Monthly Archives: December 2016

Yet Another Congressional Stocking Stuffer

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

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So, this morning I droned on about Washington and the Russians (Russians my not actually exist in this context). I ended by saying an investigation would give Congress something to do other than pass more laws we could live without. Too late.

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The House has passed and the Senate is considering the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, H.R. 5077. Of course, a rider proposition in or behind the Bill is aimed at the Ruskies.

Paul Craig Roberts (who I almost worked with on a story once) sees dire consequences:

The faked news report from the imbeciles at PropOrNot, which was hyped by the fake news sheet, WaPo, claiming that I was a Russian agent was supposed to do my credibility harm. Instead, the 200 List told everyone where they could get good information, and my readership went up. Moreover, I almost got a Russian passport out of it. But before sending it along, Putin checked with Russian intelligence and was informed that I am not on their roster.

The rumor is that if the House intelligence bill passes with Title V intact, those of us on the PropOrNot list could be called before congressional hearings in a replay of McCarthyism. If they waterboard me, I might break down and implicate Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Jim Baker, David Stockman, and all the rest. The evidence against us is pretty strong. Trump is suspect because he wants peace with Russia, and so did Reagan. From the standpoint of the Hillary forces and the presstitutes, anyone who wants peace with Russia is bound to be a Russian agent.

The way the presstitutes have framed the issue, there are no legitimate reasons to be for peace.

If Putin and those of us on the 200 List are the ones who actually got Trump elected, shouldn’t Putin or The List be Time magazine’s person of the year and not Trump? After all, if Putin and I did the work, shouldn’t we get the recognition? Why give the credit to the stooge we put in office?

Why is Time magazine showing those of us responsible off into the background?

Eureka! Time magazine is also a Russian agent and is covering up for us by giving Trump credit for our work. Whew! I won’t be waterboarded after all.

He may or may not be kidding here. Title V is as real as the rest of this legislation. (You did click the link to H.R. 5077, right?)

Ah, well. Here’s the esteemed Mr. Altucher (who won’t answer my texts) on Doing What You Love (the key is flexibility):

Transitions are the key.

There’s no such thing as, “I love this and then, A, B, C and success happens.”

There’s no Beginning, Middle, End, where “End” equals success. That rarely happens. Maybe it happened to two people in life. Larry Page and Bill Gates. Two out of billions.

I wish I was Larry Page. Maybe I am jealous of him.

Here’s how it happens:

END. Bitter End. Horrible End. Confusing End. ‘WHY? and END.

MIDDLE. Confusion. Fog. “What do I do now?’ Ideas, depression, fog, bad idea after bad idea and then finally good idea.

In the middle, you take the old, you tweak it, you try it in different ways. You work it.

…BEGINNING. The seeds planted for many new things. All generated as a combination of your ideas and your past loves.

Success. Repeat.

The “Thin Reed” Of Russian Hacking

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

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There appears significant dissent to the CIA narrative on the Ruskie hack attack. Both the ODNI and the FBI have doubts about the CIA’s information.

The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday.

“(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election.

“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.

Congress should investigate, especially if that keeps them from passing more laws. Better to sway the thin reeds of intelligence communication impasse than the thick trunks of legislation.

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Maybe The Russians Are Not THEIR Friends

12 Monday Dec 2016

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The good news is that they have moved on from blaming everything on “Hitler” and suggesting that anyone they disagree with in the slightest is THE new incarnation of Der Fuhrer. At last count, 8,974,307 Hilters had been identified, the original not included.

It got old. So they moved on to the Russians. The Ruskies are behind everything, behind every bush, lamp post, and mailbox. Better watch out!

The two top Republicans in Congress offered strong support for the intelligence community Monday, in sharp contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s attack on the CIA after reports the agency found that the Russian government tried to help him win the presidency.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he had the “highest confidence” in the intelligence agencies, while House Speaker Paul Ryan praised them for “working diligently” to take on cyber threats from foreign governments. But both leaders also warned against using the issue for partisan gain or casting doubt on the outcome of the election.

McConnell singled out the Central Intelligence Agency for praise and said the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services panels will investigate findings by intelligence agencies that Russia hacked into e-mails and computers used in the presidential campaign.

“Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell told reporters. He added later, “The Russians are not our friends.”

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the CIA has told senators that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government was actively seeking to help Trump win the election — a step beyond an earlier finding that the goal was to undermine the credibility of the U.S. political process.

“Any intervention by Russia is especially problematic because, under President Putin, Russia has been an aggressor that consistently undermines American interests,” Ryan said in a statement Monday. “As we work to protect our democracy from foreign influence, we should not cast doubt on the clear and decisive outcome of this election.”

President Barack Obama explained his reasons for ordering a full review of the evidence of Russian hacking in an appearance to be aired Monday night on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.”

Russia has been the aggressor, got it. Russia invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan while supporting ISIS in Syria, playing puppet-master with Europe, Walling off Iran, and destabilizing half the rest of the planet. Got that. Russia also mandates Obamacare, collects your income taxes, allows the Fed to decimate the dollar, pollutes the Animas River, and decides the size of your toilet tank. Damn Ruskies… Thanks, Mitchy!

And Obama says his spoke on Comedy Central. At least he keeps the environment proper. Ryan and McConnell should have an SNL skit.

Look, governments spy on each other. I’m confident the Russians did at least pry into our election. We’ve been known to do that sort of thing too. And they may have had a vested interest. The other mainstream candidate is or was in league with the rest of the establishment to _____________ Russia (fill in the blank: anything from isolate to nuclear war).

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Even if their not OUR friends, they are certainly not our enemies. The losers in D.C. always need an enemy in order to stay relevant. Russia might work out for them. That’s good for D.C. and terrible for us.

What has Russia ever done to you? I, personally, can’t think of a single thing Putin or his people have done to me. Last I recall hearing, Putin was praising the American people and expressing his desire for peace and friendship. I actually believe him. I’m not sure I entirely trust the man – a politician, you know – but I do trust him more than the local rodentia in Washington.

During a debate this fall Hillary claimed 17 U.S. intel agencies had information that Russia was attempting to influence the election. (Why do we need 17 intel agencies?!) Maybe they did. Where’s the proof? What does it prove? Who benefits?

Obviously Clinton might have gained, if not for the landslide defeat. She and Jill Stein have been busy trying to suggest voting fraud in their recount efforts. What little has been uncovered has almost universally been from (not against) Hillary’s camp.

Still, they try to find something. You can’t blame a gal for trying. Today from out the back, hidden room at the #PizzaGate place, even John Podesta piped up.

“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

That sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, there, Johnny. Better tone it down or Twitter might suspect fake news. Oh, wait. Yeah…

And is that the same CIA that reported Saddam with the yellow cake and Bin Laden’s 2001-2 kidney failure and death? The same that just almost, kinda, sorta missed 9/11? The people training the “rebels” in Aleppo? Huh? Again, why 17 of these agencies? Why even one?

So, that’s what we have now: fake news, wasted money, wasted lives, conspiracy theories, desperate idiots and warmongers, incompetence, and Comedy Central skits. If the Russians were doing anything, maybe they were trying inject a little sanity. Hardly the act of an enemy, that.

Anti-Social Media

12 Monday Dec 2016

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Facebook is building a network of “informers” to keep users in line.

One of the tools being tested will enable users to inform Facebook if certain news stories are using “misleading language”. Some users posted images of a Facebook survey asking them the following question: “To what extent do you think that this link’s title withholds key details of the story?”.

It is still unclear what kind of actions will be carried out after this additional user data is collected, but it is likely that some sort of a database, containing the list of “misleading” news websites, will be generated.

In a not so distant past, content curators from Facebook confirmed that they received direct orders from the company to decrease the relevance or even hide from the newsfeed stories and content with conservative language. While this happened in the US, similar stories have been reported in Brazil, the United Kingdom around the time of the Brexit, and in other countries.

Informers. Like Stalin.

Twitter has banned or run off half of its customers. Word has it the system is only held up now by the near-maniacal tweets of Donald Trump. If Trump jumps to Gab, it’s over for the little bird.

Gab, still in test mode, is roaring along. And the ever-baffled MSM isn’t happy about it. They, “diversity” mongers all, dismiss the real diversity at Gab with slanderous calls of “racist”, “Nazi”, and so forth. All lies.

