The First Seal is Broken – part III
An Isolated Incident I, II and III The First Seal is Broken I, II
The story, and uproar, had died down after a couple of weeks. That was one advantage to the ravening maw of the media – without more events there was less coverage. The investigation had made no progress and the political pressure, unlike the media attention, was growing. Public titillation and interest had waned with the mass media, though social media hadn’t slowed down as much. The FBI’s digital tracing was loading up with tracks of ‘product’ (stories, discussions, comments) and the development of communities of interest that were hoped to lead to persons of interest. Though none had as yet.
Frank Regan had gone ‘home’ to Boston for a weekend break and to catch up with the family. Naturally his assignment had been the subject of some discussion, these were ‘their’ people and the tribal instinct didn’t abate. Frank, his father and grandfather sat in the den with a bottle of Jameson and a small fire in the woodstove.
The older men asked Frank what he could tell them about what was going on. Frank talked about the lack of clues, no surveillance, no detectable communications…
His father asked “where are you looking”?
Frank answered “every corner of the internet that can be swept, every text message, e-mail, and every other electronic communication means – and nothing”.
Frank’s grandfather asked “You ever hear about the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight?”
“Yeah, the keys aren’t there but it’s the only place he can see”.
“Well, you aren’t going to find them if you keep looking where they aren’t, are you?”.
“So where do you suggest we look?”
The old man shrugged, “yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t have a good answer”.
The conversation dropped into silence. That was broken by Frank’s cell phone ringing. A new round of attacks, spread across the country were happening – uncertain how many, but three known so far. Frank knew he’d need to be in the office as soon as he could get back to DC, so his weekend away was over early. As he was driving in New Jersey, his phone rang again – he answered it on the hands-free in the car. It was his father.
“Your grandfather and I were talking, about how you were stuck on their communications. I remembered something, it might be useful. You ever hear of Millenium Challenge?”
“What the hell is that, and why does it matter?”
“It was a big DoD war-game, supposed to prove out a bunch of ideas about technology and war – but here’s the key point. The guy who ran the red team (the enemy) was a retired Marine general and while he didn’t actually break them, he sure didn’t play by the rules. He didn’t use the means of communication that could be detected or disrupted – instead of electronics, he used couriers – he didn’t turn on radars so they could be destroyed by radar-homing missiles, and he ran swarm attacks at the start of the game that wiped out the U.S. fleet on station. Everything he did wasn’t what the genius planners anticipated, and all of the great tech they had wanted to prove out was rendered useless. If it had been a real fight, the war was lost before it began. All of the supposedly great technology had failed to provide the superiority expected. Not that DoD learned from that, they just hit the reset button and continued as if nothing had happened.”
“Okay, so what exactly are you telling me?”
“Two things: first, you are relying on technology to solve the problem, and second, you’re dealing with someone who knows that technology and your own operations well enough to know how to avoid you seeing them.”
As that sank in, Frank nearly drifted off the road. That snapped enough of his attention back to driving while he muttered “jesus” and then told his dad that he understood, and hung up. The next three hours driving would be a battle between focusing on the road and thinking about who could have that kind of knowledge.
Don’t like the rules; change the rules.
+1 Kobayashi Maru
Rules? in War? How do you expect to win, playing nice?
No rules in a knife fight.
Any fight really,
Cheers!
Hey Yusef, check out Salba basically saying he copied you the first time he rode a pool. It’s right around the 6:00 mark. I’m planning on going out to skate that pool he’s in.
Good to see you around, blackjack. I hope your troubles are lessening.
Thanks. I’m doing alright. Lost a bunch of co-workers to the ‘Vid law. I just told them why I don’t want the vax by filing a religious exemption, and then tried to comply with the testing, but was unable to because of their ineptitude. Still no shot and not a single mandated test.
My new troubles are people I know dying. One from ‘vid related depression and one probably natural, although he got triple vaxxed and then died within a year of a heart attack, so maybe that one too. I gotta go to his funeral at the big VA cemetery next week. The other one is a lady and she drank herself to death locked in her house. Took her about a year. She was 60. Two weeks apart.
