The time has come to get outrageous.  Again.

Or at least irreverent.

Diss seriousity.

 

I roared with laughter when I heard  California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger’s  condemnation of special interest lawmakers as “girlie-men”.  I howled even louder when I heard the “girlie-men” defenders protest Arnold’s invective as insensitive “gay-bashing” and “woman-bashing”.  Where, may I ask, were these outraged terminological censors when the Saturday Night skits featuring Arnold and Arnold worshippers appeared and comically coined the term “girlie-men” to depict wimps that couldn’t measure up to Arnold’s physical prowess?  “Ah,” but the detractors will object, “that was unserious satire, politics is serious, it’s real life.”  Please.  I find many cartoon characters and the make-believe sidekicks of my childhood more real than many politicians.  And if anything, politics twists and contorts ‘real life’ in near the same manner that death contorts a person’s pleasant countenance into a terrifying frozen scowl.  Besides, no one can seriously or reasonably expect any elected politician to abandon previously developed  “character”.  Arnold is Conan the Barbarian.  Arnold is the Terminator.  Arnold is the Anti-Girlie-Man Man.  Just as much as Ronald Reagan was our Mr. President “Win one for the Gipper”.

 

I’d only take exception to Arnold’s characterization in stating that he didn’t go quite far enough.  Not merely some special-interest politicians are girlie-men, ALL politicians are girlie-men.  George Bush is a girlie-man.  John Kerry is a girlie-man.  Ralph Nader is a girlie-girlie-man!  Heh.  Even Arnold himself is a girlie-man anti-girlie-man man ( a case of previous character being dressed in a new occupational fabric).

 

 

~Above~  Jenna, girlie-man Bush’s daughter, peers girlishly out of the Presidential limo while her girlie-man daddy hides behind her in the metaphorical shadow of undisclosed ‘intelligence’ snafus.  Give us some girlie-tongue!  Ah!  Good girl.

 

I don’t want to vote for Bush.  Or Kerry.  Or Nader.  I just wish I could vote against Bush.  Not for anybody.  Just against him.  I’d be willing to have my “against” vote even count only ½ of a vote for him.  So that it would take 2 “against” votes (let’s say, me and you) against any candidate to mathematically and actually negate a single "pro" vote for a candidate.  I think that’s fair.  I also think that it offers a realistic option to party-politics disillusioned voters to make an impact without having to firmly align with what they view as the current disenfranchising party system.

 

Jenna for President.  Though by the looks of it, she’d make a better presidential intern at this time.

A glimpse into my nefarious occupational responsibilities...

The first day of training was informative from an introductory overview perspective.  However, though I did specifically indicate my interest in security concerns, the instructor really didn't have the time, given the rest of the target audience and its programming concerns, to do much more than point me in the direction of the Weblogic Server Administration Console where security rules, security policies, and security providers are managed.  So I spent some hands-on time perusing the interface and getting a feel for console administration.

 

The second day of training (half day) was just treading water: the instructor spent much of the morning troubleshooting and reconfiguring actual server bugs in preparation for a programming exercise.  What little time was spent with the class was dedicated to the programmers.  So while those happenings gave me a better feel for WebLogic from the IT perspective, they did little to advance my appreciation from an IS (security) perspective.

 

I've identified a number of highly-detailed and very well-written resources to assist with furthering our understanding of WebLogic Security.  I'm currently reading/studying the first two below.  If we need to customize security to custom applications, as opposed to just modifying the out-of-the-box provided security for our needs, the material considered in the last two sources also becomes critical.  If we find we only need to modify WebLogic's already highly-featured out-of-the-box security for our needs, the material covered in the first 5 sources is the most pertinent.

 

I will continue to plow through the material in the order listed below.  I suppose matching 'criteria against configuration files' depends on whether we'll need to go beyond the default security architecture and explore the considerably more daunting (by the looks of it) world of programming/custom development.  Understanding and administering the default security architecture is something I feel is achievable ahead.  Going beyond that may require more than just on-line self-instruction.

 

Administration Console On-line Help:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/ConsoleHelp/index.html

 

Introduction to WebLogic Security:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/secintro/index.html

 

Managing WebLogic Security:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/secmanage/index.html

 

Securing WebLogic Resources:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/secwlres/index.html

 

Securing A Production Environment (Lockdown):

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/lockdown/index.html

 

Introduction to Programming WebLogic Security:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/security/intro.html

 

Developing Security Providers for WebLogic Server:

http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/dvspisec/index.html