Sanduja points to the startup founders’ backgrounds as a reflection of diversity.

He is a Canadian Hindu with roots in India. The other co-founders include Ekrem Buyukkaya, a Muslim of Kurdish origin, and Andrew Torba, the chief executive who calls himself a “Christian conservative.”

However, that kind of symbolism does little to mollify the concerns of those worried that services such as Gab keep users inside “filter bubbles” that reinforce their own ideas and block out other viewpoints.

“The service that they have created is an echo chamber for extremely conservative opinions,” says Lauren Copeland, associate director of the Community Research Institute at Baldwin Wallace University [and irrelevant SJW].

“It may be open to everybody, but it certainly doesn’t appeal to everybody.”

Translation: if we can’t control it, it is evil. Up is down. War is peace… Whatever.

I never got Twitter and left the service years ago. I’m still plodding through Gab though I find it energetic at a minimum. Facebook is becoming a place where I promote blog posts and occasionally chat with a few friends.

If you’ve been driven off Twitter or if you fear the FB SS will come knocking over that video of your cat playing with balloon, consider Gab. Sorry about the wait. That’s the popularity of freedom.

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The Big Taste O’ Nica: The La Gloria Cubana Serie R Esteli

11 Sunday Dec 2016

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Oh my. We have a winner here. Thank you to Gerald and Russell at the Top Shelf Cigar Shop for securing me my very own edition of this incredible stick.

My Puro is a Gordo-ish 6X64 beauty. It appears to be 100% Nicaraguan – filler, binder, and wrapper (Jalapa Sol). I think that wrapper is counted as natural. However it is a rich, deep brown and slightly oily. Have a look:

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She’s full-bodied but not at all overbearing. I at once got the earthy Nica-ness I love along with terrific hints of spice.

It’s a big stick and very tightly packed. In fact I thought I was going to have draw problems based on the density. None. At. All.

For such a large chunk of tobacco, it burns perfectly even and the draw is effortless. I was more than impressed. It’s my kind of big cigar – tons of rich, flavorful smoke with no work required (excluding this write-up).

The smoke is much like the woman pictured on the band: elegant but you probably wouldn’t want to underestimate her. This is a near perfect blend of the glory of Cuba and the sophisticated power of Esteli.

Bravo!

Congress Prepares A Christmas Present: Tracking Chips For All

11 Sunday Dec 2016

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Step by step they aim for total control. This summer I explained the progression from microchip tracking of pets to the tracking of children:

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I may have been wrong about the 20 years. Already plans are under way to move from the pets and kids to the old, the infirm, and … the kids again.

Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), who chairs the Congressional Autism Caucus and the Alzheimer’s Disease Task Force, introduced a bill called Kevin and Avonte’s Law, otherwise known as H.R. 4919, in an attempt to prevent these types of accidents from happening.

The legislation would permit the Justice Department to award grants to law enforcement agencies and non-profits for training and tracking devices to find individuals with autism or seniors with Alzheimer’s who have wandered away.

“We all empathize with a parent who learns that their child is missing, including and especially when that child has autism or another developmental disability,” Smith said. “When children with a disability or seniors with Alzheimer’s do wander, time and training are essential to ensure their safe return.”

The bill would reauthorize the Missing Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Alert Program for five years and annually fund it for $2 million. The program would be expanded to include children with autism and renamed as the Missing Americans Alert Program.

The bill has garnered the support of Democrats who say it would promote public safety and address the critical need of being able to locate these individuals.

However, some are concerned the measure goes too far. The bill’s original language authorized the Attorney General to insert tracking chips into individuals involuntarily.

“It is almost too absurd to believe that it is true, but the House Judiciary Committee is considering H.R. 4919 that would allow for the Attorney General to authorize tracking chips to be inserted involuntarily into people who are incapacitated with Alzheimer’s and other fatal dementias,” said Rick Manning, the president of Americans for Limited Government, at the time.

According to a staffer who is familiar with the legislation, the language in the bill has been changed to ensure that tracking devices are not invasive or permanent, and would be voluntary. The government would also be prevented from making a database. The attorney general would still be able to decide who could receive these tracking devices and would have access to the data.

