What if WWIII had hapened?

I wrote my dissertation on nuclear war planning.  This stuff has always held a fascination for me.  With the passage of time, we now know more about what kind of world the leaders expected they would see when it all went down.

The British have released the 1962 Cabinet Office War Book, including the password to activate the secret bunker that would hold the key 230 politicians and bureaucrats responsible for picking up the pieces.

The code word, by the way, was "orangeade."  Just in case you ever need to know.

Meanwhile, courtesy of FEMA, the NRDC, and War News Updates we have this estimate of the targets to be struck in the US in the event of nuclear war.

Thank God that didn't happen.  Pray it never will.

An adult at the table

There remains hope that the people who actually have an understanding of the situation will restrain the politicians.  It's hard to dismiss the current and past heads of the Mossad as "anti-Israel" or "soft on defense."  

A nuclear-armed Iran wouldn't necessarily constitute a threat to Israel's continued existence, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo reportedly hinted earlier this week.
***
On Tuesday evening, Pardo addressed an audience of about 100 Israeli ambassadors. According to three ambassadors present at the briefing, the intelligence chief said that Israel was using various means to foil Iran's nuclear program and would continue to do so, but if Iran actually obtained nuclear weapons, it would not mean the destruction of the State of Israel. 

The ambassadors said Pardo did not comment on the possibility of an Israeli military assault on Iran."What is the significance of the term existential threat?" the ambassadors quoted Pardo as asking. "Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely. But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home. That's not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely." 

"But what was clearly implied by his remarks is that he doesn't think a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel," one of the envoys said. 

For the past several years, Netanyahu has characterized a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to Israel. The prime minister has even compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and argued that Iran should be treated as Nazi Germany should have been dealt with in 1938, just before World War II. In contrast, Barak said in April 2010 that Iran "was not an existential threat at the moment," but warned that it could become one in the future.Pardo's remarks follow lively a public debate in recent months over a possible Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. One of the figures at the center of this public debate has been Pardo's predecessor as Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. Dagan has argued that Israel should only resort to military force "when the knife is at its throat and begins to cut into the flesh." He has also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, accusing them of pushing for an Israeli attack on Iran, and warned that such an assault would have disastrous consequences. 

In the cabinet, Netanyahu and Barak have been the leading proponents of a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. So far, however, they have not managed to convince a majority of either the "octet" forum of eight senior ministers or the diplomatic-security cabinet to support their position.

Otto von Bismarck, master of Realpolitik, probably said it best: "Preemptive war is like committing suicide for fear of death."

How bad is it?

Porter Stansbury, already noted for his gloomy predictions about the American economy, finds "the numbers tell us America is in decline... if not outright collapse."  His analysis starts with an estimate of real per capita GDP/time, based on a market-basket of currencies and/or gold.  Even this has pitfalls.  But, anyway, he uses a commodity index (the CRB) until 1975, and after the US is off the gold standard he switches to gold, and the chart looks like this:

I don't know that this is the best way to estimate what is going on, but clearly something is.  And this misses what may be the greatest problem of all: that per capita GDP tells us nothing about the distribution of wealth.  Things got better, it seems, in the years from Reagan to George W. Bush--but how much of that was consolidated in the hands of a few?  Even ignoring that, however, after 2001 things look bad for almost everyone.

Why bring this up here?  Because economic failure promotes desperation, and crime, and a police state mentality.

Stansbury connects the decline to an ethic of entitlement, coupled with vast (and unpunished) corruption at the top.  Henry Paulson and Tim Geitner should be behind bars for lying to Congress and providing more accurate insider information to old associates.  Congress doesn't do anything about it (perhaps because the Congress as a whole has an ever-widening gap with their consitutents, based in part on their exemption from insider-trading laws).

He also wants to claim that there's a direct correspondence to the Great Society programs, either by design (to buy off troublesome groups) or error (the basic errors of large-scale government planning systems).  That's debateable, but what isn't in doubt are the numbers--and the spiral of poverty and crime and incarceration they represent.  Some data points, again from Stansbury:

According to the NAACP, Texas taxpayers spent $175 million in 2009 to imprison residents from a small part of Houston – only 10 zip codes out of 75. Thus, people from neighborhoods that are home to only about 10% of the city's population account for more than 33% of the state's entire $500 million annual prison spending. These neighborhoods are overwhelmingly poor and African American. 

