Category Archives: Anonymous

11/20/2012
3 Comments
Afrika Bambaataa, Anonymous, Bible, Fox News, Hip Hop, Karl Rove, Man from UNCLE, Marco Rubio, Neko Case, ORCA, Public Enemy

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The Bible tries to make humans not animals the whole time. I think it’s a bit of a mistake.” — Neko Case

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BIBLE BABBLE

Marco Rubio looks to be in line to become the next Republican pretty boy.

I figured way back in 2010 that he’d be the GOP nominee in the election just past but it seems he and the gang decided his time hadn’t come yet. Either that or the party had a wacky urge to see what would happen if they ran an empty shell of a man for the nation’s highest office.

2016?

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Anyway, GQ this month jumped on the Florida junior senator’s float, running a wide-ranging interview with him. For instance, he tells of his enjoyment of the music of Afrika Bambaataa and Public Enemy, among other hip hop acts. He even expresses misgivings that hip hop has become, well, vanilla.

BTW: The very notion that a white GOP sweetheart digs hip hop — and even knows who’s who in the fabled, homicidal East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry — has caused me to suffer a juddering seizure. I’m better now, thanks.

GQ throws the obligatory how-anti-intellectual-are-you interrogatory at the putative Party-of-God candidate, causing Rubio to muse on cosmology, geology, evolution, and other un-godly concepts all in a one-paragraph riposte.

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

Rubio: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says…. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified  to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all….

The GOP Is Still Riding The Dinosaur

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Isn’t it telling how he leads off by saying he’s not a scientist? At first glance, it might seem a nice, humble way of saying the question of existence is far beyond a single human being’s limited intellectual capabilities.

But knowing what we know of the GOP’s marketing strategies over the last few decades, doesn’t it sound as though he’s still hewing to the science-is-evil line? I’m not a scientist, man can be as much a manifesto for a Republican as I’m not a Commie or I’m not a Satan worshipper.

No matter how many hip hop acts a Republican may be into, he or she still has to move into the 21st Century.

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A CONSPIRACY TO THWART A CONSPIRACY?

And speaking of my fave whipping boy party, the interwebs are all aflutter over the claim by Anonymous that it foiled a nefarious Republican plan to steal the 2012 election for its empty shell of a man candidate.

Anonymous, in case you’ve lived in a Himalayan monastery for the last several years, is the secretive collective of hacktivists who’ve sabotaged or exposed numerous corporate or government meanies by electronically waltzing into their computer files. They’ve pulled the curtains back on the Kony 2012 charlatans in March and the loons who run Scientology over the last couple of years.

Anonymous Has No Leader Or Formal Organization

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In a rococo letter allegedly penned by members of the uber-geek group, Anonymous claims to have thwarted Karl Rove and friends from jobbing the Ohio ballot via their sophisticated vote tabulation software called ORCA. Anonymous operatives, the letter claimed, knew in advance that Rove’s mob was going to play dirty so they preemptively hacked ORCA and stopped it from turning Obama votes into Romney votes.

According to this scenario, that’s why Karl Rove had apoplexy on election night when his Fox News masters called Ohio for Obama. That would be impossible, Rove presumably would know, had his ORCA plot played out properly.

You Can’t Say That, We Fixed This Election!

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The fact is I don’t trust Karl Rove as far as I can throw him, which wouldn’t be terribly far considering a formless blob is awfully difficult to heave. Still, I don’t know about this dime-novel plot and knight-in-shining-armor rescue tale.

Here are the main questions to consider:

  • Did Anonymous actually thwart an election-rigging cyberplot?
  • Has someone claiming to be speaking for Anonymous created this out of thin air?
  • Has Anonymous itself created this out of thin air?

Believe me, I’d love to see Karl Rove and his fellow reprobates go down in flames. This story seems a little too Man From Uncle-ish, though. I’d like to see some good investigative journalists take this one on.

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I WISH I WAS THE MOON

By Neko Case.

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12/27/2011
2 Comments
Alycin Bektesh, Anonymous, Chad Carrothers, Franklin P. Adams, Goldilocks Zone, January Jones, John Wasik, Joy Shayne Laughter, Kepler Mission, Linda Wertheimer, NASA, Nikola Tesla, NPR, Ryan Lee Dawes, Stratfor, Thomas Edison, WFHB

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“Christmas is over and Business is Business.” — Franklin P. Adams

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THE NEWS GOES ON

Got an update yesterday from Ryan Dawes on the state of the WFHB news department.

