All posts by CyberDurden

National Security Agency: the American Panopticon

Physically, a panopticon is a structure from which prison guards can monitor all prison activities as an all-seeing-eye.  In the figurative and psychological sense a panopticon is  self-imposed censorship and behavior modification based on the fear that one is being watched and that your neighbors are watching you.  This system is time-tested.  In recent memory, it was used successfully in the Soviet Union — particularly by the East German Stasi during the Cold War.

Take Michael Rivero’s NSA challenges.  Had llllllll been an employee of the NSA, there would have been a resounding, “Challenge accepted!” but there has been eerie silence.  Also (vacant), with the exception of chirping crickets and pin-drops are:

You may be thinking that the NSA has been on the ball with all of the chatter.  Let’s look at what the agency has been monitoring:

Yes, Big Brother is watching . . . but not as closely as you may think.

Being a Good Citizen during a Pandemic

It shouldn’t take legislating public health laws to get human being to start acting like human beings again.  We appear to be headed right back to the future of the dark-ages.

Although it may be a bit overboard to require every citizen to wear a surgical mask while in public, I do think it is prudent to at least have a box of them in stock along with any other emergency kit or go-bag — just in case.   If you are too paranoid to leave your residence, masks are just a click away.  It’s too bad that Amazon holds us hostage to using UPS as its sole courier.  As I cozy-up to making more lengthy and thought-out posts, I will inevitably share with my dear readers why “Brown” is on my shit-list.

How long has it taken to undo the damage of demonizing

Jello Does Not Twitter

Jello is a Luddite and Fuck Gutenberg too! (Potential new Dead Kennedys songs?)

I won’t make my message available.  You come find me, which — to me — is like Socrates standing in an abandoned part of Athens, stuck in the ways of its past.  OK .  .  . that was probably not the correct comparison, but comparing him to present-day Anabaptists, e.g. the Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, etc.

I have a savant friend who resists the change in communications media as he watches in bewilderment as the world and civilization passes by him.

The Origins of The American Military Coup of 2016?

Paging Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr. (retired)!

Dunlap is the author of the essay, The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012, which won him the 1992 prize for Conlin Powell’s National Defense University while Powell was still Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Military Times has posted a new article referencing an article from The Daily Beast explaining: How Gen. James Mattis Could Become the Unlikeliest U.S. President in History.

Trump is the impetus for the push. Noonan said most of the individuals exploring a Mattis run are waiting for the next few weeks to see if the Republican frontrunner can be overtaken by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who convincingly won the Wisconsin primary earlier this month.

 

 

 

 

“If you think that experience matters — to be President — you should also not vote, because you don’t have any.”

Talks about building a “digital wall” around ISIS

Pros and cons of his Trump landslide prediction.

Defines “word-thinking.”

Likens having a sense of humor to literacy, athletics, and musical ability (some people just don’t have it).

Dealing with anxiety

History will vindicate Snowden

“We live in a country where if you write about Trump, it’s good to be well armed . . . .”  Scott’s parting words before going gun shopping.

Bio

Writing about myself in a biography format has never been easy.  Writing or talking about myself isn’t uncomfortable in bits and pieces, but — for whatever reason — I have a tendency to be shy when it comes to this format.  Also — for whatever reason — I always tend to start in the spring of 1984; so why should this time be any different?

When I was a teenager, I lived in Naples, Italy, in a region occupied and controlled by the Comorra.  No shit.  If you watch the movie, Gohmorra, the beach scenes, the arcade scene, and a few other  scenes — my coming-of-age stomping-ground.  I attended and graduated from Naples American High School in 1987.  I arrived half way through my freshman year, and — due to my father receiving orders to a new duty-station before I would graduated with my class — I was incentivized to double-up on some credits, allowing me to graduate a semester early.  The alternative would have been to stay with friends of my father or graduated at a an unfamiliar high school after spending only one semester.   I have always regretted not staying.  Who knows what opportunities there could have  been to remain longer?  Perhaps I would have had second thoughts about joining the Air Force?

Coffee with Scott Adams (09-17-2016)

“I don’t want to scare anyone, but I haven’t even started.”

 

Read I Hope My Father Dies Soon

No ‘October surprise’

One more cough attack after two weeks and Hillary Clinton’s campaign is finished

Hillary:   same or dumber?!

Hillary’s unpersuasive Tweets