The “Professionals” have it under control.

from myFDL on 6-11-2013 Don’t worry, these guys are professionals: http://www.crocodyl.org/spies_for_hire/saic_science_applications_international_corporation http://caci.com/ http://www.raytheon.com/ http://www.wyle.com/STE/Pages/default.aspx http://www.northropgrumman.com/Pages/default.aspx http://www.narus.com/ http://www.stratfor.com/ And my personal favorite: http://chertoffgroup.com/ (that guy has such a trustworthy smile!) Those are just some of the big guys, think about all the little ones out there, the ones with security clearances facilitated by other contractors, the young entrepreneurial sociopaths with a gleam in their eye and a real thirst for boondoggle money! And the presididnt’ trusts them to take grandma’s social security money and do something a lot more productive than just buying her medicine, fuel oil, or cat food dinner. With Rapiscan, authoritarian fuckwits could only look up your ass, but with PRISM, now they’ll be able to look up everything! And imagine the profits in that! They’ll be so rolling in dough, they’ll be able to send their new, enterprising, professional, patriotic, young Stasi recruits to Hawaii and pay them upwards of 200k! Starting! Grandma’d be proud if she wasn’t out pushing that grocery cart under the bridge. But seriously, don’t worry, these guys are professionals, they’ve been through the rotating door lots of times. Plus, they handle all our election software, firmware, networking, and voting machines; and elections can’t be rigged, that would be CaRAYZEE. So don’t worry, just go and have fun jerking off to Shakira and making fun of stupid people. They’ve got it all under control. And worrying about who’s running things is WAY above your head and pay grade. You don’t have clearance or a need to know anyway.

Leaked Preliminary Draft of the Presididn’ts Speech on Security Matters.

from myFDL on 5-13-2013 America, I’m here to address some critical matters of national security and to clear up any misconceptions about what this government-for-the-corporations is doing to protect Oligarchs and their hegemonies and right to exploit the world and revel in the profits of never-ending war. There has been a great deal of second-guessing our practice of patrolling the skies of some foreign nations with our remotely piloted missile delivery aircraft, aka drones. These are the most advanced systems in the world and our success rate is excellent. We only kill innocent people half the time now, and a lot of those “innocents” have questionable profiles (I mean, just because they’re not old enough to have pubic hair and they’re female doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t out to get us). And we’re not going to grace these characters with any kind of recognition by counting them; that would lend credence to the idea that these are human beings instead of the pixilated, blurry, gray-scale, two-dimensional silhouettes shown on our Raytheon screens. And if we kill American citizens in the same manner, well they aren’t really citizens if I say they’re terrorists, are they? We have no time for courts. If these targets want to prove their innocence, their families can do it in some illegitimate foreign court after they’ve been removed as the threat the CIA declares them to be. I’m also here to say “drones” are here to stay. They are the weapons of the future that allow us to save service members lives by letting them eat popcorn and soda while they kill. We pay a lot of money for these devices and they’re almost as sophisticated and effective as a 19 year old with a pressure-cooker, a backpack, and some ammonium nitrate. I mean, what gets people more shocked and awed, a hell-fire missile fired from miles away, or some seedy looking punk in baseball cap? Am I right? Those guys don’t scare us. This brings up my next point. I want you all to be ready to sacrifice. When we shut down another major city during the next attack (this shouldn’t happen, because we’re vigilant and we’re getting the terrorists over there so we won’t have any here, but..), we have to be brave in the face of threats, so we need you to sacrifice your normal routines. The best way to show these terrorists we’re not afraid is to run into your houses, turn off the lights, lock the doors and wait until the federal, state, local, and Eric Prince owned, house raiding storm-troopers scour your neighborhood for bad guys and tell you when it’s safe to come out. We’ll catch them and take them away where we can control what kind of information we want you to know about them. And this brings me to my final point, Guantanamo needs to be closed. It’s just not necessary anymore. We’ve established that the President’s word is law and we don’t need to pretend we can’t operate extra-legally right here on American soil, it’s the norm now. So help me out here. Appeal to your congressmen and women and let them know we’ve got plenty of feeding tubes and strap-down chairs right here on the mainland where we can show the French how Americans do Foie Gras. I do want to mention one thing in closing. The information we access real-time, all the time and filter and categorize using contractors to contractors on systems hidden from the public are for everyone’s benefit. This informational awareness helps us prevent events like the one we didn’t prevent in Boston because it was just a fluke and how can you know when some nut-job is going to get angry and kill people even though another country’s intelligence agency warned you about him? We can’t trust foreign sources, or even our own press, for that matter, and the Associated Press should realize that America, land of the free and home of the brave, can only stay that way if we let the government feel us up to keep us safe. Thank you America and God Bless us with tornados that don’t kill some people.

