That’s all I got

I am beginning to see a trend in the folks that I read everyday.

Now that I have seen it, I am thinking how silly the whole thing is.

As a group, us bloggers seem to sneer at “short-term solutions” and posit our words of genius as the only possible long term solution.

The trouble is, no one is interested in our solutions, as they really don’t address the problem, they just seem to make us certain of our omniscience.

I am coming to the conclusion that all “solutions” are expedient and consist of holding things together that really don’t want to stay that way.  Finance, politics, military, personal, it is all the same.  Solutions change day to day and the problems themselves morph and adapt to the changes and become something else entirely.

Now, would someone please pass me the duct tape.

Operating System Snobs

I have a tendency toward this little bit of bad taste.

Part of it is part and parcel of my paranoia and generalized distrust of the human condition and its followers.

I am getting over it though.

The vehicle for my recovery is an odd one.  The NSA and Windows 8.

Now, I am absolutely certain that the NSA can, should they wish, extract everything from my writings and even go into my “private files” to discover what the hell it s about the aging, fat, and cynical being that writes as “Degringolade”.  Well, they will find out that I have a libertarian bent, don’t think that the American empire will stand, and have an unhealthy obsession with big boobs.

So what?

The Windows 8 system probably has backdoors written all over the place so that the NSA can peek.  Hell, my guess is that the NSA can figure out a way to get into an air-gapped computer should they choose. The recent revelations about the possibility of a low level jump into a air gapped computer using microphones and speakers makes me certain of this.

So, what is an operating system?

A convenient service is all.  The operating system should be judged on its convenience and the way you relate to it.  If you like Mac’s splurge and make yourself happy. If you are a control freak, download Linux and go to town.  If you are lazy, fire up Windows and go for it.  Now, these aren’t the only reasons to use these systems.  Artists seem to flow better with Macs.  Windows is business.  Nerd-dom loves its Linux.

But truth be told, they all work just dandy.  If you claim otherwise, you are as silly as the “Buick Men” of the ‘50s and the morons with stupid sayings, disparaging other makes of trucks, plastered across the back of their pickup.

Thinking about it

So:

I am again getting close to being content and relaxed with my station in life and how things are proceeding in the small sphere of my day to day existence.

I am considering starting up the screed.  It seems to flow better if I am content and things are working reasonably well.

Things in the big world haven't changed much.  The targets for my venom are still standing.  The oddity that is our culture and civilization still loom above us in all their madness.

Keep an eye out, posts may start dropping here occasionally.

Please comment with anything else...This is going to my congresscritters

I am writing this letter to plead with you to oppose the President's threatened use of military force in Syria.

I cannot see how this can go anywhere that is good for our country. The President calls for cruise missile strikes into a country at war to "send a message". To whom exactly, is this message addressed? The message is that one shouldn't use chemical weapons on one's opponents. From the information that is available freely, it would appear that the Assad government is not alone in the use chemical weapons. It would appear that at least one of the rebel groups has access to and has used chemical weapons.

The current Syrian government is a holdover of the Middle Eastern Ba'athist movement that brought us such stalwarts as Saddam Hussein. He already knows we don't like him. I fail to see how lobbing some cruise missiles into a war zone where over 100,000 people have died, over two million people are refugees, and where on the order of fifty factions fight for a bewildering number of goals can provide a “measured and proportionate response.”

Bringing the United States into this free-for-all will merely strengthen the hands of the Salafists and the Al Quaida affiliates. It will do nothing to reduce the flow of arms, it will do nothing to stop the fighting. It will create a maelstrom of violence in the Middle East that will suck us into a war without end.

I cannot see how this action will do anything but weaken us. We are overextended from two wars. Our troops are stretched dangerously thin and are getting burned out. President Obama offers no clear description of the nature of the war to which we are committing ourselves. Because firing hundreds of cruise missiles, each armed with a 1,000 pound warhead, into another country is nothing less than an act of war.

I am not opposed to war per se. It is a tactic in a bigger scheme of policy. It can be a means of seizing the main chance in a situation. But in order for violence to be effective, it has to be used as part and parcel of a grand strategy. To use violence as a gesture is the act of a barbarian.

The use of force should be driven solely by the ideals of the peace we seek. To put it less gently, it should flow from what we are trying to get out of it.

President Obama has not defined this moment. He is attempting to wrest from Congress the right to send our country into war. Please take this time to stop the rush to violence and wrest back from the Executive the constitutional duties of the Legislative.

College as a Chump Move

Now the greatest heresy, that education makes you better.

Nope, in nearly every case here in the good old USA all an education does is make you status oriented. Even the meanest "commercial rec" graduate seems to have it in his head that his "education" puts him ahead of the pack.

My Eldest is seventeen now, taking classes over at the local community college instead of being subjected to the vagaries of a high school indoctrination.  I am trying desperately to keep his eyes on getting an education rather than getting a job.  Now, this is harder than one would think.  It is basically a way of approaching the college experience in a manner not tainted by the capitalist system that has hijacked the sector.

