Just an odd observation.....but national data collectors say that between 1.5 and 3 million American teens....walk/run away from home each year and try to disappear. The amount of federal effort put into finding them and correcting the situation? Almost nothing.
300,000 illegal Latino teens entering the US? Well....we would be willing to spend $3 billion to house and handle them. We'd put hundreds of thousands of man-hours into their situation per year.
Yet we won't even look at the 1.5 million American teens.....actual American citizens....and their issue. We won't put them into protective camps on military bases. We won't put them on buses to San Diego. We won't hire lawyers to handle the legal issues involved.
What does it say about our society, our priorities, and our politics?
Friday, 11 July 2014
Thursday, 10 July 2014
New ISIS Strategy?
There's been this hint over the past couple of days that this ISIS-crew....the folks taking territory in Iraq and threatening stability there.....might head south and tear apart Mecca, which resides in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis kinda protect Mecca....as the holy spot for Muslims around the world. If you are Islam.....you are supposed to make one trip in your life to Mecca....for religious purposes.
Why would ISIS destroy Mecca and the holy site there? Well....there's this little commentary within the Koran that you aren't supposed to allow structures to overcome the religion itself. When you put up a statue for Islam....it's defying the general rules of the religion. When you put up a $50-million-dollar mosque.....it's defying the general rules of the religion. The ISIS folks are going back to the standard Koran definition of a thousand years ago, and making a stand for old fashioned traditional values.
Mecca? Well.....there's some history here. You see....around 600 AD...Mecca was a big-name trading center in the Middle East. If you were a merchant or bartered stuff.....it was on your top ten places each year to go and deal. You could call it the mega-flea market of the Middle East around this point in time.
Mecca thrived under the free enterprise system and widely known as a open-religious community. You worshipped as you pleased....just don't antagonize folks was the general rule.
The big deal of the year in Mecca? There was a religious fest to celebrate all religions, which centered around this black rock that existed there. Everyone came to trade, barter, and spend money during this festive occasion.
This changed as Muhammad arrived, and eventually threw out the controlling authority of Mecca....then declared that the black rock was only there for his religious group.
What happens when ISIS crosses the border? My scenario for this runs through three basic steps....with the Saudis in absolute shock as their border guard situation evaporates overnight. ISIS would have travel roughly 700 miles (figure one entire day at top speed with no stops or minor battles to limit them).
Mecca, upon hearing they'd cross the border....would likely empty out within four hours....heading either west toward Jordan or east toward the sea. Two million residents in Mecca.....so you can figure the four-lanes leading either way will be clogged and half the folks in town will never have a chance to get out before ISIS arrives.
The curious factor is that if all of the two million residents were armed.....and the ISIS arrival crew (initial stages) would not number over 3,000 in number (my humble guess on the pick-up truck delivery system). Mecca, if they were logical and thinking....could put down the arrival crew in a matter of hours. But these are Saudis, and without their military structure....they just aren't the fighters that you'd want for this case.
The Saudis would now turn to the US, and demand absolute help delivered overnight. The current administration? It'd take at least ten days for them to form an opinion and get the President's approval to proceed....add four days to get troops into place, and by then.....half of Mecca is destroyed and the black rock structure is non-existent. I'd also find that all of the banks in Mecca have been emptied out and billions stolen in the form of bills, gold and silver.
Now, if I were ISIS.....I'd move on westward.....toward Jordan, and Israel.
The odds of going into Saudi Arabia? You turn a pretty negative Iraq episode....into a five-star mess in a matter of a week. Gas prices will go up by twenty percent. CNN will surge into first-place as they cover the development. The President's staff will wake up to discover that they really don't have a plan to fit this, and will want polling data to indicate what the American people suggest....which is mostly to dissolve the Designated Hitter-rule in baseball, get rid of the illegal aliens, and fire Senator Harry Reid. If we produced all the oil we needed from within the US....then none of this would matter.
Yep, things could actually get worse....if you didn't think it was possible.