“The new language calls for ‘non-invasive and non-permanent types of tracking devices,’” said Robert Romano, senior editor of Americans for Limited Government. “But that is still not good enough. There shouldn’t be any bill, because there shouldn’t be a program, no matter how well-intentioned, overseen by the attorney general electronically tracking people in this manner.”

“The legislation still represents vast overreach by the federal government as none of this is necessary, when individuals, families and doctors can decide to use such non-invasive products on their own, like Angel Sense, under individual, limited circumstances when it is medically necessary to track patients who many become lost due to a lack of mental capacity,” Romano said.

H.R. 4919 has strong bipartisan support. And it’s a law not a voluntary, private measure as before. Yes, they stripped out the forced implantation for now. In a few years they will bring that back. First there will be chips forcibly implanted in the “at risk”. Then forcibly in the children. Then they’ll come for the rest of us. Cut 20 years in half – maybe half it again for starters.

I don’t think it’s a matter of if this happens but just when.

And to stop it we may have to “implant” some little devices of our own. That will be a simple outpatient procedure.

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Dr. Lovett is already preparing. You?

Georgia / DHS Hack Attack: Could Have Been Br’er Fox

10 Saturday Dec 2016

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The news snuck up and bit me whilst I Christmas shopped.

The other day I mentioned the DHS attempted breach of the Georgia Secretary of State’s computer system. I said it was interesting. And the interest grows.

DHS, I read somewhere, initially issued a blanket denial. There were some potentially plausible explanations for the intrusion. But the denial didn’t really set off any alarms. Agencies blanket deny just about everything up front. If it goes away, good for them. If not, then they come up with some line of reasoning. Here’s the interesting part:

The feds have come up with two plausible explanations and they have done so rapidly. One is that some nefarious third-party hacker “mirrored” their IP address to launch a covert attack. I’ve heard of things like that. It makes sense.

However, they seem to put more emphasis on the second theory: hacking by a rogue DHS agent. That they’ve admitted this is even a possibility means they either knew something beforehand or they were concerned about a mole. Who could this rogue be?

I know government employees get bored. But no-one will be so bored as to resort to trying to break into another government computer system. There’s gambling, and porn, and Facebook if things get that bad. Only a lunatic would want to sneak a peek at any SOS site. That, or someone with a criminal agenda – and really good cover. Again, who?

CNN, the WaPo, and the DNC are blaming the Russians for everything under the sun right now. Could it have been Moscow? Maybe. But not likely. I would first suspect corporate espionage before the Russians. Brian Kemp’s site has a lot of company and professional data as he mentioned in his letter to Jeh Johnson. Still, that doesn’t seem plausible either.

More so than business information, the site hosts tons of personal citizen data. I would lean towards an attempted identity theft ring. Those things are out there and they sometimes pay odd people – even trusted government security types – to steal raw data for them. It’s possible. Yet, something else keeps hinting away in my brain. Who else would want a lot of private information about where Georgians live and so forth?

Br’er Mohamed? The jihadis are working overtime trying to attack the West. And they seem to specialize in new and innovative approaches. Often, 7th century slander aside, they go the sophisticated, high-tech route. We know they’ve done data mining before. They’ve published “hit lists” of thousands of names, backed up by detailed information.

A computer screenshot shows the U.S. Central Command Twitter feed after it was apparently hacked by people claiming to be Islamic State sympathizers

They’ve done major government site hacking before. Newsweek / ISIS / Twitter.

A successful breach – and this one failed (as far as we’re told) – would have yielded over 6 million identities. That’s a lot to work through. But, whatever else the terrorists are, they are industrious. They could have started building a super list. Maybe a list for targeted assassinations? Who knows. It might not even be them.

DHS and Georgia are both investigating. If it was indeed a third-party, we will likely never know the identity. Hackers are superb at hiding. If it was a rogue, they’ll find him. Unless he flees the country. And, then, where he flees might shed light on his motives. Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Pakistan?