I am not having him keep his "eye on the ball" where the education that he so needs is defined by the diploma that will grant him the right to a job.  I am trying to get him to take classes that teach him about the world that surrounds and enfolds him.  History is good, English allows for an ability to communicate effectively, math teaches him complex thought.  I am trying to convince him that taking classes in subjects like geography and geology, will serve him as well as classes in psychology and sociology.

But he will also need classes like Psych and Soc in order to be able to parse the world around him. It isn't that these disciplines hold any great portion of the "truth", but they will allow him to ask the questions leading to better a understanding the people who inhabit the world around him. So those should probably be on the table.  I am also hoping that he manages to get into some of the trades oriented classes so that he can find something to do with his hands.  That is a much tougher sell.

But I have to recognize the idea that eventually he will have to enter one of the "programs" in order to get the ability to pay for his food, drink, and respite. But because a major part of education is to find a way to get by in a strange land, and everything has become a function of the peculiar guilds that run the world today:  You have to check off the boxes that they set up for their new apprentices.

But the idea that a college education is the sole, noble means of achieving a means of support has run its course.  The colleges today are diploma mills of the internet and a vulgar means of slipping small amounts of  money to barely qualified Adjunct Professors and large amounts of money to the administrators.  The overall business plan is to keep the "status" filter going by parroting on television commercials the idea that only college will provide.  The "colleges" then convince the young and stupid(1) to take out massive amounts of student loans.  The college administrators then pay themselves handsomely for the service that they render to the financial industry delivering the debt-slaves to the market. 

Even in Taibibi’s article, he goes on about how in law offices even the runners need four year degrees.  Well, who the fuck wants to be a runner in an Atlanta law firm?  The answer is, folks who are seeking status.  To be around the big people is worth any effort, because you might get invited to eat their leftovers one day.

If you are going to make it in this world, you had better figure out how to live outside of the rain shadow of the rich.  A plumber is well paid, an electrician is an excellent job, soldiering has always been honorable.  The vast bulk of college graduates merely run Excel spreadsheets as a tiny part in a play for the benefit of the rich.

 

1. Yes, stupidity is a state that the young often inhabit, but rest assured, it is curable through being kicked repeatedly in the teeth by an uncaring world

Familiarity, the first myth of reality: What you know the best, you observe the least.

Devotion, the second myth of reality: The faithful are most hurt by the objects of their faith.

Conviction, the third myth of reality: Only those who seek the truth can be deceived.

Fellowship, the fourth myth of reality: As the tides of war shift, so do loyalties.

Trust, the fifth myth of reality: Every truth holds the seed of betrayal.

             -Magic, The Gathering

Good bye.

I'll be somewhere else.  This one has served it's purpose.  It has been an honor to have you as my guests.

If it intrigues you, send me a comment with your e-mail and I'll tell you where I am (if it so suits me and you haven't been a dick in the past).  I'll be closing down the comments and mothballing this experiment later this month.  I'll kill the comment section at the end of August.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Money becomes insane, and people with it. 

At night the place is almost dark, economizing light. Economy, economy, economy - that too becomes an insanity. Luckily the government keeps bread fairly cheap. 

But at night you feel strange things stirring in the darkness, strange feelings stirring out of this still-unconquered Black Forest. You stiffen your backbone and you listen to the night. There is a sense of danger. It is not the people. They don't seem dangerous. Out of the very air comes a sense of danger, a queer, bristling feeling of uncanny danger. 

Something has happened. Something has happened which has not yet eventuated. The old spell of the old world has broken, and the old, bristling, savage spirit has set in. The war did not break the old peace-and-production hope of the world, though it gave it a severe wrench. Yet the old peace-and-production hope still governs, at least the consciousness. Even in Germany it has not quite gone. 

But it feels as if, virtually, it were gone. The last two years have done it. The hope in peace-and-production is broken. The old flow, the old adherence is ruptured. And a still older flow has set in. Back, back to the savage polarity of Tartary, and away from the polarity of civilized Christian Europe. This, it seems to me, has already happened. And it is a happening of far more profound import than any actual event. It is the father of the next phase of events. 

And the feeling never relaxes. As you travel up the Rhine valley, still the same latent sense of danger, of silence, of suspension. Not that the people are actually planning or plotting or preparing. I don't believe it for a minute. But something has happened to the human soul, beyond all help. The human soul recoiling now from unison, and making itself strong elsewhere. 

DH Lawrence

A Letter from Germany (1924)

When I was a callow youth, I read Skinner's books and dreamed moon-eyed into a bright future.

Now I am an old man and I just shake my head.

I think that maybe Skinner was right about a lot of things, but a lot of the wrong type of people got hold of his idea and used them to create the monstrosity that passes for our culture.

We have been pressing at the bar created for us by our government and corporations for forty years now.  The theories and predictions of Skinner are proven by looking at the society around us, created by flickering images of a Hollywood-scripted Utopia in our living rooms as a stimulus and free things handed out by the government as a reward.