Jumping the Young Lady

from my FDL on 3-2-2012 “Nobody has announced a war, young lady. But we appreciate your sentiment. You’re jumping the gun a little bit, there.” Oh? Is THAT how we’re supposed to find out about war, Mr. Presididn’t? Announcements? Proclamations from unitary executive MIC puppets? No you flaming asshole, the “young lady” was not jumping the gun. Her question is extremely timely, especially in light of your upcoming fellatio appointment with Prime Minister Putz from Israel . “I think the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” Nah, I think the Israeli government recognizes you are a limp-dicked, bloviator whose main purpose is to occupy the office of the President of the United States as a slick-tongued press secretary for the MICC, and you’ll do whatever the fuck you’re told. “Jumping the Gun.” What an interesting way to put it. No one is supposed to question your actions or intentions until after you’ve screwed the pooch, or in the case of Netanyahoo allowed him to screw us? What an audience of sycophantic morons you’ve acquired. Don’t jump until after the gun has been fired, and then only in support of our glorious leader who’s no leader at all, more like a front man. No. War. With. Iran. I hope more people follow the “young lady’s” example and PROact instead of react to your meaningless, patronizing BULLSHIT.

Ponies, Unicorns and Political Reality

from myFDL on 2-13-2012 Cenk Uygur’s a little behind the curve, but seeing as how this is a couple weeks old, maybe he’s getting a little closer to realizing zerO is not capitulating, he’s doing everything he came here to do and more. It’s kind of funny to watch Cenk slap his mits on the table and say “I can’t believe you can’t see your strategy of appeasement isn’t working!” while he himself doesn’t see “appeasement” is actually just the presididn’t getting his hand and tongue-action more in sync with the neocon groans of “oh baby, oh BABY!” But he still makes some good points. Hence this post. In a two dimensional world where the walls of the chute are “this is the system” and the cattle prod is either Mr. Designer Magic Underwear or Frothy Mix himself, I guess betrayal and selling out can look like eleventy dimensional strategy. But if you balance what’s been accomplished for the MIC and the 1% against what’s been accomplished or forfeited for the rest of us, “political reality” becomes quite apparent. We are getting raped. 8 months to go. Steel yourselves for the parades and celebrations over the crackers we’ll be tossed or any pauses in the thrusts. Oh, and this too: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/02/13/obama_truth_team_set_on_debunking_gop_attacks.html.html

The Off-putting Odor of Basset Poop on the Bottom of Your Shoes.