The Saudis kinda protect Mecca....as the holy spot for Muslims around the world. If you are Islam.....you are supposed to make one trip in your life to Mecca....for religious purposes.
Why would ISIS destroy Mecca and the holy site there? Well....there's this little commentary within the Koran that you aren't supposed to allow structures to overcome the religion itself. When you put up a statue for Islam....it's defying the general rules of the religion. When you put up a $50-million-dollar mosque.....it's defying the general rules of the religion. The ISIS folks are going back to the standard Koran definition of a thousand years ago, and making a stand for old fashioned traditional values.
Mecca? Well.....there's some history here. You see....around 600 AD...Mecca was a big-name trading center in the Middle East. If you were a merchant or bartered stuff.....it was on your top ten places each year to go and deal. You could call it the mega-flea market of the Middle East around this point in time.
Mecca thrived under the free enterprise system and widely known as a open-religious community. You worshipped as you pleased....just don't antagonize folks was the general rule.
The big deal of the year in Mecca? There was a religious fest to celebrate all religions, which centered around this black rock that existed there. Everyone came to trade, barter, and spend money during this festive occasion.
This changed as Muhammad arrived, and eventually threw out the controlling authority of Mecca....then declared that the black rock was only there for his religious group.
What happens when ISIS crosses the border? My scenario for this runs through three basic steps....with the Saudis in absolute shock as their border guard situation evaporates overnight. ISIS would have travel roughly 700 miles (figure one entire day at top speed with no stops or minor battles to limit them).
Mecca, upon hearing they'd cross the border....would likely empty out within four hours....heading either west toward Jordan or east toward the sea. Two million residents in Mecca.....so you can figure the four-lanes leading either way will be clogged and half the folks in town will never have a chance to get out before ISIS arrives.
The curious factor is that if all of the two million residents were armed.....and the ISIS arrival crew (initial stages) would not number over 3,000 in number (my humble guess on the pick-up truck delivery system). Mecca, if they were logical and thinking....could put down the arrival crew in a matter of hours. But these are Saudis, and without their military structure....they just aren't the fighters that you'd want for this case.
The Saudis would now turn to the US, and demand absolute help delivered overnight. The current administration? It'd take at least ten days for them to form an opinion and get the President's approval to proceed....add four days to get troops into place, and by then.....half of Mecca is destroyed and the black rock structure is non-existent. I'd also find that all of the banks in Mecca have been emptied out and billions stolen in the form of bills, gold and silver.
Now, if I were ISIS.....I'd move on westward.....toward Jordan, and Israel.
The odds of going into Saudi Arabia? You turn a pretty negative Iraq episode....into a five-star mess in a matter of a week. Gas prices will go up by twenty percent. CNN will surge into first-place as they cover the development. The President's staff will wake up to discover that they really don't have a plan to fit this, and will want polling data to indicate what the American people suggest....which is mostly to dissolve the Designated Hitter-rule in baseball, get rid of the illegal aliens, and fire Senator Harry Reid. If we produced all the oil we needed from within the US....then none of this would matter.
Yep, things could actually get worse....if you didn't think it was possible.
Wal-Mart Beverage Shops?
I read a lot of business news....and yesterday, there was a five-star bombshell piece quietly hidden in the Wall Street Journal. A brief two-line piece....which described Wal-Mart's new strategy of getting into alcohol sales, doubling their stake in this one area, and possibly opening stand-alone beverage shops (beer, wine, and booze).
It's not the Wal-Mart concept that we grow up with in the 1980s, and it probably won't work in some conservative southern regions.
Wal-Mart operates with a simple concept. You brew beer.....you want to sell based on a profit margin for your product. More is better....in most cases. So, Wal-Mart steps into the room and says that price per pallet isn't good enough. So you as the beer guy....hint that if they'd buy thirty-percent more on quantity, you'd ease on the pricing of the pallet by ten-percent. Eventually, you reach some agreement on a fantastic amount of beer that they will buy.....but it means less profit than you'd normally accept. Bulk-sales....in effect.