Lawrence traveled through Germany in 1924.  Hitler was nothing then.  In a sense, Hitler was never anything, just an opportunist who rode the will of a people who had become something more primitive.  

Again from the letter:

Heidelberg full of people. Students the same, youths with rucksacks the same, boys and maidens in gangs come down from the hills. The same, and not the same. These queer gangs of young Socialists, youths and girls, with their non-materialistic professions, their half-mystic assertions, they strike one as strange. Something primitive, like loose, roving gangs of broken, scattered tribes, so they affect one. And the swarms of people somehow produce an impression of silence, of secrecy, of stealth. It is as if everything and everybody recoiled away from the old unison, as barbarians lurking in a wood recoil out of sight. The old habits remain. But the bulk of the people have no money. And the whole stream of feeling is reversed 

And it all looks as if the years were wheeling swiftly backwards, no more onwards. Like a spring that is broken, and whirls swiftly back, so time seems to be whirling with mysterious swiftness to a sort of death. Whirlingto the ghost of the Middle Ages of Germany, then to the Roman days, then to the days of the silent forest and the dangerous, lurking barbarians. 

Something about the Germanic races is unalterable. White-skinned, elemental, and dangerous. Our civilization has come from the fusion of the dark-eyes with the blue. The meeting and mixing and mingling of the two races has been the joy of our ages. And the Celt has been there, alien, but necessary as some chemical re-agent to the fusion. So the civilization of Europe rose up. So these cathedrals and these thoughts. 

But now the Celt is the disintegrating agent. And the Latin and southern races are falling out of association with the northern races, the northern Germanic impulse is recoiling towards Tartary, the destructive vortex of Tartary.It is fate; nobody now can alter it. It is a fate. The very blood changes. Within the last three years, the very constituency of the blood has changed, in European veins. But particularly in Germanic veins.

Walk out in the streets of your city.  The feeling is there.  Oh, there will be folk who will scoff at you, who will decry your senses as paranoia, but something has changed in our world.  

Something newer is stirring here.  The seeds of something have been laid by the last forty years of human experimentation.  The mores and cultural brakes have been disabled by the wealthy to better transfer the wealth of the country to their redoubts.  The die has been cast, we are waiting for the change.

Jealosies

In all times kings, and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture of war.

—HOBBES, Leviathan

Add on Note:  You might want to read this

I have been spending time lately, thinking about the "revelation" that the NSA is spying on other governments.  This will probably piss folks off in tin-foil-hat land, but I have come to the conclusion that this is a very good idea.

I don't have any preconceived notions about the ethical nature of government.  Control of things is the government's raison d'etre.  There are limits to what they should be allowed to do, and those are clearly defined in the constitution.  The US government  has spent the last 21 years (or more) patiently shaving the margin between what is the maximum activity allowed by the constitution and their actions.  In quite a few cases, they have broken through into illegal actions and there has only been minimal outcry.

Maybe I am being paranoid about the other countries of the world, but my travels (and they aren't trivial) leads me to hold the opinion that a majority of the other countries in the world may well be run by bigger assholes than the assholes who run ours.  I genuinely feel that keeping an eye on them is a great idea.  They aren't really our friends.

This basic belief complicates my view on Mr. Snowden.

When he came out and informed the world that the US was running a large scale information harvesting program on its own citizens, I was outraged.  In my opinion, this action was a massive governmental overreach, clearly unconstitutional and frightening in its implications.

Then he had to go and ruin it for me.  He then went on to outline how our government spies on other governments.  Idiot.

Look when it comes to peeking in on other governments, the NSA was doing what it was designed to to do.

From Wikipedia

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the central producer and manager of signals intelligence for the United States, operating under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. Estimated to be the largest and costliest of all U.S. intelligence organizations, NSA is primarily tasked with collecting and analyzing information and data of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence value, including through clandestine means.[5] The agency is also responsible for the protection of U.S. government communications and information systems,[6] which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography.

I am not seeing anything that the NSA does in monitoring other governments as a bad thing.  Keep it up lads.  You are earning your nickels honestly.

So when Snowden informed the world of how we spy on other countries, he did in fact break the law and break faith with the rest of us.

The only thing funny in this whole charade is the way that Putin handled the issue.  Masterful.  When he uttered the statement I started chuckling

"If he wants to go somewhere and there are those who would take him, he is welcome to do that," Putin said. "If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: he must stop his activities aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, no matter how strange it may sound on my lips."

Now, how to handle him is unclear.  He did the country a huge favor for pointing out an incredible government overreach.  He did the country a disservice reminding the world we try to have our fingers in every pie, taking the temperatures.

Who We Really Are.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Winston Churchill 

I have been thinking about the American myth for some time now.  I have also come to the conclusion that the fever-dreams of the left and the right concerning the erstwhile freedoms lost are not the grieving for the destruction of cherished freedoms.  They are instead the sullen denial of the fact that we were all complicit in the charade that there were any particular freedoms there in the first place.