from myFDL on 10-28-2011 Some Obot crybaby apologists are so fed up with talking about how impotent the presididn’t is (but it isn’t his fault) that they can’t stop baiting everyone to talk about it. What’s more, the big zerO’s contributions to the following, putting forth shock-doctrine, Chicago School remedies by/for the same Wall Street motherfuckers who caused it, http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/07/27/rating-agencies-catfood-commission-ii-and-the-next-stage-of-shock-doctrine/ selling us the Bob Dole/AHIP Insurance company profit protection Act (12 PENS! AWWSSMM!), http://elections.firedoglake.com/2011/03/22/obamas-2012-health-care-problem-opinion-of-reform-low-and-getting-lower/ making sure we keep a presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya (such nice rebels, did France and England get their oil fix yet?), Yemen and wherever else oil is an important resource to control and fuck people over to obtain it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ09U_a80MM keeping Guantanimo going and continuing to support indefinite detentions, http://my.firedoglake.com/kgosztola/2011/07/06/glenn-greenwald-obama-has-maintained-indefinite-detention-state-secrets-powers/ declaring Bradley Manning guilty without trial, http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/04/22/obama-on-manning-he-broke-the-law-so-much-for-that-trial/ executing citizens (16 year old juvenile citizens too, oops sorry, not), without trial (not only do we not need no stinking badges, we don’t need no stinking proof neither) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnem1Ohm3Q0&feature=youtu.be renewing the Patriot Act http://my.firedoglake.com/fflambeau/2010/02/27/obama-signs-one-year-extension-of-patriot-act-which-he-used-to-oppose/ Department of Justice burying whistleblowers, looking the other way at criminals http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful/dp/0805092056/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319483454&sr=8-1 Monsanto, GM foods and our pwnd, revolving door government(Mike Taylor, Dennis Wolfe, Tom Vilsack, Roger Beachy, Rajiv Shah, Islam Siddiqui, Elena Kagan) http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda_watch.cfm Tar sands and other oil gas boondoggles (put a hero in jail, let the criminals continue with illegal auctions) http://www.openleft.com/diary/12675/student-who-distupted-illegal-land-auction-charged-with-two-felonies-by-obama-doj EPA incisor removal act, http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/25, http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/10/most-americans-think-obama-administration-should-have-defended-epas-ozone-standards.php Deepwater Oil Wells (“These wells are completely safe. Oh fuck, what just happened?”) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html Fracking (Salazar, what a guy) http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/09/28/tell-ken-salazar-force-full-disclosure-of-fracking-chemicals-going-into-our-drinking-water/ Mountaintop removal, http://firedoglake.com/2009/04/25/did-obama-throw-appalachias-mountaintops-under-the-busand-bulldozers/ Nuclear Power (“You’re doing a heckuva job there Chuwy. Fuki what?”) http://www.thenation.com/article/159453/obama-loves-nukes DADT – (“Put Dan Choi in Jail. He’s embarrassing me”) http://firedoglake.com/2011/06/14/obama-to-put-dan-choi-on-trial/ Medical Marijuana (You want any drugs, you gonna buy’em from us pharma guys. Uddawize, we gonna bust ya balls. Capische?) http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/10/27-5 Bush Tax Cuts http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/06/07/happy-tenth-anniversary-bush-tax-cuts/ continuous expanded deployment of murderous drones, still using blackwater, increasing secrecy, and just about every other heinous thing George and Dick did (jesus fucking Christ, I feel like there are more of these examples than leaves in my yard to rake), are really not that big of a deal. I mean WTF? Did you hope for change or something, you fucking retard? Somehow, when satisfying his handlers, the smooth operator has an entire catalog of services at which he is extremely adept and eager to employ, yet when it comes to making anything happen for the American public, the fucker is powerless. But it’s not his fault. You’re just not smart enough to know how it all works. You’re getting very sleepy. Keep watching Shakira’s ass. Isn’t it mesmerizing? Your eyes are so heavy. It goes around and bump, around again. You’re in a good place. Vote for Obomba, or (insert flaky, idiotic, republican, non-choice here) will become President. And oh yeah, god damn you Ralph Nader, this is all your fault. If Al Gore would have been president, Snickers would NEVER get stuck in the vending machines.

bamboozling nonsense

from myFDL on 8-11-2011 bamboozling nonsense http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfBMFPYuLsE&feature=player_embedded I came across the above link at one of my favorite comicstrips, and thought I’d share in the interest of balance and promotion of rational thought. To me, it’s a pretty good example of people drowning in their own bullshit. It’s 25 minutes long and not intentionally humorous but worth the time in my opinion, so click at your own expense. Where is Bill Egnor with Mr. Divinity when you need some brevity and wit? I hope anyone with the patience to watch will agree that all these examples of religious pretzel logic are a deterrent to describing the cosmos in terms of a pronoun or a capitalized name, and the inevitable, ensuing “projection of self” onto it.