In Pennsylvania, taxpayers will spend $290 million in 2009 to imprison residents from just 11 of Philadelphia's neighborhoods, representing about 25% of the city population. On this relatively small urban area, the state will spend roughly half its $500 million prison budget. These neighborhoods are overwhelmingly poor and African American. 

In New York, taxpayers will spend $539 million to imprison residents from only 24 of New York City's 200 different neighborhoods. Only 16% of the city's population lives in these areas, but they will account for nearly half of the state's $1.1 billion prison budget. These neighborhoods are overwhelmingly poor and African American.

This is not about race, or at least not only about race.  In Detroit, where twenty-seven percent of African-American males graduate from high school, only nineteen percent of white males do so.  In practical terms, in an economy that's increasingly technical and global, these people have little or no chance.

My dad used to be a principal in the schools of St. Louis.  Eventually, he ended up in charge of the school for incarcerated minors.  I'm not sure what's worse: that he found that to be one of his safer assignments, or the fact that some of his students would commit crimes to get off the streets and return to the relative safely of his school.

Today, this country has more than seven million people in prison or on parole, more that any other industrialized state.  The prison population has grown from less than half a million people to more than 2.5 million today--and the building and running of prisons has become a profitable growth industry.  What does that say about us?

Stansbury identifies villians: democrats, republicans, government employee unions, big business.  I don't agree with all of his analysis.  But it's worth a look at the start of what is likely to be a very, very difficult year.

A good idea: recall the bastards

Moving quickly on Christmas Day after the US Senate voted 86 - 14 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) which allows for the indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial, Montanans have announced the launch of recall campaigns against Senators Max Baucus and Jonathan Tester, who voted for the bill.
Montana is one of nine states with provisions that say that the right of recall extends to recalling members of its federal congressional delegation, pursuant to Montana Code 2-16-603, on the grounds of physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of oath of office, official misconduct, or conviction of certain felony offenses.

Comment:  We can hope.  Can something similar be arranged in Pennsylvania?  Voting to create a law so blatantly in violation of the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights is pretty clear evidence of "mental lack of fitness, incompetence," or "violation of oath of office."

source: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december252011/ndaa-recall.php

My favorite candidate declares as a Libertarian--

--and it's NOT Ron Paul.  Governor Gary Johnson, of New Mexico, has been even more excluded from the process than Dr. Paul.  Perhaps it's because Johnson doesn't have some "smoking memos" to pull out if he ever looks to be making too much progress?  Here's Johnson's message to his supporters.  I'll put his essential political positions in boldface:

This morning, I stepped before the microphones at a news conference in the New Mexico capitol and announced that I am seeking the Libertarian nomination for President of the United States. The Libertarian Party nominee will be on the ballot in all 50 states – as was the case in 2008. 

It was both a difficult decision – and an easy one. It was difficult because I have a lot of Republican history, and a lot of Republican supporters. But in the final analysis, as many, many commentators have said since watching how I governed in New Mexico, I am a Libertarian - that is, someone who is fiscally very conservative but holds freedom-based positions on many social issues. 

Frankly, I have been deeply disappointed by the treatment I received in the Republican nomination process. Other candidates with no national name identification like Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman were allowed to participate in the debates. 

Incredibly candidates with no executive experience like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum were allowed to participate while I, a successful two-term governor with a solid record of job creation, was arbitrarily excluded by elitist media organizations in New York. My appeals to the Republican National Chairman for basic fairness were ignored. 

I had hoped to lay out a full libertarian message on all the issues in the Republican contest. I think this election needs a libertarian voice. While Ron Paul is a good man and a libertarian who I proudly endorsed for president in 2008, there is no guarantee he will be the Republican nominee. 