Look, writing on the internet is a nice release for frustration.  This blog is a wonderful and convenient diary.   I really doubt that I have any effect on my readers opinion.  The usual reader usually scans my work for something that they agree with, and if that isn't readily available, they move on.  The blog has no pretense of being private, just like any e-mail that I send.

We decry the lost privacy when the phone companies hand over metadata, and we find out that the good old Post Office has been doing the same thing for years.  Hell, we hand over the same data all the time to companies like Google, for some reason, that doesn't bother us quite as much.  Truth of the matter is, we don't really care about our privacy when it is more convenient for us to forget it. Especially if it gives us a good deal on our Cheetos.

The vast bulk of us don't give a rats ass about our military adventures overseas.  We load our troops onto the airliners and forget about them until one of them comes back with a flag draped over them. Then there is some uncomfortable silence and we move on.  We pay for our collective guilt with words like "heroes" and a fairly well-funded VA, but those are cheap.  What is important is that we keep our beaks dipped into the declining pool of petroleum resources called "the Middle East".

Look, get over the idea that you, as 0.0000003% of the political corpus, have any real say in the deal. Maybe if you would spend more of your time organizing you might get up to the table, but I kinda doubt it.  The internet offers you a chance to bitch easily at those with whom you disagree, to send messages and attaboys to those who agree with you. The Net really doesn't allow you to change anything, any more than a single frenetically vibrating atom can change the temperature of the solution of which it is a part.

I have recently come to the conclusion that nothing that is currently being done is particularly heinous. Trying to control a fractious populace and keep an eye on a world filled with actors more than willing to inadvertently leave cutlery in one's back is a bit of a juggling act.  I have a feeling that the excesses that we are currently decrying are being ratcheted back by the twin acts of folks starting to take their privacy seriously and the government pulling back from an obvious overstep.

Look, this kind of stuff has come and gone before.  What I am seeing in the blogs is the usual claptrap about hurt feelings, embarrassment when one realizes that writing something leaves tracks, and a cheerful misreading of an old planning document that has become a hardened scripture, viciously argued over by theologians.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Winston Churchill 

Starting a Holy War or this is how to write down a recipe

My sons want to learn how to cook.  I want them to learn how to cook as well.

Now, I realize that this statement will be a throwdown to both my Jewish buddies and my hillbilly redneck compadres; but I can kick all your asses when it comes to cooking brisket.

First things first, indirect cooking on charcoal is the only way to go.  If you are doing it some other way, go sit with the women.  Always remember the two great truths; Charlie don't surf and chicks can't barbecue.

Now, an aside on the freakazoids who spend thousands of dollars buying shit that will do the same thing as a $50.00 grill from the hardware store.  Get a life.  You aren't getting better results, you are just spending more money.  

A note on the pan of water underneath the brisket.  You know, water is always enough, but if you have a beer in the house, throw that in too.  I know in my heart of hearts that the beer does nothing.  But it just seems to make the barbecue God happy.

Marinade

• 1/2 cup mushroom infused soy sauce
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 1/4 cup nuoc mam
• 1 heaping teaspoon horseradish
• 1/4 cup pickled ground chili w/garlic
• 3 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 cup brown sugar.
• 3 tablespoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons black pepper

Mix marinade well, put brisket and marinade in seal bag and seal...Marinate overnight.  when you are  taking it out and getting it ready to put on the grill, take a syringe and inject the brisket with around 30ml of the marinade.

Before

Brisket goes on @ 0838 PST.  I always start the brisket fat side down.  Just my way.

First alder chips go on @ 0930 PST.  Soak the chips for a half hour minimum before they go on.  Do not buy the curiously modified heating stove pellets that the purists overpay for.  Get real wood chips. The great truth is wood is wood.  There are wienies out there who will wax poetic about the various flavors of the wood chips and the je-ne-sais-quoi that they give the meat.  Horseshit.  Wet hardwoods burning under limited oxygen supply is wet hardwoods burning under limited oxygen supply.  Buy what is cheap and available.

You will need to make two (2) of these quart jars for the whole project.  Minimum soaking time should be around 1/2 hour.

Soaking the chips

I hear constantly from the freakazoids that the temp of the grill has to be monitored with digital thermometers etc, etc, etc.  Bullshit.  Is it hot? Take the temp of the meat every two hours for the first four hours.  Then go to every hour.

The key is to watch the charcoal (as an aside....briquets are not charcoal, they are some weird alien droppings that you don't want to have anywhere near your food).  You might have to close the dampers to restrict oxygen, you might have to add more charcoal.  Pay attention, figure out what it is you are doing, learn a skill, don't buy something that fakes a skill.  The key is is that the amount of oxygen allowed into the grill will regulate the temperature.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Simple mechanical rotary dampers do the job just fine.  There will always be some douche telling you that what you are doing couldn't possibly be right.  All they are doing is publicly announcing their small penis.

