BWare

Back in the 90s, a Yosemite Park ranger claimed he was shot by someone he stopped acting suspiciously. Turns out, he shot himself and made up a story about a deranged gunman to cover it up. A manhunt ensued, the usual (innocent) suspects rounded up, and about six months later, park rangers everywhere had gone from helpful conservationists and guide to armed and obnoxious LEOs. They used the incident to ask for guns, got them, and even though it was bogus, never looked back. And now you can get tooled by an armed ranger anywhere in the ditch.

It’s no coincidence that that’s when the Center of The Universe was shut down.

I give it six months before the TSA goons are armed. Even though they have no police training, are basically minimum wage slaves, untrained, and wear uniforms. They’ll be up before Congress saying that the LAX incident proves they need guns. Then next time you’re going through the useless billion dollar porno-scanners, it’ll be an untrained minimum wage slave with a gun that you’re dealing with.

I predict more citizens shot waiting in TSA lines in the near future. And of course, every shooting will be justified. As every shooting is now. No matter how many of the shots are in your back.

In other news, the NYC marathon went off without a hitch, due to high levels of security. Don’t expect that to go away anytime soon. Even though the next attack won’t be at any such highly guarded target.

Given the recent past of US security chiefs committing perjury, and failing to understand operational security, it's not hard to believe that they might also have no concept of diplomacy and blowback.

What could possibly go wrong?!?

Well, so far, nothing. No events of consequence yet. Except the now inevitable, slow-moving, but inexorable process towards a closed and non-interoperable web. The network will now begin to look like China. Each country will have its own firewall, its own backbones, and the world will slowly move off into true walled gardens, little AOLs and Compuserves. Though that process was beginning in other ways, with all the information on the social networks being walled off from the rest of the network.

Maybe it was never really that open and free. But the illusion created a trillion dollar industry from scratch. What will the inevitable blowback from the upcoming fence-building create? Aside from more jobs at the NSA.

NSA didn’t interdict the communications of the Nairobi mall terrorists, despite their Twittering.

Defund them. Scatter their ashes to the wind. Their productive operations are illegal, and their legal operations are unproductive.

Tyrannosaurus rex, or just the air compressor three floors below kicking on again?

Yeah, this is supposed to be a scientific work environment.