I’m back. Did you miss me? But enough with the mawkish sentiment, you ppl are here for some links. Let’s dive in…
CCP HACKERS ALL UP IN US TELCOS: I love how this article uses the term “hacker” to give the impression that it’s just socially awkward Ming who lives in his mom’s spare room, and elides until seven paragraphs in that these are “Chinese government-backed” hackers. Now, think long and hard about this statement and what is unsaid: The telecom companies that have worked the longest with federal officials are the furthest along in evicting the hackers, FBI and CISA officials said. Verizon and AT&T are among the major telecom carriers targeted by the hackers, CNN previously reported.
OPERATION PASSIONFLOWER: Europol (who knew that was a thing, other than Pie?) takes down supposedly secure chat app Matrix, hoovers up 2.3 million messages from 8,000 accounts. I’ll leave it to those with more relevant knowledge to comment on this and maybe write us a backgrounder (looking at you, Derpy).
ILLEGAL ALIEN FROM CHINA SHIPS WEAPONS TO NORTH KOREA FROM CALIFORNIA: Everyone loves some good, old-school gunrunning action, right? How does one say “Dick Slashballs” in Mandarin?
OBLIGATORY LIBS-DEALING-POORLY-WITH-ELECTION-OUTCOME LINK: Over at Tablet, Armin Rosen is in the parade-route booth to describe The New Yorker’s Cavalcade of Ignorance. That title alone is beautiful, but Rosen’s writing is superb. There is now a cottage industry of unserious authors and television presenters crowing over how such-and-such a liberal lost it, but Rosen eschews such cheap gotcha moments and dives deeply into the real issue: The second Trump presidency will be a period of further estrangement and mutual scorn between the increasingly self-isolating enclaves of dying authority and a broader society that it is even less interested in knowing anything about.
OBLIGATORY FEDS-DEALING-POORLY-WITH-ELECTION-OUTCOME LINK: As a companion piece to the one above, I bring you this hand-wringing WaPo piece (link to archive since WaPo is paywalled) about the horrors of federal employees being transferred or downsized. None of the things which have the author availing himself of the fainting couch and smelling salts sound bad to me. Except maybe the work-from-home part; that needs to stop.
OBLIGATORY LEGACY-MEDIA-DEALING-POORLY-WITH-ELECTION-OUTCOME LINK: Over at The Atlantic delicious salty ham tears (again, via archive link since has-been media needs to paywall) about how “The ‘Mainstream Media’ Has Already Lost.” At least the legacy media is starting to accept reality, unlike the two groups above. Of course The Atlantic, being old-school print media, should know a thing or two about losing to upstart electronic media.
THE MANUFACTURED CDL “DRIVER SHORTAGE” NARRATIVE: It’s been awhile since we’ve checked in with our old friend Gord Magill, who has sometimes graced our website. Gord is alive and well, and over at The Blaze offers some good advice to the DOGE about the effect of regulation on the US trucking industry.
BUT WHEN DID WE EVER, REALLY? Sarah Silverman says she’s become less political because ‘no one’ wants to hear from celebrities anymore. LOL.
CHINA QUIETLY TESTS INFLATABLE SPACE HABITAT: Of course it was quiet, in space nobody can hear you queef. Inflatables are the way to go for both orbital and planetary/lunar operations. Cost per pound to orbit has dropped a lot more quickly than cost per cubic yard of habitat to orbit.
Retvrn? This some new retro-viral pharmaceutical?
I’m old enough to distinctly remember when you didn’t put backdoors in for the government because other people would exploit them. Yes, it was actually discussed back in the day. Those were the same days that sending telemetry and spying on your customers was also frowned upon, of course.
So glad the current generation is making such progress. :eyeroll:
The only difference between a backdoor and an exploit is knowledge and intent.
I’ll say it again… the Cypherpunks were right. There should have been a much larger push towards encryption for secure communication much earlier.