How you regulate hot appropriately

Mop Sauce

• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 1/2 cup nuoc mam
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tablespoons grated ginger
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Tapatio

Or, if you are feeling really lazy, use the leftover used marinade as a mop sauce.  Cut it with boiling water 50:50 and slosh it on freely.  The barbecue-orthodoxy freaks will come unglued at this one, but fuck 'em, it works just fine.

I am of two minds about mop sauce.  First side is, it doesn't really do anything.  But the second side is, it gives you a chance to poke and prod at the meat and get an idea what it needs.  It doesn't hurt anything, so I go with it.  Start brushing it on at the two hour mark when you take the first meat temp read,  slosh some on when you get curious.  

What I found in the backyard, gotta love volunteers

At two hours, slosh the brisket with mop sauce, rotate it 180-degrees on a horizontal axis, and take the temp.  Hit it with more smoke chips and you are good for another hour.  Go and mow the lawn.

At two hours.  Temp up to around 120 degrees, shut the dampers some more 

After you finish sweeping the sidewalk, time to give the meat another mop, add some more wood chips.  You should be around three hours out now.  More wood chips, mop it, poke and prod it, get an idea of how it is doing.  Turn it 180 degrees on the vertical axis.  What you want is the nice crust to develop on all sides.

Three Hour look, life is good

Now you are at four hours.  A little work here.  After you crust up the meat like this, it will get up to around 160 degrees and get stuck there.  Don't know why, don't really care, just happens.  So now you plait together some aluminum foil and you will seal wrap the brisket with a third of a can of my special secret magic ingredient and put it back on the grill.

Special secret magic grilling ingredient

What's not to like as a braising liquid?  Beer, tomato juice, clan nectar, salt, and lime.

This is around 4.5 hours

Now notice that we have moved the brisket to the center.  Indirect heat is't necessary anymore, we are braising the thing.  Gotta be careful here.  Every 30 minutes you have to turn the brisket 90 degrees. You will let this go three hours.

From the comfy chair to the right of the stairs

Now, don't be stupid like your old man.  Put the aluminum foil on some kind a tray.  Tearing the foil when you turn it kinda defeats the whole process.

Now we have it right, on the tray

Now is when you get the laundry started. I know, but you might as well get it done while you are watching.

I am thinking that the side will be flowers this year

It is 17:00 PST.  I have been turning the tray for hours now and the coals are finally dying.  It is still quite warm in the barbecue.   A lot of the "elite" barbecue folks claim the need for a faux cambro or a cambro.

Temp at 17:05 

WTF

The residual heat from the dying coals will serve the exact same action.  Load the barbecue right and the charcoal will finally gas out around nine hours and the temp will be at around 160 degrees.  Hell, if it is too hot, lift the lid and let some heat out.

Stolen Shamelessly

Thanks Jesse

ABC = All Bullshit Channel

AP = Associated Propaganda

CBS = See BS

FOX = Full of Xenophobia

BBC = British Brainwashing Corporation

CNN = Crap Not News

NBC = Nothing But Crap

New phone, old Phone

Mayberry may have brought up a point about the phone service, but here is why I don't think that the comparison is valid.

That same logic can be appliede  to phone calls. So are they fair game as well? No expectation of privacy on the phone? Better make sure Shanny's isn't bugged...

The reason that that dog won't hunt is the ephemeral nature of a phone call.  This is a conversation, between two individuals, mediated by contract and controlled by utility Commisions.  There is clear case law to support the prohibition of phone taps without clear court order.

E-mail is a different can of fish.  It is residual in nature.  Copies of the text are stored for a time on every server the e-mail touches in it journey.  There are no clear laws defining the privacy, and to tell the truth, it appears that the bulk of the laws are written so that there is no privacy constraints.

All that being said, I think that everything is being listened to, and one should take that possibility very seriously.

Read this

Why you really can't have it

Simply put, it is because you don't really want it.  Oh you can rant and rave, but the conveniences and the small spotlight offered by the internet and it's insecure ways are too sexy, too addictive, too compelling for you to ever put it down.

Oh privacy is all well and good, but letting other folks in on what you are doing and thinking is what you are really all about.  Most everyone who reads the drivel I write here usually has their own bit of writing squirrelled away somewhere on the net.  It is a convenient place to have a soapbox and the price of the soapbox is that everyone gets to read it.  Even a small audience is a great thing.

Now e-mail.  It is the immediacy and speed of the thing that is what folks really want.  Imagine sending a physical letter to the distant corners of the earth.  It sure isn't going to be there at the same time as an e-mail.

Imagine having a column in the local paper which folks in England routinely read.  You think that they could get it there as fast?

Nope, the e-mails and blogs and such that fly around on the internet aren't secure and are open.  You can have private conversations that the powers that be would have a tough time reading, but then, you have to go through the whole encryption thing, which requires that you have a functional, trusted relationship with the folks on the other side of the arrangement.

