Sky War

You know, sometimes we look at this country and our leaders and focus too much on all the bad wars they start or escalate. We tend to forget the good ones they start, like Moon War: the War Against Lunar Aggression. But, as in all things, the world is catching up to us and our ability to start conflicts with orbiting space bodies, nature, and concepts. Take Venezuelan President Hugo "Crackers from Caracas" Chavez, who is not only declaring war against drought, but is taking to the front lines himself to lead the onslaught in his newly declared war against clouds.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says he will join a team of Cuban scientists on flights to "bomb clouds" to create rain amid a severe drought that has aroused public anger due to water and electricity rationing.
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"I'm going in a plane; any cloud that crosses me, I'll zap it so that it rains," Chavez said at a ceremony late on Saturday with family members of five Cubans convicted of spying in the United States.

"Any cloud that crosses me." That's right, Hugo, you don't take any shit from those goddamn clouds. Won't rain? Maybe a Cuban missile right between its cumulo and nimbus ought to make things a little more clear to those wispy bastards.

I'd advise going heavy. Show them the full might of the Venezuelan air force and bomb them into rainy compliance. But whatever you do don't get into a situation where you have to train stratus clouds to police nimbus clouds to make them keep raining. It just doesn't work. Overwhelming force is the only thing these visible masses of droplets understand. Soon, you'll have Earth-based sky water again.

Us? Oh we've already moved on to moon water. You just keep on drinking that sky stuff. It's cute.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.13

Making Health Care Better
The New York Times' David Leonhardt provides us with an exhaustive story on doctors, administrators, and public policy dorks who are doing the hard work of trying to hold down costs and make health care more effective in the current broken system. You may know them by their other title: people who aren't as smart as our elected betters in the Senate. He focuses specifically on the work of Brent James, who probably wakes up every morning, reads about the health care debate, and then has to spend 15 minutes talking himself out of suicide. It's an article that's worth your time.

How the US Funds the Taliban
I bet you're thinking "I'm sure it's just some labyrinthine trail where we find out that things we buy and things we do eventually flow back to the Taliban and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, meant to teach us a lesson about the complexities of war." Nope! We're just straight up paying them. In cash. Sometimes just to not do anything, sometimes we pay them for protection. Often it's just huge, corrupt payments to Hamid Karzai's family. It's all very sordid and is definitely one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

CDC Estimates 22 Million H1N1 Cases In US Between April And October
Oh, you forgot about Porcine AIDS, didn't you? Well it didn't forget about you, infecting maybe as many as 36 million and killing 4,000. Ok, that doesn't sound frightening, but what if I pointed out it was Friday the 13th and said it in a spooooky voice? No? Fuck you anyway, we're all going to die. Might want to think about getting that flu shot.

Al-Qa'ida prefers U.S. to stick around
What would you say if I told you that the United States military and political establishment didn't really understand Al Qaeda or it's political and military goals in reference to Afghanistan. Would you say 'no shit' or 'no fucking shit'? Well, anyway, it basically boils down to how they really, really, really, want us to stay and keep sending troops in. Boy, good thing we're not going to do anything stupid like that. By the way, this is also one of the many, many things your shouldn't think about when we decide to send a bunch more troops over there.

China proves to be an aggressive foe in cyberspace
Hey, while the US is spending trillions on not having health care, building super duper fighter planes, missiles, and various things that Michael Bay totally beats off to, you know what China is spending their money on? Well, infrastructure, energy, and wrapping its tentacles around the world. But militarily? Mostly they're watching Hackers over and over again and taking notes. Aaaand they're pretty much countering any intelligence imbalances and could do major damage to us if we ever started a war with them. In fact they're pretty much already running an undeclared war on us. I'm sure this is a problem a few more F-22's that are built the districts of every congressman on an appropriations committee will solve.

Letter of the day

With this being Veterans Day, which originally got it's start as a remembrance of the armistice that ended World War I, Letters of Note has up the telegram that some credit with getting the US to enter that war. I am of course referring to the Zimmerman Telegram, in which the German Foreign Secretary asked the German Ambassador to Mexico to ask the President of Mexico about his thoughts on the early work of Bob Dylan......and also if he wanted to invade America for the greater glory of Germany.