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Things are running fairly smoothly in the wake of former News Director January Jones’ resignation earlier this month. Assistant New Director Alycin Bektesh has been bumped up to acting ND and Dawes is now acting Assistant ND. He’s still keeping his day job at Rock Paper Scissors music promotion.

Dawes hopes grant prospector Joy Laughter can dig up some foundation dough to pay for an intern who can take over transcribing city and county meetings from CATS Week videos.

The hunt for a new ND goes on. I’ll say GM Chad Carrothers and the WFHB Board will be hard pressed to find a better candidate than Bektesh.

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

I’m not revealing an Earth-shattering secret when I say credit card companies are run by evil geniuses.

It’s a sure bet they’re working at this very moment on a protocol that will monetize the air that we inhale during the 45 seconds or so it takes us to complete a charge transaction.

The only people in this crazy, mixed-up world who can approach them in creative deviousness are the shadowy figures who call themselves Anonymous.

Dr. No Would Have Made A Fine Credit Card Company Exec

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Anonymous recently hacked into the Austin, Texas-based Stratfor company’s internet servers. Stratfor is part of the global security-intelligence-complex that threatens to turn our little planet into a cheap dystopian science fiction novel.

Stratfor’s Home Page At 7:45am EST

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Rumors abound that Anonymous gained access to the credit card accounts of Stratfor’s customers and then made unauthorized contributions to do-good charities via those cards. The things Anonymous does may technically be crimes but I say, Keep on breakin’ the law, babies!

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Anyway, NPR’s Linda Wertheimer reports this morning that those credit card companies damn well won’t take criminal charity-giving lying down. She interviews an expert who says the credit card companies not only will hit the charities up for the dough that was given them but — get this — they likely will levy stiff fines against said do-gooders!

And just in case you’ve forgotten, credit card companies are the loudest of critics of any proposed regulations on the banking industry.

Sigh.

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WHO DO THE GUYS ON OTHER PLANETS PRAY TO?

Okay, give me props. I behaved myself during the just-concluded Christmas season. I endured the barrage of communiques urging me to celebrate the birth of the son of the mythical creator of the Universe (as well as to engage in a venal orgy of consumer greed — because, you know, that’s what “He” would want).

Honoring The Father And The Son

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I didn’t scream or kick or withdraw into a cocoon.

But now it’s my turn.

NASA’s Kepler telescope, which is scanning our little corner of the Milky Way galaxy as we speak, has confirmed the existence of 33 planets orbiting neighboring stars and is studying more than 2300 other probable planets. Part of Kepler’s mission as it circles the Earth is to find those extra-solar planets that reside in what’s called the Goldilocks Zone, the area around a star in which a planet might conceivably support life.

Cool, huh?

Even cooler: Kepler has now identified a couple of planets in the Goldilocks Zone.

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Remember, Kepler is really a primitive planet finder compared to what we Home Sapiens sapiens will have in a few decades. Expect a flood of Earthlike planets to be discovered in our lifetimes.

That means a lot more chances for intelligent life to have evolved all around the Milky Way.

Heck, one day we might even evolve into intelligent life.

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TESLA IN THIS MORTAL COIL

Speaking of alien lifeforms, Nikola Tesla was as odd a bird as ever bobbed into a research lab.

He developed the alternating current electrical system and an early form of radio in addition to dozens of other innovations. He was a brain on two legs.

Nikola Tesla

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Sadly, though, that brain was a tad faulty. He was obsessive-compulsive, would only stay in hotel rooms with numbers divisible by three, had a phobia of germs, avoided pearl earrings, and surrounded himself with pigeons (some have speculated he was even sexually aroused by them). Oh, and he was celibate.

He was, in short, nuts.

Tesla’s not as well known as Thomas Edison mainly because Edison was somewhat sane, if predatory. Edison is reputed to have screwed Tesla out of money and credit for his electrical advances.

My old pal, the green economy maven John Wasik, is working on a book about the man, entitled “Unlimited Power: The Secrets of Nikola Tesla.” He spoke about Tesla recently at a Midwest gathering of Serbian-Americans (Tesla was an ethnic Serb born in what is now Croatia.)

Here’s John:

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