Weird

from myFDL on 8-10-2011 Fair warning, this post is probably going to put most people to sleep, but think I need to write it, if only for my own self-reflection. I’m a rambling man, so to speak. Yesterday, in a thread about calling the mormon religion “weird” as a political tactic, I had this personal, non-religious, semi-epiphany: language is flexible and so are the conditions we impose upon one another. I’ve been experiencing some odd coincidences lately, and it’s put me in a strange mood. The coincidence yesterday was Jane’s post about David Axelrod’s self-inflicted, foot-shooting strategy for re-electing the presididn’t. I couldn’t agree that being honest and forthcoming (I admit this isn’t exactly the message she was conveying) is poor political maneuvering. I think honesty is critical to any relationship, personal or societal, and I think the mormon religion is “weird.” Here’s my story/confession: Earlier in the day, I had lunch with a sales representative. It was a cordial affair, but for a reason I haven’t figured out yet, complete strangers will confide their most intimate life details to me within fifteen minutes of being alone with them. This guy was right there. He’s a minister. He believes we are living in the “End of Times.” Obama is the “Anti-Christ.” He has over 40 guns, some AK-47’s. He packs his own rounds. He’s considering selling all his stock and buying gold. By the time we’ve finished our lunch, I know about his daughter’s out-of-wedlock baby (who is so dear to him, his eyes well up at the sight of her on his cell phone camera), his loving mother who raised him as a single parent since his father left him at 11 years old, her slow agonizing demise from COPD and his care for her up until the end, a relative’s grab at her estate, and his lonely existence in a house all by himself with his cat. I can’t help from liking the guy. He invites me to come and shoot rifles with him. I hate shooting rifles. Pulling a trigger gives me the same feeling I have after I’ve lost my temper and shouted at someone: I’ve launched something lethal, in an instant. It’s too much, too fast, too dangerous and it can never be taken back. The tranquility of the woods is the closest thing to holy I know, and a rifle report is “sacrilegious,” an automatic weapon is absolutely outrageous. Watching a target go down doesn’t bring me any satisfaction; it only confirms the reality that someone can deal death from a half kilometer away. So what do I do with this man? He knows nothing of me. He assumes I hold similar views. I look ex-military. I grew up with two grandfather’s who served in WWII. I worked in the defense industry, I speak the jargon. I know WASP pretension/condescension. I’ve been around right-wing people my entire life. I didn’t tell him I’m an atheist. I didn’t say, dude, if you sell all your stocks (not a bad thing) for gold (it’s how much an ounce?), you’ll be playing right into the hands of the hucksters of the world. I didn’t say, yeah Obama is an instrument of evil, but only because he is facilitating a lot of the things you so ignorantly support. I can’t tell him I think his belief in a christian god makes him seem like a dupe. I don’t want to insult him. There’s not enough time to even hint at any of these tiny beginnings of irresolvable differences. I don’t want to be his enemy, but I know if I attend another anti-war rally, he could very easily be standing on the other side of a row of riot-gear outfitted police calling me a communist with flecks of spit flying out of his mouth. So I let him think I could go and shoot guns with him. I told him it was a nice lunch. I was the opposite of forthcoming. I then proceeded to argue later that day, here on FDL that I had to be honest, even though that very day, I hadn’t been. I can offer the excuse that a brief encounter is not a platform for substantive political/religious debate. A forty five minute lunch is certainly not enough time to fully engage and positively affect someone so ideologically distant. Still, I’m feeling a little hypocritical. I think this acquaintance’s world view is weird, but I kept my mouth shut. In order to understand one another, we need to be honest. The intolerant guy was honest, I think I understand him. I didn’t open up, he can’t possibly understand my positions. We fear what we don’t understand. I need to practice what I “preach.” Life is weird.

