Hacker Awareness is Everyone's Responsibility

I've been seeing a lot of news lately about identity theft, which continues to increase on a global scale, and protection of private information, increasingly from the federal government.  The feds are now demanding user passwords from web firms.  If they can't get them the legal way, and want them bad enough, they will simply hack them.  The NSA, FBI and CIA all utilize hackers  The government has the resources to do whatever it wants, but there are hackers everywhere that do the very same thing.  Hacking passwords is a major security concern that many people do not fully respect.  And they should, because that's how your identity is often stolen.  So I thouht I'd pass on a few tips that people can utilize very easily.  The first tip involves protecting yourself against keyloggers, which record everysingle keystroke you make.  No matter if they are hardware devices or software programs, here's a great tip:

Use ASCII codes. 

Most people don't know this, but everything in computers is binary - 1s and 0s.  Each character is a byte, each byte is 8 bits, each bit is a 1 or 0 (1 = "ON" and 0 = "OFF").  For example, each byte is between 00000000 and 11111111.  Each bit (right to left) from the first bit to the eighth has a value (128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1).  Notice the value doubles itself with each bit.  For every "1" in the byte, you take the corresponding place value and add it together - "0" means that particular bit has no value and is left alone.  The sum is the ASCII code for a corresponding character.  Every character a computer uses is calculated this way - it is the core principle of binary coding.  For example, my name begins with the letter "E."  In binary, "E" looks like this:  01000101. 

                                                      (128  64  32  16   8   4   2  1)
                                                          0     1    0    0   0   1   0  1

The corresponding values for the 1s are 64, 4, 1.  Add them and you get 69.  So the ASCII code for the letter "E" is 69.  You access the ASCII codes using the ALT key.  Try it.  Press ALT-69, and you get "E."  (By the way, you can do a search for "ASCII tables," or "ALT codes" to find web pages that have the chart for all the characters.)  But "E" is on the keyboard, and that's too easy.  So if I wanted to make it tougher to crack, I could use the ASCII code for "É."  In binary, "É" looks like this:  10010000.

                                                      (128  64  32  16   8   4   2   1)
                                                          1     0    0    1   0   0   0   0

The corresponding values for the 1s are 128, 16.  Add them and you get 144.  So the ASCII code for the character "É" is 144.  So to protect my self better, I wouldn't type Eric - I would instead type Éric, using (ALT-144)ric.

Your keyboard is simply a set of keys that are shortcuts to the sum-values that correspond to the ASCII codes for the characters printed on the keys (to save you from having to type in binary).  Keyloggers are great for the keyboard characters.  But if, for example, I type my name this way: (ALT-69)RIC, instead of (E)RIC, the keylogger will see that I pressed the ALT, the 6, and the 9, but it doesn't know if I pressed them together or separately, and some loggers (typically the software kind) will only record the ALT key and miss the 6 and 9 because they were pressed during the main keystoke, the ALT key.  So using ASCII command characters - even just one - makes hacking your passwords exponentially harder, because hackers typically use the main set of keybord characters, under the (correct) assumption that most people don't know how to input ALT codes.  Your password can still be hacked, but it will take much longer - and hackers are like burglars, in the sense that speed is everything.  The longer it takes, the more likely they'll give up before they crack it.

Home Wireless Routers

Most of us use wireless in our homes.  And hackers love to drive through neighborhoods, scanning for wireless networks they can hack.  There are a couple of ways to counter this, and both are very simple:

 

1) Disable your SSID.  Every router has one.  It's the ID that is broadcast from the router into the air, so you can find your router and connect to it, by simply clicking on it.  But you can also input the SSID manually.  Just give it a simple name that's easy to remember.  Once you disable the SSID broadcast, your router is still present, but now it is invisible, outsiders can't see it as an available network.  Most of the time, you only connect to your router the first time, then your computer does it automatically every time thereafter.  So this is a nice little security step that is minimally taxing to the user.

 

2) If you are not a fan of coming up with a name for your router, or disabling the SSID, try this:  most routers have a generic name out of the box, and it usually contains the brand name, like Linksys-something, or Netgear-something, D-Link-something, etc.  If your router is a Linksys, rename it Netgear, or D-Link, or Buffalo.  If it's a Netgear, rename it Linksys, and so on.  Hackers usually have a set of base command protocols for each brand of router.  If you change the SSID's name to a different brand, the hacker will waste a lot of time using the wrong protocols to get in.  Remember, you can't totally beat them, but you can slow them down trememndously, and that will increase the chances of them leaving yours alone.