Everyone from hair shampoo manufacturers to shoe polish dealers.....hate Wal-Mart's bulk pricing strategy. You sell to get a big step up.....take large orders.....and then rely on making up the margin by dealing with Piggly Wiggly, K-Mart, Target, and the others....with regular pricing.
How would a Wal-Mart beverage shop (standing alone) operate? I'm guessing it'd be 2,000 square feet.....bundled into a industrial neighborhood of some city....hoping on sales as folks get off work and want to pick up two cases of beer, and six bottles of wine for the weekend. There would likely be eight full-time employees, and six people coming in to stock the shelves daily as a part-timer. Somewhere near the front would be chips and dip....maybe some charcoal for grilling....and maybe every spring there would be an assortment of grills lined up for sale.
Wal-Mart's target? All of the small convenience beverage shops that exist in most towns and cities. You see....they can't get the special discount prices. I'd take a guess that a southern town of forty thousand residents....will typically have eight convenience beverage shops spread out within the urban boundary. With just one Wal-Mart beverage shop.....it'd probably wipe out three of the no-name shops within three years. Put one on the west end of town and one on the east end of town? You'd probably wipe out seven of the eight no-name shops within five years.
The end of an era? Maybe.
It's not the Wal-Mart concept that we grow up with in the 1980s, and it probably won't work in some conservative southern regions.
Wal-Mart operates with a simple concept. You brew beer.....you want to sell based on a profit margin for your product. More is better....in most cases. So, Wal-Mart steps into the room and says that price per pallet isn't good enough. So you as the beer guy....hint that if they'd buy thirty-percent more on quantity, you'd ease on the pricing of the pallet by ten-percent. Eventually, you reach some agreement on a fantastic amount of beer that they will buy.....but it means less profit than you'd normally accept. Bulk-sales....in effect.
Everyone from hair shampoo manufacturers to shoe polish dealers.....hate Wal-Mart's bulk pricing strategy. You sell to get a big step up.....take large orders.....and then rely on making up the margin by dealing with Piggly Wiggly, K-Mart, Target, and the others....with regular pricing.
How would a Wal-Mart beverage shop (standing alone) operate? I'm guessing it'd be 2,000 square feet.....bundled into a industrial neighborhood of some city....hoping on sales as folks get off work and want to pick up two cases of beer, and six bottles of wine for the weekend. There would likely be eight full-time employees, and six people coming in to stock the shelves daily as a part-timer. Somewhere near the front would be chips and dip....maybe some charcoal for grilling....and maybe every spring there would be an assortment of grills lined up for sale.
Wal-Mart's target? All of the small convenience beverage shops that exist in most towns and cities. You see....they can't get the special discount prices. I'd take a guess that a southern town of forty thousand residents....will typically have eight convenience beverage shops spread out within the urban boundary. With just one Wal-Mart beverage shop.....it'd probably wipe out three of the no-name shops within three years. Put one on the west end of town and one on the east end of town? You'd probably wipe out seven of the eight no-name shops within five years.
The end of an era? Maybe.
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Short-Sleeve Versus Long-Sleeve
Years ago....1977....I joined up with the Air Force. One of those ten little things that you came to question over the first year....was this mentality about long sleeves and short sleeves. The Air Force had to "control" everything, and mandate what could be done or never done.
With the 'greens'.....they actually allowed us to take the shirt into the tailor and have the shirtsleeves cut off....thus making it a shortsleeve shirt. However, this meant that after mid-October of each year....you had to wear only longsleeves. So you'd pack away the one or two shortsleeve shirts into the closet and just get by until mid-April....when they were allowed back.
The same issue existed with the 'blues'....with some rule in effect. Of course, none of this made any real sense....except to control people.
As the years passed....the old 'greens' went away, and the BDU arrived. The nifty thing about the Air Force view of the BDU....was that you could roll up the sleeves. So in the midst of December....in some hot building that had lousy heat control....you could roll up the sleeves and get some relief.
When the Army went to the BDU....you would have thought that they did the same thing, but no.....they instituted a rule that said that the sleeves MUST NEVER be rolled up....even in the midst of some deployment to Central America or Africa.
