So here’s my thing….

VQX HWMVCUSE JQJFASSNTG QV! X HQ JD ISIAVVE!

Face it.. We are all PWND six ways to Sunday

Every frigging day we hear more and more about how the NSA has been emptying our lives of privacy and subverting the laws of this land and others with their machinations. It’s true, and I have been saying as much since the day Mr. Klein came out of his telco closet and talked about how the NARUS system had been plugged into the MAE West back in the day. We are all well and truly fucked if we want any kind of privacy today kids and we all need to just sit back and think about that.

*ponder ponder ponder*

Ok, I have thought about it and I have tried to think of any way to protect myself from the encroachment of the NSA and all the big and little sisters out there. I am absolutely flummoxed to come up with any cogent means to really and truly protect my communications. Short of having access to the NSA supercloud and some cryptographers I don’t think that we will not truly have any privacy anymore. If you place it on the net, or in the air. We have reached in my opinion the very real possibility of the N-Dystopia I have talked about before in the Great Cyber Game post.

As the pundits like Schneier and others groan on and on about how the NSA is doing all of this to us all I have increasingly felt  the 5 stages of grief. I had the disbelief (ok not completely as you all know but the scope was incredible at each revelation) Then the anger came and washed over me, waves and waves of it as I saw the breadth and scope of the abuse. Soon though that anger went away and I was then feeling the bargaining phase begin. I started to bargain in my head with ideas that I could in fact create my own privacy with crypto and other OPSEC means. I thought I could just deny the government the data. I soon though began to understand that no matter what I did with the tools out there that it was likely they had already been back door’d. This came to be more than the case once the stories came out around how the NSA had been pressuring all kinds of tech companies to weaken standards or even build full back doors into their products under the guise of “National Security”

Over time the revelations have all lead to the inescapable truth that there is nothing really anyone can do to stop the nation state from mining our communications on a technological level. Once that had fully set in my mind the depression kicked in. Of late I have been more quiet online and more depressed about our current state as well as our future state with regard to surveillance and the cyberwarz. I came to the conclusion that no matter the railing and screaming I might do it would mean nothing to the rapidly approaching cyberpocalypse of our own creation arriving. ….In short, we can’t stop it and thus the last of the five stages for me has set in. I accept that there is nothing I can do, nay, nothing “we” can do to stop this short of a bloody coup on the government at large.

I now luxuriate in my apathy and were I to really care any more I would lose my fucking mind.

OPSEC! OPSEC! OPSEC!

Speaking of losing one’s mind.. Lately people all have been yelling that OPSEC is the only way! One (the gruqq) has been touting this and all kinds of counterintelligence as the panacea for the masses on these issues. Well, why? Why should we all have to be spies to just have a little privacy in our lives huh? I mean it’s one thing to be a shithead and just share every fucking stupid idea you have on FriendFace and Tweeter but really, if you can’t shut yourself up that is your problem right? No, I speak of the every day email to your mom telling her about your health status or maybe your decision to come out etc. Why should the government have the eminent domain digitally to look at all that shit now or later?

If you take measures to protect these transactions and those measures are already compromised by the government why then should you even attempt to protect them with overburdened measures such as OPSEC huh? I mean, really if you are that worried about that shit then go talk to someone personally huh? I know, quite the defeatist attitude I have there huh? The reality is that even though I claim not to be caring about it (re: apathy above) I actually do but I realize that we no longer have privacy even if we try to create it for ourselves with technical means. If the gov wants to see your shit they will make a way to do so without your knowing about it. I fully expect someday that they will just claim eminent domain over the internet completely.

Fuck OPSEC.. I want my government to do the right thing and not try to hide all their skirting of the law by making it classified and sending me an NSL that threatens to put me in jail for breaking the law.

Fuck this shit.

CYBERWARZ

Then we have the CYBERWARZ!! Oh yeah, the gubment, the military, and the private sector all have the CYBERWARZ fever. I cannot tell you how sick of that bullshit I am really. I am tired of all the hype and misdirection. Let me clear this up for you all right here and right now. THERE IS NO CYBERWAR! There is only snake oil and espionage. UNTIL such time as there is a full out kinetic war going on where systems have been destroyed or compromised just before tanks roll in or nukes hit us there is no cyberwar to speak of. There is only TALK OF cyber war.. Well more like masturbatory fantasies by the likes of Beitlich et al in reality. So back the fuck off of this shit mmkay? We do not live in the world of William Gibson and NO you are not Johnny Mnemonic ok!

