Who is Edward Snowden?

Who is Edward Snowden?  I have no idea, and the media and bloggers don't seem all that interested.  All I know is he was a data analyst contracting at the NSA.  He was only in his current job for 3 months, and dumped the data he had access to and promptly fled to Hong Kong.  Hong Kong is  "Special Administrative Region" of China, meaning a place where Beijing pulls all the puppet strings.  He has since disappeared, not likely without the secret police knowing his whereabouts.  So where is he, and who has him now?  I have no idea, and neither do you, and nobody seems to care too much.

Today I'm seeing people calling Snowden a hero or a traitor, but they are missing the bigger question.  Who the hell is this guy?  How did he get a crypto clearance as a contractor, and where did he get this clearance before working at his last job at the NSA?  This sort of clearance takes upwards of a year to receive, if you get one at all from the DoD.  They don't just hand these out.  I have a clearance that is somewhat lower than the one to deal with NSA data and it took 9 months, so he must have been employed by the DoD or CIA in some way prior to his last assignment.  Why are no journalists looking in to this guys background?   This is a big deal, and nobody seems to care.

Next question, is why did Snowden chose Hong Kong for refuge?  This is not exactly the bastion of free speech and democracy.   I don't know and apparently the media doesn't seem to care enough to pursue that question too much.  There are many other countries closer to home that do not have extradition treaties with the United Stated and are far less hostile to us where he could have taken flight.  Is he a Chinese agent?  Is he hoping to get the big bucks for turning over information to the Chinese?  Still nobody knows.

So now Snowden has turned up missing in Hong Kong.  A high level visitor, and he could not make a move there without the secret police knowing his whereabouts.  So, where is he and who has him?  These are things the media ought to be pursuing rather than trying to pass judgement on the guy before all the facts are known.

This is indeed a strange story, but the real questions are not being asked.

Update: After reading his interview at the South China Daily Post I'm thinking that Snowden is a bullshitter.  He wasn't at the NSA to get the data he claims he has, unless he is a hacking genius, and he is talking too much to the press without revealing anything.   Ok he is in hiding supposedly.  Are the ChiComs protecting him or laughing at him?  A contractor just does not get access to data that Snowden claims he has after just 3 months, or at least is did not used to be that way.

It will be interesting to see when the US sues in Hong Kong for his extradition, and the Chinese response.

If he ends up in China he will be a useful idiot for awhile and then sent to the rice fields of Harbin province to feed the rural peasants or more likely managing an Apple manufacturing facility.

The Castle

I was doing a bit of late night trolling for a good movie to watch on Netflix last night, and came upon a movie I remember seeing years ago, but has long dropped off the DVD sales or rentals.  "The Castle" is a funny and clever independent Australian film from 1997 with a cast of people most of us never heard of yet all turn in good performances.

It's the story of a family who lives in a small subdivision "conveniently" located at the end of a runway at Melbourne International Airport.  The land is not worth much, and the houses are.....well lets just say not castles.  The local council has decided to declare eminent domain and pay off the owners what it considers reasonable property value and sell off the land to a developer who wants to put up a commercial business that would be tied to the airport.

Most normal people would have quietly taken the offer and accepted the offer.  But the politicians, and the corporation that wanted the land never met Darryl Kerrigan.  What followed was a man who fought all the legal battles, often with poor legal consul against both the government and a thuggish company. 

Darryl and his family are not the brightest people in the world, but are decent people who just want to stay put, and they are also a good loving family who care about each other, even the son who is in prison for doing something stupid, and didn't have good legal consul. 

On the Ed Morrissey scale, I'd give this a solid 4.  Rent it or watch it on Netflix streaming video.  There is currently no DVD available.

On a slightly more serious note.  Back in the mid 1980's I purchased a small condominium in the far northern city of Queensland city of Cairns.  It is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, and a nice city.  At the time there was an ordinance against high rise buildings, a wise thing.  There really is not a good beach there, and you have to drive an hour north to Port Douglas to get to a really nice beach.

A thousand miles south of Cairns is an area south of Brisbane called Surfer's Paradise that was ruined, in my opinion by high rise hotels and condos that totally blocked out the sun on a very nice beach in the afternoon, and Cairns wanted nothing of that....for a while.

Well, as usual, money talks.  The Nikko Hotel chain of Japan wanted the piece of land where my very nice condo complex in Cairns was located, and paid off enough of the people on the local council to get the property condemned.  Most owners were people from out of state and had their condos either as vacation properties or mike me used it for investment properties.  We were offered pennies against the dollar for the value of the property, and told that is what the condos were worth.  This was not an old run down property and was only 10 years old at then time and well maintained.  The condo association tried to fight it in court, after trying to get our properties reassessed, but Nikko had better lawyers and politicians in their pockets.  Of course few of us were permanent residents of Queensland, let alone Cairns, so the local politicians didn't give a damn about us.