 

3) If your router gives you the option between WEP and WPA or WPA-2 passwords, always choose WPA or WPA-2.  WEPs are the most easily hacked, as they are the most generic in design and application.  Use them ONLY if you have no other option (in which case, your router is likely older, and should be replaced). And remember, you can use the occasional ASCII character to throw off the hackers to make it that much more time consuming, which is the goal.

 

These are simple measures (sorry about the quick binary tutorial, but I tried to keep it short and easy to understand), and everyone should be proactive in protecting their information from intruders, be it the feds, the professional hacker, or the recreational hacking 10 year old who's at home bored while Mom and Dad are out on date night.  It's your information and your life.  Look after it.

The Postal Service, Victim of the Long Con of Congress

The United States Postal Service has long been the black sheep of the federal government.  They were designed to operate autonomously, yet their ability to do so has always been at the behest of Congress.  Now the USPS is teetering towards bankruptcy, and they need to curb costs.  They don't want to have to cut services, but Congress is pushing hard to eliminate door-door service altogether, and will vote on it Wednesday.  I don't have a problem with that. Door-to-door service is expensive, from an hourly wage standpoint - curbside and cluster boxes are the efficient way to go.  But this move will cost a lot of mail carriers their jobs.  I have a couple of friends that do that very job, so I am now concerned for their job security, as the job market is tough, and has been for several years now.

But setting aside my personal feelings, I will now fill you in on something very few people even know about (I didn't know about it until one of my USPS friends filled me in):

In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act, or PAEA.  This act mandated forced the USPS to PRE-fund a 75-year liability for future retiree health benefits.  That's right, folks.  At 75 years, they are not just funding future retirees' benefits - they are funding people who will not have even been born for the next 10-15 years.  What's worse, current employees pay for their own health benefits.  So do retirees, minus whatever Medicare covers.  So there is no such thing as a "health care benefit" for current employees or retirees.  And pre-funding anything means employees have to pay out more from their paychecks.  So this mandate basically amounts to an agency-wide pay cut to fund something they have no access to.  And this is all paid into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which means - you guessed it - they are funding all federal employees from every other agency, who will have access to these benefits, while the people paying for it have no access.  And they are the only employees in the country that have been required to do this.

This pre-funding amounts to roughly $5 billion per year, and it accounts for about 70 percent of the USPS' net deficit for the last five years (through FY 2012).  Keep in mind, this is the only federal agency that generates a revenue stream, while consuming exactly zero tax payer dollars.  Postage and package delivery services, as well as postal merchandise products, are their revenue stream.  Many people, including much of Congress, have seriously discussed privatizing the USPS, portraying it to be an expensive, unprofitable relic of times gone by - a dinosaur, that needs to be out of the federal system.  But while mail service has decreased about 25 percent since 2006, when the PAEA was enacted, the biggest improvement in revenues in recent years has been from becoming more competitive in package delivery services.  So one has to wonder why the entirety of the USPS is being deemed  an unprofitable relic that needs to be shut down.  After all, if this kind of service is so unprofitable, why are so many of our congressmen so heavily invested in UPS, FedEx, and DHL?  Wait a minute...

And here is where I start to twitch:  The USPS fund in the FERS had about $46 billion total.  Just recently, the Treasury Department took money yet again from the FERS - and included the USPS fund - to pay down debt.  So the USPS is near bankruptcy, yet they can be pilfered by the Treasury Department?  And, naturally, the loss of those funds changes weakens the financial position of the USPS, making them look less fiscally stable than they already are.  All this, and Congress wants to get rid of the USPS, or privatize it, when they are the biggest reason the USPS is in the position they are.  And Congress has repeatedly refused to return the surplus payments to the USPS - meanwhile the agency has had to close thousands of post offices, mail sorting facilities, lower service standards, and delay mail delivery, including eliminating Saturday delivery beginning in August of this year.  

Only our government would force an agency it deems "failing" to over pay into a system it has no access to, while simulatneously strategizing the best way to get rid of the agency.  I wonder what happens to all the pre-funded payments into the FERS for "future federal employees," who won't ever exist once the federal agency is dissolved...?