Sick. And. Tired.

I really feel like that Shatner skit where he tells the Trekkies to get a life…

Awaiting the DERPOCALYPSE

All that is left for us all now is the DERPOCALYPSE. This is the end state of INFOSEC to me. We are all going to be co-opted into the cyberwarz and the privacy wars and none of us have a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything productive with our lives. Some of us are breaking things because we love it. Others are trying to protect “ALL THE THINGS” from the breakers and the people who take their ideas and technologies and begin breaking all those things. It’s a vicious cycle of derp that really has no end. It’s an ouroboros of fail.

RAGE! RAGE! AGAINST THE DYING OF THE PRIVACY! is a nice sentiment but in reality we have no way to completely stop the juggernaut of the NSA and the government kids. We are all just pawns in a larger geopolitical game and we have to accept this. If we choose not to, and many have, then I suggest you gird your loins for the inevitable kick in the balls that you will receive from the government eventually. The same applies for all those companies out there aiding the government in their quest for the panopticon or the cyberwarz. Money talks and there is so much of it in this industry now that there is little to stop it’s abuse as well.

We are well and truly fucked.

So, if you too are feeling burned out by all of this take heart gentle reader. All you need do is just not care anymore. Come, join me in the pool of acceptance. Would you care for a lotus blossom perhaps? It’s all good once you have accepted the truth that there is nothing you can do and that if you do things that might secure you then you are now more of a target. So, do nothing…

Derp.

K.

Neuromancing The Cyberwars

The Great Cyberwar to Come

Every day lately I open up the newsfeed and see more and more dire predictions of cyber doom and cyber war. Each time I read this stuff I just have to hang my head and curse under my breath all of the morons out there both reporting on it as well as those purveyors spinning the cyberwar to come. In fact, I really loathe the term “Cyberwar” as do I think, many of my compatriots in the infosec industrial complex (ooh coined a new one there huh?) Every time these people open their mouths I have to just borrow a line from Seinfeld and bellow;

“SERENITY NOW!”

Enough already of this Cyberwar lunacy! Let me tell you something, we have been in an information war for a long long time and a component of that is EW (Electronic Warfare) For years we have been manipulating warfare through information whether it be planting fake stories in the press (newspapers, tv, radio etc) to manipulating data within systems as part of disinformation campaigns. The only real difference today, and I think is the crux of the cyberwar craze are two factors:

1. Everything seems to be connected by computers today
2. We can now manipulate not only data, but the machines that process actual physical processes (ICS/SCADA)

So yes, there is more that potentially can be done to an enemy target electronically, but, the hoopla and hype around cyberwarfare has gotten WAY out of hand today and someone needs to bust that bubble before the morons in charge get their trigger fingers on the button. Perhaps though, its too late for that as I am looking around today and see that the military is saying they have the potential right to launch attacks after cyber attacks…

Good God… It makes one root for Skynet thinking about the great cyberwar to come.

Trust Us… We’re the Government!

What is most frightening to me is that the government and the military seem to be under many misapprehensions over “cyberwar” In the case of the government, more to the point, Congress and the House, we have two august bodies that are filled with some of the most misinformed and Luddite oriented groups of people I have ever seen… And these are the people we are going to entrust to make policy on such topics? The said same people who would have the likes of Gregory Evans speak to them about digital security?

We are doomed.

So, what do we have here? We have the people making laws led by the blind and the chicken little’s of the world. All of this over the overhyped and overblown idea that the great cyber war is a commin and no one is safe! Our power will go out because hackers will shut it all down! The gas pipelines will explode because John McClane won’t be able to get the Apple kid to the right terminal during the fire sale! The financial system will collapse because Thomas Gabriel will have jacked into the feeds and slurped ALL of our digital records on to his terabyte drives!

OH NO!

Yeah, you might be asking yourself right about now;

“Do they really believe that shit?”

