Sony Hack

Bottom Line Up Top

I don’t have any idea on who it was who hacked Sony.  In this vein I believe I am in line with nearly every other person on the planet.  To date we’ve gotten all the ‘proof’ that the North Koreans were involved with this that we did on Saddam Hussein’s ‘WMDs’.  About the only thing missing is Donald Rumsfeld going on television to tell us the exact location of the hacked server in question…”It’s located just North, South, East and West of…..”.

History of Sony Hacks

From where I sit I have a very clear memory of Sony Playstation network getting hacked so bad a few years ago it took the entire gaming system offline for weeks.  You’d think a company that had such an event would not be storing company passwords in a file named “passwords”.  FFS.  I’ve read reports that mention Sony being hacked over FIFTY TIMES in the last few years.   Google the issue if you have any questions as to the frequency or number of the hacks perpetrated against Sony.  As a final aside, when did it become the business of the US government to protect the intellectual property of Sony against their own stupidity?  Hmmm?

Other Likely Suspects

The early stories on this hack seemed to indicate that it was a disgruntled Sony hater (former employee?) responsible for this hack.  That seemed to make sense at the time, but the more I see the North Korean angle getting boosted by the (uncritical) press, the more it has me thinking that it is much more likely that the CIA is at the root of this Sony hack.  After all, they are under extreme scrutiny for their perpetration of war crimes.  They have shown the ability and propensity for hacking all manner of things, most notable the Senate computers being used by the committee investigating their criminality.  How convenient for the CIA to have a major NORTH KOREAN hack come floating to the fore!!  Attention is thereby shifted away from their illegal and immoral (unconstitutional) activities!  Look for the head of the CIA to be in Congress next week looking for increased funding to combat this new ‘menace’!  I am so not buying into this North Korea bullshit. Are you?

Enjoy.

Marginalizing Naomi Wolf

Insane or Insanely Prescient?

Naomi Wolf has the talking heads all atwitter at her suggestion that the televised ISS beheadings are nothing more than agitprop by the powers that be to fool a gullible US public into continuing the mideast folly Bush began.  I’m not sure she’s even serious in the charge so much as she’s pointing out there’s not been any real journalistic honesty on all matters pertaining to the situation in Iraq stretching back to the era of Bush’s propaganda machine and their fake WMD causus belli.

That charge is too difficult to refute and embarrassing for those who acted as cheerleaders for the disaster and it’s inconvenient for them to consider.  The guys and gals acting as puppets on behalf of the oligarchs are paid those huge salaries for their pretty hair and white teeth, not their mental acumen or journalist ability or integrity. Their bosses have no intention of spending money getting the “inside scoop” on anything other than Miley Cyrus’ cooch.

Random Recap of Everything

World

Even though most of the mideast reminds Obama of Detroit, that’s no excuse for intervention.  Let’s drop some jobs into Detroit instead of bombs on foreigners.

We have no business in Syria. None. Let them kill each other off on their own, and in whatever fashion suits them best. We have no friends over there. When you can’t even fool a drunken Brit into tagging along you know you have a problem. Time to defund the spies. The NSA seems extremely adept at accessing and cross-filing Grandma’s emails (lest the Gray Panthers get a toehold on society). It’s great that they’re keeping an eye on the proliferation of heavily sharpened knitting needles, but even more worrisome that they still can’t provide accurate, reliable real-time operational foreign intelligence.

NSA Dick Check

Capturing small talk in the men’s loo at the UN? Easy Peezy.  Still totally clueless on any issue involving WMD’s.  Are you kidding me?

USA

The pot fed pork producing industry (centered in Seattle -DUH) just got some good news.

Obama finally decided to call off the Feds over Colorado, Washington and California marijuana legalization rulings. He left the door to fascism cracked open wide enough that the Prison Industrial Complex is still smiling.  No change to the federal classification aligning marijuana with heroin. In other “drug” news it was reported that 500 people die every year from Tylenol overdoses and 50 to 80 thousand seek emergency room services from negative reactions to acetaminophen.  This prompted a voluntary change in the label.  Glad that’s tended to.

Hell’s Kitchen

With names like Incendiary Point and Hell’s Canyon it’s a wonder these places haven’t self immolated long ago.

The entire western half of the US appears to be on fire. Visitors to whatever is left of our western national park system should be required to carry portable firefighting gear on all future camping expeditions as well as pine seedlings to replant the blighted forests.

Tech

Ballmer quits at Microsoft. About dam time. Most of the American workforce would already have been pink-slipped for much less serious failures, like showing up to work an hour late because they had to take their sick child to the clinic. This clown should not have survived Vista, let alone the aborted Courier and the not aborted ZuneRT.

Armed and Dangerous

ItI won’t be long before everyone is wondering how they ever got along without a smart watch. Or not.  I have a hard time seeing the appeal so you know I’ll absolutely have to have one as soon as they come out.  In the end I think the eyeglass viewer is going to become the dominant smartphone interface, though the watches will probably sell well enough to gain a strong foothold.  Toughness and weather resistance is going to matter.