Good to see you back blackjack.
Sorry about your troubles.
DUDE! That’s a great find, must tell my brother Gary
Thank you very much,
Yeah, I thought you’d want to know about that, assuming you didn’t.
First rule in a knife fight is to bring a gun
^this
There are only a few places Loreen (long and lean) doesn’t accompany me.
❤️❤️❤️
I should say that I am really enjoying this series.
MC gets a shout out. I love it. I was skeptical of the US “advantages” and my Command had multiple units supporting the exercise. I had a bet with my 2 Star that the war wouldn’t go as planned. I laughed and laughed as the initial reports came in, then was more pissed by the hour and day when they just hit rewind and ignored what Red had done. My 2 Star paid off the bet promptly (several bottles of good French wine) and he laughed when I told him I knew it would go badly if Red thought about winning and not just playing their part.
Good series, I am enjoying this.
Nice tale of the war games.
Glad he made good on the bet.
For every measure there is a countermeasure, unknown and unanticipated
“Attack us through the Ardennes? Are you crazy, the krauts would never do that? Besides they are finished. We’ll be in Berlin drinking their beer and fucking the Frauleins by Christmas.”
This is great, JI – I’d buy the series if this were a sample.
I’m really impressed by writing talent by our non-professional-writer Glibs.
(Mojeaux & UCS get their own league)
Ain’t that the truth, lots of good writers and other talents as well. Libertopia is gonna work out well, if Glibs are any indicator.
Thanks, JI
I have no practical skills but I can whip data into shape. I’m counting on that skill being a thing that is still needed in the future dystopia.
Great story so far, please keep it going JI!
Tall Cans!
Yes, that is a word.
Please. No.
Anything but Detroit.
Hope the trucks are empty on the US side, if not they soon will be.
Learned a new word today!
I already forgot it.
hmm. I don’t think it works: https://www.buzzfeed.com/shelbyheinrich/men-creepy-women-stories
Any woman should consider herself lucky to be the subject of my male gaze.
PS didn’t get the cookies. I don’t think you have my address. I’m sure this was an oversight and I will give you every opportunity to fix it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Phpk_Qk8S4
Sounds like Johnny in his last years. The guy is good
He had a great voice. Too bad about all the pills.
Someone left a Johnny Cash bio on the mailroom shelf in my apartment building, where people dump stuff they don’t want, so I snapped it up. Some day I’ll read it.
I do find him interesting. Plus he was in an episode of Columbo which impressed the hell out of me when I first saw it last year.
More Cash
Oh yeahhh I dig that.
I believe that was his last recording.
Sundee Mornin’ Comin’ Down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiSYVLFCM8
He straight-up stole that song from Reznor. Arguably the best cover ever.
Look up Reznor’s comments on that cover someday.
Yeah… mind you, it’s one of NIN’s best.
But yeah.
I’ve read them. I give Reznor some begrudging respect for coming around to realizing how awesome it was.
Oh God. I’m afraid to.
https://www.nme.com/news/music/nine-inch-nails-149-1326704
404 Error
Respect.
Ok, boomer.
A Boy Named Sue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4
Probably not applicable today (all the soy boys have feminine names)
Johnny Cash covering Nick Cave. Only two people who can compare the throne of god to the electric chair.
The Mercy Seat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoJ0bAp4Eo8
And the original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RrS7P6UTKA
The director of the video deserves a lot of credit.
If you ever watch a reaction video for that, everyone has the same reaction (including me) when the line “everyone I know goes away in the end” is paired with a picture of an old lady” “oh my God, that must be his mother!”
“Two things: first, you are relying on technology to solve the problem, and second, you’re dealing with someone who knows that technology and your own operations well enough to know how to avoid you seeing them.”
Inside job.
But former or current insiders? That’s what I’m wondering.