Roe and the Country, 40 Years Later

On May 11, 2013, Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at an event commemorating the 40-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade at the University of Chicago Law School.  She wished that they had ruled solely on the Texas law being debated, highlighting a few important flaws in Roe v. Wade:

 

• The ruling gave opponents a singular target - the Justices themselves who, many complained, should not have had the ability to dictate national policy on such a personal, subjective issue when they had not been elected to do so.
• Such a sweeping ruling "...stopped the momentum that was on the side of change..." at a time when many states were already expanding abortion rights.
• The fact that the debate was not argued in terms of women's rights, rather as an issue of privacy rights that secondarily extended to women's ability to terminate a pregnancy.  This allowed states, while adhering to the technical specifics of the ruling by not outlawing abortion outright, to attempt to carve up abortion policy piecemeal, sometimes to the degree of rendering the Roe ruling somewhat inconsequential.

 

A big fear of the current gay rights cases coming before the Supremes this year is that it could fall into the same misguided arguments that Roe did, for many of the same reasons.  Gay rights have been on the move over the past couple of decades, even with DOMA and DADT making arguably backward steps.  The gay population has been steadily increasing as more and more come out of the closet, and children are being better nurtured than before, allowing them to become more comfortable and accepting of themselves at an earlier age.  The one advantage that gay rights has over Roe is the context of the debate.  It's not an issue of privacy, as marriage is already deemed a right for all consenting people of adult age.  But it ultimately renders gays to be non-people in the eyes of the government, and that's where the debate will likely hinge.  DOMA was an attempt to manage that criticism - by "defining" marriage, you can exclude all but the model you specifically want, and try to avoid the bigotry tag.  The problem is that DOMA is highly unconstitutional, because it excludes a considerable portion of the population - a portion that grows by the year.  And not for nothing, but it's becoming a sizable voting block as well.  Politicians who continue to try to exclude them are going to have a backlash of careers being cut short.  President Obama already sees this coming, and has simply ordered the Justice Department to NOT defend DOMA in the courts.  It would be better if the more die-hard, fundamentalist elements of my Christian brethren would quit worrying about DOMA - let it die, and they can continue with their own lives of adultery and hiding in the closet, while publicly bashing gays and pleading for the sanctimony of marriage to the press.  Hasn't it become a bothersome little norm, that the loudest preachers of sanctimony and gay bashing either turn out to be gay or have been philandering around like the playboy of the modern world?  It would be more comical, if they weren't using their considerable power to attack others.  If we can get rid of DOMA, we may just be able to chip away at the facade of sanctimony. 

 

As individuals, religion is often a part of our marriages.  But as a country, marriage is a legal partnership, nothing more.  This country has never cared what religion you are (we have an amendment to prove it) when it came to marriage.  We have a wide array of religions, and we are free to perform our marriage ceremony in whatever religious context we like.  But the country only cares that we file for the license, and address our marriage one way or the other to the IRS and, once every decade, to the Census Bureau - that's ALL.  The country has no requirements for marriage, other than age and consent between the parties - the country will marry you itself, through the courts - it needs no religious backing to do so.  DOMA was a way to change the parameters, and that makes it legally exclusionary - and that will ultimately mean it's defeat.  Even if there is failure this time around in front of the Supremes, the country has made it clear that the status quo won't last much longer - and state after state is coming around to that reality.

 

My concern at this point is that we are focusing on cosmetic issues at a time when our country is floundering.  Gay or straight, what is doing us in is our economic instability.  We have a government who has propped up the markets with stimulus money, yet jobs are still scarce, largely because of lack of access to qualified workers, due to insufficient training.  We have an economic structure that has a CEO making anywhere from 350- 450 times what the lowest paid worker makes - the disparity is even worse when you include the total pension and retirement packages.  And many of these CEOs are running failing companies.  This disparity has much more to do with the political connectedness of these CEOs than the market dictating the compensation.  The evidence of that fact is seen throughout the rest of the world, where CEO pay in the same marketplace (say, the auto industry) is only a fraction by comparison.  This is largely due to two things:  some socialized economies set limits on executive pay, and most other companies around the world tie executive pay to the financial stability and success of the company.  It's mostly just the US that ignores this connection.