The Return of the Brick Phone

Those cute little smartphones we all took home as cuddly kittens are poised to grow as big as adult grizzlies. By the time the market fully matures the number one selling phone accessory is going to be a backpack to carry all your gear. It’ll be Phabulous.

Errata

Looking into the future of Google Glass I see a Sergei Brin divorce on the horizon.

Windows tablets continue to suck, at any price.

Nintendo just released a new hand held gaming device that doesn’t include a Twitter app or a phone. What the hell are they thinking?

PZ Myers has still not been formally banned from the internet and continues with his wild ass ruminations.

Life

Everything continues to blossom in my world, even with the many burdens providence has seen fit to vex me with.  It won’t be long before we get to see the newest iteration of the iPhone, so reschedule that appointment you made with the Dutch euthanasia society.

There’s still something worth living for.

Enjoy.

They Never See it Coming

NRA Membership #38874
2745 Mudbug Circle
Beauregard Flats, Louisiana

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association has rallied gun-owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners.

But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself.

This is not a problem for conservative gun owners. They believe that the NRA isn’t like the NSA.  Since it’s a private corporation, gun enthusiasts are super confident that the NRA database is vastly more secure than that of the bungling government NSA.  Besides, what could possibly go wrong if government “watchdogs” ever did decide they wanted that NRA database?

It’s not like there’s any contemporary history of western democratic governments ham-handedly seizing or forcing the destruction of private industry data, and anyway, now that everybody knows that Glenn Greenwald has a gay South American “partner”, all the heavily documented facts he’s been reporting on can be summarily dismissed as yesterday’s hoary gossip.

Finally, our long international nightmare is over!  There is no illegal spying going on against Americans.  That’s the lesson that will get printed in future US history books (because it’s the story the government is “selling” us today!).  It will be injected into the curriculum right after the lesson on all the missing WMD’s we found in Iraq.

Tim’s Take

The Tim Channel is 100% behind 100% strict government registration and regulation of all firearms.  I extend my personal thanks to the fundraising department at the NRA for collecting a list of several million of their most hardcore radicals.  It will indeed prove quite helpful in the event the former slave states once again decide to break into open rebellion.

There were no WMD’s in Iraq.

Disclaimer: All people shown in this post are fictional.  Any similarity to that of potential Republican 2016 contenders or nude male pornographers is purely coincidental.

Enjoy.

Truth Being Raped

I suffered through this Girlyban Gasbagger’s hour long wank-fest because, as an unofficial member of the super secret Atheist CIA, I feel I have a responsibility to shoulder even the most obnoxious missions on behalf of our (dis)organization.   If you are wondering, but don’t have time for the video, I have the answer to the question I know most of you are curious about, and the answer is YES! YES! YES!  Did you really think Rebecca Watson could participate in this conversation WITHOUT mentioning her USA TODAY exposure?  Maybe Oprah will call her next?

People often come to me for my opinions on issues because I have a better than average ability for seeing through bullshit.  I was doing drive-time radio in Jackson MS when Bush was throwing all that WMD bullshit against the wall. CALLED BUSH A LIAR on the air and right FROM THE START.  My volunteer unpaid radio gig was only allowed to continue (unlike say Bill Mahr) because the rightwing station owners favored profits (from my “controversial” style and lack of remuneration) over knee-jerk patriotism.  But I digress.

I called bullshit on Skepchick when she went “100% Girlyban gasbag” on Richard Dawkins for his accurate early assessments concerning the nakedness of said Empress. There was an associated and coordinated Girlyban assault on Lawrence Krauss at that time, for his “failure” to presume guilt before trial that was particularly hard to stomach.

I wrote a bit of excellent satire on the matter back during the nostalgic days of Elevator Guy.  I foolishly thought that FACTS would quickly be brought out and the feminist usurpers of skepticism wouldn’t be allowed to continue derailing and sniping FROM WITHIN prominent perches of the organization.  They might have been properly marginalized back then, if not for the support of an obviously aging (and increasingly deranged-syphilis?) PZ Myers.

The cognitive dissonance so many of us are having to deal with right now in trying to square the circle in finding a rationale for PZ to continue faithfully following Brother John Birch Skepchick is difficult to witness.

I would be lying if I told you that I would ever have imagined a day when so many of us are left scratching our heads and thinking, “What the fuck happened to PZ?”   The only guy in recent history I can remember who garnered such negative press within the skeptic community is some unidentified male with a penchant for coffee who happened to cross paths with Rebecca Watson in a hotel elevator (after she pried her drunken ass out of the hotel bar and staggered off to her room at 4a.m.).  That poor (imagined?) bastard at the elevator didn’t sign up for the abuse he got, but that definitely isn’t the case with PZ Myers these days.  One of the links above leads to a theory that PZ is being blackmailed by Watson because PZ is the unidentified creepy elevator guy!!  Dam if it doesn’t make more sense than the crap PZ is spewing these days!!

Creepy Elevator Guy’s imagined physical rape by Girlyban leader Rebecca Watson is much less obnoxious to my soul than the reality of PZ Myers continuing to try to intellectually mind rape us all (while simultaneously trying to make us (like Sarah Palin) pay for our own rape kits).

Enjoy.