Really try it.  It is a pain.  Send me an encrypted e-mail

My e-mail address is johnmennis *at* gmail dot com 

Using that e-mail, my public key is at the ubuntu keyserver, it is the one dated 06/23/2013 it's fingerprint is

F154 8816 C55A 5F1B 5866 CB58 0DAA 8E91 1328 4D85

So here is the take home.  You can have reasonably secure communication on the internet.  It just takes more effort than the vast majority of folks want to put into it.

If you want to have secure communication with me, drop me a letter or, better yet, take me down to Shanny's and buy me a beer. 

And that is my whole point.  Nothing that people put on the internet is really worthy of having the adjective "Private".  The more I think of it, I cannot see any reason why anyone, including the federal goverment should consider open communication on the internet as a part of your fourth amendment rights (see previous post for the reference)

Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason for the search.

Any unencrypted e-mail communication on the internet is inherently public and insecure.  It lies on servers you don't own, passed through programs you don't control.  If you have a facebook page (look, I am shuddering) you are doing the equivalent of putting up a sign with your goings on in your front yard, if you have a blog, you are putting it there for the world to see.  Twitter is the internets answer to Tourette's. 

If you want secure, don't use the internet, and don't whine to me because the "guv'mint' looks at stuff that you don't bother to secure.  If you do want to use the internet, make the effort to secure your messages.  The real problem is that for the most part, you are just bitching anyway.  No one cares.  

Off and On

Well, I am finished with my hissy fit.

Upon mature reflection, me getting pissed off because the government was exposed doing what everyone knew that they were doing all along is silly.   If people are discovered doing what you expect them to do, the response should be a sad resignation, not some shrill hissy fit.

I still don't agree that the government should be snooping everywhere and on everyone.  Hell, Orwell's world would have been drooling over the capabilities.  The Angela Merkel and her old retiree buddies from the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit  hanging around the currywurst stands in old Berlin would just sigh and think that they missed out on an opportunity.

The security state apparatus being formed here in the US is not the sign of a healthy culture.  It is a unholy alliance between the bigots and zenophobes currently lodged in the right-wing of the American political spectrum, the fear-laden kumbaya crowd imbedded in the left-wing, and the military-industrial-congressional complex that feeds the middle class.

Look folks, whether you like it or not, the fourth amendment has been killed.  The fifth amendment is on its way out, the first amendment is under attack.  I have attached a plain language explanation of the bill of rights at the end of this article.  Take your time, indulge in a little self-reflection, and then tell me honestly that you are not guilty of supporting the government taking an axe to one of these little gems at some time in the past twenty years.

AMENDMENT 1

Congress can’t make any law that:

• Favors one religion over another religion, or no religion at all, or opposes any religion;
• Stops you from practicing your religion as you see fit;
• Keeps you from saying whatever you want, even if you are criticizing the President of the United States;
• Prevents newspapers, magazines, books, movies, radio,  television or the internet from  presenting any news, ideas, and opinions that they choose;
• Stops you from meeting peacefully for a demonstration or protest to ask the government to change something.

AMENDMENT 2

Congress can’t stop people from having and carrying weapons.

AMENDMENT 3

You don’t have to let soldiers live in your house, except if there is a war, and even then Congress needs to pass a law and set the rules.

AMENDMENT 4

Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason for the search.

AMENDMENT 5

Except during times of war or if you are in the military:

• You can’t be tried for any serious crime without a Grand Jury meeting first to decide whether there’s enough evidence against you for a trial;
• If at the end of a trial, the jury decides you are innocent, the government can’t try you again for the same crime with another jury;
• You  cannot be forced to admit you are guilty of a crime and if you choose not to, you don’t have to say anything at your trial at all;
• You can’t be killed, or put in jail, or fined, unless you were convicted of a crime by a jury and all of the proper legal steps during your arrest and trial were followed; and
• The government can’t take your house or your farm or anything that is yours, unless the government pays for it at a fair price.

AMENDMENT 6

If you are arrested and charged with a crime:

• You have a right to have your trial soon and in public, so everyone knows what is happening;
• The case has to be decided by a jury of ordinary people from you are, if you wish;
• You have the right to know what you are accused of doing wrong and to see and hear and cross-examine the people who are witnesses against you;
• You have the right to a lawyer to help you. If you cannot afford to pay the lawyer, the government will.

AMENDMENT 7

You also have the right to a jury when it is a civil case (a law case between two people rather than between you and the government).

AMENDMENT 8

The government can’t make you pay more than is reasonable in bail or in fines, and the government can’t inflict cruel or unusual punishments (like torture) even if you are convicted of a crime.

AMENDMENT 9

Just because these rights are listed in the Constitution doesn’t mean that you don’t have other rights too.

AMENDMENT 10

Anything that the Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can do, is left up to the states and  to the people.

Not feelin’ it

 

I am in the middle of an outrage overload. 