23638 18222 6719 14331 15021? Hilarious. Man, that German Foreign Secretary sure was a cut up. Oh sorry, can't you read decoded German communiques? You make me sick.

Nr. 130, 13042, Foreign Office has telegraphed on 16 January, No. 1. Strictly secret decode yourself. We intend to begin unrestricted U-boat warfare on February first. Effort will be made notwithstanding this to keep the United States neutral. In the event that we should not be successful in this, we propose alliance to Mexico upon the following basis: to make war together; make peace together; generous financial support; and agreement on our part that Mexico shall reconquer the formerly lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. Arrangement of details to be left to your honor. You should disclose the foregoing to the President in strict secrecy as soon as outbreak of war with the United States is certain and add the proposal invite Japan to immediate spontaneous concurrent effort and at the same time use his good offices between us and Japan. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our U-boats offers the prospect of forcing England in a few months to peace. Acknowledge receipt. Zimmermann.

Mexico wisely turned them down, preferring instead to slowly invade, assuming all our low paying service industry jobs, and reclaiming the land we stole from them in a bid they call Reconquista! For Aztlan!

Cyber Wars...the Punishment Due

If you had to guess one high tech thing you were almost certain the Pentagon was already doing, it would be working to protect government, stock exchange, and air traffic computer systems with a elite squad of hackers and nerds, right? I mean Michael Bay thought to have it in the first Transformers movie. Surely our government is smarter than Michael Bay. Nope. But they are finally getting to it. The Pentagon is finally making steps towards weaponizing and militarizing Geek Squad.

The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.
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Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.

White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.

This is a tricky issue. Will this enable Skynet or can it be used to fight Skynet? I guess we'll never find out until the bombs start dropping.

But you will also be grateful to know that our government's deranged perversion about putting someone in control of something and then calling them "_______czar" is still intact. The man who'll run the militarized Dell Support Center will be given the title Cyberczar. If that title gave you an idea for a movie about a Putin-esque despot who, through some electrical accident that happens while he's touching his computer, is transported into the intarwubs, and an elite squad of Ukranian hackers has to do battle with him for control of cyberspace, well then you can just fuck right off, because I already thought of it and patented the idea.

Still, better late then never. I mean it's not like China has been launching cyberattacks on us for years, is it?

Important, critical information

Did you know there are no less than three blankets with sleeves being marketed to the American populace? The Snuggie, the Slanket, and the Freedom Blanket. Did you know that they were all in an endless and undying war against each other? That Snuggie is an impostor? That people desire to look like terry cloth monks/cult members and suffer the scorn of all decent people? That sweatshirts and sweaters don't exist anymore? That blankets are sooooooo fucking complicated and backwards we need sleeves in them?

Well, now you know. Go buy a freedom blanket, before the poor owner has to explain to his daughter that the Snuggie behemoth stole their livelihood.

Secrets of the Night: Raid edition

Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

By "authority" they of course mean "doing it without any legal authority, without telling anyone, then refusing to suffer any consequences or pay any price from any international body or court." That isn't so much authority or the authority to do something as a sort of a declared right to do whatever you want for whatever reason. But Donald Rumsfeld did sign off on something and while it was promptly shredded so no evidence would remain, he told certain people the general outline of it, swore it was legal, reminded everyone his word was law, then engaged in secret raids into countries.

Not that I'm against this type of action to capture and kill terrorists harbored in other countries. Well, the terrorist killing part, not so much the Iranian recon missions that seems to presage some future war or the other secret wars we try to be starting up. But can we not pretend we have some authority or legality behind us to run into another country, shoot some shit up, capture, kill, or none of the above a target and then scamper back to our safe confines? It doesn't really matter how big a double thumbs up Rumsfeld gave. Just because you wrote it on paper doesn't actually make it law. Can someone tell Obama that too. On a official piece of paper.