Why Trump picked Bolton as the new National Security Advisor

McMaster was widely touted as one of the "adults in the room" keeping Trump on the leash. No one will harbour any such delusions about John Bolton.

To the contrary; this guy needs adult supervision himself, and lots of it.

Bolton has been consistent throughout his career in advocating for more bellicosity, more interventions, more sanctions, and more war. He is a true believer in American Exceptionalism. Everything America does is great, and if things don't work out, as they haven't in any US military adventure since 1945, it's never because America was in the wrong.

Instead, it's because American leadership has been tripped up by a traitorous media, the UN, pinko liberals, etc etc etc...

Now he'll get to whisper vile somethings directly into the president's ear.


Bombs away!

Power has never been as concentrated as it is today

My dear Uncle Werner used to go traipsing all over Europe to deliver his papers. That's one sorry excuse of a paper route, I thought.

It was only after I got a little older that I realized that's what academics do; travel the world to read their papers to learned fellow-travellers. It's not at all like me reading my Globe and Mail at Dockside Willies.

Werner had some good stories about his various paper delivery adventures.  Aside from visiting places like Tubigen and Heidelberg, and any other place with a famous brewery, or so it seemed to me, he on occasion had to hop the Iron Curtain to attend conferences on that side of the fence. That's where his path would inevitably cross that of the Stasi, the state security outfit in East Germany.

He'd call up some esteemed Herr Doktor Professor, and someone would answer with the greeting "Staartssicherheit." This would be back in the ugly old Berlin Wall days.

Before the internet.

Before the digital revolution.

Before a small handful of private companies, all tied closely to American Empire, had a lock on global internet traffic.

I was impressed by what the Stasi could do in the '80's.

I can't even imagine what the NSA can do today.

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg's net worth rockets by 15 billions thanks to selling your secrets to the NSA

That's a damned good business model Zucky's got going on.

Create Facebook addicts who are more than happy to spill their innermost secrets all over the world wide web.

Then sell them out to the NSA.

"Sell" being the operative word here.

Then again, if people are stupid enough to embrace this "new" model of state surveillance, ie let the private sector do the dirty work and then we'll pay them for it, they kinda get what they deserve.

As Michelle Obama is busy preaching virtues of internet freedom to China, NSA is busy spying on Chinese internet traffic

Holy cow, that's enough to give long-dead Orwell a boner!

The folks at German news magazine Der Spiegel claim that the NSA has been vacuuming up the data trail left not only by the government of China but the upper echelon of China's "private sector" as well, especially China's answer to Microsoft, Huawei.

Frankly, I think they get the lower echelon as well. In fact, I think it's more than obvious that they vacuum up EVERYTHING!

Maybe that's why we sent Michelle over there, with her kids and her mom. Nobody gonna suspect that little family unit of being up to no good!

60 Minutes presents... Christian Towelheads!

OK, there's your Coptic Pope...





And here's your top toweller.

And what's the difference, other than one's got the white rig and the other got the black rig?

It was a remarkably telling episode of 60 Minutes. Seems like they are trying to re-establish their bona fides after some of their recent mishaps.

The first two thirds of tonight's show was dedicated to singing the praises of the NSA. Yup, that Snowden chap was one bad dude. Hurt America something terrible. You know; that America of secret prisons and torture etc. Snowden almost wrecked it for those folks.
And those Copts, god love 'em, just because their Pope manned up to support the Army after the coup they are suddenly the victims of all sorts of religious persecution.

We gotta put a stop to that!

Why the NSA needs your e-mail contact list (and everyone else's too)

NSA boss General Keith Alexander spells it out; "you need the haystack to find the needle."

Well carry on then General. I've been in a bit of a unwarranted flap about the illegality and immorality of the entire spectrum of spy-on-everybody-all-the-time initiatives, to say nothing of their sheer Orwellian overkill, but the impeccable logic of your rationale has won me over.

God bless America!

Flash mob democracy and the new ruling class

Personally, I've got nothing against Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post.

After all, isn't it about time the old media guys handed the reins to the new-media moguls?

What should be bothering us is the alacrity with which the new media moguls have made peace and so much more with the national security establishment.

Don't ever forget that all of the worst excesses revealed by the Snowden scandal would not have been possible without the connivance of the big tech players.

Welcome aboard, Jeff.