I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite auction on the internet
Last year, Kapersky reported on the existence of a secret, highly sophisticated hacking group they dubbed the Equation Group. The Equation Group was all but confirmed to be a part of the NSA, due to its frequent use of encryption techniques otherwise only observed to be used by the NSA, and was discovered to be responsible for a series of highly advanced hacks that could do things no other known malware could do (such as rewrite hard drive firmware). Clearly, this was evidence that the United States government employed the most terrifying, invincible hackers anywhere in the world!
And then last week the Shadow Brokers announced that they’d stolen the whole suite of hacking tools, and offered to sell it to the highest bidder.
We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words.
Your humble narrator certainly does write many words and break many things. He isn’t so good at finding many intrusions, but he’s smelled a rat or two in his day, and this gives off a bit of an odor. The whole "announcement" is written much this way — everything’s correctly spelled, correctly capitalized, mostly correctly punctuated, but the actual wording is almost comically pidgin. There are unusual words and complicated phrases juxtaposed against complete mess like "make big name for self." It honestly gives off a vibe like John Pinette doing an impersonation of the waiter at a Chinese restaurant.
Anyhow, never mind that. Also never mind that both former NSA employees — presumably roughly as "former" as "former CIA employees" are known to be — and Wikileaks have confirmed that the data is the real thing. We can always rely on the mainstream media to toe the line and dutifully blame those rotten Russkies for the whole affair:
This is Moscow’s way of upping the ante in the spy war, and sending a message no one can miss [which is] ‘we have you penetrated, we’ve got you by the balls, don’t push us.’
I’ve tried, friends, but there’s absolutely nothing I can say in response to that. Not on a family-friendly blog, at least.
That guy’s still here?
It’s been far too long a time since I’ve written anything about what a clownshoes Gary Johnson is. Fortunately for all of us, the hits just keep on coming with that guy; last week, he did an interview with a young lady whose voice is really irritating in which he blathered at great length about the importance of "equal opportunity," by which, of course, he means government-gated opportunity:
One would think that having an "opportunity czar" determining who deserves to have what quantity of "opportunity" (read: money) transferred to him from the other, less deserving people is pretty badly illibertarian. Of course, I’m being unfair; Johnson certainly doesn’t want to redistribute money. See?
I don’t think government should be in the role of redistributing wealth. Government can be in the business, though, of making sure you have as much opportunity to wealth as the next person.
He’s not talking about redistribution of wealth, just redistribution of "opportunity to wealth!" Only a churl would point out that, if "to wealth" is not a verb — and no dictionary I can find lists it, though Merriam-Webster charmingly provides "stealth" as the only rhyming word, neatly disregarding a rhyme so obvious it forms the basis of multiple wise old sayings — then it becomes utterly unclear what Johnson could possibly be talking about. What is "opportunity to wealth," and how does government equalize that without simply robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Johnson doesn’t stop there, though; no, the bons mots keep on coming. Some highlights:
I hope I’m not contrary to the Constitution in any area whatsoever.
The Libertarian Party is a giant six-lane highway right down the middle of Trump and Clinton.
The Libertarian Party is representative of most people’s thought.
Most people’s thought, evidently, is there there’s a giant six-lane highway of difference between Trump and Clinton, that the Libertarian Party can, should, and does span that entire gap, and that absolutely nothing in that range is contrary to the Constitution. Also I’m unable to find the precedent in the Constitution for the government to equalize "opportunity to wealth," but probably that’s just because I’m a horrible purist.
If even that doesn’t satisfy your hot yen for LP presidential stupidity, here’s Wee Willie Weld being utterly ignorant on the subject of what guns actually are, but still managing to insist that there should be tougher gun control laws. Libertarius Maximus!
Ne pas attrapez-les tous!
It’s not much of a secret that Bumbling Bees is an anarcho-capitalist outfit; the bumblebee, with his noble black-and-yellow coloration, his soft, peristent buzz, and his downright adorable fuzziness, is the perfect symbol for the ideology. Also I think there’s a stinger in there somewhere. Anyhow, the point is: we’re anarachists here, and we’re not ashamed to admit it. Especially since that puts us in good company: it turns out that Pokémon are anarchists too!