Well, take a look at some of their laws lately concerning digital matters and privacy.. Then tell me they really know anything about the internet nor digital security. So, yes, I firmly believe they believe it. In fact, there is an old trope in the movies about hackers. You know the one, where the hacker just sits down and 5 seconds later they are root on the Gibson… Yeah, I really think that is how they percieve hacking and how easy it would be to hack the planet.. So to speak.

So, are you comfortable with these people deciding whether or not we actually physically (or digitally) attack another country after we get a little pwn3d?

I am not.

Attribution… We Don’t Need No Stinkin Attribution!

Back to the DoD and their recent proclamation about physical and other attacks against those who attack us with a cyber attack. I just have one word for them to chew on and contemplate;

ATTRIBUTION

You know, that pesky word meaning we actually KNOW who attacked us? Yeah, well as far as I have seen today, it’s pretty damned hard to determine most of the time who did what and where on the net. Digital forensics only get you so far, compromised machines can be tampered with in so many ways to make it look like someone did something and these guys want to launch cruise missiles against nation states over a DDoS?

Mmmm yeah… This will not end well.

Ok, so the next great cyberwar will take place pretty much like the whole premise of the Terminator films then? Will Skynet become sentient or will we just have a military and government that says “THEY DID IT” and fire off some missiles? Frankly, what I see here is a lot of posturing and hope that the reality is that people will realise that they cannot attribute anything and not fire one missile due to the lack of concrete proof.

But.. That assumes that cooler heads prevail and there are not too many hawks in the room….

Dark Prognostications of DOOM… Trust Me, I Write Blogs!

Meanwhile, we have the blogosphere and the pundits out there with slit eyed prognostications about how many more times 9/11 it would be, this cyberwar to come that McClane is not there to save us from.

“THERE ARE NO AIR GAPS TO SCADA! WE ARE DOOMED!”

“THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE WILL BE HUGE!”

“OUR WAY OF LIFE WILL BE DESTROYED!”

Blech. Look, sure, a cyber attack on key infrastructure would be bad. It could cause a real ruckus and we could have pockets of the country/world where power may be down a while, gas lines could blow, and there would be collateral damage. However, this would not be an all out war. In fact, I think it would be far worse if someone took out the core routers to the internet… I mean, at least that is doable if you do it right with kinetic attacks at key points (MAE’s etc) However, I just don’t see it as a likely scenario.

Frankly, you know what keeps me worried?

1. Biological warfare or accidents with the materials
2. A dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb cobbled together from illicit materials from the likes of Russia or Pakistan
3. Mass coronal ejections causing a large EMP

Cyberwar.. Not so much.

The problem is that there are too many pundits and too many crazy opinions out there that are getting ear time with the Luddites in charge. Hell, for that matter, I am a blogger too, so I could be part of the problem as well huh? Maybe I am all wet and tomorrow China will attack at dawn… It’ll be just like Red Dawn.. Except they will hit us first with cyber attacks and then drop thousands of troops on us (Wait a minute! What a movie idea!)

CRAP! Someone beat me to it!

Oh I know! instead the Chinese will just release all our prisoners from cell blocks by using Metasploit against their ICS systems that lock the doors!!!

Heh.

Remember you heard it here first!

Reality? Nah, Just Pass Me The SymStim and Goggles!

I guess in the end, I just have to resign myself to the fact that sanity will not prevail. We will have a military with putative attribution and a Congress unqualified to rule on such things to pass the vote to attack those who attacked us with their packets and malware.

We’re screwed…

Oh well, I will just have to put in the REM and listen to the end of the world and we know it…

*Sits back…puts on shades…Hacks the Gibson*

YEEEHA!

K.

The Apocalypse Cycle: Confronting and Being Prepared For Infrastructure Failure

Recent events where I live have made me once again ponder my own readiness with regard to how to handle infrastructure failures that affect our technologies and society. These same events have shown my just how clueless all too many people are about how to survive when their infrastructure goes down for any extended period of time. The snow storm in October that brought down so many trees in the North-east created a situation cascade that devolved quickly for the populace and by listening to the news, and the police scanner I was able to see just how quickly society began to break down… With just a snowstorm that brought down the grid.

