America - The Official Thread

[Biggles]

Barr will leave his post by Christmas. If he'd been better at his job he'd have been able to find concrete evidence of the enormous imaginary fraud. At least he found some kind of principle in the end.

Yup - after 4 years, it's starting to look like the only person Trump ever hired who was actually qualified to do their job was Stormy Daniels.

 

[McLaren]

Barr will leave his post by Christmas. If he'd been better at his job he'd have been able to find concrete evidence of the enormous imaginary fraud. At least he found some kind of principle in the end.

And you'll probably read all about it in his upcoming book.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Too many morons in the world. It is getting ridiculous.

There's a reason we're searching for intelligent life on other planets.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Look out for a large boulder out there. You can see the size of it in the text:

 

[Biggles]

Look out for a large boulder out there. You can see the size of it in the text:

View attachment 978353

Devious! A large boulder ... disguising itself as a small boulder.

 

[Keef]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

 

[Blitz24]

Devious! A large boulder ... disguising itself as a small boulder.

Can't trust rocks anymore.

 

[UKMikey]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

I wonder whether like me anyone else was humming the theme tune from "Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch!" while skimming that article. The home invasion sounded like the story of Goldilocks in reverse.

 

[Danoff]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

Some libertarians have this idea that being free from some government restrictions means that you don't need the things those government restrictions are providing. Like, being free from road maintenance taxes means being free from paying for road maintenance. Or being free from government regulations on how to use your land means you should use it however you want. Consequences caught up with them. The reality of libertarianism is that it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of paying for things like roads, police, judges, schools, and intelligently controlling how you use your land.

It's sad to think how many people within libertarianism don't fundamentally understand it. It makes me feel like a minority within a minority.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

This part got me.

If you’ve ever encountered a freshly minted Ayn Rand enthusiast, you know what I mean.

Been there. Ayn Rand paints a pretty compelling world view. Be completely unyielding, view things in stark black and white. In some ways I think it's so compelling because its theoretically so easy. There is a strict binary response to any and all encounters. You basically become Dwight Shrute.

Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
As the people of Grafton soon found out, a nontraditional housing situation meant a camp in the woods or a bunch of shipping containers or whatever. They brought in yurts and mobile homes and formed little clusters of cabins and tents. There was one location called “Tent City,” where a bunch of people just lived in tents from day to day. They all united under this broad umbrella principle of “personal freedom,” but as you’d expect, there was a lot of variation in how they exercised it.

Wait, why didn't they just go to Berkeley?

 

[Keef]

Some libertarians have this idea that being free from some government restrictions means that you don't need the things those government restrictions are providing. Like, being free from road maintenance taxes means being free from paying for road maintenance. Or being free from government regulations on how to use your land means you should use it however you want. Consequences caught up with them. The reality of libertarianism is that it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of paying for things like roads, police, judges, schools, and intelligently controlling how you use your land.

It's sad to think how many people within libertarianism don't fundamentally understand it. It makes me feel like a minority within a minority.

Exactly. Discussing this with a friend, it literally took me five minutes to come up with a business plan for trash collection in a tiny town like that. It sounds very reasonable to a customer but would be highly lucrative considering it involves tossing crap into a pickup truck and tossing it back out at the county dump lmao. I'd be glad to pull $60k+ a year off handling a libertarian enclave's trash for less than a Netflix subscription. Wait til they hear about my Freedom Deals and other free-market it's-in-the-contract gems.

 

[Crash]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

Funnily enough, I saw and read that same article last night. It brings up good points about ideal vs reality, and I'm going to put that book on my to-read list now.

 

[Famine]

By the looks of the US COVID death statistics, the peak is Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday each week, with a drop every Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Every single day last week was the worst of that particular day so far... until this week. Yesterday was the worst Tuesday and third worst day full stop, until Wednesday...

The good news is if everything goes by the same numbers we've seen so far, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War will remain in second place until next week.

1. ~6,000 - September 8, 1900 - Galveston Hurricane
2. 3,650 - September 17, 1862 - Battle of Antietam/Civil War
3. 3,400 - December 16, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
4. 3,206 - December 9, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic*
5. 3,115 - December 10, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic*
6. ~3,000 - April 18, 1906 - San Francisco Earthquake
7. 2,977 - September 11, 2001 - 9/11
8. 2,971 - December 16, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
9. 2,769 - May 7, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
10. 2,733 - December 2, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic

Only one day in the worst five in this pandemic is not in December.