 

We have a president who preaches fiscal toughness, yet freely spends without concern for deficits or the future generations tied to a crushing level of debt they had nothing to do with.  He wants to raise income tax wage rates of the wealthy, while ignoring that the wealthy don't pay wage rates much anyway - they are rich because of investments and, as such, pay Capital Gains rates.  But we never cease to hear the need for "the wealthy to pay their fair share..."  I have never once heard what their fair share is.  Does anyone know?  They already pay over 80% of the country's revenues.  What exactly IS their fair share?  And "fair share" is a bit of a misnomer, considering where the majority of the country's money goes.  Our biggest expenditures are social programs and health care.  Social programs like welfare and food stamps are a necessary evil.  We would like to not have to need them, but people need to survive, so we accept them.  But we also move the poverty line down to make more people eligible for benefits.  On the surface, it seems like a nice gesture, looking out for the downtrodden.  But it also serves to keep people in the system.  You see, if you work enough hours, you can work yourself right into ineligibility.  Yet our minimum wage is debilitatingly low compared to our ever-increasing cost of living.  So very often, people will choose to not work because, between all of the programs they can qualify for, they actually make more money in the system than they would working.  This is not a healthy way to utilize our money.  

 

Health care I can understand the impetus to nationalize the system - the belief that costs can be lowered, while the status quo of care maintained.  It's a complete farce, the way we do it, but I get it.  But our government's solution is to leave the control in the hands of the insurance companies, while forcing them to take all applicants, no matter the pre-existing condition.  Fine, I get it, even the pre-existing still need some way to afford care and receive it.  But when the insurance companies cry foul, that they will be spending a fortune on pre-existing claims, with no revenue (in the form of premiums) to have ever been collected, what does our government do?  Mandate that everyone is required to purchase insurance policies, giving the companies the revenue stream they so desire.  Nice bribe, I guess...   And all of this could maybe be overlooked - except for the fact that millions of people will still be without health care coverage.  Wasn't that the entire purpose of this "takeover?"

 

All this only skims the surface of issues plaguing our country right now, so here is my plea:  gay marriage is so unimportant to the stability of our country, could we just please allow them to marry, so we can address more important things?  That's all gays want - they are just as important AND unimportant as us heteros - just treat them the same.  They've never looked for privilege, only that they aren't held as "less than."  They can provide familial stability, which we sorely need.  They provide a nurturing to children (especially gay children) that we sorely need.  There is simply no reason to deny them their rights as American citizens.  This is all so matter-of-fact that it's irresponsible to have invented issues where there were none - and then let it drag on for decades.  Let gays be free to live as they choose - like the rest of us - so that we as a country can start tackling more pressing issues.  Our country is in need of serious people right now, so we need the circus of bigots to leave the stage, please.

Where Are the Parents?

I have been disassociatively been seeing some of the coverage of the trials of youngsters recently, and have been disconcerted with why these kids are where they are.  The Newtown, Connecticut shooter, Adam Lanza, has been found to have been highly interested and engaged in the study of mass murders, furthering the notion that this wasn’t just someone gone cuckoo for a day – he wanted to emulate, and surpass the body counts of previous killings.  A bit closer to my neck of the woods, two teens in Steubenville, Ohio were just found guilty of raping a 16 year old girl last summer – and they took pictures and video of the entire evening as it took place, with onlookers doing nothing to stop it.  And yesterday, TJ Lane, the teenager who recently pleaded guilty to the shooting of schoolmates in Chardon, Ohio, came to his sentencing hearing wearing a t-shirt with the word “KILLER” written on the front.  And when allowed to speak after parents of the victims were given the opportunity to address him and the court (during which he smirked the entire time), he extended to them his middle finger and said, “F—k all of you.”

I say I’ve been watching disassociatively because I’ve been trying to avoid seeing this stuff.  The events themselves bother me, and the non-stop 24 hour round-the-clock coverage of such events and their aftermath disgusts me.  People just can’t get enough of it, and I find this growing preponderance very disturbing.  But I do watch the news every now and then, so the winding down of the court cases has been bumping the coverage back up.   And the one thing that keeps running through my head is this:  where the hell are the parents in these ordeals?

How did these kids get the idea that these actions are okay?  One actively studies mass murders, and no parent is there to question why?  Two others decide that, not only is rape okay, but it’s perfectly acceptable to photograph and video record it – AND then post it online?  How did they acquire this attitude?  Where are the parents?  And where are Lane’s parents?  Their kid kills students, and then taunts their families in court?  At what point did they stop giving a damn about their kid?

