Death Of Negotiations, Virus In Iranian Nuclear Facilities Spread To The World, US To Monitor All Internet Servers

Jackson Diehl
Tony Karon
Paul Krugman

Totally scary news coming out of the Middle East, thanks to Israel refusing to continue a construction freeze in the West Bank while there were direct negotiations going on. The freeze ended Sunday, and it backed the Palestinian negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, into a corner. Hillary Clinton tried to convince him to come back to the table, but he went and met with Hamas and Hizbollah officials instead. The bluster factor is rising, Hizbollah is threatening to start a coup in Lebanon unless the tribunal seeking the truth on who killed the former President is disbanded. So far, all of the evidence points to members of Hizbollah as the murderers. The coup would be backed by Syria, Iran, and Fatah. The bluster rating is past hysterical, as it would severely damage Hizbollah's street cred once everyone learned that they plotted to kill a popular Muslim political leader, instead of the rumors that are currently spreading against them.

Hamas has been constantly sending rockets into Israel from Gaza during the negotiations, as well as starting a lot of street violence in Jerusalem. They are now regrouping and making plans to strike next in the West Bank, hoping to provoke a heavy Israeli response. Hamas figures that it might have world opinion on their side if Israel launches a massive attack against them, and they will have the innocent civilians in Gaza to act as pawns and cannon fodder.

A lot will depend on how Israel treats the latest boat that set sail from Cypress to try and run the naval blockade of Gaza. This boat is a catamaran with a few symbolic humanitarian aid trinkets, and has peace activists from Britain, the US, and Israel on it. In the past, Israel has actually let small boats through the blockade over the past few years, up until this last summer. If they do something stupid to cause harm to this crew, they won't receive any sympathy and it will further isolate them in the world community. The smart move is to let the boat through the blockade, let them make whatever publicity statements they want, and let the incident pass. The boat should arrive tomorrow.

One of the reasons that Iran no longer welcomes members from the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities, is that one of them is suspected of bringing in a USB thumbdrive and downloading a virus into the facilities computers. It evidently was designed by some country's intelligence service, aimed at components that were made by Siemens, and make them fail, among other things in the programming. tThe other theory is that the Stuxnet worm was made by a thirteen-year-old hacker, because of some sloppy aspects of its programming, that it also spread itself outside of iran and out into the world, infecting several other industrial servers: "If Stuxnet is the latest example of what a government organization can do, it contains some glaring shortcomings. The program was splattered on thousands of computer systems around the world, and much of its impact has been on those systems, rather than on what appears to have been its intended target, Iranian equipment. Computer security specialists are also puzzled by why it was created to spread so widely.


Global alarm over the deadly computer worm has come many months after the program was suspected of stealthily entering an Iranian nuclear enrichment plant, perhaps carried on a U.S.B. memory drive containing the malware.


Computer security specialists have speculated that once inside the factory and within the software that controls equipment, the worm reprogrammed centrifuges made by a specific company, Siemens, to make them fail in a way that would be virtually undetectable. Whether the program achieved its goal is not known."

Of course, the sloppiness could be on purpose, hopefully infecting any other computers that run nuclear centrifuges. It would take the heat off of such groups like the NSA or the CIA, placing blame on Asia or Europe, who couldn't possibly be as sophisticated as the US...

There are hundreds of attempts of hacking into security systems every day, more during the Summer, when teenage boys are out of school. Most industrial grade security systems upgrade their virus definitions every few hours, versus the once per month upgrade that most home-users get. The US Justice Dept, besides wanting to make it legal to keep an assassination list, and let the government listen in on your phone conversations without a warrant, now want to do the same for the Internet. Conspiracy theorists who are afraid of Big Brother and the march towards a one-world repressive government, take note: "Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.


The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally." Not only do they want to be able to monitor every computer and server in the US, but they also want to be able to do it to servers anywhere in the world, all in the name of fighting "terror." This terrorism thing has proven to be a pretty good button to push, along with the age old excuse of "national security." It has turned the AG Eric Holder into a pod person, so that he goes along with every idea to take away our freedom and liberty, as if there were no changing of the guard after the last election. Oh my God, it goes beyond the Bush years and having his people mole into the Justice Department, this sort of fascism has been planned over many, many years and it doesn't matter who is in the White House, they eventually all go over to the Dark Side... Is this the Event?

Every rally must have their signs, and the upcoming ones sponsored by John Stewart and Stephen Colbert should be no exceptions. Here are some suggestions that were culled from the Daily Kos and Huffington Post that you can make:

"We're Taking Our Teabagging Back"

"I Spell-Check My Political Rage"

"Sanity, Not Hannity"

"I Support Reasonable Conclusions Based On Supported Facts!"

"I Masturbate and I Vote!"

"O'Donnell Doesn't Like Happy Endings"

"Levi Is Not My Daddy" (suggested sign for kids)

"Left My White Sheet On The Bed Where It Belongs!"

"Forget Mama Grizzly! Where Are The Cougars?"

"Paved Roads Are Socialism"

"My Wife Thinks I Am Hiking The Appalachian Trail"

"If You Can Read This, You're Obviously Not Home-Schooled"

"Yes We Did - And It Drove You Batsh*t Crazy!"

"Protest Signs Are An Ineffectual Means Of Communicating My Nuanced Views On A Variety Of Issues That Cannot Be Reduced To A Simple Pithy Slogan"