We eventually settled for substantially more money after a protracted legal battle, but still we all lost money.

Two years later I got a letter from my former next door neighbor who's home is in suburban Melbourne, not at the end of a runway at Tullamarine Airport though, and said what was left of the condo complex was a big pit with concrete and rebar in it and that the hotel developers went bankrupt.   Also 2 of the councilmen got indicted for taking bribes and had trials coming up, on something unrelated to this development.

I'm not a vindictive person, but that certainly brought a smile to my face.

Growing old and dealing with aging parents

My 56th birthday is next week and good friends are taking me out to see the Triple A Redbirds play at AutoZone Park, arguably the best baseball stadium in the minor leagues.  I know it will be a good time.  But growing older has me thinking more and more about my mortality.

My 83 year old dad does a "Meals On Wheels' run every Thursday in a town near him home in suburban Scranton.  Many of these people really need this service, but a few of his "Customers" are just lazy welfare people supposedly recovering from some sort of addiction, or a bad marriage, or has a herd of kids.  Still most appreciate dad and let me know it when I helped him with his route this past week.

I know, I know, you want me to get to my point.  Patience grasshopper.  There is more.

My youngest nephew, Ben, graduated from Shippensberg University with a perfect 4.0 GPA over 4 years and was top of his class.  I'm so proud of him.

That is not necessarily off topic, but let me continue.  The day before we had drive from my parents home in a Scranton suburb (which is much nicer than Scranton), there was a huge wreck on I-81 at a major interchange in Harrisburg and all traffic got diverted to another route.  Driving through there was awful.  It only took a little under 2 hours to get to Harrisburg, but took almost almost 4 hours to get around the mess.  Dad insisted on driving, although I implored him to let me drive.  Neither of us see well.  I'm blind in one eye, from an old accident and dad just has old age issues with vision. Well we survived the mess.  Got to out motel in Carlisle, met one of my nephews and brother for dinner at my parents favorite crappy chain restaurant Cracker Barrel.  I personally hate these places and think they have lousy food and service, but mom and dad like it.

It poured all night, and my brother called me up early Saturday morning to tell me that the graduation was moved indoors to the field house and the M-Z's were going to be at 3PM.  Dad's idea of driving home on Saturday were shattered.

We all had a nice time, Ben got his degree and his honors, and we all had a nice dinner in a very good restaurant.

Here's where it gets serious.  From what I observed, Dad has early Alzheimers onset.  When not engaging with people, he hums, and hums loudly.  He hummed at the graduation, hums at church in the middle of prayers and the sermon.  Mom is no help.  She just shrugs it off, but every person from my grandmother's side of the family who lived into their 80's had dementia.  I may very well fall in that category someday.  Dad certainly is in early stages, though very aware of everything once you speak to him.

My problem here is how do I get my mom to understand or at least acknowledge that there is a problem?  And he really should not be driving anymore.

I know that the day is coming and soon I'm afraid where I'm going to have to put my parents in assisted living, and they will hate me for it.  Being the good son sometimes means doing things that may get you cut out of the will.

Why does everyone hate America, and why should I care?

My friend Ron, who is a Filipino, has been working in Singapore for the last few years and likes his job.  He has to endure this lunchtime "conversation" with his colleagues every Wednesday though, and is requires to participate.  Usually he endures through the ordeal where the boss starts conversations very Piers Morgan style, about what is wrong with the West.  Last week it changed a bit, the topic was, "Why does the world hate the United States of America".

Ron is not only pro-American but had the guts to tell this group who were overly in the "America is the cause of all the ills in the world" opinion.  He cited how the US never colonized a country for gain, although they were in the Philippines for 50 years.  President McKinley did not want to have foreign colonies, like Spain maintained, but perhaps knew if we just let the go they would be swallowed up by the Dutch or the Chinese.  And we fought a short war against their nationalists, and more so Islamists,  General Pershing knew how deal with Islamists in a way we can not do these days.  I personally don't give a damn if they love us or hate us.  We are not a superpower because everyone loves us.

Getting back to the topic, he cited how the US took basically a slave culture under the Spanish, who kept them impoverished and uneducated and introduced public education, English as a second language and brought tons of industry to the Philippines.  We also introduced democratic institutions there and established self rule on all but foreign affairs.  This is now what imperialists do.  Total independence was scheduled for 1946.  WWII got in the way and the Japanese had different ideas.  We Americans sacrificed many lives liberating the Philippines, and much of the pacific islands, and do not have an empire to show for it.  We do however have the largest overseas cemetery and it is in Manila.  In 1946 they became an independent republic. They haven’t done all that well since independence and the Marcos regime chased a lot of business out of that country.

