Happy New Year and Nonsense in the News

Well, the New Year has started out well already with a bit of sadness though. Today I spoke to a friend that I had not heard from in a bit. It was nice to hear from him; but, he had sad news. His father passed away in 2015. His father had been in Federal law enforcement and I had the honor of taking him to Las Vegas for the first time in his life. He got to do attend some special events reserved for Vegas regulars because I was one and I am glad that I got to give that to him. He is missed.

I also got a comment from a friend that I knew at work that I had not seen since retiring and texts from some people I have not seen in a while. I had sent out many texts to people wishing them a Happy New Year even though I had not seen them in awhile. A good start to what I am sure is going to be an interesting year. It also appears that I will have a little paid job to do that is my kind of job, a puzzle seeking a solution and I can use the extra money to make life a little easier.

As for the news, plenty of foolishness. While President Obama claims that the Russians hacked this election, it seems not even the most strident partisans are buying it. Lets start with an article.

Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - Something About This Russia Story Stinks.  Mr. Taibbi is no friend of Donald Trump; but, he also knows nonsense when he hears it and like me requires proof. He provides it when he writes his stories and no proof has been provided for the claim that Russia hacked the election. Lets face it, the government hasn't even explained what "hacking the election" means. They do not claim that the votes were incorrect or that Russia is responsible for the Constitution creating an electoral college. The sad thing is, a Mr. Taibbi points out, that a recent poll (linked to in his article) shows that 50% of Democrats believe the Russians hacked the election count which was not only disproven by the recounts; but, is not even claimed by the intelligence agencies. If you accept every negative claim made against people you dislike and refuse to accept any negative claim about people you like you willingly allow yourself to be used as a tool.

Fox - Hawaiian cafe backs down over ban on Trump voters.  You have probably heard this story by now, a Hawaiian restaurant owner posted the following sign after the election, "If you voted for Trump you cannot eat here! No Nazis”.  There is a history of bigoted imbeciles posting signs like this, only groups changed. I'm Irish and they used to post signs saying "No Irish" in America. Up until the late 1960s many places had signs saying "No Blacks". We have also had businesses say they don't have to cater to gays, they just don't post signs though there was a bar in West Hollywood that had a sign that said, "No Faggots", it got taken down because of political pressure after West Hollywood with a very gay community became it's own city. Let's be consistent, it is not okay for a business to refuse to serve someone because they voted for Trump, are gay, are black or of a different religion.

QZ.com - The White House predicts nearly all truck, taxi, and delivery driver jobs will be automated.  What a shock, I have only been writing about this for 7 years. That means we expect to lose another 3.1 million jobs over the next few years. There is a link to the White House report in the article if you want to read it. The real question remains the same and nobody is discussing it in public, only in think tanks and at non-public events like the Bilderberg meeting, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission and what is spoken at those eventsis not publicized. Right now you are paying with your taxes to create the infrastructure that will allow this technology to replace you. Notice all those bike lanes and the new style of crosswalks? That is happening across the United States and you have not been told why your taxes are paying for it. Go to YouTube and watch videos of people driving through Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Pittsburg, New York... All across the United States this is being done and it is expensive; but, you are not told why and it seems so local except cities are all doing it at the same time.

Transport and Environment -  Air pollution from ships.

Friends of the Earth - Oceangoing vessels.

Lets start with this, shipping pollutes more than all the cars in the world combined. With little effort we could cut pollution from these ships by 80%. The worst at pollution are the ships that haul goods from China to the rest of the world. If we are so concerned about climate change and pollution why don't we just refuse to allow products to be sold in the west that are transported on those ships until they install scrubbers and make other simple changes? Keep asking yourself that question until you discover the real reason, I have already written about it before.

Funny UPDATE:

So, it is about 2 in the morning and I was listening to music and thinking about my day. Anyways, I decided to read newspapers around the world that I had not looked at today. The front pages were full of stories but not one listed the biggest story the media in the United States is trying to sell us. Why is it that the people of England, of Canada, of Japan, of South America and of Africa aren't screaming to the world that the United States election was hacked? I suspect that if people in other countries actually believed that our election was hacked and that Trump was a Russian agent it might concern our allies and enemies. Israel has a pretty good intelligence group and you think they would be concerned if they thought Trump was a Russian puppet. Think about that.