All of this is developing, of course. Perhaps the most alarming aspect is that, whatever this was and however it happened, it came from the very federal agency which was allegedly custom crafted a few years ago to fight just this sort of activity. Fight it, not foment it. There was a reason Ron Paul called publicly for abolishing DHS. Remember that?

Ah, well – a mystery…

James Altucher on Day Work and Day Dreams

10 Saturday Dec 2016

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I’m having a case of news fatigue or, rather, bad news fatigue. Therefore, I’d like to present another of James Altucher’s excellent idea columns on doing what you love. Read all 10 of his points. Here’s one of them:

C) More choices

I grew up in a suburb of New York City. It was a middle class suburb.

Which means everyone was middle management in NYC and commuted every day to NYC. Everyone was a “VP of Sales” at an accounting firm.

Around age 50 they all had their first heart attacks. Then strokes. Then cancer. Then some dementia. Then death.

Now, we have choices. A friend of mine spent 20 years working for Wall Street as a graphic designer. Finally she quit.

Since then she’s been inundated on every social media site for requests to do work at some times triple the money.

Why? Because now she posts art and graphics that she makes out of love. She creates her day dreams, the ones she’s had since she was a little girl.

People see them and say, “I want that energy in my life!” and they offer her money to do it.

She also took out the middleman – headhunters, design agencies, HR people, bosses, etc.

Let’s say I want to publish a book. I can’t do it unless: agent, editorial assistant, editor, marketer, publisher, bookstore purchaser, all agree that the book should be published.

Unless I just write the book and upload it to Amazon.

In every industry now you have choices of how you can make more money.

How can you get started? Hold on…

D) All industries are dying

Nobody makes a “buggy” for a horse anymore. That skill set is no longer in demand.

Okay, that was one point and a preview of another. They’re all great. Here’s a link to his article on how to publish – a subject I’ve been known to dabble in.

There’s a lot of uncertainty especially in the job market. President-elect Trump looks like he’s actually going to bring back and keep many decent jobs in the U.S. – for now. However, times are changing. The robots are here and multiplying. The traditional work economy still looks rather bleak for the coming decades and beyond. Which happens to be a good thing. It will “move the cheese”, creating a crisis which brings new and better opportunities. No-one else gets that like Altucher.

I get Christmas ties. Here are … 2! of them! Both snowman themed.

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The big one on the right plays Jingle Bells. And I got it for a song at a discount store – I think it was $4. The quality is worth 4 bucks – will barely stay tied – but the song still plays after many years.

Happy Saturday!

Geert Wilders Convicted Of Supporting His People

09 Friday Dec 2016

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One of the great and many lies told by the Satanic globalists is that mass immigrant invasion and “refugees” bring needed diversity to the West. The truth is that the invaders, usually 100% at odds with civilization, only bring an appetite for welfare payments, criminality, and terrorism.

In the Netherlands, refugees engage in such diverse activities as: attacking journalists, murdering people, raping women, and bombing airports. Geert, expressing the alarmed sentiments of the people, called them out on these things.

Naturally, the Dutch prosecutors and their kangaroo judicial system went after Geert while ignoring the real crimes in their ailing country. Yesterday they convicted him of “hate speech” for his call to remove criminal aliens.  And you thought American “justice” was corrupt. No sentence was imposed beyond the conviction itself and a ritual shaming, which Geert ignored.

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Dutch kangaroo court. The Telegraph.

It will be interesting to see what kind of retribution Mr. Wilders delivers to these inquisitors when he becomes Prime Minister in the near future. Perhaps they can accompany the repatriated invaders back to the third world. I’m sure they’d be happier there.

Br’re Bear vs. Br’er Wolf

09 Friday Dec 2016

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Just after last month’s election the State of Georgia detected a cyber-attack on the Secretary of State’s computer system. This is the same system that maintains voter records and corporate information.

The attack came from the criminal organization known as the federal Department of Homeland Security.

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Secretary of State sent a letter to Jeh Johnson of DHS demanding to know why the feds attempted the break in. He also pointed out that this attempt amounts to a felony under 18 U.S.C. 1030. Or, it would if attempted by anyone else.

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It’s interesting that the department nominally created to protect the homeland instead chooses to attack individual states. By the way, their attempted penetration failed – thus confirming this was a government operation.