Bressolles Mayor Fabrice Beauvois said Tuesday that he has mailed a decree to California-based Niantic Inc. and The Pokemon Company to make sure they stop setting up Pokemons in the village of about 800 inhabitants northeast of Lyon.
In his decree, the mayor says the search for Pokemons puts pedestrians and drivers at risk because players get inattentive while watching their smartphones and that it may also result in groups of people forming at night.
The game, increasingly popular around the world, sends players into the real world to search for digital monsters known as Pokemons, which appear on their smartphone screens. [much sic]
I just… I mean, I really want to make fun of this whole crazy affair, but the utter cluelessness of it is so charming I almost don’t know where to begin. I just keep picturing this grandiose guy angrily yelling at Niantic to stop setting up their confounded Pokemons on his confounded lawn, and he’s so busy being angry that he’s entirely failed to notice that there aren’t really any Pokemons out there anyhow, since it’s actually just a video game, you crazy fool. Undeterred, he presses on:
"When a cafe or a restaurant owner wants to open a business in any French town, they have an obligation to request prior authorization to the mayor. The rule applies to all people wishing to set up an activity or occupy a space on a public property. So it applies to Niantic as well, even though their settlement is virtual," Beauvois said.
Beauvois maintains the "Pokemon Go" phenomenon is spreading in a "contagious" way, that the game may lead to a "dangerous addiction" among young people and that it is his responsibility to ensure public tranquility and order.
It’s a contagion and an addiction? The Pokemons are anarchists that may result in groups of people forming? If Mayor Beauvois wants people not to play this game in his town, holy cow is he going about it the wrong way. It’s also not clear to me that the mighty mayor actually knows what "virtual" means, to wit: not real. So, no, honorable sir, the laws against people doing things without the mayor’s permission really don’t apply to "virtual" activities, since those activities aren’t real. Do you see? Of course, if you think the mayor is getting worked up about this now, wait until he finds out that Pokémon Go is is actually turning players into "the walking dead," exactly the same way the Nazis did.
Perhaps he’d understand the situation better if the AP report weren’t written by the world’s most illiterate bonobo. You can’t get him off the hook by pointing out that "Philippe Sotto" is unlikely to be a native speaker, either, because for pity’s sake somebody at the AP should actually edit these stories.
"No use to them," said Alice; "but it’s useful to the people who name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?"
The looking-glass reality of modern academia continues apace; last week, teachers in a North Carolina school were instructed that, from now on, they are forbidden from using the horrible, racist words "boy" and "girl," and must instead refer to their students as "scholars." They are also required to familiarize themselves with nonexistent newspeak jargon such as "cisgender," "genderqueer," and "non-binary." Don’t feel too bad for them, though; if they ever forget about all the fake words the social justice war now requires them to memorize, the Marcusian madmen — excuse me, I mean madgendernotnecessarilyconforminghumans — who run the district have thoughtfully provided a helpful purple unicorn who will teach students how to identify their true genders. No, that’s true:
A worksheet with a purple unicorn appears amid the instructional, which students are intended to fill out with their own gender identities.
Among techniques to "avoid gender specific classroom management," the slideshow tells teachers to line students up by birth month, favorite color, or alphabetized, rather than "boy/girl."
It seems to me that these new techniques will promote ageism, institutionalize bias toward those whose last names start with letters that come toward the beginning of the alphabet — which is not by their choice, mind you — and create rivalries among groups separated by choice of color, which is an obvious precursor to gang violence. But, sure, if you don’t care about the health, safety, and academic achievement of our collective societal scholars, and you also don’t care about age justice or alphabetical equality, then I guess you could try that. Barbarian.
Here’s a thing I’m wondering about:
Additionally, faculty should "allow students to dress in accordance with their gender identity" (emphasis theirs), and "students must have access to the restroom/changing facilities that correspond to their gender identity," in accordance with a recent Fourth Circuit court ruling.
Given that the gender unicorn — prominently featured as a part of this new program — is specifically designed to promote the bizarre fantasy that gender is a whole spectrum of possibilities, and that pretending to believe in garbage thought like "gender-nonconforming" and "non-binary" is now mandatory, how many restrooms is the school required to have? What is the penalty for a school that simply doesn’t have a matching restroom for whatever fantasy gender its "scholars" claim to belong to? Is there a grace period allowed for them to have one constructed?
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that’s all."
That’s not a quotation from the new guidelines. It probably should be, though.