And keep our spooks out too? What kind of communist plot is that?
So it is generally accepted that the NSA has tampered with the equipment in the telcos. You wouldn’t suppose would you that it was the weakpoint that was attacked? The irony would be delicious.
That’s precisely what I suppose (well, the NSA’s interface or the Feeb’s…) And they probably didn’t even need to “hack” it per se, they probably copied the details off of a server they got into or a compromised contractor. International Espionage on Easy Mode — because we build in the “console mode” for them to use. Yay.
SDF-7:
First reports I saw about the phone companies getting hacked was T-Mobile. The new reports are regarding several others that were penetrated.
An interesting thing to me is the timing of this, just about a month ago the Chinese telco started block banning numbers that were reported as spam/unwanted calls (as an example, if a call from 555-555-1111 was blocked, the entire 555-555-111x block would get blocked). I also would assume at this point that all the telcos have been compromised by at least one government.
1) Funny that this follows the US Feds saying “use encrypted chat apps!” (so we have one stop shopping?)
2) No mention at all as to why… I have to assume “Because criminals might be using it!” That or “Our drug dog signalled on their app on my smartphone!” or some crap. They have altered the deal….
3) P2P communications without centralized services of any kind need to make a comeback. Not sure how to work around that the backbone providers are almost certainly giving all their data to the NSA as well… sigh. (Well, other than my standard rant about dissolving the NSA and the rest of the IC to at least tone it down in the US and cut down one of the 5 Eyes of Sauron, anyway…)
Gee… I don’t seem to like government monitoring of communications apparently. Who knew? Rare around here, I’m sure.
I’m reminded of the FBI breaking into someone’s (I forget’s) iPhone not long ago.
If security and encryption are really as useless as various governments are claiming… what is the point?
Or… are they spinning bullshit?
RE the WaPo piece; Vengeance is mine, so sayeth the Shitlord!
So — a real City Paper?
Brezney’s Real astronomy says All Signs Point To Yes!
DC is a company town, and WaPo is a company town kind of newspaper.
Well, Trump is The Shitlord, and, well, there’s a new sheriff in town…
(glad you are back safe and sound.)
I heard he threatened Bezos with federal prison over Rings of Power. If true, I’d regret not voting for him.
I don’t know… sounds like a city job to me. If he wasn’t doing city work – he wouldn’t have been caught with all the city guns.
Something tells me Shrimp Boy was involved.
He was probably just re-exporting the guns that the California politician and gun control proponent Leland Yee was importing.
Gunrunning is only awesome when it’s people on my side doing it.
Otherwise it just comes at you fast and you get furious?
I’m back.
Welcome back.
An academic named Steve Viscelli was recently commissioned by the state of California to see what could be done to ensure that there were enough truckers to keep the agricultural industry there moving. Viscelli’s study found that the taxpayers of California were spending $20 million a year on one training program alone and losing most of those newly trained drivers within a year.
Only $20 million on a program like that? That’s rookie numbers. Do better!
Welcome back, welcome back — welcome back.
🙂
Maybe stop passing laws and regulations that make it too expensive to keep a truck in CA.
Heh… they went the other way. CARB pretty much mandated new trucks have to be electric, laws of physics be damned.
Oops. Better link.
My brother’s brother in law had a brush clearing business in the Sierra doing things like creating fire breaks, but the ever changing regulations on his truck and other equipment made it too much of a hassle, so he moved to Idaho. It’s not like California needs trucking or fire prevention, so no big deal.
Orbital or Belt mining operations, sure… but Lunar? Temporary housing sure — but I would think you’d need the rock for rad shielding for long term habitation when we get to that point (and yeah, same in the Belt for more permanent outposts… goodness knows there was enough 1970s hard SF on the subject talking about it).
I agree that long-term Moon/Mars settlement will involve some type of underground or cast in place from onsite materials shelter. But that’s probably at least ten years after we go there (again). At least. Inflatables are a good interim solution and can be fully tested on Earth before deflation, packing, and shipment to ensure no missing parts, etc.
