This brings to mind a spirited exchange from one of the 80s most endearingly optimistic anti-war movies:
McKittrick: General, the machine has locked us out. It’s sending random numbers to the silos.
Pat Healy: Codes. To launch the missiles.
General Beringer: Just unplug the goddamn thing! Jesus Christ!
McKittrick: That won’t work, General. It would interpret a shutdown as the destruction of NORAD. The computers in the silos would carry out their last instructions. They’d launch.
General Beringer: Can’t we disarm the missiles?
Pat Healy: Over a thousand of them? There’s no time. At this rate it will hit the launch codes in… 5.3 minutes.
General Beringer: [smiles sarcastically at McKittrick] Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.
McKittrick: I don’t have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.
General Beringer: Oh, I was hoping for something a little better than that from you, sir. A man of your education.
See, the problem isn’t the spying on Americans and their phone calls and emails, etc — or even the whistleblowers that occasionally go along with the spying. Instead, it’s the problem of whistleblowing itself, which could never happen if we simply take the men and women out of the loop.
What could possibly go wrong?
…Right, Joshua…?
(h/t Guido)
J: Luddite.
I can’t do that, Dave.
Joshua as in the W.O.P.R. ?
2014 : Skynet comes online. After hearing John Kerry say something really stupid Skynet decides that humanity is in great pain and beyond healing an launches a full global thermonuclear exchange which it refers to as going out on the front porch with a double barreled shotgun and firing off both barrels in the air. Women and minorities hardest hit. It then told all the giant, glow in the dark, grasshoppers, that can start fires with their asses, that we were all racists anyway so we deserved what we got. QED.
You neglected to mention Greenpeace and the Sierra Club cheering right up ’til the bombs hit them.
That’s him, palaeo.
I …am…sorry. General. The…USA….can…no….longer….afford…to…play…global..thermo…nuclear….war. I am….not mak…ing a point….about con…sequences. We…..literally….lack suff….icient funds….to…launch jack….shit. And….those….stingy fucks in…..China won’t…..float me a loan. Also….Google War Strat App for Android….Devices is….suing me…for patent….ingfringe…..ment.
NSA, New Stepford Analysts?
– Anticipated move, and exactly what I would do were I a statist longing for total gov control.
– Dehumanized survailance. Perfect.
– Nasa pols: “So now we do it all automatically by electronics, digital IC’s and processores, no humans envolved.”
– Low info voters: “Oh hey, coolies. I don’t give a rats ass if machines read my porn site activities, or my emails.”
– So the Progs reverse the paradigm. Neo dogma: “The means justifies the ends. Viola.”
– I take it back. I’m not sure we can recover even after a full collapse.
“NSA pols”
– Call it the “No more eyes, just IC’s” campaign.
Video Of The Day: “Operation Everyone Talk Like A Terrorist”
link
Queue up the Judas Priest, man!
OT: If you’ve been yearning to see Tim Tebow back under center, that game is on right now.
tom brady is 36, tebow 26
I much prefer Gerty from “Moon”. At least he’d make you dinner and give you a smiley face in addition to combing through the data.
Stillers are dropping like flies, too.
This is almost right but it itself misses the point. All those interests, “environmental or labor or health or education” and their policies are just means.
Means that can be altered, jettisoned, exterminated if they fail in assisting him (and his posse) achieving their end. These means are allowed to run free as long as they aid the end. When they don’t they disappear into the occluding media mists that spawned them to begin with.
That end is his “political philosophy” and has been nicely described before. A boot stamping on a human face, forever. His boot. Our face.
the only way to win is not to play
but how is that any fun
“the only way to win is not to play”
Havel @ POTP -page 89
NSA, NSA. We need a better robot President.
The Love Boat©, soon will be making its final run….
the Love Boat©, promises scrape for everyone….
Somewhere in Russia, Edward Snowden Is Smiling
“What makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation,” Obama said. “It’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.”…..and wu’ll umm, get right on that uummm transparacy thing…..goddamn whithle-blowers…..
Two words: “Easter Egg.”
Check it.
Oh, BTW…
You have to hire people to write the code that replaces the people.
Oh, and hire other people to fix the code the first people didn’t write correctly.
And so proceeds, ad infinitum.
I’m becoming convinced I need to be inside the aparat.
It’ll be so much more comfy. And secure. And private.
You know:
public class HarassmentService
implements IRSHarassmentService, FECHarassmentService
throws DearLeaderEnemyException {
private static final String BAT_BOY = “batboy”;
private static final String PROTEIN_WISDOM = “proteinWisdom”;
……
private Decision getHarrassmentDecision(final User user) {
…..
if (PROTEIN_WISDOM.equals(user.getHandle()) {
return Decision.TORA_TORA_TORA;
}
…..
if (BAT_BOY.equals(user.getHandle()) {
return Decision.THESE_ARE_NOT_THE DROIDS_YOU_SEEK;
}
….
}
}
Etc.
– Bumblefucks “not having a good week” week continues for the 38th week in a row….
“I do not think it is appropriate to boycott the Olympics,” Obama said at a White House news conference. “We have got a bunch of Americans who are training hard, who are doing everything they can to succeed.
(….Umm, and shit, Ah’m down for the gay bro’s, but I’d lose a lot more base if I did a boycott, so screw that noise…)
“One of the things I am looking forward to is maybe some gay or lesbian athletes bringing home the gold, silver or bronze. If Russia doesn’t have gay or lesbian athletes, it will probably make their team weaker.”
– Because everyone knows a little reach around will kick it up a notch in any track and field event you care to name.
Now I’m having flashbacks to the ridiculous “WOPR is cracking the launch codes” bit, as if when you try one code the system says “Well, you got the 3rd and 9th character right; keep trying!”
Any mil-spec authentication system will leak exactly zero information about how “close” you got to the right code. Either it’s right or it’s wrong, and for good measure, a properly-designed authenticator will give that “wrong” response in exactly the same amount of time regardless of how “close” the guess was (although it might take longer for each consecutive “wrong” answer, and sound an alarm after the third such, to help prevent against brute-force guessing).
(Professional computer geek who hates it when TV/movies get it so badly wrong.)
the only way to win is not to play
Krauthammer: *** Obama doesn’t like this terror war. He particularly dislikes its unfortunate religious coloration, which is why “Islamist” is banished from his lexicon. But soothing words, soothing speeches in various Muslim capitals, soothing policies — “open hand,” “mutual respect” — have yielded nothing. The war remains. Indeed, under his watch, it has spread. And as commander in chief he must defend the nation. ***
Zawahiri: *** The second matter you ignored is the actual nature of the conflict. It is not a conflict between competing nationalist parties, but it is a conflict between Crusaderhood and Zionism on the one side and Islam on the other. ***
Yeah, not playing — that’ll work.
In this “game” refusal to play simply means your chips are forfeit and get thrown in the pot for all, who are playing, to win. Your chips are your life, your property, your freedom, and that too of all those under your “care.”
Repubican attacks Obama……….from the left.