Usually when this happens, I slap myself until I settle down or get all philosophical and explain how it really doesn’t matter.

I really don’t feel the need for that pattern this time around.

Doesn’t mean this time will be better.

Just different

The Axe You Use

In the recent past, I posted a bit about how Windows 8 didn’t suck too bad.

I stand by that claim, but now I wish to throw in a caveat about the use of that system and its attendant shortcomings.  I don’t have any proof of this worry, and all of this may be just delusional ravings of a borderline paranoid.

Look, excluding the occasional foray into sedition, I am a pretty law-abiding type.  I feel that government can and does have a valid and important place in peoples lives.  Hell, I even work for the Fed.

All that being said, I am in no way shape of form embarrassed regarding my opinion that the US Federal government’s security apparatus is out of control and is no longer responding to the will of the governed, but instead serves the interests and wishes of an oligopoly.

All that being said, lets talk about EUFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface).  This is the basic reason that is why I wrote the first article noted above.   I wasn’t able to get by this little dingus to swap out my operating systems.

Now I am wondering about the nature of this little beast.    Consider this little gem from the Wikipedia article on the Beastie

“UEFI can support remote diagnostics and repair of computers, even without another operating system”

My oh my. 

Think long and hard on that one.  My nice little Windows 8 box that I am cheerfully typing away at, down at the most basic level, I controlled by a beast that is designed to let others in to “repair and diagnose”. 

Thinking back to my previous post, and thinking on the revelations reading about the boot cycle of new PC’s.  I am thinking that it might be a good idea to keep handy an older computer, preferably a laptop with a wireless card, to use for secure communication.

Tradecraft and other such inconveniences

I recently got an e-mail from an on-line friend. I am sending this mail in response to his concern.  I am not ragging him, and I feel flattered that he would include me, but the technical merits of his proposal need to be addressed

Been chatting with this guy for a while, and oddly enough I trust him.  Me sent me an e-mail about a "secure" e-mail/browsing service that is coming up.  I realize that he is looking out for my best interests, but there are some issues that I will discuss here that needs to be addressed in light of the recent revelations of the Federal Governments activities in monitoring correspondence and conversations.

First:  this has to be done carefully from the get go.  If you wish to go blank, you can't click a site that a friend sends you on your home computer and set something up.  

First and foremost I will direct your attention to the following site:

https://tails.boum.org/

If you really wish to create a secure means of communication, here is a first step.

I will be speaking of this soon.  I will probably enlist some assistance through some friends online.

If you want to speak securely.  It will take some effort on your part.  It will not be convenient, and you will have to begin to monitor your behavior.

More meat for the paranoid

http://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi?view=all

Been reading more on the Snowden thing.

I still like the boy.

As for the "Top Secret" nature of the fight on terrorists, the young man was able to bring a thumb drive into a top secret facility and walk out with with the goods.

What kind of dumbasses are in charge of the security at Booz Allen?

Oh Yeah…This is why we should trust the NSA

 

 

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2011/50000_declassified_docs.shtml

 

This is their own website.  This was only two years ago.  They declassified:

• Early publications on cryptography, including Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing from 1809;

Doing the Competition a Bad Turn

Am I the only person who sees the irony in this
Google Inc (GOOG) Wants to Prove It’s Not Complicit in NSA Data Collection
Read more at http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/google-inc-goog-wants-to-prove-its-not-complicit-in-nsa-data-collection-167683/#sdlEwvLg4jzu77Xw.99
So,the company which makes a business model of hoovering up every scrap of information in the world is trying to prove it isn’t helping the NSA.  Apparently Facebook is also trying on the air of innocence.

More thoughts

"The progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire-tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. . . . Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?"
                                                                                      Justice Louis D. Brandeis
 

I spent some time during the last couple of posts talking about how the internet is not secure and can never be secure.  Since no one commented and flamed me, I think that I will continue this line of thought and talk more about Messrs. Snowden and Manning.

Their lives are going to suck huge from here on in.  Neither of them appear to be all that stupid, so this thought had to go through their heads before they went into the light with their information, and they still did it.  Both of them appear to have done so as an attempted antidote to what is more and more appearing to be an overweening federal intelligence apparatus. 
 
Now, the boyz at the top of the heap have every intention of taking these boys down.  Now, I realize that these two gentlemen are young men, but a geezer my age has a tendency of labeling a 29 year old and a 25 year old as boys.  Sorry guys, but it is just the way it is.  So when the big boyz get them (and you can rest assured both of them will rot in prison), all that one can hope for is that folks out there won’t forget the sacrifice and begin talking rationally about what kind of power we are going to allow the security state.

That being said,I am kind o proud of these two.  I hope that their sacrifice will have the effect that they hoped it would have, but the deck is stacked against them.

Chances are you think that I will start a rant about the governments seizure of power.  That is about the farthest thing from my mind.  What I want to talk about is the passive nature of the American people and how they are getting exactly the government they deserve and which they have worked so tirelessly to elect.