Do Not Post on What You Cannot Verify

"The Next News Network" and others are claiming that within Podesta's emails there was an e-mail that claims that Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and John Kasich all received money to their PACs or SuperPacs from the Clinton campaign to stay out of the way and not support Trump during the summer. Sounds exciting doesn't it? Yet, nobody is publishing a copy of the e-mail.

Don't repeat what people say if they do not link to the source or an established outlet. The real threat to bloggers, vloggers and the alternative media (i.e. not corporate controlled) is themselves. There is nothing wrong with conjecture or opinion as long as it is not stated as FACT. There is nothing wrong with asking what motivates others, there is nothing wrong with questioning motives; but, if you are going to state something as fact you had better be able to point to a source that can be sued rather than you.

Censorship is coming. It will not be government censorship per se, it will be instituted by private companies like Facebook and Twitter and has already begun. You wait and see, the United Nations will make a treaty that says what can and cannot be allowed on the internet or at least that will be the effect of the treaty. These agreements, like the actions of the European Union, are unnecessary and meant to limit free speech. Countries already have their own slander and libel laws and those apply to the internet.

Let's say I post an article claiming that Barak Obama is a gay child molester, that might be allowed as political speech about a public figure. Say the same thing about your ex-wife and you could be sued unless you have proof. If you claim it about President Obama you are just a fool. Unsubstantiated claims without evidence undermine your credibility. Protect freedom of speech by acting responsibly.

More Fake News From the Washington Post - Russia Did NOT Attack Our Power Grid

The Washington Post - Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say. 

The Washington Post story begins with this statement, "A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials."  Firstly the "code" is not "associated" with Russia, Grizzly Steppe or anyone other than low grade hackers. The code is basically convincing someone to reset their password and that password is then given to the hacker. This is NOT high tech hacking, this is common everyday fishing that is used by most hackers out there. Secondly, NO code was found on the Vermont utilities "system. The reset password scam was accepted by someone who worked for the utility on, supposedly. someone's work laptop. I personally managed the systems group for a $250 million a year organization and guess what, this is pretty common especially when people use their laptops to view porn or other such garbage using company laptops.

Even the Washington Post is already backing off this fake news as at the end of the article they say this, "An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid."  This is a common propaganda technique used by the media, say one thing in your headline and then walk it back in the article hoping that nobody reads the whole article. The Pimpernel reads whole articles and you should too.

The mere fact that this article comes out a day after the FBI posted their fake report which showed NO evidence of Russia hacking the DNC should raise questions and if you read the whole Washington Post article you will note that the Vermont Utility and the fed don't even know when this laptop was infected.

The Smoking Pile of ...

I cannot call this a smoking gun because the gun doesn't have any bullets in it. Yesterday the FBI released the linked report claiming that Russian agencies hacked organizations in the United States.

FBI - GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity. 

I have actually bothered reading the report and not one shred of evidence is provided to prove that Russia was involved in anything. Read the report for yourself. Claims without evidence are fake news. The Pimpernel wouldn't make claims that I cannot substantiate so why should I accept such claims from others without proof.

Saying that someone has been hacked is different that saying you know who did it. The FBI report provides NO information about the IP addresses that were responsible for the hack, nor does it even identify the nations associated with those IP addresses. NONE.

Now a little history. The CIA lied to get us into the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. The FBI for it's part has failed to jail anyone for crashing the economy in 2007-2008. Don't accept claims that are not actionable. I have said this regarding "pizzagate" and intentionally do not make unsubstantiated claims especially ones that could cause risky actions.

Let's start with the basics of reporting and charging someone with a crime. Who, what, when, where, why and how.

Who. Does the FBI report identify who the hackers are? No it does not. It does not claim Guccifer or any other hacker was involved.

What. What specifically was taken? We are not told in the FBI report.

When. We are not told specifically when anything was taken in the report. We are told vagaries about what might have been viewed; but, not when.