Dang… I closed my website the other day and today it’s gone.
Sixteen years ago when I created it, I was also running multiple sites for friends – some I lost touch with, and one I had to cut out of my life. All gone.
The thing was running on inertia and laziness for years. The latest biannual invoice that was due next month included a gigantic price increase, so it was time.
Feels weird though.
PS. the domain name is not for sale 😛
When I switched to protonmail I had the opportunity to reactivate my web address. It’s for sale- for $1850. Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
I’m paying Apple $1 a month in order to keep my old email addresses, plus extra storage. I was reluctant but I’m saving beaucoup bucks at the end of the day.
(Also accounting for the domain fee)
Any problems? I have G Suite and probably need to get off of it before the fees kick in.
I can’t speak to replacements for that.
This is just email, plus it’s the Apple Borg so might not be relevant to most folks.
That’s all I use my domain for. Apple is one of the options I was considering. Protonmail is a bit much for what I use.
Well… it involves modifying settings with your domain registrar which was huge pain in the ass for me but after a one-hour chat session with them it works flawlessly with my Apple account.
If you’re on Windows, I have no idea.
No, I’m in the Tim Cook world. Might have to upgrade though. I’m way behind in ios and my MacBook is too old to support recent versions, because the I think both have shit the bed with their UI changes.
I wouldn’t want it anyway…nobody would know how to pronounce it. ?
All part of the plan.
Here’s a track you’d probably like Rhy (slum too, if he is around). There are certain tones that I really dig in music and these guys get them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWygYyy85vo
Not my cup of tea but thanks for posting.
https://thumbs2.redgifs.com/IllRedCleanerwrasse-mobile.mp4#t=0
NSFW.
https://thumbs2.redgifs.com/WickedTameQueenslandheeler-mobile.mp4#t=0
NSFW.
https://archive.md/XoZBO/496bbb28e169d3dfe111e0ad6c95d5451e3584ad.webp
NSFW.
https://archive.md/hO0XH/33960636b9a69e30a7779d0df26bba953845ccdb.webp
NSFW.
Dodson, we’ve got Dodsgon here
Thanks Q! damn!
Evince interest
No longer
When you can
Good stuff, JI.
You are in some lists. But you knew that.
JI may have his own list though. Reading this story I don’t want to be on it.
Heh.
Too late Buddy, too late
I have to tell you, Count Potato, a marinade needs oil.
I tried a no-oil formulation. What I got is that the acid blew out any other flavor, and dried out the protien like a bastard. I didn’t get any of the spice. Dry citrus isn’t the best flavor, and I doubt dry vinegar would be better.
The flava is in tha fat!
Would you say you have a fever for the flava?
*masturbates furiously*
Better video quality for better…visual effect
I need to learn to play the bass and I need a pair of shants (not shorts, not pants).
Ports?
A ports in every storm.
“I wonder when we’ll be coming into ports?”
I’m no expert but one thing I remember from a source I trust (Food Lab or America’s Test Kitchens, something like that) is that an oil is required to make a marinade work.
Count Potato was arguing the opposite in a pervioud conversation.
As I was experimenting anyway, I opted to test his claim.
I remember.
You’re like a one-man America’s Test Kitchen. Rock on.
Don’t know if oil’s *required,* but many volatile oils and flavour molecules only dissolve in oils, and thus can’t be “transported” into the food without a lipid carrier. And of course, an oil coating helps with roasting, grilling, frying etc.
Tomatoes have enzymes that are only soluble in fats, and enzymes that are only soluble in alcohol. I’m pretty sure this is why vodka sauce is so damn yummy.
Upon further thinking about it I’d say it’s more like 1 acid to .75 oil in the marinades I make. I think I had told you it was 1:1.
Well, I tested at 1:1 and it still worked.
The one that was seasoned with ground mustard and Za’atar produced an aroma that reminded me of pretzels. I don’t know why.