I was the oldest child in our house, so my parents knew very little about what to do with me when I turned obnoxious – ahem – became a teenager.  Everything I did was a lesson for them in learning how to prevent my brothers from doing the same thing.  And when they reached a point of not knowing what to do with me anymore, they admitted me to a facility for kids with family problems.  I hated them for it, but in hind sight, I know they were worried and thought experts could succeed where they felt they had failed.  They were wrong – well, not entirely.  There wasn’t anything “wrong” with me – I was just an asshole who was way too smart for his own good.  So putting me in this place at least kept me out of trouble for the most part.  I was only there for a few months (the psychologist in charge of my case was fed up with me), but less than a year later, I was out of the house for good. 

My point here is this:  my parents may not have known how to handle me, but they never stopped trying.  And most of the things I did, my brothers weren’t allowed to get away with as they grew up.  Each kid brings his/her own set of problems, naturally, so some things will always be new to Mom and Dad.  But the point is to keep trying.  The lessons don’t go away just because the kid isolates him/herself.  And it seems like that’s what has happened to parents of the younger generations.  Kids are smarter and more independent earlier in life, and at some point the parents leave them to their own devices.  DON’T.  The law may have gotten in the way of disciplining children (to our disservice), but never stop teaching them right from wrong.  At my worst, there were just things I would never do – I knew better.  And when I stopped being an angry asshole (after I moved out of the house and only had myself to answer to), I decided to not fight with anyone ever again – wasn’t worth it.  I resolved to never get angry about things that just don’t matter in the grand scheme of life – it’s just not worth it.  All my parents’ lessons stuck, even if I stopped caring about them for a while.  And I’ve only gotten angry a handful of times in the last 25 years.  I don’t think people truly understand how freeing it is to CHOOSE to let things roll off your shoulders, not get mad about stuff that happens (especially when anger doesn’t solve anything – the problem still exists and has to be dealt with, but now you’ve taken yourself to a bad place you have to recover from, which drags out the process), even if anger would be justified.  You simply take each problem and try to solve it.  Blow off steam if you have to – just not at your kids.    Isolating yourself from your children is not the answer.  It’s about preserving your own peace.  And your kids will grow to replicate THAT behavior as well.

White Collar Crime is Not Really Crime

It amazes me constantly, the judgment that our government, and other westernized governments, apply to countries that aid and abet corruption.  We demonize them, we publicly eviscerate them for their behavior, we have applied sanctions on the occasional country that has been an accomplice to crime.

It amazes me, because our government, and many like us, are the most hypocritical on the planet when it comes to policing our own house.  Just last week, HSBC Bank was found to have laundered money for terrorists, banks with connections to terrorists (Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank), and drug cartels.  So prolific and long standing were the laundering habits, that the Mexican cartels had long ago created specially designed boxes, whose dimensions were EXACTLY the measurement needed to pass the boxes through the teller windows without having to open them, allowing the cartel to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars a day quickly, and without inspection.  The heads of HSBC are now known to have been complicit in these corrupt functions, sometimes facilitating the functions themselves.

If I had laundered so much as $100 for a friend, I would have the book thrown at me in our justice system.  But HSBC criminals - and let's say it way out loud, leaving no doubt - THEY ARE CRIMINALS, in every sense of the word, are being slapped with a $1.9 billion fine, and no prosecution, in any capacity.  They have been deemed "too important" to be disrupted in their management of the bank with criminal prosecution.  I did not just make that up - the word "disrupted" was particularly galling to me.  They claimed that criminal prosecution would have dire repercussions on the stability of the bank:

"Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

Uh... what?  Better put the hip-boots on, it's getting deep up in here.  No one ever prosecutes the BANK when someone launders money, because it's not the bank that launders it.  It's the people.  Let's be clear about that.  PEOPLE launder money.  Banks are simply the mechanism.  A bank has no way of knowing when money is illegal, it's simply an institution.  We've never prosecuted a bank for laundering, we go after the guy who did the laundering.  So when we say we are not prosecuting the bank, what we really mean is we're not prosecuting the people.  No bank would destabilize because of a prosecution of criminals within the bank.  Banks change CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and upper management people all the time, without the banks crashing.  That's all that would happen here.  Prosecute the people involved, they lose their job, new people are brought in to replace them.  Really not that complicated.  But not for us - we make decisions in legalese that make it sound like we put a great deal of thought into this, when the simple reality is that these bankers are rich and connected.  And our government doesn't put it's friends in prison, no matter what they do.  We already know this to be true, with the obvious looking of the other way with the Wall Street bank brokers and managers who willfully broke the law in deceiving their own customers about the stability of funds they sold, while secretly executing credit default swaps, hedging their bets against the failure of those same funds.  What did we do?  Nothing.  Spewed a lot of rhetoric, but ultimately, we bailed them all out with billions of dollars - that they kept and invested on their own, bolstering nice profits - and the subsequent bonuses that come with them -  but not repaying any losses to the customers they swindled.  Just the cost of doing business...

Our government has become one of the largest accomplices to white collar criminal conduct, yet no one holds anyone accountable for it.  This is largely due to the fact that many of the people connected with these institutions transition into high level government positions.  It's no coincidence that Goldman Sachs got away with a paltry fine for some of it's fraud - their former CEO, Henry Paulson, was Bush's Treasury Secretary.  If you prosecute anyone, Paulson would have to be at the top of the list, since he was running things when all this began and, for what it's worth, Paulson's Goldman Sachs stock was valued at over $600 million when he became the Secretary.  There's no way a Treasury Secretary is being prosecuted, if for no other reason than it indicts the federal government for their hiring of criminals for top tier positions - that will NEVER happen.

HSBC is just the latest in a long string of corruption that our government pats on the back and allows to operate unscathed.  The $1.9 billion fine is about one month's revenue.  The bank barely blinked at it, nor did their stock price.  Just the cost of doing business.  And so it continues...

Lessons from Sandy Hook

So unless you've been living under a rock, you have heard about the Sandy Hook school massacre.  I was no where near a television or radio when it happened, so I didn't hear about it until mid-late afternoon that day.  Of course, once I found out, I couldn't get away from it.  Even now, I struggle with a multitude of feelings.  First, I shook my head in disappointment, thinking "What the hell is wrong with people...?"  Later, I was passing by the television in the living room where my wife was just finding out about it, watching in shock.  The anchor was pontificating about what would cause someone to do such a thing.  I thought, "Well of course he took to mass murder!  He was unhappy, so everyone must share in his misery.  That's how it is!  No one has the guts to just deal with their own shit, they have to drag innocent people into it..."  Obviously, I was getting angry and cynical.  I made sure to NOT watch any coverage of the event, no longer having the stomach for it.  The next morning, I went online, and saw a headline on one of my news sights, saying that almost all the children had been shot multiple times, leaving some of them almost unrecognizable.  Right then, for the first time in my life, I knew what a truly broken heart felt like.  Killing them wasn't enough, he had to mutilate them with bullets - as if he was getting off on it.  I almost cried as I read the article: Victoria Soto, the teacher who was killed shielding the children from the bullets with her body as she funneled them into a closet.  And that's how they found her - dead on top of the children she was protecting;  Dawn Hochsprung, the principal who went after the gunman, and gave her life in the attempt to overtake him;  Twenty children, who knew nothing about life except enjoying it - the ultimate perk of youth.

Then I was flipping through channels and passed by the group of news networks.  I stopped on FOX News for a moment, to see Mike Huckabee offering commentary, in the vein that the shooting happened because we've taken God out of the schools.  And I just wanted to throw something through the TV.  Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, YES - believing in something bigger than yourself, that instills a respect for the world you live in, would make the world a better place.  But to blame the removal of school prayer and the refusal to teach religion as science as reasons for... what, God's punishment, in the form of a massacre?  That's wholly irresponsible, and it underlines a major contributor to these types of coverage:  the sensationalism of tragedy.

These networks are beyond the pale.  Something horrible happens, and within an hour, they have gripping headlines, a tragedy moniker, a theme song, and the anchors look as if they're masturbating while covering it, just enraptured at the sound of their own voice.  They have psychologists lined up for "official" opinions, reporters on the scene eagerly asking every person they can get there greedy little paws on how they are feeling right now, as if they are expecting different answers five people in.  They have photographers snapping photos of everyone, just itching for that one shot that wins them a Pulitzer - cause if you can't capitalize on a tragedy, why are you in the job, yes?  And if there's one thing people in that situation want more than anything, it's having the entire planet seeing a gut-wrenching photo of them in the most vulnerable and heart-broken state they've ever been in their entire life on the cover of TIME, Life, or NewsWeek for eternity.  There is truly nothing more heartless in this country than the media, and they are proud of it, wearing the label like a badge of honor.