Now 5 days into it post the snow, much of the infrastructure is still down and things are only starting to gain a semblance of normalcy in pockets of the region. There has been a lot of angst and anger concerning the power companies and the local and state government reactions to this storm and its fallout, but, the object lesson is larger than just one snow storm in one region of the country. Since this all began, I have seen people fighting at gas stations, heard about looting at another in a more remote area, and generally, hearing about people who were caught flat footed without any kind of backup plan for when the heat, power, and water go out.

People have become too dependant on the infrastructure (power/water/telco) and unable or unwilling to perceive the threats to it and its precarious position with regard to failure. The recent storm and the fallout from it here in the North was bad, but, this was nothing compared to what “could” happen with a large failure to the infrastructure within the country given the right circumstances.

We were lucky… Someday we may not be.

The Apocalypse:

The scenario that happened to the Northeast is as follows:

1. An early winter storm hit the region dropping anywhere from 6-20″ of snow in a short period of time
2. The snow was heavy and wet and in combination with leaves still being on trees, caused massive tree damage
3. The tree’s lost limbs or broke completely apart, falling on power lines, telco lines, cable line,  roads, houses, etc.
4. Power lines began to fall and surges/failures caused cascade effects including complete circuit failures
5. Telco towers were also damaged as well as forced to run on backup power (batteries and generators)

From these events the infrastructure eventually failed for the bulk of the state I live in. The fallout from this then cascaded for each and every person out there who rely on the services that they provided.

Infrastructure FAIL:

Once the infrastructure had failed for large areas the following services failed for communities and individuals.

• Water: No power means for many with wells, no water. No flush toilets, no showers, etc.
• Heat: No power for many also means no heat. In the case of natural gas or oil, it can depend on electricity as well. Not everyone lost heat.
• Light: Obviously, no power, no electric light
• Communications: No electricity on both ends can mean that all communications go down. In this case  hard lines went down as well as cell towers
• Supply Chain: The lack of electricity also affected the gas station industry as many of them do not have backup generators. No gas, no mobility. The same applies for shopping outlets (grocery stores etc) as well.
• Mobility: Tree’s being down as well as potentially live power lines reduced mobility greatly. In some cases, people were boxed in to their homes from downed lines/trees as well as many roads were impassable.

All of these systems people take for granted today were directly affected by this particular storm and caused great consternation and fear for many. What made it worse was that there were no set time tables for repairs that could be expressed by the state nor the companies who’s infrastructure was damaged. Some estimates though proclaimed it could be in excess of two weeks and given that the nights were getting cold, that many could be in danger for lack of heat. Basically, the infrastructure was in a FAIL state and the cascade effects from it being down began to snowball.

Human Nature:

Once the failures had occurred, many who were without power, heat, water, etc were ok for a short time. However, once the cold really began to set in and the days until restoration became longer, people began to freak out. Those with generators began to ran out of gas, but could not get any more gas because the stations in the area failed to have generators and those who did, ran out of gas quickly. With the supply chains beginning to fail by being taxed because of demand, it became compounded with the fact that roads and highways were also blocked due to storm damage.

This is where the human nature began to show its ugly side. Because there was little gas to be had, and people were waiting in long lines, frustration began to set in. Tempers flared and in some cases, looting and fights occurred. The human gene is a selfish one, and with that said, people began to roll back the evolutionary clock, fighting for their lives (perceived) in this situation. Most of this though, could have been easily avoided had the people taken the time to prepare themselves for such occurrences as well as have a mindset that the government and the infrastructure may not always be there when they need it.

We are all on our own in many ways…

Of course, if human nature were a bit more fluid in the area of cooperation, perhaps people would have to freak out less and come together, but unfortunately, this is just not the case with many.

Preparedness:

So, with all of the above said, I would like to remind people to take some time and actually PLAN a bit for these incidents. As our lives become more and more dependant on the state and the infrastructure, we need to take a step back and say “What if” a bit more and plan accordingly for our own welfare. Here are some factors to take into account.

Sheltering In Place:

When disasters occur, we may not be able to escape them. If there is a tsunami or hurricane coming at us, we just may not be able to leave at all. Everyone else will be doing the same thing and you have all seen it I am sure in movies where the roads are blocked and there is no way out. If this is the case, well, all you can do is hunker down and hope to survive.

