Cyber-attack keyboards exhibited a frantic clicking last week, and they owe much of their success to those OH-so-very-futuristic households where everything but the toilet paper (and maybe even that, somewhere) absolutely must be computer-controlled. Thanks to digital doorbells, baby monitors, refrigerators and a host of other devices intended to tell the world, "We're all connected," cyber-spooks assumed control of those many and varied Internet-ready assets to temporarily overwhelm and crash Web sites which serve as the life and blood for major companies, including Amazon.com, causing a denial of service in the U.S. and elsewhere for half a day. Who wouldn't have seen THAT coming? The experts who can't prevent this sort of thing, apparently.
Digital is all ready to drive your car, digital is poised to send us off to Mars, and digital lurks restlessly as we humans allow its dominance over every essential public function. Digital wants to possess us, too, and eternally busy hackers demand influence on the whole operation, dedicated to shaping all things digital and everybody else's personal digital to their own liking. This is the future? Pretty cozy relationship -- hackers lust for power over our meanderings on the Internet, while progressives in the Democrat Party work diligently to build a bigger government by usurping our rights and making us wards of the federal state. This fetid, seemingly unintended partnership, taken together with the rise of a non-indicted criminal running for president, could eventually change the two-party political system so that our choices become Democrat Party One and Democrat Part Two. The spineless GOP helped make the hideously impossible possible.
This is your TV on drugs: We are their tools. The major TV networks aren't only feeding us palpable journalist-flavored lying political crap every day -- their news divisions support this addiction with a parade of drug company commercials. What could be more metaphorical? After the elections, one hopes a significant share of viewers have smartened up and won't soon forget the outrage perpetrated on us all by these pharmaceutical-financed, mind-manipulative bastards who couldn't explain true journalism if its very definition was tattooed on their butts.
Those well-established Obama White House psychologists, so proficient at molding receptive minds to the Democrats' way of thinking, must be working overtime to convince the country that Queen Hil' "deserves" to occupy the Oval Office (with ol' Bill in tow to keep an eye on the female staff, cigars readily available). And while Mrs. Obama's speeches promoting the queen sound great on the surface, it's too bad she can't bother to apologize for the extravagant vacations she and the family have taken at taxpayer expense, as her husband concurrently sent the national deficit higher than a space shuttle on the fringe. Also, what First Lady ever acquired such a large personal staff to assist in condemning, allowing or regulating what people can, can't, shouldn't or should do?
Continue to ignore 'em, Bob Dylan: His refusal so far even to acknowledge receiving the Nobel Prize puts him squarely on the plus side for me, a real "hoot" as they used to say.. Those ultra-huffy members of the committee, the same kind of nutty folks who awarded Barack Obama the Nobel even before he actually did anything to deserve it (and he still hasn't, as some voices suggest taking the award back from him), appear outraged at Dylan's silence, quiet as the tomb, regarding their issuance of this honor. We're just suggesting, but maybe he could go another six months and then send them a postcard acknowledging the action. Make it postage-due, too.
Stories I hate to read: A toddler in Washington state died in a fire last week, the deceased family dog curled up next to him, reportedly sacrificing its own life in an attempt to protect the boy. Such incidents answer the question, why shouldn't people who engage in dog fighting for "sport" not be executed on the spot? Trial by jury is the way to go, of course, but we all fantasize about a little "star chamber" justice on occasion. As if animals don't have it badly enough, now we're importing thousands of followers of Islam, whose religion evidently dictates no pets in the house, as animals are "unclean." Funny thing, my definition -- designation -- of the term, unclean regarding these folks is a little different.
Goodbye, Bobby: Just received word that singer Bobby Vee died today, age 73 I think. A hit singer at age 15, Vee delighted the teenage crowd for years with many popular singles. Somewhere in my dusty record remnants I think I still have a 45 record of a popular song from the early sixties, with his photo on the cover. Time passes quickly as one ages, it seems, and the mention that he died with Alzheimer's doesn't make the end any more palatable. Thanks, B.V.