No argument here. The only other real option is using rocket stages as base structures if they can’t be recycled as such, certainly.
Recycled? Bro, this is the era of the reusable rocket. Those things won’t be discarded in place, but rather the SpaceX Starship cargo elevator will lower pallets to the surface from its capacious cargo hold, then fly the rocket back… somewhere for refuel and refit.
It’s useful because you could integrate plumbing and electrical into the walls – make it several layers thick – and fill with water or other materials. Even for an underground colony, it could save a lot of resources initially. Dig a big hole, inflate inside, cover with dirt, etc.
I don’t get the gun running scheme. Doesn’t North Korea have factories cranking out AKs and ammo night and day? Why would they need some shipped from California? At this point, they could legally buy better stuff from Russia, China, or Iran.
California leads the world at legislated micro-stamping (that as far as I know isn’t actually implemented) and they want in on it?
I got nothing, really…. it puzzles me as well. Even if NK itself lacked capacity — China is right there… not like they don’t have gunsmiths and armories.
Laowhy86 from The China Show put out a vid on it today – not just guns but also surveillance detection devices and other items. It all depends if North Korea was a transit port for the CCP (doesn’t seem that efficient, but they do have floating illegal transfers of oil and other illicit materials already).
ILLEGAL ALIEN FROM CHINA SHIPS WEAPONS TO NORTH KOREA FROM CALIFORNIA
But- but- How could that be? That would be illegal.
He was only trying to rid CA of the deadly menace afflicting every school district in the state. Every school kid has access to full auto guns and keeps them unsecured in their lockers.
Did you miss me?
Yes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC1lKuC-HK0&ab_channel=JohnSebastian-Topic
🙂
In 2019, the Trump administration said it would move the Bureau of Land Management headquarters and its nearly 600 jobs to the small city of Grand Junction, Colo. When the new offices opened a year later, just three of the bureau’s employees walked in the door.
About 40 more were assigned to other offices out West. But nearly 90 percent of headquarters employees opted to leave the agency or work remotely rather than head West. It was “a giant brain drain,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, who took over as the agency’s director under President Joe Biden in 2021.
Lord a mercy. Fetch me my smelling salts.
Worked as planned.
Now fire all the remote workers.
Stop. My penis can only get so erect.
Consult your doctor if using Retvrn and you have an erection that lasts over 4 hours…
Junction isn’t bad at all. What a bunch of pussies.
Yeah. Hot as hell in the summer.
And nice cool mountains a short drive away.
True about the mountains.
I’d sometimes do drop off and pick up for my FIL at a powder-coater out there in the summer. Yeah, not good schlepping snow fence in July.
I was thinking about this the other day. Where to all the agencies and departments go?
Indian affairs goes to the Dakotas.
Energy goes to Texas
You can dump what ever is left from Education on Iowa. We’ll straighten it out.
Agriculture can go to Nebraska.
Any other suggestions?
I’ve heard people suggesting putting Interior in KC.
And, of course, split the FBI up into state offices. Maybe put the HQ in St. Louis (or KC again).
ATF to Indiana?
Make Pine Ridge Great for the First Time!
Other Kevin
That is perfect
Send Treasury, OMB, … to Las Vegas. Ed, HUD, and Labor to Barrow.
HUD to Chicago, the south side in particular.
All of it to Fairbanks.
No, putting it all in one place, no matter how shitty it would seem at first to them, only repeats the problem: concentration of power.
That’d be a sweet job in a sweet location. They accepting resumes? I don’t know much about land management but I would at least be willing to show up.
“opted to leave the agency or work remotely rather than head West”
I think I see the problem.
Sigh: I see my well-informed friends have started their annual fainting spells over the “date-rapey” lyrics of Baby It’s Cold Outside. I sometime wonder how many of them had ever heard of the song before that stupid opinion piece.