The same can be said about situations like the one the Northeast just had. If you did not HAVE to be out on the roads during the storm and just after, then stay home! It’s called “sheltering in place” You have your provisions, you have your house/apartment/bunker and you stay put! It is safer to be in place and prepared than it is to be out like a chicken in a rain storm looking straight up and drowning. Never mind you getting hurt, but you may also be placing the lives of others (EMS/FIRE/POLICE) at risk because of your stupidity.

So, have provisions in your home for at least a week if not more. I would suggest enough for at least two really, just in case

• Non perishable food (MRE’s)
• Batteries
• Potable Water
• Firewood if you have a stove/fireplace
• Gas stoves (camp stoves) and fuel
• A radio
• Candles
• Medical supplies (including any meds you take)
• Matches/Fire-steel
• Flash lights and LED lanterns
• Two way communications (HAM radio)
• A generator and hook-ups for the house

All of these things you can just store and have in place when you need them should the time arise. Batteries, food, and the like can go bad after some time, so insure that you rotate them if they are out of date. A little diligence can make life easier when the time comes.

Bugging Out:

IF the zombie apocalypse comes, then you will likely eventually have to “bug out” This means to leave the shelter and seek out other locations. This also means that you will need to have a “bug out bag” The would entail the same items above but with some twists:

• Non perishable food (MRE’s)
• Batteries or Solar charger
• Potable Water & Filtration kit
• Firewood if you have a stove/fireplace
• Gas stoves (camp stoves) and fuel
• A radio
• Meds (including any meds you take regularly)
• Matches/Fire-steel
• Flash lights and LED lanterns
• Knives/Axe (A survival knife would be ideal)
• Two way communications (HAM radio)
• Clothes
• A weapon (guns)
• Tent/shelter materials
• Portable med kit (EMS style complete)
• Binoculars

I am sure there are many more things that people can think of, but, this is a basics list for extreme emergencies that require you to be mobile quickly and prepared to live rough. The key here is also that you need to be travelling light. Ounces = pounds and pounds equal slowing you down. Keep it simple and you will be more able to be mobile even on two feet. All of these things should be prepared and loaded into a bag (backpack/rucksack/etc) and in place for emergencies. Some people actually have redundant bags (one in the car, one in the house) should they be away from home when things go down.

It never hurts to be prepared.. Think Boy Scouts.

Mental and Physical Concerns:

Ok, so you have the supplies in place for either staying put or bugging out but, you need to be thinking about how you and others handle the stress of situations like these. From what I have seen of the reaction to this latest storm and fallout, I have to say that way too many people were just unprepared. Of course, if you are not prepared (with supplies) then you certainly are going to be placing much more stress mentally on yourselves and your family. By not having things in place, you basically stress yourselves out trying to get the things you need. However, if you have the supplies and a little know how, you can easily weather things out.

Situations like these also cause physical stress on people. The clean up and upkeep alone in some cases here have caused people to have heart attacks. In other instances, the people’s inability to comprehend the nature of Co2 has lead to at least 4 deaths in my state. It can be tough to be sheltering either in place or bugging out and you have to be ready to handle the stress both mentally and physically. It is best to keep yourself in the best shape you can as well as perform mental checks on yourself and others while sheltering to insure you don’t have a breakdown in either respect.

The Long Haul:

Overall, this incident in the Northeast was not the “big one” that some predict. It was inconvenient really, but, if you had supplies you could deal with it easily enough. However, what if something like an EMP burst took out the grid and the infrastructure? How would you handle that? The potential for societal collapse would be high in a short amount of time.. What then?

What I’m saying is this.. Prepare for the small events but keep an eye toward the what if’s of a long term one. If you can handle the short term, there is more likelihood that you will be able to come through a longer stint without completely melting down…

Meanwhile… Just watch all of the others who don’t have a plan or supplies run rabid in the streets.. Kinda like zombies.. but looking for a can of gas instead of brains.

Play it smart…

K.

The END IS NIGH! What? We’re still here? Oh, well, I must have been misled by Satan!

Heironymous Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delight Triptych (rght)

Once, long ago, we all as a species were about three hairs away from being classified as Baboons. It was around that time, that someone got the bright idea to write a bunch of stories in a big book about the sky dad and his rules on how he demanded we live all our lives. Approximately two thousand years later, there are unfortunately some of these Baboons still lurking about who daily screech about the sky dad and his unhappiness with us all.

