Well, most everyone is back at work today and my blogging friends seem to be back at it after a long weekend of family and food. I'm not anywhere NEAR completing my Daily Rounds but that's about par for the course at this time o' year. We do tend to sleep in during winter, but it has nothing to do with bear-like tendencies. I did get a slight grin out of this, though:
Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate.
Animal? Check. Just ask either of my ex-es, neither of whom live in Texas. State of inactivity? Check. I don't "do" cold. Lower body temperature? Well, yeah. My feet are often freezing. Again, ask any of my ex-es. We could go on, but ya get the point, I'm sure. And then there's the depression, but it ain't of the metabolic sort. The holidays are the worst time o' year for me... but that hasn't really kicked in yet. Give me three or four trips out into the world to be exposed to non-stop Christmas Muzak every-freakin'-where and that'll do it. I can't wait.
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Speakin' of Christmas, there's this:
Kinda appropriate for Cyber Monday, innit? Someone always comes up with a piece on this subject about this time o' year, be it visual or written. Most of us don't need to be reminded of "the reason for the season" but ya wouldn't know it if you're simply a casual observer of the American Scene (for lack o' a better term).
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I think Mr. Assange should thank his lucky stars we're not living in the 1950s and '60s when the CIA still ran assassination programs. That said, the leak is attributed to a US Army private by the name of Bradley Manning. IF this is true, and IF a court-martial convicts Private Manning, then he should face a firing squad. His actions amount to nothing less than treason and treason during time of war is a capital crime. It's too bad we can't kill him twice.
One final note and then we'll go. If you're on Twitter and are interested in this subject follow Blake Hounshell. Mr. Hounshell is the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine and his tweets have interesting links and observations... it's stuff you might not find elsewhere.
Wikileaks - god where do we start?! There has to be something that can be done. I know, First Amendment and all that; but this guy has pushed beyond the boundaries; I'm fairly certain our Founding Fathers must be spinning and rolling.
ReplyDeleteLove the cartoon as well; it does feel that way even moreso this year.
Seems like there is some connection between eating turkey and becoming lethargic. It could be the combo of pumpkin pie and turkey :)
ReplyDeleteThe wikileaks thang makes me crazy.
Kris: This ain't EVEN a First Amendment issue... it's divulging classified information which is a crime, by law... and Asshat Assange isn't an American citizen to begin with. There are ways that this problem can be resolved, we just need the intestinal fortitude to use them.
ReplyDeleteLou: I think it's the weather. ;-)
It's fairly simple for me, these are stolen, the man is in receipt of stolen goods. I'd give his country 10 days to hand him over, or invade. Manning is dead. I hope his parents have said their goodbyes.
ReplyDeleteNow my real anger: I hate incompetent (and I hope I spelled that right, as I don't want to be associated with them) government employee's, whether privates, or GS-99's.
The government is full of walking dead, and you have to know there was an idiot in charge of that database.
When a private can make 250,000 queries and not set off an alarm, then that is a crime.
I need to know that whoever the idiot is, that setup that database, is now back to the gas station he came from.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteWithout getting into too many specifics, SIPR and JWICS don't quite work like that...what he was doing wasn't like pinging one specific database, it was more like browsing a variety of websites. Of course, what he did was still enabled by poor security practices (bringing a random CD-RW into a vault AND putting it into a SIPR/JWICS machine? That part absolutely blows my mind...just bringing unauthorized media into a secure facility, much less putting it into a secure machine, would get my ass severely chewed) but the fact that he was able to access that many documents isn't really surprising. It does raise a few questions, but not as many as you'd think.
I will say that the my concern from the start of this has been for the diplomatic cables...yes, the Apache video and the Afghan source information was damaging and put lives at risk, but at most that hurt one war effort, a war that one way or another is going to be winding down relatively soon. The diplomatic cables are going to set back U.S. foreign policy by years if not decades. Put another way, the first set of releases (Apache video, etc.) was news for a couple of weeks...these diplomatic cables are going to be news for months.
Of course, I don't think Assange and his gang fully appreciate who they are dealing with...the first set of leaks put the U.S. and Afghan governments at a disadvantage; neither is particularly known for taking action against people who speak out against them internationally. The diplomatic cables, on the other hand, have revealed sensitive information about pretty much every major country we do business with, including perhaps most significantly Russia. The last couple of people who have acted in an aggressive public manner against Russia's interests haven't had a very long life expectancy.
The holidays are the worst time o' year for me... but that hasn't really kicked in yet. Give me three or four trips out into the world to be exposed to non-stop Christmas Muzak every-freakin'-where and that'll do it. I can't wait.
ReplyDeleteMe too Buck. Having been apart from family for the last 20 years or so has turned me in to the biggest Bah-Humbug-Miserable-Beyotch around at this time of year. And Christmas carols on the radio? There's only so many thousand times you can listen to 'Grandma Gettin' Run Over By a Reindeer' or my personal favorite 'The 6 White Boomers'!
Mike: Thanks for fillin' in a lot o' the blanks here. My eyebrows went up quite a bit when I read the Guardian's account of how Manning stole the files... along the lines of "how could this BE?" I'm not the only one, either. I've read lotsa other stuff to this effect, as well. Manning's supervisor and HIS supervisor... the whole danged bunch of them... need to be taken to the woodshed. I don't care if it was in a war zone, security procedures shouldn't ever change.
ReplyDeleteYour points about the Russians are well-taken too. Add the Israelis, as well. The Mossad don't mess around.
Deb: I'm glad I'm not the only one. My Humbuggery is something of a family legend, truth be told. Like Garbo... I just want to be left alone. ;-)