When I announced that I was running for president, I promised you I would be a voice for bold ideas to bring government and its spending under control. I promised I would put my record as the ‘most fiscally conservative’ governor in the nation in front of the voters. And I said that, unlike too many Republican politicians, I think Americans’ government should be smaller and less intrusive and let people make decisions for themselves. 

My Agenda for America is clear:
- I want to end deficit spending and cut federal spending by 43%.
- I want to enact the Fair Tax to stimulate real economic growth and jobs.
- I want to end the manipulation of our money by the Federal Reserve.
- I support the Second Amendment and oppose gun control.
- I oppose expensive foreign wars in places like Libya and Afghanistan.
- I support a woman’s right to choose.
- I support marriage equality for gay Americans as required by the Constitution.
- I support legalization of marijuana, which will save us billions and do no harm.
- I support returning strict adherence to Constitutional principles to our government. 

It is clear that the elite national media and the political “ruling class” don’t want this message heard. It frightens them. It frightens them because they know our message is one that actually reflects the true beliefs of millions of Americans – and they don’t want those millions of people to know there really is a candidate for president who represents them, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents or Libertarians. 

Sadly neither the Republicans nor Democrats will offer this agenda to the American people.
They can’t handle the notion of a successful two-term governor, elected and reelected as a Republican in a Democrat state, who could veto 750 spending bills to shrink government — while refusing to play the special interest game or impose a social agenda on people who prefer to make their own judgments about “values”. 

In other words, there is no room in the national two-party club for a candidate who actually proved that governing as a libertarian works – and whose platform on every issue is clearly supported by a majority of the American people. 

Sometimes the best answer is the simplest. I’m a Libertarian in belief. I successfully governed as a Libertarian in everything but the name, and I am running for president as a Libertarian.
Even before I announced my decision, polls are showing that I would today gain more votes than any Libertarian presidential candidate in history – and have a very real impact on the election nationwide. And that is before our campaign even begins. 

If I earn the Libertarian nomination, I will be on the ballot in all 50 states. I will not be held hostage to a system rigged for the wealthiest and best-known candidates in a handful of states who happen to have early primaries. And most important, we will offer a political “home” for millions of Americans who are not finding one in the current political establishment or its candidates. 

I am excited. I am liberated. And I am committed to shaking the system as it has never been shaken before. Just the speculation that I might run as a Libertarian has garnered more national media attention than I ever received as a Republican candidate whose voice they didn’t’ want to hear. 

Depending on which poll you read, at least 40% of Republicans are not satisfied with the “field” of candidates the media has produced for them. At least 1 in 4 Democrats is having real second thoughts about Barack Obama. Do the math, and it confirms what I have seen for months on the campaign trail: The only political majority in America today is the one made up of voters who are looking for leadership they haven’t found yet. America is ready for a President who will restore common sense to our fiscal and foreign policies and get government out of the boardroom and the bedroom. 

A credible Libertarian candidate for president is the real path to liberty, opportunity, and a government that is put into its proper and limited role. 

In a recent national poll 63% of Americans said they wished there was a third choice for 2012. There is, and I intend to educate the voters about what we offer America. 

Together, you and I are going to offer that majority a choice. They will see that Your support in the past few months has created this amazing opportunity. I may be the messenger, but this isn’t about me. It is about seizing a moment in history and bringing America back from the brink. 

I want you to be with me as we launch this great endeavor. I ask for your continued support. I ask for your advice. And I am asking for your contribution today to provide the spark for the movement we are igniting. 

You are one of my most generous supporters, and I must depend on you to be as generous as you can once again. Please send your contribution of $2,000, $1,000, $500, or $250. It will be used wisely to take our message to every corner of this great country, and to provide a voice that will otherwise never be heard in 2012. Go to: Gary Johnson 2012.com. 

As a candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination my campaign will be eligible for Federal Matching funds — which means whatever you send will ultimately be matched. A $100 contribution is worth $200. A $250 contribution is worth $500. Please send your maximum contribution today. 

Thank you for your support and your friendship. It means more to me than you will ever know. 