Naturally, there's grumblings about this kind of mundane and stupid rule. Someone at the top thinks that if you rolled the shirt up....it'd mean more cases of skin cancer. What evidence or study do they offer? None. As far as I can see.....no scientist or foundation group has ever gone out to do a research project on such an idea.
Why all this bother over shortsleeve and longsleeve stuff? I don't know. Evidently, it bothers some folks to show your arms. Maybe it's the tattoo stuff, or the muscles demonstrated.....but it's really a problem for some folks.
Years have passed, and I've been out for fifteen-odd years now. As a contractor and GS.....I had a couple of longsleeve shirts, and maybe wore them twenty days out of the year. I'm anti-longsleeve.....about as much as you can be. Maybe in the right office....with the right AC temperature....it makes sense. But in the real world.....it just doesn't work.
With the 'greens'.....they actually allowed us to take the shirt into the tailor and have the shirtsleeves cut off....thus making it a shortsleeve shirt. However, this meant that after mid-October of each year....you had to wear only longsleeves. So you'd pack away the one or two shortsleeve shirts into the closet and just get by until mid-April....when they were allowed back.
The same issue existed with the 'blues'....with some rule in effect. Of course, none of this made any real sense....except to control people.
As the years passed....the old 'greens' went away, and the BDU arrived. The nifty thing about the Air Force view of the BDU....was that you could roll up the sleeves. So in the midst of December....in some hot building that had lousy heat control....you could roll up the sleeves and get some relief.
When the Army went to the BDU....you would have thought that they did the same thing, but no.....they instituted a rule that said that the sleeves MUST NEVER be rolled up....even in the midst of some deployment to Central America or Africa.
Naturally, there's grumblings about this kind of mundane and stupid rule. Someone at the top thinks that if you rolled the shirt up....it'd mean more cases of skin cancer. What evidence or study do they offer? None. As far as I can see.....no scientist or foundation group has ever gone out to do a research project on such an idea.
Why all this bother over shortsleeve and longsleeve stuff? I don't know. Evidently, it bothers some folks to show your arms. Maybe it's the tattoo stuff, or the muscles demonstrated.....but it's really a problem for some folks.
Years have passed, and I've been out for fifteen-odd years now. As a contractor and GS.....I had a couple of longsleeve shirts, and maybe wore them twenty days out of the year. I'm anti-longsleeve.....about as much as you can be. Maybe in the right office....with the right AC temperature....it makes sense. But in the real world.....it just doesn't work.
Thursday, 3 July 2014
Simply Observations
First, from this point on out for 2014....there's zero legislation occurring in the House and Senate. The election cycle is in full-swing. So, when you hear the President talking up new legislation.....it's mostly all hot-air. For 2015? Way too early to talk any priorities, and if the Republicans have fifty seats in January....the whole game changes.
Second, this chatter about Supreme Court Judge Ginsburg retiring? Simply hot-air again. A number of liberals are talking up that she needs to retire before October, thus allowing the majority of Democrats in the Senate to safely pick a fairly liberal judge to replace her. Well....they waited too long, and nobody in the Senate feels comfy about doing this business before the election (November). So, go and mark your calendar.....around 18 November.....Ginsburg will announce she's retiring as of mid-January. This will safely allow the remaining Democrats (who might be leaving by early January anyway) to stand up and vote. The running list of replacements? I'm guessing the President has three individuals on a very short list, and it'll take less than forty-eight hours to press forward after the retirement announcement and get this done. The odds of getting some angry Senators? Better than fifty percent. There are at least a couple of Democratic Senators who aren't exactly reading the script that the White House sends over anymore....so it might not be an extremely liberal judge selected....thus upsetting even more folks.
Third, generally....no matter where you live in Tibet....you are living at high attitude. This has puzzled scientists for years because it's not that easy to live in that environment. Well....they finally researched the genes and found that there is this DNA sequence code....from an extent version of the human being....which the folks of Tibet got....and it helps them survive at high altitudes with lesser oxygen. This would naturally bring up the question of what exactly happened to the "cousin" of the Tibet folks and how did they die off? Maybe another research grant, and another project to dig up buried folks?