Ah well, it gives me the excuse to re-post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCF_SWTiRCc
Can you call them out on it?
Nah, not worth it. I tend to avoid FB arguments. And, I went back and looked at it and it was someone I don’t know responding to a friend’s post.
That is spectacularly good.
And your friends are retards. Please pass that along and you may use my real name and give them my contact info so I can answer any questions.
Not retards; evil.
In the movie Neptune’s Daughter that popularized the song, there’s a second version of it with Red Skelton not wanting to stay and Betty Garrett telling him it’s cold outside. It’s obvious that everyone involved is an adult and knows what they’re doing. If people complain about the song more than once, especially after being informed of its provenance, then they’re not about being “tolerant” or “sensitive” but censorious and actively not wanting other people to enjoy themselves in ways they don’t approve of.
So, okay, this is my take.
I think that the outcry is because wooing women is not a thing, but the women screaming about it wish it were a thing and wish they were being wooed. They may not have dug that deep into their own motives cuz that shit’s painful. The idea is to villainize that which is desirable in the courtship ritual.
Some of these women may not be getting laid for various reasons. Some may have a body count in the high two digits or low three digits and thinks that’s how it’s supposed to be. But the song is a courtship ritual that feisty women and persistent men with a mutual attraction that just doesn’t really happen anymore.
Or else they don’t know how to flirt without putting out.
What is the primary purpose of language?
TL/DR; Mojo blames Tindr.
No, Tumblr. For chewing up girls’ psyches and spitting them out.
I met my husband on the internet, so far be it from me to knock online dating.
I always forget just how damaging Tumblr was.
I think Tumblr is where all this gender bullshit came from for girls. Just so toxic. A bunch of puberty-addled 12yo girls giving each other advice like they know anything.
Part of it for me, at least, was that it had no relation to male spaces, and thus was impenetrable on that level.
Classic.
Just let them know that Bad Religions American Jesus is now a Christmas song. It’s on a Christmas album, and it mentions Jesus.
Don’t make me break out the Blow Fly!
I like the version with Miss Piggy and Nureyev.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czuw3hWQOpc
It was reversed in even the original movie.
That’s hilarious, Doc! I’ve never seen that before.
From wikipedia:
However, others have noted that cultural expectations at the time of the song’s writing were such that ladies were not socially permitted to spend the night with gentlemen to whom they were not married and that the woman states that she wants to stay, while “What’s in this drink?” was a common idiom of the period used to sidestep social expectations by blaming one’s actions on the influence of alcohol
This song is a negotiation — to settle on an excuse — for both parties to do what they want to do.
A common joke well into the 70s was: If a lady says no, she means maybe. If she says maybe, she means yes. If she says yes, she’s no lady.
Young wokesters have no fucking clue what the world was like before they were born.
My particular section of Gen X altered that…
No means maybe.
Maybe means yes.
Yes means anal.
Evil always recognizes its enemies. From the comedy routine it could not be clearer that what offends the left is wholesome moral values.
Me: “I like the song”
Them: “It is offensive”
Me: “It is offensive to you because you are evil.”
Then President Joe Biden took office in 2021, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that the move would be reversed, arguing that the bureau’s leaders needed to be closer to policymakers and other Interior agencies, said Stone-Manning, its director. Being based in Washington also made it easier for constituents and lobbyists to find agency employees, she said.
I’m pretty sure they have telephones in Grand Junction.
Bars, steak houses, strip clubs, and weekends at beach houses lose some of their appeal over Zoom.
阴茎或睾丸
[golf clap]
Growing up in Mpls with 2 older brothers we knew it was cold outside before the song hit the airwaves. Never dreamed it was so terribly vulgar and suggestive though.
Someone really, really wants the mantle of Chief Race Baiter. Or is an idiot.
