting to pick up $7 million in gold that he was using to launder the money. It goes to show that anyone can be the target of identity theft, as they even went after the President of Transunion, one of the credit reporting bureaus."

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FsG writes "Over the past few weeks, more and more Comcast users have reported that their BitTorrent traffic is severely throttled and they are totally unable to seed. Comcast doesn't seem to discriminate between legitimate and infringing torrent traffic, and most of the BitTorrent encryption techniques in use today aren't helping. If more ISPs adopt their strategy, could this mean the end of BitTorrent?"

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Stanistani sends us to MSNBC for a dyspeptic Newsweek commentary on the TSA's latest attempt to make air travel safer: the rather ominously named "Behavior Detection Officers" now working in a dozen US airports, and slated to go nationwide in 2008. They are trained in the discipline of reading "micro-expressions." The editorialist calls that a pseudo-science, but in fact it's a well-understood skill that can be taught and learned. A cursory look at this TSA program might put one in mind of Orwell's "facecrime," and that's the road the Newsweek writer goes down. Yet some who bemoan the security theater historically run by the TSA point to the gold standard of airport security, Tel Aviv airport, and wonder why TSA officers can't act more like the Israelis. Bruce Schneier wrote recently about one reason why the Israeli security model isn't completely transplantable to these shores: scale. And here's Schneier's take on behavioral profiling from a year ago. That's what the BDOs will be trying for: scrutinizing intent instead of pocket knives. Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.

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Lucas123 writes "IT managers at colleges and universities are grappling with the problem of finding ways to better secure removable storage media in an environment that encourages information sharing. Draconian security mandates 'may be common in the corporate world, but "we don't have the flexibility to simply say all inbound traffic is locked down," said Jason Pufahl, information security team lead for IT services at the University of Connecticut.'"

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Stony Stevenson writes "Four journalists and one of their family members are suing Hewlett-Packard for obtaining their personal phone records. The journalists filed lawsuits in California this week, claiming that HP invaded their privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and violated California's fair business rules. HP acknowledged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing last year that it investigated journalists in order to find out who inside the company had been leaking information to the press. The reporters' own publications have reported that HP representatives said they were disappointed the reporters did not take a settlement and decided to sue instead. The company said it plans to defend itself against the lawsuits."

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