Fourth, if you look at localized news.....over in Sacramento, California.....a significant TB outbreak has been announced at a local high school. True, the numbers are less than ten so far.....but it begs the question of how TB is resurfacing, and if it relates to illegal immigrants. TB used to be one of the most prominent diseases that Americans could get.....then it kinda got wiped out. Returning?
Fifth and final....ever wanted your own drone? With a camera? I was at a hobby shop last week here in Germany, and here is the Phantom II drone. Roughly $1,500.....you can fly it around for roughly two miles and video-tape your neighbor's property, the beach, and just about anything. This kinda begs the question.....just how prevalent will drones be in ten years? Will twelve-year old kids be using them? Will Wal-Mart be monitoring the parking lot with them? Will folks be viewing their neighborhood on a regular basis?
Second, this chatter about Supreme Court Judge Ginsburg retiring? Simply hot-air again. A number of liberals are talking up that she needs to retire before October, thus allowing the majority of Democrats in the Senate to safely pick a fairly liberal judge to replace her. Well....they waited too long, and nobody in the Senate feels comfy about doing this business before the election (November). So, go and mark your calendar.....around 18 November.....Ginsburg will announce she's retiring as of mid-January. This will safely allow the remaining Democrats (who might be leaving by early January anyway) to stand up and vote. The running list of replacements? I'm guessing the President has three individuals on a very short list, and it'll take less than forty-eight hours to press forward after the retirement announcement and get this done. The odds of getting some angry Senators? Better than fifty percent. There are at least a couple of Democratic Senators who aren't exactly reading the script that the White House sends over anymore....so it might not be an extremely liberal judge selected....thus upsetting even more folks.
Third, generally....no matter where you live in Tibet....you are living at high attitude. This has puzzled scientists for years because it's not that easy to live in that environment. Well....they finally researched the genes and found that there is this DNA sequence code....from an extent version of the human being....which the folks of Tibet got....and it helps them survive at high altitudes with lesser oxygen. This would naturally bring up the question of what exactly happened to the "cousin" of the Tibet folks and how did they die off? Maybe another research grant, and another project to dig up buried folks?
Fourth, if you look at localized news.....over in Sacramento, California.....a significant TB outbreak has been announced at a local high school. True, the numbers are less than ten so far.....but it begs the question of how TB is resurfacing, and if it relates to illegal immigrants. TB used to be one of the most prominent diseases that Americans could get.....then it kinda got wiped out. Returning?
Fifth and final....ever wanted your own drone? With a camera? I was at a hobby shop last week here in Germany, and here is the Phantom II drone. Roughly $1,500.....you can fly it around for roughly two miles and video-tape your neighbor's property, the beach, and just about anything. This kinda begs the question.....just how prevalent will drones be in ten years? Will twelve-year old kids be using them? Will Wal-Mart be monitoring the parking lot with them? Will folks be viewing their neighborhood on a regular basis?
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
The $15-a-Vote Deal
I've waited a day or two for the dust to settle in the Mississippi primary episode where accusations over the weekend suggest that Cochran-enthusiasts suggested a $15-a-vote deal to at least one black minister. He has the text messages, and the deal was to involve these votes would result in some brown manilla envelopes arriving, by some method (probably not US postal operations), and folks would get "paid-off".
The question is.....why $15 a vote? Is this the standard? Why not $10 or $25?
Americans get all peppy who paying for votes comes up. It's generally perceived as unethical and illegal (just about every state has some kind of law that is supposed to prevent it). Usually through the 1960s....it was a normal practice. For the past twenty-odd years.....there's no cases that I can recall....where money came into play or was suggested. Course, political folks got smart and had other methods to "pay-off".