Automatons

from myFDL on 8-3-2011 If robots did all the work, what would we be doing? Would we enjoy the benefits of a world without repetitive labor? Would we have unlimited free time? Would we want it? We’ve been programmed into thinking that having six weeks of vacation would turn us into socialist, freedom-hating Europeans (/s) so we passively accept minimal time off and little time with our loved ones so we can work ten or twelve hour days? Why? To make more money? To show we’re tough and willing to sacrifice to get ahead, or because we’re too scared to tell our boss too much is too much? Will we ever sink back to the conditions these people work under, where guess what, it STILL isn’t enough? We have a lot of people that want to work. We have a lot of people working too much. This is really a simple equation. If you’re working too much and someone isn’t working at all, don’t you feel even a little that something is off-balance here? We’ve come through industrial, communications, computing, and networking revolutions that have provided us with productivity only a few people imagined a hundred years ago. We have robots, for make-believe messiah’s sake, and we’re going to have a lot more of them, so what the fuck is going on here? Where is all this productivity going? We’re told healthcare costs are rising. Really? Why? Think of the systems, the equipment, the newer medicines, the integration of new technology and the consolidation of fantastic medical minds and the dissemination of knowledge that is occurring right now. Productivity has increased, costs should be decreasing. And healthcare is only one example. We’re being bullshitted people. The value of money is psychological. The goal posts are being moved. Crises are being invented. Not having enough to eat is real, but the reason you don’t is a fabrication, at least that’s what I believe. The CEO of Cigna may be smart, but he’s not some super-qualified, 150 IQ business genius. He’s a lucky member of the club, and he makes 200 to 400 times what the average Joe or Joy makes. That’s a crime, and like all the other ones being perpetrated lately by the PTB, we’re just watching it occur without any real opposition. The older I get, the less crap I want, but I’m not a Luddite. I think technology is great, but it should benefit everyone, not just the people making the decisions to leave others out in the cold. Most of it should be employed to feed, clothe, house, care for, educate, and entertain people, not murder them in endless wars and blow shit up in the deserts of the world. I’m talking to you, Mr. Presididn’t. And to your corporate handlers, and the cabal of enabling congressional morons that just left for break after not doing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing.

A Lot of People

from myFDL diary on 4-27-2011 I took a trip to the beach last weekend. I didn’t take any reading material and purposefully did not connect to the internet. I had an old-fashioned, sun-drenched, lazy, do-nothing, escape. I sat under an umbrella on two of the most perfect days I’ve ever had, and wordlessly watched the waves roll into the sand while people frolicked and relaxed. The pounding surf, constant breeze, and roasting sun kept reminding me of the enormous scale of energy that ma nature really is. The strand wasn’t crowded and people seemed so small in comparison. How can we have such an influence over this giant planet, I asked myself rhetorically. I thought, 7 billion of us – that’s a big number. So how many could pack into a square meter, maybe a little uncomfortably, but not as bad as say, a passenger train in India? I decided 4 was a good number. Four persons per square meter translates to 1,750 square kilometers of people on the earth. No freaking way, I thought. I did this simple calculation with a dried plant stem in the sand four times before I satisfied myself I didn’t make some stupid error with powers of ten. Let’s just put that in perspective, I said to myself: how many square kilometers are visible looking out at the ocean? I estimated the visible distance to the horizon to be 10 km (a rough calculator for this called Young’s method actually says that with my eyes about 4 meters above the water, I should be able to see approximately 8 km), so a half a pie of ocean from my vantage point on the sand covered only about 160 square km. That’s not even 1/10 of the 1,750. So staring out at the water, if all that undulating liquid were people scrunched together like the crowd at a music festival, I’d only be looking at 1/10 of the population of the earth? I know there are psychological factors and perspective issues that affect my perception, but holy shit people, that is a LOT of us. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I remember saying at a young age on one of our family trips to the beach, “So THIS is how big the earth is!” I guess I still see the ocean horizon as a measuring stick. It is a big earth, but we’re starting to outgrow it. Is it really too much to ask that we think about such things as “how many plastic bottles do I need to use in one day,” or “how much soap, or fertilizer, or pesticide, or herbicide do I NEED to dump into our eco-system,” or “how much energy could I save if I tried?” I asked a “conservative”-minded colleague once, why would you want to waste ANYTHING? His answer: “Because we can.” I kid you not. Aren’t we smart enough to manage our resources? Aren’t we strong enough to keep our addictive urges in check? Don’t we have a sense of propriety, respect and appreciation for the bounty that we have? Don’t we want to leave our grandkids a better world than the one we inherited? I wish everyone could take a trip to the beach and clear her/his head of all the manufactured and real stresses of life. I wish everyone the pleasure of strolling in the soft, wet surf with only sand (not plastic waste) between your toes