Well after Marcos was overthrown the incoming governments courted foreign investment and a commercial trade zone at Subic Bay was established, and FedEx went in there in a big way.  Well, they had elections, like all democratic republics, and the people elected what is best described as the Bruce Willis of the Philippines.  Joseph Estrada is an uneducated actor but was able to buy an election based on his popularity.  First thing he did was fire the administrator of the Clark and Subic Bay free trade zones and replace them with cronies, and their job was to shake down foreigners.  Bad decision, Erap.  Don’t fuck with Fred Smith.  FedEx called his bluff, built a new Asian hub in Guangzhou China and left the Philippines.

This gets me back to the original topic. “Why does the world hate America?”
Ron talked about the American history in the Philippines and basically told his colleagues that the US is not the problem, and it is mostly envy.

He did not get a warm reception on his comments, and got called into his bosses office and was told to write a letter of apology for offending his colleagues. 

Singapore is not the USA, and thank god we are not them yet.  But with political correctness run amok we may not be too far from that.

The Stupidity of Earth Hour

I was talking to my good friend Ron this evening, who has been visiting his hometown in northern Mindanao, Philippines.  Iligan is a small city, not a rich place by any means, but has a good university.  Ron lives and works now in Singapore, not too far by air, but a million miles away in many ways. 

He mentioned how the city had daily black outs of electricity because of decaying infrastructure and an increasing demand on electrical power.  Since Earth Hour is upon us, it really seemed ironic.  Here we are in a country that still has abundant energy resources, that the green weenies and the current Obama regime want to suppress, the Philippines is a poor 3rd world country that would love not to have imposed blackouts because they have no infrastructure that they can maintain.

Ron is now back in Singapore, a place that was a 3rd world backwater as recently as the late 1960's that got kicked out of the Federation of Malaysia, because it was a drain on their economy and is an economic powerhouse now, outshining all its neighbors.  I doubt the people there, especially from the generation of Lee Kwan Yoo's generation want to celebrate Earth Hour.

It's easy for liberals and green weenie activists who have never lived in a 3rd world country to celebrate Earth Hour.  Most have never had to endure in a country with no electricity, heat, air conditioning or food.  Earth Hour is a daily celebration is North Korea, Laos, Burma, and most of Africa.

Go there and ask them how they like Earth Hour

ObamaCare and its consequences

I had an appointment with my neurologist who has been treating my multiple sclerosis problem for the past several years.  He informed me that he is closing down his practice and moving back to India.  I was unpleasantly surprised to hear this news.  His reasoning is all the coming ObamaCare regulations and rules, makes his practice untenable and he'd be much better just closing up shop.  He moved here from Montreal a long time ago, just for the same reasons that he is moving back to India, bureaucrats telling him he can treat his patients, what treatments to give them, and reduced income.  He told me he can open up a practice in Hydrabad, his home town, not make half what he makes here, and still live like a king.

I really can't blame the guy.  He has options, and is taking them.  He is not alone.  Many physicians are planning to retire early and give up their practice rather than submit to a federal government scheme that is guaranteed to raise costs for everyone, and restrict doctors more than anything that private insurance companies are doing now.

Fortunately my current neurologist is making sure all his patients are matched with competent doctors after he shuts down his practice later this year.  Still my story is just one of many.  It's going to get a lot worse once ObamaCare gets fully implemented next year.   We are heading down the road to perdition, and Obama and the Democrats are pushing to hurry that process.  

My exit question: Who will the low information voters blame once their health costs double or triple, their ObamaPhone stops working and the EBT card dries up?

I doubt they even heard of Cyprus, let alone know what is going on there now.  We are going down that same "golden road to socialism".

Memphis Fast Food

Normally on Wednesdays a few of us retirees from my old place of employment, have breakfast together at a local diner.  Unfortunately it is closed for renovation and expansion, so we picked a local fast food joint.  We got there, ordered our food, and waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally the food came out.  Nobody there seemed to know what the other was doing, and there seemed to just be a bunch of people milling around behind the counter, and hollering loudly to each other above the loud rap "music".  Oh well, we got the food, went to a table, and low and behold they gave us someone else's order.  We waited, and waited and waited again, and finally the food came out.  We checked the order at the counter, and this time they got it almost right.  A few items were missing.  I asked for a manager, who came over and rudely wanted to know why we were hassling his employees, but fixed the order.

Got to the table, and I want to fill up my ice tea.  There are two dispensers, one marked sweet and one marked unsweet.  I don't like sweet tea, southern style because it is just sugar water.  Well, I fill up the cup with the one marked unsweetened and low and behold it was sweet tea, so was the one marked sweet tea!  I went back to the counter to complain, and was told by the clerk, "I aint got no nuttin bout no sweet and unsweet."  I told her one was marked unsweetened.  She repeated her gibberish answer, so I figured she not only couldn't speak, she could not read.  Where was Barbara Billingsley when I needed her.


Apparently because we complained about the bad service, we were told that we were a bunch of redneck racist crackers, or something.

We all decided at that moment that we will not be back to this place.  Unfortunately this is all too typical here for fast food.