Sincerely, 

Gary

P.S. For those who say my decision to run as the Libertarian Party candidate will only draw votes from the Republicans and re-elect President Obama let me predict that, as my full platform based on freedom becomes known, my candidacy will draw votes from both the Republicans and Democrats and many, many independents.

He is not a sure thing for the Libertarian nomination.  Libertarians, like so many "parties of principle," can rip themselves apart arguing over points that most of the rest of world couldn't care less about.

(Do you know what they call a libertarian firing squad?  An inward-facing circle.)

There are a lot of "big-L" libertarians I don't want to be associated with, politically or personally.  But Gov. Johnson has some interesting ideas and he's managed to function as the executive of a state, in a real political system, and get things done for the better.  He deserves better than he's received, so far, in this campaign season.  I'd love to see him on every state ballot.  I'd love to see him on stage during the presidential debates.  That would be justice.

STRATFOR hacked by Anonymous--and so was I

I have a grudging admiration for anonymous, the "non-group" of people using their hacking skills not to make a profit, but to bring political and social change.  I've commented on them in the past.  They were a case study of "gray area" and "non-hierarchical" actors in my class last semester on Terrorism.  And while I think it's safe to call what they do cyber-crime, I don't see any real terrorist intent.  More like a robin hood complex.

So imagine my surprise to learn I had been targeted by them (or by somebody using their name--that's the problem with non-groups with anonymous membership.  Hell, *I* might be a member...).  A few years ago I was a paid subscriber to STRATFOR, a private intelligence service.  I'm still on their mailing list, reading the free newsletters and receiving offers to rejoin.  STRATFOR's subscriber list is now on line, complete with names, email addresses, and the password used by that subscriber.  And, apparently, the credit card numbers are available, too.  Including mine.

(And no, I won't link to any of it it.  You can find it for yourself, no doubt.)

In addition to providing a "who's-who" of government, corporate, and academic intel types (an interesting list, by the way--I should remember to save a copy for myself), anonymous threatens to use the numbers and passwords to make contributions to charities of their choice in the names of STRATFOR subscribers (robin hoods, remember?) and break into the files of those subscribers elsewhere.

I don't think I'm in any particular trouble.  Not only am I not worth targeting, the information they have on me is old.  I dropped that credit card years ago, and changed the number on my debit card a few weeks ago.  I've regularly updated my passwords everywhere several time since I was a paid member, and the STRATFOR password opens nothing.  All they really have is an email address, and that's public knowledge already.  But it's an interesting experience.  And I'm glad I decided, all those years ago, that a personal subscription to STRATFOR wasn't worth the cost.

Oh, and if you are from anonymous and reading this--no hard feelings.

How to recognize who you are dealing with

In case you get confused this holiday season (too much eggnog, perhaps) Visually provides this handy guide to recognizing who you are dealing with.

If you are only interested in distinguishing TSA agents from everyone else, here's the simple rule: you don't ask, or pay, the TSA to do what they do, and you can't turn down their services.

Can it get any more stupid?

Our ever-reforming, ever-improving, "open" government hit some new lows this year. The most amazing thing is that some can claim that they really are making progress. Compared to what?

• Government report concludes the government classified 77 million documents in 2010, a 40% increase on the year before. The number of people with security clearances exceeded 4.2. million, more people than the city of Los Angeles.

• Government tells Air Force families, including their kids, it’s illegal to read WikiLeaks. The month before, the Air Force barred its service members fighting abroad from reading the New York Times—the country’s Paper of Record.

• Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees were barred from reading the WikiLeaks Guantanamo files, despite their contents being plastered on the front page of the New York Times.

• President Obama refuses to say the words “drone” or “C.I.A” despite the C.I.A. drone program being on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers every day.

• CIA refuses to release even a single passage from its center studying global warming, claiming it would damage national security. As Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood said, “That’s a familiar song, and it became tiresome long ago.”

• The CIA demands former FBI agent Ali Soufan censor his book criticizing the CIA’s post 9/11 interrogation tactics of terrorism suspects. Much of the material, according to the New York Times, “has previously been disclosed in open Congressional hearings, the report of the national commission on 9/11 and even the 2007 memoir of George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director.”