Lamo Pokes His Head Out From Under his Rock

from myFDL diary on 3-17-2011 Andy Greenberg gives the under-the influence a-rock former hacker a vehicle for trying to look even more pathetic than he his. He says he would have turned in the collateral murder video, but only that, not the complete cache. Never mind that the worse crime, as evidenced in the leaks, is the systemic abuse of secrecy and the cover-ups of many other atrocious acts by our State Department, military, and the many defense contractors making a killing (so to speak). Did you do the right thing Adrian, or did you just let the right-wing do you? I’m standing on principle But I’ve started to sway Balance is critical But there’s seismic activity at play What’s right and what’s wrong Are like night and day At least that’s what the voice in my head Likes to say But the ground under my feet Seems to be giving way I’m standing on principle But it won’t stay down I’m afraid

Preliminary draft of SOTU leaked

From my FDL diary on 1/21/2011 America, as your President, I am here to tell you the state of our union is… Pathetic. You guys are a bunch of cry-babies. You’re so worried about having jobs, and being able to feed your kids or go to the doctor, you’ve lost sight of what’s really important: I’m talking of course, about supporting Wall Street. Wall Street is the economic furnace of America. It is the beating heart of our country’s vital money-spending spirit. That is why, as your elected leader, I’m advocating the dissolution of your last crutch. Each and every one of you needs to stand up on his/her own two feet and renounce your dependency on government, and it is for your own good that I’m going to take this last little protected horde, Social Security, and deliver it up to the people who know what to do with money. No more safety net for you losers, you’ll just have to scrub floors, wait on tables or do whatever it takes when you’re over 65 to pay your rent, eat, buy your meds, or obtain some other luxury you think you deserve. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask why you should need two cans of cat-food when one could surely last you the rest of the week. We need to dig deep here people. I told you change would not come quickly and there would be storms to weather. This is it. Now, those on the other side of the aisle have done nothing but obstruct the progress our majorities in both houses and the holding of this office have tried to accomplish, and that’s why I’m admonishing them with this tsk, tsk and finger wagging. But we need to embrace their obstruction for what it really is, good-faith, bipartisan gamesmanship. They are our brothers; they have stock in CIGNA too. They also want to make sure this country is safe, which is why I always defer to their militaristic ideology and share their disdain for the rule of law and due process. We will remain in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan and we will continue the increase of predator drone bombings. I think that’s really cool stuff, and if you don’t like it, well NSA knows where you live and we have contractors doing fly-overs here at home. Ha Ha. Now I just want to close with one more thing. The internet is a privilege. If you can’t pay for it, you shouldn’t have access to it. And it shouldn’t be cheap because everybody knows if something is given to you, you don’t appreciate it. Too much dangerous activity is happening out there and we need to give the providers the ability to tell us whatever we want to know about their customers at all times. The lives of our service men and women are at stake, and we need to be able to lie to whomever we like, in your name, to keep up our sterling reputation in the global community. Therefore net neuter-ality is on the agenda in the near future, and nailing Julian Assange is my Justice Department’s priority number one. So if you find your connections a little slow, just remember it’s for your own good, and don’t think you can get away with trying to contribute to Wikileaks. Now get back to work, try to get over your retardedness, quit complaining, and let’s all give a great round of applause to my good friend and mentor who will be leaving the Senate for a probably really good reason, but I’m not saying yet. God bless America.