As noted earlier, this excludes the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1920, as detailed records were not kept; however multiple days likely exceeded even Galveston, possibly the entire month of October 1918, and some days either side.

 

[Joey D]

I'm just learning about the Free Town Project, when a bunch of libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire and ruined everything. Funny thing is the people on the libertarian rubreddit don't seem to get it.

Libertarians are all over the board and I think many of them are anarchists that have no concept of how libertarianism is supposed to work. Yes, there are personal freedoms and whatnot, but not wanting the government to do something is not the same as just not doing something at all.

 

[Liquid]

Which US state usually gets the highest amount of Libertarian votes?

That would be the place to start. I don't think the big L party will ever succeed on a 50-state platform. It's trying to spin too many plates.

 

[Joey D]

Which US state usually gets the highest amount of Libertarian votes?

That would be the place to start. I don't think the big L party will ever succeed on a 50-state platform. It's trying to spin too many plates.

I believe in terms of registered Libertarians in relation to all registered voters, it's Montana. But libertarianism (the idea, not the party) leeches its way into several parties.

 

[Keef]

Which US state usually gets the highest amount of Libertarian votes?

That would be the place to start. I don't think the big L party will ever succeed on a 50-state platform. It's trying to spin too many plates.

Like Joey said, Montana is a big one, as well as New Hampshire and Maine. Iowa, supposedly, but they've obviously all come out of the closet this year.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Ever wanted to demolish a Trump Casino? Place your bids.

 

[Dotini]

I was startled when I ran across a headline that said "cyber pandemic" a few days ago, but paid no attention. But now I see a story that reaches out and grabs my attention, although I'm unsure what it really means.

U.S. has evidence hackers accessed its nuclear networks -Politico
By Reuters Staff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers gained access to their networks as part of a massive cyber campaign, Politico reported on Thursday, citing officials directly familiar with the matter.

Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Tim Ahmann

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/nuclear-agency-hacked-officials-inform-congress-447855

 

[Keef]

I think it's amusing that we're getting all these stories and "reports" about the Russians hacking us, but we never hear about us hacking them. I have to imagine that CIA is attempting it. Maybe they're not? We wouldn't want to risk an act of war after on our part. Perhaps we're allowing the Russians to phish within certain bounds? Are we letting them in on purpose to see what they can do and contain their efforts?

Or are we losing?

 

[Liquid]

Or are we losing?

Bigly.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I think it's amusing that we're getting all these stories and "reports" about the Russians hacking us, but we never hear about us hacking them. I have to imagine that CIA is attempting it. Maybe they're not? We wouldn't want to risk an act of war after on our part. Perhaps we're allowing the Russians to phish within certain bounds? Are we letting them in on purpose to see what they can do and contain their efforts?

Or are we losing?

You'll never know, any Russian news reports about similar American interference won't make it to the US or they'll be dismissed as propaganda.

The truth is surely that everybody's doing it to each other as much as they can. I have first-hand experience of an attempt by a foreign agency to steal a specific set of documents for a specific (large and famous) site, to the people who police these things all the time it seemed a weary matter of course. This particular attack is a biggy, over the last few days we're hearing that the rogue update infected tens of thousands of machines at various levels of government and security... but everybody's at it. No doubt about it.

 

[Keef]

but everybody's at it. No doubt about it.

And they expect us to administer our own damage control? I just watched Ohio State come back from behind. Notre Dame has a long way to go but they could pull it off. Where is our coaching? Why do we have to settle for doom and gloom? As propagandized as our current administration is, where are our victory chants? Why do we suffer consequences but celebrate no victories?

Is our president a Russian plant? Is our administration controlled by Russian intelligence? Why are they allowing Americans to suffer from worry for our security? Should we not at least be confident in our defense if not energized for our offense? @Dotini @Danoff

 

[Liquid]

I obviously present no evidence to back this up but on a gut feeling... there is definitely something going on between Donald Trump and the Russian Federation.

Not that he's an actual, documented double agent for them, with a regular salary or commission within the FSB (today's KGB). He's no Aldrich Ames. But there's something suspicious going on; whether it's classic blackmail and extortion, or it's his financial arreas and being indebted to financiers in or from Russia, I do have this instinctive feeling that the Russian Federation or some of its citizens have some sort of leverage on him with which they can apply pressure.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I obviously present no evidence to back this up but on a gut feeling... there is definitely something going on between Donald Trump and the Russian Federation.