On Saturday, according to one of the more vocal baboons. we are all about to enter a world of pain because the sky dad has seen fit to tell this ‘civil engineer’ that end is in indeed nigh. Of course, this particular baboon has made this claim before and wouldn’t you know it, he was wrong. So why is it that this guy is back in 2011 with a radio ministry that is worth over 100 million dollars?

I will tell you a secret… There are many fucking morons amongst us.

*gasp*

Yes, yes it is true. We have reached a point in our existence that we can tame (almost) the atom and we can walk in space, but we just can’t seem to get rid of all these backward thinking barely upright walking throwbacks who still think that an Atlatl is a pretty nifty weapon. They just don’t seem to be able to get past the idea that there is no sky dad and that things like the ‘rapture’ are all parts of an imaginary tale in a big book created by hegemonic men some time after an alleged profit’s life.

So, you might look at the graphs above and think;

“Boy, this guy’s got it in for religion!”

And, you’d be mostly right. I personally think that religion, is in fact the opiate for the masses. An easy way for people to absolve themselves of the bad things that they have done with their lives (confession and absolution) while not really coming to grips with what they may have done and why. Religion also seems to be just a general crutch for those unable to grasp the idea that there is no destiny and perhaps there is nothing after life. Instead, they cling desperately to the idea that the sky dad has a great condo on a cloud for them all and their very own neighbor is ‘The Jeez’ himself.

Right…

Meanwhile, the charlatans like Mr Camping crow like the cock at first light that they have the inside knowledge on it all and can help YOU go to that heavenly condo with the Jeez…

For just a small donation YOU TOO can be saved! 

Seems to me that the only difference between noodnicks like Camping and someone like  L. Ron Hubbard is that Hubbard at least had some creativity. Camping’s only creative streak is the use of AM radio to bilk people of their money before the end comes. Hubbard on the other hand came up with the ‘I own you forever’ contract that every Scientology freak signs up for.. For a hefty fee that is. Nope, the two of these guys only vary in their particular brands of crazy that they pimp out. Camping went ‘old school’ (aka old testament) and Hub, well Hub went all out schizoid with aliens who inhabit our bodies (Thetans) that we must rid ourselves of by holding some useless electric cans in our hands!

Now that’s creative.

Nope, instead Camping and company have chosen the tried and true carnival revival tent approach. Even to the point of buying a set of RV’s and travelling the country preaching the word of apocalypse in the months before the end. An end mind you, pulled out of his ass once again (remember the 1994 thing) for May 21st 2011.

COME ON FOLKS! Tithe it all to us and SALVATION CAN BE YOURS!

Just how did he come up with this date? Well, he magically came up with it.. Cuz, ya know he admits to not studying the scriptures extensively. Yeah, you heard that right. Admittedly he just sorta ‘knows’ in his gut that the time is nigh. 

Fucknut.

What’s worse? He has followers and that 100 million that they have given him over the years. So, I guess the question becomes; “Who is worse? The fool who is fleecing the flock? Or the flock of sheeple being fleeced?” In my opinion, I do surely hope the rapture comes and takes them all. Then at least we would be without all of these intolerant and ignorant fools and perhaps we could actually progress as a civilization.

So, on Monday if you answer that phone Camping, and you know we will be all calling you to rag on you, you better have one hell of a great story to sell to all your sheeple.

Oh who am I kidding.. You will just pull another date out of your ass and say it’s the sky dad’s mysterious ways blah blah blah while passing the hat for donations.

Collectively we are doomed until we get past this intolerant and superstitious claptrap.

K.

The Apocalypse Cycle: The Tea Party, American Politics, and 2012

But even so, the tragedy wouldn’t change this basic fact: for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn’t a big-government liberal—he’s a socialist who wants to impose tyranny. He’s also, according to a minority of Republicans, including elected officials, an impostor. Even the reading of the Constitution on the first day of the 112th Congress was conceived as an assault on the legitimacy of the Democratic Administration and Congress.

