Jots & Tittles: NSA

Thursday, June 26, 2014

The DAy By Day TV Stuff

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The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns ... instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."
--George Orwell

There is so much to write about but most of the items that interest me are questions already answered by various scientists throughout the years.

One of those questions is:

Tectonic Plates -- were these plates perhaps originally formed from the many and diverse explosive joinings of meteoric rocks and space junks during the eons when the planet Earth was being put together? I could look it up, as I often do for such questions. But it's too much trouble, at my advanced age and nearly depleted source of energy.

On the political side, another question is:

Why is it so hard to find those supposedly destroyed emails from the IRS's Lois Lerner? Surely the NSA has copies of them.

But that's too easy, I suppose.

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Did You Know . . .?

Three suicide bombers prematurely exploded because the bombs were set on daylight savings time.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1945, the Charter for the United Nations was signed in San Francisco. The United Nations was born of perceived necessity, as a means of better arbitrating international conflict and negotiating peace than was provided for by the old League of Nations. The growing Second World War became the real impetus for the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union to begin formulating the original U.N. Declaration, signed by 26 nations in January 1942, as a formal act of opposition to Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Axis Powers.

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WORD FOR TODAY

excommunicate
verb
1. to cut off from communion with a church or exclude from the sacraments of a church by ecclesiastical sentence.
2. to exclude or expel from membership or participation in any group, association, etc.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Christopher Eugene "Chris" O'Donnell

(born June 26, 1970)

Chris O'Donnell is an American actor. He played Dick Grayson/Robin in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman, Finn Dandridge in Grey's Anatomy, Peter Garrett in Vertical Limit, and Jack McAuliffe in The Company. O'Donnell stars as NCIS Special Agent G. Callen on the CBS crime drama television series NCIS: Los Angeles.

Julia Benson

(born circa 1979)

Julia Benson is a Canadian actress. She trained as a ballet, tap, jazz dancer since age six. She graduated from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) in 2001 with a degree in theatre and psychology. She trained as an actress at David Mamets' Atlantic Theater Company in New York City.

Robert Selden Duvall

(born January 5, 1931)

Robert Duvall is an American actor and director. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards (winning for his performance in Tender Mercies), six Golden Globes (winning four), and has multiple nominations and one win each of the BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Emmy Award.

Aubrey Christina Plaza

(born June 26, 1984)

Aubrey Plaza is an American actress and comedian who has gained popularity with her deadpan-style comedy. She portrays April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation.

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Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind.
--Natalie Goldberg

This Is Who I Am

Thursday, January 16, 2014

George Orwell With A Twist

Tucson Weather Today

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On January 14, 2014 the New York Times reported:

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks. While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

More from the New York Times

My opinion:

A more appropriate designation for the NSA (National Security Agency) would be the SS (Secret Service) and it is the most dangerous current threat in existence to individual liberty for the United States of America, and perhaps, eventually, for the entire population of Earth itself.

I understand that President Obama will issue some new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but it is clear that he believes the NSA has a right to use modern technology to gather and store information from any source in order to ensure security for the nation.

What such actions by the NSA will do, even though Obama says his administration would never do it, is to allow this government agency to gather and store data that can be used to suppress and negate any and all protests by the citizenry. Even if Obama is sincere and correct, these stored data will still be available (by law) to a future governing body that is not so trustworthy as is Obama's. Imagine what a Richard Nixon type regime could and probably would do with such information.

Think about it.

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Did You Know . . .?

Human Beings are the only primates whose numbers are not in decline.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1997, comedian and TV star Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son Ennis Cosby was murdered after he stopped to fix a flat tire along California's Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The 405 is known as one of the planet's busiest and most congested roadways. A Ukrainian-born teenager, Mikhail Markhasev reportedly high on drugs, approached Cosby to rob him but when Cosby took too long to hand over money he was shot and killed.

Ennis Cosby was the third of Bill Cosby's five children and said to be the inspiration for the character of Theo Huxtable on the hit TV sitcom "The Cosby Show."

In August 1998 Markhasev, then 19. was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 10 years for first-degree murder and attempted robbery.

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WORD FOR TODAY

subjugation
noun
the state of being kept down by unjust use of force or authority; oppression

Subjugation is one of many types of injustice in the world. It has to do with one group of people dominating another group by taking away their freedom. When slavery was legal in the U.S., that was a clear-cut case of subjugation: African-Americans were forced to live without rights, under the control of their white owners.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Deborrah Kaye “Debbie” Allen

(born January 16, 1950)

Debbie Allen is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She is perhaps best known for her work on the 1982 musical-drama television series Fame, where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series' principal choreographer. She is the younger sister of actress Phylicia Rashad.

Josie Rebecca Davis

(born January 16, 1973)