Where. We are not told where the supposed hacks were from because the IP addresses of those supposedly involved are not mentioned once. If you are going to hack from Russia than the IP address would be a Russian IP.

Why. The report does not say why hacks occurred. Nowhere in the report does it say that the hacks were done to effect the election because you cannot presume intent.

How. The most basic question is left unanswered. Instead we are told all the many ways that people may have been hacked and rather than being fancy, they are the exact same ways in which spammers and thieves go after data online. There is no special Russian way of hacking, all hacking is the same and some of the most famous hackers were just kids.

Now lets get back to the media's irresponsibility. Nowhere in the FBI report does it mention WikiLeaks. Nowhere in the report does it mention Putin. Nowhere in the report does it mention how the election was impacted. So, why is the media claiming things that are NOT in the report? The corporate media is as bad as the people who made mindless extrapolations about "pizzagate". It is a shame that we have to fact check the corporate media and even worse that they provide no facts, only unsubstantiated accusations.

Let me ask this really simple question. IF the electoral college denied Trump the presidency based on this report, would you feel good about it? There is NO connection between Trump and the Russians in this report and this is the report that the Clinton supporters wanted the electoral college without the rest of us seeing it.

More on Russia and the Media

About a week ago Russia announced it was modernizing it's nuclear capability. A day or two later Trump said he would do the same. The media ignored what Russia said and stated that Trumps statement meant that he was crazy and might cause a nuclear war.

Chicago Tribune - Commentary: Could Trump start a nuclear war with a single tweet? 

Then comes today and President Obama throws out 35 Russian diplomats and closes two of their embassies. This is in addition to Obama saying that we are going to retaliate against Russia for "hacking the election" And how did they hack the election and where is the proof. Well, Obama claims that Russia hacked the DNC and gave the information on Podesta's e-mails to WikiLeaks. The only problem is that WikiLeaks didn't get the information from Russia, it got the information from a Sanders supporter inside the DNC and most likely from Seth Rich, the IT guy in the DNC that was shot in the back of the head.

It should probably be noted that two Russian diplomats were killed within the last week or so. The simple question is why isn't the media concerned about saber rattling by Obama and Hillary; but, worried over Trump?

The globalist corporate media has made it very clear that they did not like Brexit (Britain leaving the European Union), does not like Russia because they are not globalist in nature and detests the fact that America, Italy and France are all rejecting globalism and want national boundaries.

While this is all going on, Obama passed the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which calls for the government using propaganda within the United States and the European Union is saying they are going to fine websites like Facebook and Twitter if they do not censor what people can say.

New York Times - Germany Threatens to Fine Facebook Over Hate Speech.

Constitutionally, foreign countries do not have the right to fine American companies for what is on the internet. It is also against international law. They have the right to ban things within their borders and keep out the internet like North Korea does; but, they do not have the right to regulate content. Now in an attempt to get around that, the United States gave away control of the internet.

The Washington Post - U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet.

Remember all my posts about ICANN, the group that oversees your ability to find things on the internet? The government gave up control of that even though our taxes paid for it and the internet. The Pimpernel was talking about this coming seven years plus ago. When I first talked about this people could not hear me. I hired computer analysts that worked for me and not one of them was ever able to tell me who owned or controlled the internet.

The dumbest people I know are all experts. They are dumb because they don't pay attention to the details. If you think you understand things, you stop learning and that is a fail because the world is always changing. People only learn as much as they need to be successful as a rule and that is true for experts. The Pimpernel seeks to become an expert on everything he talks about which is why I spend over 12 hours a day, every day, reading and watching everything I can.

My day starts with taking my dog out to do his business. After that I have my coffee and while drinking it I read Fox News, Drudge Report, the L.A. Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, Yahoo News, MSN News, one of the many English newspapers, Ain't it Cool News and then I check my blog and e-mails. That is all done by the time I finish my coffee and then the real work begins. I may or may not eat something; but, usually not or something like a pickle or an olive. Then I check my phone to see if I got any calls or texts. Then I begin by reading all the offbeat and alternative media I can from the left, right and any other perspective that you can imagine. That is followed by watching and listening to all the media from the day before and that happened in the morning.