It is every government’s prime directive to protect its own power and perquisites.  This country is no different.  What makes this whole issue a tragicomedy is the extent that the American people have actually worked at making sure that the government has greater and greater power.  They have done this for the most sad of all reasons, because the greater bulk of the American people really and truly feel that the government will take care of them.  

Government jobs, government mandated and supported education, government courtship of the media, government sponsored retirement plans, government roads, all these things say security and prosperity to the run of the mill American.  It would appear, from conversations with my fellow Americans that the government protecting itself is not a thing to be feared, but an activity to be supported, because that same government will act as the backstop for their lives.  The government will provide.

What Snowden and Bradley do is hold up lens to what the government is doing.  It would appear that the bulk of American people prefer their benevolent myth of government to the ugly truth that Messrs. Bradley and Snowden show us.  You may rest assured that, following the in-the-media-full-court-press by those currently holding the reins of power, around 60% of Americans will be baying for the “Traitors” blood.

 Take a while and read this paper.   There is also a shorter article (with more lively writing) located Here

I find it interesting that the folks who wrote the article noted in the PDF used well-loved historical figures for their examples.  The founding fathers were probably considered “terrorists” by the authorities in London.

Who will endure?

I have recently been watching (from a safe distance) Dmitry Orlov’s recent dealing with the denizens of the progressive left.  Since I am safely ensconced on the other side of the continent, it has been a instructive interlude.  I have no doubt, were I closer to the action, that my amusement would be less and my sympathy would be greater. 

I need to give you some background on the reason that I tend to agree with Dmitry on the issue of “fringe” groups. 

I grew up in Northern Utah, the product of Italian Immigrants and a Scots-Irish/Jewish mutt.  The high school I attended was >80% Mormon and they shamelessly threw their weight around.

So, In a sense, I grew up as part of a fringe group circling a fringe group.  A meta-fringie if you will.

The Mormons kept to themselves and kept the booze tight.  The only land that was available to our church was right next to the stockyards.  They tried to force everyone into their system and for the most part succeeded.  But even with the repressive nature of the Mormon Church when it is allowed control, there is much to admire about the organizational structure of the church.

First and foremost, the Mormons took care of their own.   Oh, don’t go believing that nonsense that the church PR department spews out about the cradle to grave nature of the Bishops Warehouse.  They will feed their needy into the state and federal welfare systems to make sure that the resources of the church are stretched as far as possible, but they do have a welfare system that works.   The Mormons also support a rational education system (or did), none of this nonsense about college for everyone.  The educational system was tied through and through to church doctrine (hell, back in the day, they even used public school land and buildings to hold “seminary” classes for the majority.  The grades in seminary even counted toward GPA.)

But enough about the LDS.  Lets talk now of the Italian ghetto in West Weber.  Insular as hell, thank you very much.  In theory, ruled by the stooped Italian men at the Depot Grocery, in fact ruled by the incredibly bitchy Italian women in the altar society.  Insular as hell, but I repeat myself.  My mother marrying out of the ghetto was a source of scandal for years (it also started a trend which ended up with half my family being Mormon now).  We spoke Italian around the farm until my Nona died.

Now that we have a meandering history behind us, let’s start talking about the differing natures of two fringes.

First the Mormons:  Patriarchal as all get out.  They have a defining overall structure, a clear source of funding (10% is quite a bit), a clear hierarchy, and a us-vs-them attitude to beat the band.  The one thing that stands out is the inclusion of new generations into their scheme.  Last time I looked their religion and reach were expanding.

Now the Italians:  Matriarchal as all get out.  No clear structure, just a series of agreements between the matriarchs, no clear funding, most of the progeny wanting desperately to get out from underneath the thumbs of the matriarchs.  The new generations were not included in the planning, merely directed following the decision.  The whole structure is now dust.

Now, you are probably expecting me to begin a tirade against matriarchy.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.   What I am arguing against is the idea that robust structures can be made, whole cloth, from the ideas of a small group.  The idea that a community of “Ideas” can be formed has been disproved so often in the past that I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to find a case where there is a success (Good Luck).

Nope what I see is an issue of organization.  For all the talk about “flat” organizations with consensual goals, I cannot seem to find evidence of longevity.  All of the Corporations that tried this either backed out as fast as possible or succumbed to “creative destruction”.  The only attempt at a similar structure on a non-corporate basis was locally in the Spanish Civil War, a miserable failure.

The progressive left wants a Kumbaya-based structure, even though every previous attempt in the millennia preceding this has failed or been co-opted.  This is the core of the matter.  If you are to have a workable, long-lived group, the only known method of doing this is the tribe, complete with tribal elders, a defined population, and well-established methods of recruitment of new members and disposal of the non-compliant.

The culture I grew up in is now dead.  Ground to dust by the incursion of mass-culture and a more dynamic and effective sub-culture.  I would recommend, should you wish to create a sub-culture, you take heed,