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

From: It Doesn’t Matter Why He Did It by George Packer

The multiple shooting alleged to have been carried out by Jared Lee Loughner, a mentally unbalanced 22 year old has been the top story on all of the networks. They have all been falling over themselves trying to cover this tragedy and much of the spin masters have been out there on both sides of the political isle making claims on the “motivations” that Jared had in carrying this out. Once you start to really look at his internet postings, you realize that Jared is and was at the time of the shooting, mentally ill. He seemingly had been escalating for some time and over the summer had begun to ramble on about the loss of literacy in the U.S. as though the “literacy” were some apotheosis of understanding the cosmic truths as well as the ills of our current political system.

In essence, the rhetoric that he was a party to by living in Arizona (the illegal alien situation and the Tea Party’s fringe elements being vocal and armed) as well as his deteriorating mental state, made for a timebomb’s fuse to be lit, finally gong off on Saturday morning in front of a grocery store. Now, before anyone starts to say “but you can’t lay blame on the Tea Party!” let me stop you and say, no, I cannot wholly lay it on the Tea Party, nor would I. I would however, lay it squarely on the fringe elements of ALL of the parties especially those of the right wing persuasion that have used the rhetoric of treason, don’t tread on me, and “The tree of liberty needing to be replenished with blood” as major players in shaping the direction that Jared Loughner took with regard to his shooting rampage.

It seems though to me, that increasingly the world is just losing its collective mind. Between all of the economic troubles globally, the specter of climate change, die off’s of bees, bats, and now seemingly thousands of birds by mysterious means, we are all a little bit on edge. Add to this the ever-present conspiracy theories, leaks of classified documents and the reprisals by embarrassed governments, tightening their grip and expanding their powers to surveill as well as detain, we all are feeling a bit freaked…

Then comes 2012… It’s a trifecta.

Like what happened in the lead up to 2000, I suspect that there will be more and more groups and individuals who are delusional enough to truly believe the end is nigh. These people may take the non violent way of killing themselves like Heaven’s Gate or, they may go the route that Jared did this weekend. The commonality though, is that the outside pressures of every day life and the things going on around them often become their fixation. In the case of Heaven’s Gate, it was the Hale-Bopp comet while for Jared, it was the frothing rhetoric of fringe elements saying that the government was full of traitors that should be killed to re-set the country on the right path to righteous freedoms that the founders had in mind.

So, where I fall on this whole debacle is pretty clear I think from what I have just said. The whacknuts tend to congregate and now they have a banner under which they can rally in the whole end of the world as well as the ruination of A-mur-ica and our freedom fry loving ways. Nuts beget nuts and they feed off of each other, just ask Dylan and Eric. I suppose its just the banner du jour though, there will be plenty of others as time goes on, in some cases they may not be at all anything external but instead the internal voices of the deranged with the gun. So all of this blame game political posturing will do no good for anyone. The Tea Party has its merits as do the Dem’s and Republicans. Where it gets scary is the fringe elements on each side that take their arguments to the plaid setting. I mean, it is bad enough that the two parties have been so entrenched so as to get absolutely nothing reasonable done for “The People”, who they always seem to be claiming to represent, but are, in my opinion, failing to do.

In the end, Jared Loughner was exactly that, a loner, a misfit, and a boy who needed psychological attention. Just how many knew about his faltering senses is the question as well as is what, if anything, they tried to do about it before he unloaded a 9mm with a 30 round clip into a crowd on a Saturday morning. So all of you out there yammering about the horror and pointing fingers, let me just interject one more little thing;

How about focusing a little more on detecting the mentally ill and disallowing them from obtaining weapons of mass destruction such as a 30 round magazine and a 9mm handgun?

Why not tackle something other than political asshattery and do some good for the next innocent 9 year old that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time only to die at the hands of a mentally unstable and well armed individual.

We are all to be blamed.

CoB

Top Secret America: The Fifth Column, Uncontrolled and Unaccounted For

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.

From Secret America in the Washington Post

PBS Frontline report coming this fall

When this article came out there seemed to be just a collective murmur as a response by the masses. I figured that either people just didn’t care, didn’t get it, or were just too stunned to comment about it. Upon reading up some more and seeing the Frontline piece, I have decided that most people just can’t grasp the sheer import of this report. What this all says to me is that the government has no idea of just who is doing what and how much money is being spent. What’s more, the people certainly have no idea (the people as in the voting public) whats really going on either.

