Sunday, January 21, 2007

1-21-07 The Surge

As with anything else the Bush administration's public relations machine attempts to "inform" America about, the entirety of the so-called "Surge" of an additional 21,500 troops in Iraq is just more smoke and mirrors.

In addition, there's the major media "reporting" of all this baloney. You'd think that there was a massive "issue" being dealt with in all of this, and that the "controversy" surrounding this so-called "Surge" was one of the most important things that is happening right now. As if this were the turning point in some grand scenario of "us versus them"...

Anyone who now believes that Bush, all on his own, is "escalating" the war in Iraq, and that this all flies directly in the face of the majority of Americans' polled interests, including the newly elected democrats in congress who, for all the media hype, are making this "issue" a "defining moment" in the confrontation... Well, you've got another think coming.

This is hardly anything to get excited about. Here's the facts: there is no surge of additional troops forthcoming. It's essentially an accounting trick.

Here's how it works: troops already scheduled to go to Iraq will go a little earlier than planned. Troops scheduled to return home from Iraq will go home a little later than planned.

If you want a more detailed explanation of this, check out the Mudville Gazette here.

Both sides of the aisle, of course, find this PR baloney of "The Surge" to be a great political hay-maker. It doesn't matter whether you stand for or against the war, because this big hoopla is an opportunity to toot the horn, cast the vote, and make the speeches that otherwise would get no media coverage at all. And anything that's actually done for or against this so-called "surge" is nothing but vapor, anyway, since nothing is really going to change that wasn't already scheduled to happen quite some time ago.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

1-13-07 MS Vista

For over a decade, the Justice Department has had the hots for Bill Gates' little business up in Redmond, Washington. Maybe they had a lot of reasons for that long series of legal actions in the anti-trust litigation over the years, but the hype machine was all about "protecting the consumer" from the big blue monopoly. It wasn't until the high profile of this activity slowly submerged into the background that I began to wonder and speculate.

Around the time that Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition came out, it occured to me that the main thrust of the US government going after Microsoft needn't be viewed as any sort of "consumer protection" activity, but rather as the big power in DC going after an emerging power in Washington state. After all, the Windows operating system is everywhere, and I'm sure that the big power in DC wouldn't want anything so ubiquitous to be entirely beyond their control. It's the inevitability of the US government's evolution into "Big Brother" that I'm talking about here.

OR, maybe it could be viewed as a coincidental opportunity.

Either way, my speculative musings about this began around the turn of the century, before the world changed on 9-11. Now that the world has changed I can hardly say that my suspicions regarding the Justice Department's settlement with Microsoft have been, in any way, allayed. Today, I found that the Washington Post published an article on Monday that, essentially, says the sort of things that spin the revelation of NSA involvement in the development of Windows over the past several years as a sort of "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." The article is all about how, yes, there's been a lot of security flaws in the various iterations of Windows over the years, but now they've got the NSA "helping them" to really put the security flaws to bed, once and for all.

Compare that spin today with the lack of "spin" in this article from 1999, and the fact that NSA involvement had been revealed up to seven years ago. Why is Microsoft only now coming around to this willingness to publicly admit it? Well, I guess they finally have a willing shill in the Washington Post to spin it as the "NSA seal of approval" for security.

Gee! They sure must've done a fantastic job "helping" Microsoft with security issues! A month ago, you could have done a google search on "Vista flaws" and found virtually nothing. Today, however, a Google search for "Vista flaws" turns up 23,100 hits, and a Yahoo search turns up 27,900 hits! And the software still hasn't even been released for sale to the general public yet!

It's apparent to me that "Vista flaws" and Windows' ever burgeoning lack of security over the past ten years are all about enabling back door access, rather than ensuring that it can't be done. For the consumer, real security would be the ABSENCE of any "back door access" at all. That the NSA has been "helping" Microsoft with this for at least seven years can hardly increase my feeling secure about the software in any way at all. The whole point has been to ENABLE that back door access, all along!

Frankly, this is NOT in the public interest to have the very things that hackers need to continue to subvert and damage internet activity, namely, the presence of INTENTIONAL SECURITY HOLES FOR BACKDOOR ACCESS, actively being developed and included in every iteration of Windows. In the name of "protecting the public" this situation clearly enables DECREASED security. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this misguided activity can be seen for what it is every time "security flaws" are reported, every time hackers succeed with some damaging worm or virus running rampant across the internet because of the Windows operating system's security flaws.

If NSA was such a great "seal of approval" then how come the whole time they've been involved, this problem has only GOTTEN WORSE???

Friday, January 12, 2007

1-12-07 Banging In

There's a website called Banged In for people to anonymously describe how they've called in sick to work.

The term "Banged In" is defined here in the Urban Dictionary.

I banged in today.

Well, actually, I didn't really "call in sick" I just called and said I won't be in. No excuse needed. Essentially, I'm my own "boss" and if I don't feel like making any money on any particular morning, then that's the end of the discussion. Now I have a four day weekend, since Monday is "Martin Luther King Day" and the level of commerce in this city will be quite low. Not much point in my spending the day fighting over scraps with those whose income needs far exceed my own.

Banging in, though, is an interesting term, isn't it? The ever evolving nature of the English language is always such a fascinating subject to me. It's interesting because there are people "out there" who think there's such a thing as "proper" English. The mainstay of English, however, has been its evolution and the constant addition of words and phrases to elicit finer and finer meaning from this spoken and written mode of communication.

It's probably the most difficult language to learn (if it isn't your native tongue) because of this proliferation of nuanced invention that constantly shows up and goes into common usage. There's a great website here where the history of words and phrases can be found, providing a great window into the past of this language, as well as words and terms that are coming into common usage. The Urban Dictionary, of course, is great for the burgeoning confluence of nuanced invention bubbling up into the language, as well.

I banged in today, not knowing at the time I was "banging in" until having stumbled upon the term quite by accident. But I guess this is how it works. You find a new way to describe something in English, and the next thing you know it's part of the language.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

1-11-07 Iraqi Oil

Not much of a change, last night's speech by George W. Bush... Just more of the same.

Of course, as Noam Chomsky commented earlier last year, and which I posted here as "Quote of the Decade" on 6-26-06, "We are supposed to believe that the US and Britain would have liberated Iraq even if its main export was pickles."

Yes, pickles...

The US government forces are not over there in Iraq because of the third largest oil reserves in the world, according to the "official story". We need only observe the obvious to understand what a lie that is. We need only take the time to summon up from memory the lies that have been fed to the US public concerning why Iraq was invaded in first place, to understand that this is pure, unadulterated lying.

How about the fact that a few key people in the Iraqi government have been working with a representative of Bearing Point, an American consultancy firm hired by the US government, to draft legislation that would, essentially, allow American oil companies to take over the production of Iraqi oil for the next three decades... How about that?

The full text of this story is here.

Here's a quote from that story...

"Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had."

The only reason that the oil industry shill in the White House is willing to commit another 20,000 American lives in Iraq is for the benefit of the oil companies.

They are not giving their lives for the freedom of the Iraqi people. They are not giving their lives for the cause of spreading democracy. They are not giving their lives for the best interests of the American people.
They are giving their lives for the oil companies. So far, more American lives have been sacrificed to this fascist cause than were lost on 9-11-01. How many more American lives will have to be sacrificed for the exclusive benefit of George W. Bush's oil company buddies???