The argument has been made that the media is one of the ones to blame for tragedies like this, because they encourage the downtrodden and depressed to one-up the guy who did it two weeks ago - you too can be famous!  There's some merit to that, although it's a bit broad for my taste.  And for the ever-popular claim that a gunman had a mental illness, this argument assumes a great deal of clarity being capable of the mentally ill.

I think there's more merit to the argument that gaming and social media do a great deal more to contribute to someone's thinking than the media.  Games, especially the exceptionally violent and graphic ones, desensitize kids to violence and bloody, gruesome images.  Do they make people violent? No, not if they are of sound mind.  But if they are mentally unbalanced?  Yes, I can see a contribution to the state of mind occurring.  And people spend so much time on social media now, they barely interact with other actual people.  Gamers are more likely to feel connected to their avatar than real people these days.  And if you're already an introvert, or "socially awkward," as they like to call it, you already lack the connection to people that would have you feeling something for them, so imagine how detached social media and gaming can increase that widening gap between them and reality.  Many people call this a cop-out argument, but it's actually much stronger than you think - especially if we're so ready and willing to blame the media for the same thing.

Gun control.  Let's face it, we need it.  It won't stop events like this, where the guns were legally owned by his mother.  But we have to get tested and licensed for a variety of things - in some cases, like driver's licenses, you have to do it every so many years - something as dangerous as guns should definitely be on the list.  The goal of regulation is to make it more difficult for criminals to have access to black market weapons, but it should also be to make sure that weapon ownership is legal and safe.  Everyone wanting to purchase a gun, should have to disclose the number of children and mentally challenged in their home, so they can be advised of the strongest measures to take in securing the weapon and ammunition in the home.  In cases like this (although, sadly, the mother was a victim here), the owner should not be allowed to own a firearm anymore if a child, or mentally unbalanced person, gains access to it and hurts themselves or someone else - clearly responsibility is not being exercised.  And doing nothing, or worse, brushing it off because it's too political of an issue, is simply not acceptable anymore.

There are many factors that contributed to this tragedy, and we will hear about some of them in the weeks to come.  But we, as a nation, need to take mental health and gun/ammunition regulation more seriously.  And the media seriously needs to stop glorifying every tragedy that occurs.  A mass murder isn't your giddy answer to Sweeps week.

Benghazi Matters

I have been a bit disappointed in both parties lately, in regards to the embassy attacks in Benghazi, Libya.  The Republicans are looking for every bogeyman in every nook and cranny, in a desperate attempt to paint Barack Obama as a traitorous heathen.  Democrats have made every attempt to blow over the attack, and the resulting post mortem that was destined to follow, dismissing any questions of mishandling or impropriety as a partisan witch hunt.   

Now, whether you care about the attack or not - don't be surprised that people wouldn't, the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Benghazi "just one of many" attacks that have cost Americans their lives, in many people's eyes - there is a serious problem with the attack and the response to it.  For starters, security measures had been dialed back at the embassy, despite smaller attacks in previous weeks, including a mortar round blowing a hole in one of the outer walls.  Requests for increased security measures were denied, including one by Lt. Colonel Andrew Wood to maintain a special security team in Libya.  There was enough danger in the area that other countries, including Britain, closed their embassies, deeming them unsafe - a claim highlighted by the Red Cross finally pulling out for the same reason.  So why were we even still there?  The embassy attack lasted almost seven hours.  Many people don't realize that.  They think it was just a hit-and-run, and people were killed.  Not so.  And in the process of a seven-hour attack, the Americans pleaded for help several times, with no help given.  This included soldiers in nearby camps begging to be allowed to go in and assist them, to be told to "Stand down" by their commanders.  Even worse, the Navy Seal who was killed thought he WAS getting help, in the form of an air assault.  So he went out to the perimeter of the building to point a laser at mortar rounds that the air support could hit.  Doing this exposed him - using the laser gave up his position.  When the help never came, he was doomed.  "Dying in vain" doesn't even do it justice.