Another factor here I think is that many people just have too much faith in the government and in the corporations. When you really look at it though, once you have worked in the sausage factory and have seen how its made, you really never want to eat sausage again. Its like that with working for the government and or corporations really. Having spent all these years in the information security business working for fortune 500 companies as well as the government, I can say I do not want to “Eat the sausage” Of course perhaps the better thing to say is that I do not trust the government nor corporations because they both are comprised of inept people and red tape.

By far though, the concerns that I have are something a bit more ominous in nature. I fear that these machinations will only lead to greater abuses of power by not only the government but also the corporate entities that they have tasked with performing all this secret work. It used to be that there was government oversight on the intelligence community, but you knew that there was some off books things happening. Now, we have post Iraq and still ongoing in Afghanistan, a contractor proxy war that now includes a civilian intelligence element. An element that now seems to be even more “civilian” because it is being operated by corporations and not wings of the government. It gives a new meaning to “black ops”

Another interesting turn in this “secretification” to steal a Bush-ism is the whole issue of just how far the pendulum has swung from the nations not caring so much about HUMINT and intelligence to suddenly being even more fervent about it it seems than they were during the cold war years. I might also hazard a statement to say that since 9/11 it has generally felt more and more like the 50’s again where paranoia is concerned about the “enemy threat to the homeland”

Are we in danger? Yes. Do we need to have to go back to the 50’s mentality of us and them with a McCarthy-esque twist? No.

Of course all or most of this is aimed at Jihadi terrorists and not a governmental body like the Soviet bloc and this is where the disconnect seems to be the largest for me. It’s rather ironic actually that all this effort is being predicated on fighting a group of people who are not generally known for being easily infiltrated nor as easy to get a grasp on as the Sov’s were. People just knee jerked after 9/11 and really, they have only created even more bureaucracy in which the real INTEL will get lost and another attack likely happen because of it.

Welcome to Washington’s dementia…

VIVOS: Good Morning Frank, There Are 887 Days 12 Hours, 18 Seconds Remaining

So I was watching The Colbert Report the other day and saw a bit he did on Vivos. The bit was funny but the reality is… Well funny and scary. Now, I was a real fan of MillenniuM, well I still am really, but back in the day before 2000 you could just get into the whole “the end is nigh” thing. Now, post the millennial abyss of 2K I guess people just had to latch on to 2012.

So here you have the Vivos crew. They made this super luxury bunker system for the super rich tinfoil hat wearer and their family. You can apply to become a member and get in before the timeline comes to an end in 2012 (Ya know, when Palin wins the White House) … Or was it the nuclear disaster? Or the infamous Planet X? There are so many to choose from on their site! Here I was thinking I was “Johnny Ray of Sunshine” these guys make me look like an amateur.

All of this made me ponder the whole 50’s are back again theme that pervaded during the Reagan era and seems to have come full circle again post 9/11, W, and now Obama and the tinfoil hat patrol’s “he’s a socialist” mantra. I lived through the 80’s and I remember those days of fearing the bomb like the 50’s when daddy built a fallout shelter in the back yard. Of course all those fallout shelters were constantly reminded to us in the 80’s with the onset of “The Day After” and other melodrama’s like “Threads” Of course back then it was all the Russkies and the odd terrorist event from the likes of Black November.

Today we have the melange of all of the above apocalyptic triggers that may, like a Rube Goldberg device, kick off our mass extinction.. Well except for those lucky fools in the Vivos shelter eating sloppy Joes if you believe the Colbert Report hehe. Ahh to survive a year as a moleman only to come out into the blasted land… Only to die by being eaten by the likes of a hungry Mel Gibson either infected with blood zombie rage or, well just being himself lately.

What does all of this say? Well, I think that this all says that we are a freaked out stressed populace who really thinks the end is nigh. Well, some of us do that is. Those like the Vivos sales team and creator as well as the other tinfoil hatters. Me? Well I figure I have supplies, ammo, a house on top of a small mountain, and a fighting spirit that will get me through a little while at least. Eventually though, if you get the killer EMP/ZOMBIES/PLAGUE/Solar Flare that roasts the earth.. Well, you’re just gonna die sooner or later. So live it up now!

In the meantime check out their site and laugh.. Or perhaps weep…

CoB