• Department of Homeland Security has become so bloated with secrecy that even the “office's budget, including how many employees and contractors it has, is classified,” according to the Center for Investigative reporting. Yet their intelligence reports “produce almost nothing you can’t find on Google,” said a former undersecretary.

• Headline from the Wall Street Journal in September: “Anonymous US officials push open government.”

• NSA declassified a 200 year old report which they said demonstrated its “commitment to meeting the requirements” of President Obama’s transparency agenda. Unfortunately, the document “had not met the government's own standards for classification in the first place,” according to J. William Leonard, former classification czar.

• Government finally declassifies the Pentagon Papers 40 years after they appeared on the front page of the New York Times and were published by the House’s Armed Services Committee.

• Secrecy expert Steve Aftergood concludes after two years “An Obama Administration initiative to curb overclassification of national security information… has produced no known results to date.”

• President Obama accepts a transparency award…behind closed doors.

• Government attorneys insist in court they can censor a book which was already published and freely available online.

• Department of Justice refuses to release its interpretation of section 215 of the Patriot Act, a public law.

• U.S. refuses to release its legal justification for killing an American citizen abroad without a trial, despite announcing the killing in a press conference.

• U.S. won’t declassify legal opinion on 2001’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

• National Archive announced it was working on declassifying “a backlog of nearly 400 million pages of material that should have been declassified a long time ago.”

• The CIA refused to declassify Open Source Works, “which is the CIA’s in-house open source analysis component, is devoted to intelligence analysis of unclassified, open source information” according to Steve Aftergood.

• Twenty-three year State Department veteran gets his security clearance revoked for linking to a WikiLeaks document on his blog.

• The ACLU sued asking the State Department to declassify 23 cables out of the more than 250,000 released by WikiLeaks. After more than a year, the government withheld 12 in their entirety. You can see the other 11, heavily redacted, next to the unredacted copies on the ACLU website.

2011 in Review: The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Snakes on a plane

It's getting to be you can't keep up with reality.

A Czech Man Actually Tried To Smuggle Snakes On A Plane

Get your own state!

I love micronations. There's something appealing--and pleasantly eccentric--about sticking a flag on a rock, declaring it to be an independent country, and naming yourself emperor. Who hasn't wanted to do that, at one time or another?  Especially at tax time?  I've always admired Sealand.

And sometimes it seems the only way to avoid a big government is to set yourself in charge of a little one.  Seriously, as states come under increasing pressure--and react to it with increasing centralization and restrictions on individuals--I wonder if this may be the wave of the future.

If not for all of us, at least for those who can afford it.

But for now, see Business Insider: Check Out 10 Of Europe's Oddest Micronations. Three examples:

Kingdom Of Elleore

Location: Denmark
Founded: 1944
Ruler: King Leo III
Estimated Population: Unknown. But the population grows in the summer time.
Estimated Size: 15,000 square meters.
About: A small island off Denmark's Northern coast, the Kingdom of Elleore was founded and declared independent when a group of school teachers bought it to organize a summer camp in 1944. The micronation has issued numerous stamps and coins and has had six monarchs since its independence. 

BjornSocialist Republic

Location: Sweden
Founded: 2005
Ruler: President Oskar Augustsson
Estimated Population: Usually Zero.
Estimated Size: Six square meters.
About: Located on a stone that "looks like a tractor," this tiny socialist state near the Bos Islands doesn't recognize Swedish laws and has its own hymn. It made the news when Sweden refused to recognize a marriage between two citizens that allegedly took place on the tiny rock. It claims to be the smallest republic in the world. 

Principality of Filettino

Location: ItalyFounded: 2011
Ruler: Luca Sellari
Estimated Population: 550
Estimated Size: 30 square miles
About: Demonstrating its frustration with Italy's economy and austerity measures, this village decided to break away from th Italian government in August this year. The village intended to invite Prince Emmanuel Filiberto from the deposed Italian royal family to be Prince of their principality.

See the others at Business Insider. And don't forget to renew your passport for Sealand!