Those are definitely both in the mix in my kitchen. Hayek recommend amchur powder recently and I’ve been using it. Big fan of mixing citrus juices with vinegars and I am all around a believer in anchovy paste. I go through 8-9 tubes a year of it. Love making homemade salad dressings and that is always an ingredient in them.
Anchovy paste and fish oil are awesome. My fun comes from my wife saying she hates both but will notice when I omit Worcestershire. I don’t have the heart to tell her.
CNN: we’re gonna play the video (of Rogan using the N word). Warning. This may be painful for some of you to hear.”
And then they play the video but bleep out the bad word. Literal Lol’ed on the train.
Don’t leave us hanging. Is he the racist everyone says?
If CNN says so, it must be true.
He’s a bleepist.
Bleep you. I expect an answer. Because I’m not going to listen to him, I’m sure as hell not going to watch CNN, and wait a minute I don’t actually give a shit. Never mind.
From my understanding, every single time he said the word nigger out loud, it was in context as quoting someone else saying it. But one of those woke activists made a “greatest hits” clip with zero context and he sounds like a Grand Dragon.
What I expected.
And it furthers the theory that the whole thing is some Dem psy-op.
It’s the same group, Meidas Touch, a Democrat Party super PAC, that has been going after Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports for years now. Portnoy has a great video wherein he challenges the 3 brothers who run Meidas Touch to a debate and reveals that he is possession of text messages from one of the brothers saying “nigger” quite a bit.
I knew this one heartless cunt of a moderator at another site that would censor out my Firsts.
Imagine taking the greatest joy in your user base’s lives and ruining it. I exist to spread the word of the First to the world. This little cunt robbed me and everyone else from reveling in the glory of the First.
Wait…but you haven’t firsted yet.
But it “Feels Like the First Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAmUwy3ex9k
I guess it’s just the woman in you
That brings out the first in me!
*shakes head*
May the First be with you, MikeS. May the First be with your lost soul.
Wait a minute, you’re a fucking commie! Let’s all gather around the May Pole, comrade!
SMH
You really need to find a new audience, We a re bored with you,
Poser
Was the bear on its knees in The Shining a man or a woman? Discuss.
Did anyone of you study enough psychology to explain this phenomenon? Why would some numbnutz punch out a flight attendant? Does he really think the consequences will be mild or the assault forgiven ? And this from my own neighborhood this week: woman inadvertently bumps into a guy in the line at the supermarket. She apologizes but he is incensed, calls her a bitch and threatens to shoot her. Follows her home and unloads nine shots through the front door, wounding two folks inside. Flees but, helped along by a $10K reward, he’s found cowering in a dorm at the local U. What kind of person does these things?
These people aren’t defending themselves, or committing a crime in desperation to feed the childrunz – they are just crazy and should be permanently removed from polite society.
We’re living through several dystopian sci-fi stories I’ve read where the population just goes nuts for what appears at first glance to be no reason.
My wags, in no particular order
a) constant stressors, real and imagined
b) decreased civility and morality restraints
c) not enough bullying as children
d) social media, exposure to and ability to be horribly antisocial pychopaths
I’m no expert. I would guess these are people under enormous social stress, feeling disconnected, and (perhaps) looking for a reason to lash out.
I would blame moral relativism, ‘we’re all the heroes of our own story’, you’re always a winner and always in the right, just do what feels good, man. Everybody is gay for everyone else all the time, just sex’em and go, or kill’em. Whatever man, you’re always the best you that you can be, everyone else be damned.
Immaturity and lack of coping skills. Postmodern society is producing adults who are emotionally indistinguishable from bratty tantrum-throwing children.
It’s been a long day after a few long weeks. So I did the only sensible thing. I watched Bloodsport.
Excellent. I haven’t seen that in ages!
HBO Max has it.
KUMITE!
I binge watched several episodes of Newsradio.
Looking for more of the N-word from Joe Rogan?
I’ll just put this out,
MEAD! that and hard cider, cheap alcohol!