About 7 or 8 years ago I was on a website as a simple member. I met one of the owners, a systems consultant. I told her that they were going to regulate the internet and control what you could say. She laughed at me and called me a conspiracy theorist. She then moved to Australia and found out that they wanted to control which websites you could visit. That woke her up along with something else that she never told me about; but, I could see impacted her.

This blog was specifically created to be a magic trick, an illusion for a very few people who were watching the Pimpernel, ergo the name which I have used since day one. Try reading the Scarlett Pimpernel and it begins to become clearer.  Yet, I only publish what I can back up and believe to show bits of truth, even if that truth is the intent behind those who seek to control you. I let you see their words in documents of theirs, often on their own websites. I write to confuse the people who seek to monitor me and inform those who seek to understand how this world works.

When they begin censoring blogs, they may come after this little thing. Not at first; but later. The mistake is in thinking that I did not plan for these changes that I have been writing about for almost a decade. Here is what is going to happen next and it is very tricky.

Firstly, international bodies like the European Union will begin to fine companies like Facebook or Twitter for allowing "fake news" and "hate speech and "offensive language" and anything other useful buzz phrases they come up with. The Facebooks and Twitters of the world will then pass those charges on to their users by putting in their agreements that if they are sued for what you write then you are responsible for the fine and because nobody reads those terms of use agreements, the courts will begin (not at the first case but after it) enforcing those agreements and dissent will come at a literal price. Get it?

Let me ask a simple question. If North Korea said they had the right to fine Facebook for allowing people to say it was a bad government, would we allow that? So why would we allow the European Union to do the same?

More Hypocricy and Stupidity

I don't quite know what President Obama is attempting to do as he leaves office. First he lets Israel be censored by the United Nations over Israelis who are building homes in the Sinai while at the same time he is protecting illegal aliens in America. Lets think about this a little bit more.

The United States is allowing people to disregard our borders, come here illegally, receive benefits and stay here even after they break our laws by committing violent crimes; but, he doesn't believe Israelis should be allowed to live outside of their borders. Wait, it gets better, President Obama believes that Syrians and others from the middle east should be allowed to move into Europe without any vetting; but, he doesn't believe Israelis should be allowed to move into Syria or other Arab areas without permission.

Today the President announced he is kicking out 35 Russians from the United States because he is mad at their government; but, he doesn't believe we should kick out Iranians because we are mad at their government or Saudis because their government supports terrorists like the ones who blew up the twin towers.

Hillary Clinton supports open borders and bringing in millions of immigrants, in-vetted, from the middle east; but, doesn't believe you should be allowed to leave this country without a passport and supported the no fly list to prevent people from leaving this country. Where is the consistency with any of these people? Let me ask this simple question, why do I need a passport to go to England or France or Germany; but, Arabs do not when they come from countries that are known to have large numbers of terrorists?

MSN - Fiscal Times - Trump jolts the pharmaceutical industry with vow to 'bring down drug prices'.  Something that is not being talked about much is the fact that Trump intends to go after big pharma to bring down drug prices. I wonder why the media is not supporting and talking about this more? Oh yeah, I forgot, we are one of the few western countries that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise their products on television and in newspapers.

MSN - AP - What it means if Trump names China a currency manipulator.  When President Obama calls China a currency manipulator he gets praise in the media, when Trump says it, the media says he is lying.

The Express - SCIENCE WARNING: Messing with genes could WIPE OUT geniuses from the earth.  The title sort of says it all.

Pimpernel Had an Amazing Year

I began this year losing my apartment and being forced to move. It turned out to be a great thing and I liked where I lived. This is a better situation. We see so many things in a year. I watched the establishment wring their hands and become hysterical over Trump becoming President. I told you I didn't care if Trump or Sanders won as long as the establishment understood that this is their "let them eat cake" moment. If they don't catch on, I am scared for what the future may hold.

The year ends with my wishing others to heal and my being offered a substantial amount of money to do the thing I do the way I do it. I enjoyed 2016 and look forward to 2017. I hope you do too.