The math on this is interesting. Say that you need four thousand extra votes.....with $15 as the standard, you'd need $60,000 to carry out this agenda. Where does this kind of money come from? One back pocket to another.....some rich guy has cash around and needs a favor done by the political figure, so he offers the $60,000 to a middle-man who finds the witless figures to dump their votes.
Then we come to the odd part about the deal.....what if the guy promises his vote.....gets the $15....and then walks in to vote for another candidate instead? Where is the check and balance of the game?
Up through most of the 1800s.....election day was bartered off mostly on booze. You walked or rode a horse over to the county-seat.....started drinking early in the morning at one pub or bar which supported one particular party. Free booze or beer for hours.....you voted for that guy.....got some more free booze and then walked home. I would imagine that fifty percent of the men in America on election-days prior to the 1920s.....were mostly drunk for the whole day.
What will happen in Mississippi? If the State Police refuse to get involved, and the federal Justice Department just watches from a distance, then it's done. Nothing will come out of the episode, and the guy promised the $15 per vote will just sit there and grumble heavily over this.
Enough to get folks hyper and put a petition up to recall Senator Cochran? Well....that would be curious. I'm guessing sufficient numbers exist to get a petition in, and have a recall measure on the same voting papers where you'd vote for Cochran as the next Senator for Mississippi. On one measure....he might get re-elected. On the other measure, he might get recalled. This would force the governor to appoint someone for six to twelve months.....while they run another primary by summer or fall of 2015.
What's this all lead to? Corruption by insider Republicans who favor their best guy, and try to fake out the public into believing that the system is fair.....when it isn't fair. If you live in Mississippi and were a moderate supporter of Cochran, you've got a bad taste in your mouth presently, and wish you might have just stayed home on this primary episode. Personally, I'd raise the stakes next time around and demand $20.....just to make folks sweat a bit more as they have to hustle up more cash than usual.
The question is.....why $15 a vote? Is this the standard? Why not $10 or $25?
Americans get all peppy who paying for votes comes up. It's generally perceived as unethical and illegal (just about every state has some kind of law that is supposed to prevent it). Usually through the 1960s....it was a normal practice. For the past twenty-odd years.....there's no cases that I can recall....where money came into play or was suggested. Course, political folks got smart and had other methods to "pay-off".
The math on this is interesting. Say that you need four thousand extra votes.....with $15 as the standard, you'd need $60,000 to carry out this agenda. Where does this kind of money come from? One back pocket to another.....some rich guy has cash around and needs a favor done by the political figure, so he offers the $60,000 to a middle-man who finds the witless figures to dump their votes.
Then we come to the odd part about the deal.....what if the guy promises his vote.....gets the $15....and then walks in to vote for another candidate instead? Where is the check and balance of the game?
Up through most of the 1800s.....election day was bartered off mostly on booze. You walked or rode a horse over to the county-seat.....started drinking early in the morning at one pub or bar which supported one particular party. Free booze or beer for hours.....you voted for that guy.....got some more free booze and then walked home. I would imagine that fifty percent of the men in America on election-days prior to the 1920s.....were mostly drunk for the whole day.
What will happen in Mississippi? If the State Police refuse to get involved, and the federal Justice Department just watches from a distance, then it's done. Nothing will come out of the episode, and the guy promised the $15 per vote will just sit there and grumble heavily over this.
Enough to get folks hyper and put a petition up to recall Senator Cochran? Well....that would be curious. I'm guessing sufficient numbers exist to get a petition in, and have a recall measure on the same voting papers where you'd vote for Cochran as the next Senator for Mississippi. On one measure....he might get re-elected. On the other measure, he might get recalled. This would force the governor to appoint someone for six to twelve months.....while they run another primary by summer or fall of 2015.
What's this all lead to? Corruption by insider Republicans who favor their best guy, and try to fake out the public into believing that the system is fair.....when it isn't fair. If you live in Mississippi and were a moderate supporter of Cochran, you've got a bad taste in your mouth presently, and wish you might have just stayed home on this primary episode. Personally, I'd raise the stakes next time around and demand $20.....just to make folks sweat a bit more as they have to hustle up more cash than usual.