It’s hard to follow through, but we play,
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NGxMJfRkeVmTh65T7
https://pagesix.com/2022/02/08/chris-cuomo-wants-as-much-as-60-million-from-cnn/
Lol, fuck off Fredo.
I’m encouraging him. The fireworks as CNN melts down should be spectacular.
https://ktla.com/news/california/here-are-the-california-covid-rules-changing-next-week/
“vaccines for children under 5 are around the corner”
Kids are the worst, but I hope this gets stopped and the people pushing it get hurt.
“steady decline in cases” and “hospitals still over capacity”. Fuck off, TMITE.
Mornin’
Maybe Certificates of Need are a bad idea?
OFFS.
https://mobile.twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1491318192236797954?cxt=HHwWhIDR9dL_nLIpAAAA
*Points at California and laughs*
A hundred years ago those people would have been shot dead and nobody would have cared.
Give it time, we’ll be there again.
“I’m gonna eat it,” the man says in the video. “I’m f–king hungry.”
Sure, Jan.
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2022/02/08/surveillance-video-captures-2-women-steal-10000-worth-of-makeup-from-exton-ulta/
*Points at Pennsylvania and laughs*
Wait, that can’t be right…
Yeah, that will happen. ?
So there customers should make themselves targets?
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1491259452296630275?cxt=HHwWhsCsocSkgrIpAAAA
Look, Pie…Romania made the chart!
?
??????????
?????
?????
?????
Morning, Sean, Grumbles and each and everyone else that’s out and about .
2 nice days and I begin to think Spring is on the way, then I look at the 10 day forecast and remember it’s still February
Good morning, 4(20), Sean, and Grumbles! It’s above freezing (38 degrees) here, so I hope it’ll finally melt the last of the snow-over-ice from the driveway so I’m not risking life & limb every time I go out to my car.
Good Morning GT, four, Sean and all other insomniacs.
I like this series, as i have said before reminds me of the book “unintended consequences”
We are all going to be on at least one list.
Morning.
FINALLY anticipating a quiet day at the office – the big boss is off to a conference (in Hawaii, of course,) and my boss is working from home. I think it would be a good day to fire up my little satellite radio in my office and listen to some tunes! ?
My boss left for a couple days but not before dumping a huge new project on me.
Mornin’. Should be a quiet day for me as well, Praise the Lord. Data Warehouse crashed overnight, the PTB will be too busy to bother me.
Just typed out a comment to respond to something somewhere putting Rand in context and relating a Howard Roark type character to being something like what’s required as an antidote to what was laid out as the Covidian consensus, but then I remembered said place (Daily Sceptic) has a large (probably majority) contingent of “old left” dyed-in-the-wool marxists who have this massive cognitive dissonance over the whole thing but are somehow “allies” at this point. That usually means the usual, predictable anti-Rand comments that often includes something about how she is “nasty”, “horrible” and should be disregarded because she is just “bitter”about what the Bolsheviks did to her family. That argument was made to me in real life by an avowed communist I used to work with. It seemed odd like,
“Jews should be disregarded in their complaints over the Holocaust because they are just bitter about the Nazis having murdered and tortured their family members.”
The implication of that being that they think it was somehow justifiable.
I just deleted it and remembered that commenting anywhere other than glibs is a terrible idea.
Under which post is that comment? And what’s your handle there?* I check that site nearly as often as Glibs.
*no need to answer if you prefer not to
suh’ fam
whats goody
Goody mornin’, Tres. Tall Covfefe!
https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-york-to-drop-indoor-mask-mandate-on-wednesday-per-report/
God must have spoken to her again.
I have often said “I’ll believe it when it happens” with regards to things the state “will do”.
Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.
It’s 8:01. Chop chop!
*rummages around for tin cup*
I know, I’m supposed to be working.
*drags ass into office*
“Smart people know to worry when things get quiet.”
Ruh-roh.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/andrew-cuomo-claims-hes-been-vindicated-and-wont-rule-out-another-run-for-office/
Nipple rings staging a come back.