After the attack, Washington D.C. was in an uproar.  Over the next couple of weeks, the Obama administration spent a great deal of time blaming the attack on a anti-Islam video, called "Innocence of Muslims," produced and directed by a former porn director in California, which did indeed spur some protests in Cairo, Egypt at the same time as the Benghazi attack.  Many people will mostly remember Obama, during the presidential debates, say he called it a terrorist attack the very next day, in a speech given in the Rose Garden.  In the transcript, he clearly uses the phrase "acts of terror," and two sentences later, says "... our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act."  Many have argued that it was a general reference to acts of terror, not specified to Benghazi.  It's a very loose, but not entirely wrong argument, although the second phrase does hint at the first.  But Obama insists he knew it was a terrorist attack from the beginning, and his Rose Garden comments reflected that fact.  So I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but if he's telling the truth, insisting on that has painted him into an awfully ugly corner, for a number of problems exist:

• If the president knew it was terrorism, why would he send White House Press Secretary Jay Carney out the next day to blame the attack on a video protest that got out of hand?  Carney is the President's and White House's face and voice to the nation on a daily basis.  And nothing comes out of Carney's mouth that hasn't already been vetted by the WH Director of Communications, especially on such a sensitive subject.  So are we really to believe Carney did this on his own?
• Why was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice chosen to go on talk shows and give interviews over the next couple of weeks to discuss Benghazi when, according to herself, the CIA, the FBI and the White House, she knew nothing about it?  They all say she was simply using intelligence info given to her, that she had no knowledge of her own about it.  And since her intelligence info was compiled by the State Department, and they say they never concluded that the attack was the result of a demonstration about the video, then how did she have that info in her talking points?
• Furthermore, why were the words "al Qaeda" and "terrorist" removed from the talking points before she gave her first interview?  They've given several different answers to this, none of which has a consensus.  Hell, they can't even come to a consensus on WHO actually edited them out...
• And if we accept Obama's claim that he knew all along it was terrorism, how does he reconcile giving a speech to the UN and a visit on tv's The View, where he himself blamed the video?  Was he lying about what he knew, to avoid looking incompetent?  Or was he telling the truth, and decided to just run with the cover up story anyway, hoping to get through the election before having to answer for any of it?  This is the issue I actually care the least about, the other issues are far more important.  But this is one part that will haunt him for a while, if the witch hunters have any say...

Obviously, everyone involved in this is full of it, and that includes the president.  He had an election to win, and the Benghazi attack could not have come at a worse time, especially when his campaign was declaring al Qaeda "decimated," despite well known growth of the terrorist organization in Syria and Yemen, and knowledge that al Qaeda had been making inroads in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's expulsion and death.  Clearly, this all was an attempt to defer dealing with another al Qaeda terrorist attack until after the election.  Susan Rice was chosen because she's as far away from Obama's White House as possible, while still being an "official" of the administration.  And handing intelligence to a person with no knowledge of anything offers a plausible deniability buffer.  This is serious enough to have derailed Obama's re-election, if Mitt Romney hadn't bungled it all up with that ridiculous "Gotcha!" attempt at catching Obama in a lie during the 2nd debate.  Romney's people were so ignorant, they didn't even realize that believing Obama's story makes what happened even worse - instead they wanted to trip him up, and ended up looking like fools in the process - and worse, made Obama look sympathetic.  They couldn't have gift wrapped it any better.  And Obama, to his credit, said nothing - he just encouraged Romney to continue, allowing Mitt to hang himself.  Never let it be said that Obama isn't very slick and bright.

Where this leaves us is with Susan Rice, who Obama wants to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.  As America's top diplomat, she would have to exhibit a measure of independence and political savvy, that this incident shines a sour image of.  And it has many people, some Democrats included, doubting her ability to to the job - especially if she's willing to walk in blind and just push the White House agenda - something she's made abundantly clear she's willing to do.  For us citizens, we may never get closure on this event, because Democrats in Congress have been stalling the process as much as possible, to get to the end of the session.  By the time the next session starts, they're hoping we'll have let it wade out of our minds, in favor of other things.  Let's hope that's not the case.  Regardless what anyone believes, this situation has become twisted enough that we at least are owed closure on it, so everyone can move on.  I'm tired of watching the president tap dance.  He has a job to do, and we need him to do it well, which means this needs to be finished - sooner rather than later.