Stuff

Latest NSA revelations

Today's Times article, published despite NSA objections, confirms many more of our "paranoia is heightened awareness" suspicions.  I think it was especially interesting that Our Government coerced some companies into installing backdoors in their privacy software.  I'm pretty sure that GnuPG encryption still is safe, though, and it's not as hard to use as some would have you believe.  Anyway, if you want to discuss your secret terrorist plans without NSA interference, try it — but remember to do your composition and encryption offline, and to securely delete your original before you go back online.  Your hardware might be hacked.

Obama and Syria

It seems Our President did not have much success lining up support for his proposed attack on Syria at the G-20, and he's having even less success at home.  Americans, you see, are just not into it, and the ones against it for reasons more substantial than just hating Obama have some questions to ask, like, what if you bomb them now and they do it again later?  What if you make it easier for Al Nusra to come out on top?  What makes you think that sending missiles against Syria will have any impact at all on Iran, except to make nuclear negotiations more difficult for Hassan Rowhani?  Let's hope Congress, for whatever stupid reasons, says no.

Jobs

The unemployment rate is down to 7.3%, almost entirely because the labor-force participation rate is so low.  The new jobs being "created" by the "job creators" are nearly all "McJobs," and median family income remains roughly $4000 less than it was in 2008.  Sadly, the government we have is not going to do anything about it.  Some people just have too much goddamned money, and much too much of it goes to 501(c)(4)s, and from there to our "representatives" in Congress.

Are you "comfortable" now?

At yesterday's news conference, Our President suggested we all should feel "comfortable" with the NSA's collection of vast amounts of our personal data.  Needless to say, he blamed Edward Snowden for our discomfort.  Well, that's true, I suppose.  If we'd never found out how extreme our surveillance state had become, I guess we wouldn't have been all that bothered by it.

Under current circumstances, though, I am bothered by it — and the president's promise to jiggle the system a little to achieve a better "balance" between security and privacy doesn't reassure me at all.

More shorties

"An excess of caution"

Needless to say, Obama didn't want another Benghazi, but how do you get another Benghazi if you're forewarned?  Wouldn't it make more sense to wait for the attack and crush it?  Some extra security, especially in Sana, should have done the trick.

On the other hand, some idiots might get the idea that the NSA "security" offensive against the American public (and the rest of the world) made "saving" our embassies and consulates possible.  It's bullshit, of course.  Nobody found out about upcoming events in Yemen by logging American phone data.

Crap.  Pure crap.

Iraq

We're out of there, thankfully.  What we left behind is a civil war.  The real shame is that most of the dead people are just poor suckers, including a lot of children, who never did a bit of harm to anybody.  I don't suppose taking out Maliki would help, but it would help me feel happier.

Fannie and Freddie

Let's not forget that Fannie and Freddie weren't privatized until Lyndon Johnson needed some extra cash to blow in Vietnam.  Now that they're nationalized again, and starting to turn a profit, why not just keep them nationalized and use the money they're bringing in for, say, infrastructure or education?

I never understood why our government only is allowed to own losers.  Hell, let's nationalize the oil and gas companies!

Corruption

Corruption is endemic, worldwide, and the United States certainly is no exception.  I think it was Mark Twain who said we have "the best Congress money can buy," and he hadn't even seen the Congress we have now.

Is there a way to get the money out of politics?  If there is, I wouldn't even have a clue where to start.

Surveillance State

If the FISA court approved a warrant for the FBI and NSA to obtain all of Verizon's "metadata," I think it's safe to assume it approved warrants for all the other major carriers as well.  I am certain that neither my friend Prudi not my friend Judy are terrorists — they just don't have the skills, much less the motivation — and they're my primary telephone correspondents.  Yes, my kids call every week or two, and they're not terrorists either, so I guess I won't be scooped up in some anti-terror dragnet.

On the other hand, I do get fairly frequent calls from other parties who must also be calling terrorists.  You probably get the robo-call that begins, "This is an important message about your current credit card account..."  I'm betting that the real terrorists get more calls from that outfit than from any of their terrorist buddies, and I'm calling on the FBI to shut them down.  They might even be calling from outside the USA — who knows?  Maybe they are terrorists, trying to drive us so crazy we go out and start killing each other.

Seriously, though, Barack Obama and his administration have been a total disappointment with regard to Fourth Amendment rights and with regard to transparency.  "Oh," exclaim the administration hacks, "but the things we do are for the sake of national security — to protect your safety.  And if it weren't for those horrible leakers letting you know they're happening, they wouldn't bother you at all!"

Once again, it's time to quote Jefferson:  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Hypocrite. Coward. President.

If I seem to be writing less frequently lately, it's because my anger and outrage are devolving into the usual depression. I never expected all that much of Obama, but I suppose all that financial industry money spent on his campaign affected even a habitual cynic like me, so I swallowed hard and hoped.

Hope. Bullshit.

Let's forget my usual economic complaints for the moment. This week, I heard promises about greater regulation of derivatives, more anti-trust suits, and action to limit predation by credit card. I'm not listening to promises anymore. I'll wait and see what, if anything, actually happens.

Onward and downward: where the hell is Dwight D. Eisenhower (or some reasonable facsimile) when you need him? It's looking more and more like Obama is being cowed by Pentagon bullies, with participation by CIA, NSA, and probably a dozen other agencies whose goddamned initials are top secret. Why has McChrystal replaced McKiernan? Beats me, unless it's that McCrystal is okay with an invasion of Pakistan from Afghanistan, and McKiernan isn't. And what will that consummate bully, Benjamin Netanyahu, bully our president into doing when they meet this week?

Take some action against the torturers? Um, no, 'fraid not. Come to think of it, we can't even release any more embarassing photos. Abolish the military tribunals? Uh, sorry, but that might force us to release some people whose "confessions" were extracted by the aforementioned torture. "Don't ask, don't tell?" Don't ask.

Last week, Dick Durbin observed that the financial industry, despite its setbacks, still had the strongest lobby in Washington -- but what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex still has to be in the running. So, how many of the useless, overpriced "defense" contracts that now appear to be on the chopping block actually will be chopped? If experience is any guide, most of those turkeys will still be alive and well for next Thanksgiving, and for the one after that as well.