Not that he's an actual, documented double agent for them, with a regular salary or commission within the FSB (today's KGB). He's no Richard Ames. But there's something suspicious going on; whether it's classic blackmail and extortion, or it's his financial arreas and being indebted to financiers in or from Russia, I do have this instinctive feeling that the Russian Federation or some of its citizens have some sort of leverage on him with which they can apply pressure.

In the very least, and not refuting anything you said, Donald Trump is immensely insecure. In his head, Russia's innocence is inversely proportional to Donald Trump's self image and self legitimacy. Russia cannot have done this cyber intrusion because Russia cannot be the bad guy because Russia cannot be the reason he won the 2016 election.

 

[Dotini]

And they expect us to administer our own damage control? I just watched Ohio State come back from behind. Notre Dame has a long way to go but they could pull it off. Where is our coaching? Why do we have to settle for doom and gloom? As propagandized as our current administration is, where are our victory chants? Why do we suffer consequences but celebrate no victories?

Is our president a Russian plant? Is our administration controlled by Russian intelligence? Why are they allowing Americans to suffer from worry for our security? Should we not at least be confident in our defense if not energized for our offense? @Dotini @Danoff

I know little of cyber security so don't have much of an opinion. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the dimensions of the solarwinds/fireEye problem. I append (1) random Youtube video. Apparently it started last March and affects governments and major corporations on a global basis. Their data is being gathered. It is not proven what the source of the hack is, but there is a prime suspect. Apparently, the stakes are high, extending past just access to networks, but to the actual control over them.



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/16/solarwinds-orion-hack-scrutiny-technology

https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/17/f...JGv4hcZ4LYp-uqf6UJI1Bf4dFZpzvXzJZHgn-b_4irlCe

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...a53b88-3d7d-11eb-9453-fc36ba051781_story.html

 

[TenEightyOne]

Russia cannot have done this cyber intrusion because Russia cannot be the bad guy because Russia cannot be the reason he won the 2016 election.

Yes. But you have to remember that it cost him the 2020 election, although the hack didn't happen, although it also did happen because of Biden, and that's that. This isn't even mental gymnastics for a man whose own mind has no walls, barriers, or well-formed geometry of any kind.

I know little of cyber security so don't have much of an opinion. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the dimensions of the solarwinds/fireEye problem.

It's actually frighteningly simple. Software is made that allows connections for data upload/download. In any organisation worth its salt the software requires authentication (passwords, usernames) to access data. That data can be anything from the HVAC plans for nuclear power stations to minutes of the 3rd. Floor Soup Association's monthly meeting, and of course different users and security levels have access to different sets and classifications of data.

There are really two ways to hack databases. The best, most popular action is to hack the softest part of the system - the people. I was once part of an in-company experiment that had permission to hack the user accounts of some management personnel (with the permission and collaboration of their manager). We got all their passwords in one afternoon. We didn't log in but they verified their passwords to us. We used a phishing email attack for that using resources taken from the company main page on a vanilla, non-company laptop. The results were disseminated through the company and there was an immediate downturn in the number of cases of malicious attempts on various parts of the data network.

But that's not what happened here, or if it did it was very early in the chain of events.

There's another weakness in a database that should be far harder to exploit but which can be enormously profitable if an attacker makes it work. If an attacker can update the programming of the software itself then they can do all kinds of things including installing "back door" usernames, publishing user keys to remote addresses, all kinds of things.

And there's the weakness - the software is changed all the time through authorised updates. In this case a genuine software update was altered to include malware (a Trojan attack) and every single place running the software received the update without question.

How far does this spread? The SolarWinds software is used globally and so the malicious update is installed globally. However, it seems that only specific organisations were targeted. These haven't been named but they're very likely departments or organisations with access to lots of security-critical data. For now the presumption will have to be that every single user of SolarWinds could credibly have been affected.

To muddy the waters there are suggestions from some researchers (including at Microsoft) that parts of this attack may pre-date the malicious update. I guess we'll know more about that when (if) a more detailed timeline is released.

 

[Touring Mars]

It looks like most of my passwords have been compromised, so its time to update everything...

 

[Biggles]

I have heard plans for a new reality TV show where every member of Congress has all their pay and assets frozen, their taxpayer-funded health care taken away and they're given $600 to live on.

 

[Keef]

I have heard plans for a new reality TV show where every member of Congress has all their pay and assets frozen, their taxpayer-funded health care taken away and they're given $600 to live on.

I'd watch the hell out of that. I'll even give you my Netflix password if you're hurting for it.