(or we embrace the power of AND…)
While I would second your charge of race baiting, the bar for black reps is real low. She actually seems to have some moderate intelligence to her and the ability to make a point for her side. Don’t know how accurate her charge is, but she actually tried to make a point and cited evidence to back it up.
You know who was a Master Race Baiter?
“How does one say “Dick Slashballs” in Mandarin?”
It would be Dick Srashbawrs.
You just made me laugh out loud
or this befuddled class of pseudo-stylists and their still-loyal readers, The Ku Klux Klan, Father Coughlin, Adolf Hitler, and the now-realized menace of American fascism are phenomena with far greater impact on the 2024 election than border security, inflation, global chaos, or crime—real-world phenomena which are also barely mentioned here. Annette Gordon-Reed, professor of law and history at Harvard, recounts “the Klan’s dominance of nineteen-twenties Indiana,” then warns: “What happened in Indiana could happen again, on a national scale.” Imagine living in an ivory tower so high that the past 100 years of American history, encompassing the Great Depression, two world wars, the civil rights revolution, Vietnam, the end of the Cold War, and the entirety of the three decades since, vanish into the middle distance, leaving Donald Trump at the head of a nationwide Klan rally transposed from 1920s Indiana.
Trump is the monster in their closets, waiting to pounce.
It’s a pretty good piece.
As expected, my fellow historians continue to demonstrate their education and their ignorance.
But still get invited to the best parties, right?
At least this person calls out the stupidity.
As expected, my fellow historians continue to demonstrate their education and their ignorance.
I honestly cannot comprehend the intensity of their fear and hatred toward Trump. Or, for that matter, their apparent belief in his unstoppably efficient reign of terror.
Yeah, although he may have learned something from his first term.
It still remains to be seen, however.
Trump is unique, both in the fear and hope he inspires – in different segments of the populace.
Trump is the visual sign that they failed in bringing utopia. He is the visual sign that people don’t like what they are offering, and reject them as leaders.
You cannot comprehend it because it is fake. These people are there to get their snouts in the trough. No matter what the voters want they can have….save one thing: taking away the trough. They perceive, rightly or not, that Trump is a threat the trough of taxpayer money they all feed out of.
I saw this argument recently – “People are complaining about groceries and gasoline. Have you noticed that we have an epidemic of dog obesity in this country? If your dog is fat you aren’t going without.”
Get that? If your dog is fat it means there is more we can squeeze out of you. You have no right to complain. Turn your pockets out.
Current BLM job listings: https://www.usajobs.gov/search/results/?a=IN05&show=dep&p=1&k=
Trump is unique, both in the fear and hope he inspires – in different segments of the populace.
So what you’re saying is he’s the Anti-Obama.
For certain values of Obama.
Not as much as you’d think, given Mister I alone can fix it. Maybe more alike than different.
No one president can do much. They are an avatar for our feelings about the political state of the country.
To assign any other motive/ability to them is as foolish as assuming they are superman.
Isn’t it really a CEO thing?
They have a picture of the United CEO shooter. No, I will not enact that labor for you and provide a link.
If it’s the same one from the hostel, I don’t believe it’s the same kid.
Hey Tundra, I keep forget to mention it, but on T-day I met a dude, 56 years old who grew up in Minneapolis. We talked all night about shows we had seen, him REM with Bob Mould guesting, seeing the Minutemen, etc at 2nd St.. Me talking about seeing fIREHOSE, the Smithereens, and so on over in CA. I only caught his first name though, Mathew.
Good times.
Hi ZWAK!
I actually did see that, albeit the next day. He and I almost certainly crossed paths many times over the years. I try to explain to the kids how much fun those scenes were and how cool and accepting it was. I am really grateful that I had those friends and experiences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Uw-9lNl08&ab_channel=AlternaTV
Yeah, they got a pic of a white guy with a (different, probably) hoodie and a (different, definitely) backpack at a hostel in the genera direction that the shooter was headed on the e-bike.