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
Your Weekly NSA Spill?
Folks got peppy over the newest NSA story....released yesterday.....that our guy Snowden now reports that we spy upon 193 countries. Yeah.....there's just four apparently on the forbidden list: Australia, New Zealand, England, and Canada.
Yeah, it must be true then....we spy on Tonga, the Vatican, Monaco (.7 square miles), and Saint Kitts (107 square miles). The significance of what we pick up via the NSA with Monaco? Well....it's best not to ask that, or ever spend an hour trying to answer that. Hotel bills, business men conducting a tractor deal or a fuel deal, or perhaps some guy ordering seventy cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer to be delivered to his private yacht just off the coast of Monaco.
Big news? No. There's really not anyone out there who is surprised. Big news via Snowden? Well....on the scale of things, it's barely worth mentioning.
To some degree, I suspect that the guys have gleaned through all the traffic that Snowden handed them, and this is starting to get to the point of zero value.
So, if you were a bad guy.....should you run off to Canada? No.....the internal cops (their version of the FBI) will spy on you.
About the only thing of interest that Snowden hinted in the newest episode is that we have about 90,000 individuals walking around the surface of the planet that the NSA deems as important to track. The who's who of significance in the world? It's hard to say. The Pope might be on the list.....while the King of Jordan might not be there. Some jihad guy might be on the list.....while the wife of the King of Tonga probably isn't on the list. Entertainers like Madonna on the list? I doubt it, but we might be stupid enough to track her, her expense account, and who she calls on a daily basis.
Now, if they listed the 90,000.....which they didn't.....it might get real interesting. There might be seventy guys in Peru on this list....scratching their head over how they made the list and what's the big deal about their black market deals or drug-dealing.
Course, sitting back in Moscow.....Putin probably is sitting there and asking his guys for the number of folks they track and they indicate it's well over 350,000. Putin might grin for a minute, and then ask how many of the US's 90,000 made it onto the KGB list of 350,000. The KGB guy might grin and then indicate they know precisely because they already have a copy of the US list.
So, a lot of print.....over nothing? Yeah. It's almost of the quality as the NCAA football updates from Mississippi State University for the week.
Yeah, it must be true then....we spy on Tonga, the Vatican, Monaco (.7 square miles), and Saint Kitts (107 square miles). The significance of what we pick up via the NSA with Monaco? Well....it's best not to ask that, or ever spend an hour trying to answer that. Hotel bills, business men conducting a tractor deal or a fuel deal, or perhaps some guy ordering seventy cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer to be delivered to his private yacht just off the coast of Monaco.
Big news? No. There's really not anyone out there who is surprised. Big news via Snowden? Well....on the scale of things, it's barely worth mentioning.
To some degree, I suspect that the guys have gleaned through all the traffic that Snowden handed them, and this is starting to get to the point of zero value.
So, if you were a bad guy.....should you run off to Canada? No.....the internal cops (their version of the FBI) will spy on you.
About the only thing of interest that Snowden hinted in the newest episode is that we have about 90,000 individuals walking around the surface of the planet that the NSA deems as important to track. The who's who of significance in the world? It's hard to say. The Pope might be on the list.....while the King of Jordan might not be there. Some jihad guy might be on the list.....while the wife of the King of Tonga probably isn't on the list. Entertainers like Madonna on the list? I doubt it, but we might be stupid enough to track her, her expense account, and who she calls on a daily basis.
Now, if they listed the 90,000.....which they didn't.....it might get real interesting. There might be seventy guys in Peru on this list....scratching their head over how they made the list and what's the big deal about their black market deals or drug-dealing.
Course, sitting back in Moscow.....Putin probably is sitting there and asking his guys for the number of folks they track and they indicate it's well over 350,000. Putin might grin for a minute, and then ask how many of the US's 90,000 made it onto the KGB list of 350,000. The KGB guy might grin and then indicate they know precisely because they already have a copy of the US list.
So, a lot of print.....over nothing? Yeah. It's almost of the quality as the NCAA football updates from Mississippi State University for the week.
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