Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Liberals are really gunning for Ahmed the Clock Kid. Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins both coming out on the offensive against him, the kind of shit you expect from the other political end. I mean, I knew they were revolting shitheads, but I expected them to at least tow their political line.
 
Liberals are really gunning for Ahmed the Clock Kid. Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins both coming out on the offensive against him, the kind of shit you expect from the other political end. I mean, I knew they were revolting shitheads, but I expected them to at least tow their political line.
I'm not saying they're correct, but it is entirely possible to have an independent thought regardless of one's political leanings. It's not even a political matter.
 
I'm not saying they're correct, but it is entirely possible to have an independent thought regardless of one's political leanings. It's not even a political matter.
It is, but I'm so used to bipartisan crap that I'm surprised to see anyone defer from it, and then it sucks when it's to support stupid shit.

And I disagree; racism and anti-Islam ideology have become political matters.
 
I'm not saying they're correct, but it is entirely possible to have an independent thought regardless of one's political leanings. It's not even a political matter.
I turned Bill off after it turned into "fuck that kid, and fuck you if you aren't paying attention to this guy."

"This guy" being a Saudi facing crucifixion and beheading for criticizing the government.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Speaking of Ahmed the Clock Kid, people are starting to actually wonder if he really built the clock.





That's a printed circuit board, ribbon cable, everything is soldered... kid didn't "make a clock" he took apart a walmart clock and bolted the innards into a CD carrying case.

The question is why?

Maybe he was just a kid who wanted to show off something he thought was cool. And Tyler, TX is actually a hotbed of controversy when it comes to Islam, it has operating Sharia law courts and this year a vote to ban Sharia only failed to get out of committee by 1 vote. So there's clearly a lot of anti-muslim sentiment going around.

But it's interesting how national media fell all over itself to paint the kid as some kind of engineering genius.
 
This was interesting about what's best for particular needs: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/low-and-slow

I don't have anything particularly for or against the JSF other than it's taken so much f'n money that there's no way it's been worth THAT much (so may have been fine, but has since become not fine, and yes this counts toward Canada because we're signed on to it too, so it HAS cost me/my country money so far), but this does show how procurement can be way too blind to actual need.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I have relatives who are working on the JSF, but I still think it's a boondoggle of exasperating proportions, and I'm infurated that certain high brass and politicians have tried to make bank on retiring the still-superior-after-all-these-years A-10 using the JSF as an excuse, and threatened to court martial any pilot who dared speak well of the ol' Warthog.
 
DHS infosec chief: We should pull clearance of feds who [repeatedly] fail phish test

That sounds...unusually prudent.
Maybe it'll catch on.

--Patrick
Won't happen. 99% of the officials will fail, from the President on down. Hell, I'd bet on virtually every politician that actually looks at their own email (there have been stories over the years about those who have it all printed out for them, like this one, though non-government in that specific case) would fail it. Not that it's hard, but I just have that opinion of it.


I wonder if I should phish my local provincial rep? Probably not. I know him personally, but I don't actually want to know if he'll fail...
 
It all depends, doesn't it? I've seen people fall for "Hi ,we're Microsoft, and we'd like your password because we accidentally deleted it from our server" (yes, seriously). On the other hand, I've gotten Paypal mails which I honestly and seriously couldn't tell weren't real - just the regular monthly "check your expenses" mail. Except the link leading off it was to something not too kosher - also made to look exactly like the PP site. I never follow links from such mail and go through the site to prevent such things, but I looked at it (through a sandbox) after discovering it was fake - I honestly couldn't tell it wasn't PP itself asking me to "change my password for security reasons" (of course, first asking for the old one...), except by the URL Sure, TSSCI people should be knowledgeable up to a point, but they can't all be IT experts. Just like we don't expect them to be martial artists, but have bodyguards, instead.
 
And Tyler, TX is actually a hotbed of controversy when it comes to Islam, it has operating Sharia law courts and this year a vote to ban Sharia only failed to get out of committee by 1 vote. So there's clearly a lot of anti-muslim sentiment going around.
I think that you mean Irving, Tx, not Tyler.
 
Won't happen. 99% of the officials will fail, from the President on down. Hell, I'd bet on virtually every politician that actually looks at their own email (there have been stories over the years about those who have it all printed out for them, like this one, though non-government in that specific case) would fail it. Not that it's hard, but I just have that opinion of it.
Everyone goes through training on how to handle this kind of stuff and what steps they're supposed to take, and from what I can tell, no one in our government has a fucking clue about what they were taught. I'm proud of my wife for identifying an attempt to gain sensitive information, but her co-worker gave her hell about it like "what's the big deal if he wants access?" despite the level of significance involving the information.
 
That's a printed circuit board, ribbon cable, everything is soldered... kid didn't "make a clock" he took apart a walmart clock and bolted the innards into a CD carrying case.
Considering thats what he claimed he did from the very beginning, I'm suspecting that he's right.
 
I have relatives who are working on the JSF, but I still think it's a boondoggle of exasperating proportions, and I'm infurated that certain high brass and politicians have tried to make bank on retiring the still-superior-after-all-these-years A-10 using the JSF as an excuse, and threatened to court martial any pilot who dared speak well of the ol' Warthog.
Yeah the JSF is a horrific clusterfuck. Even if it ever works properly, it still won't be as good as all the aircraft its replacing, simply because it's a generalist trying to do a number of specialist roles. There are entirely different requirements for a high-altitude high-speed interceptor and close air support strike aircraft and yet the JSF is expected to replace the F-14, F-18, A-10, and AV-8B. And that is, quite frankly, absurd. For the nearly $2 trillion that JSF program is predicted to cost over it's lifetime, we could have completely upgraded and improved our current air fleet to last for decades.

I've seen as a rebuttal the F-15E Strike Eagle, but I don't consider that to be a true example. Yes, the F-15E did fly a large number of bombing runs during Desert Storm. But just because it could be mounted with large amounts of Air-to-Ground ordinance doesn't make it a close air support aircraft anymore than mounting Sidewinders and AAMRAMs on an A-10 makes it an Air Superiority fighter.
 
It does mean, Krisken, that he can be beaten.
Lol, yes. But I was referring to the distractions about the kid and the clock, not Walker and his sad attempt at a Presidential Run.

Damn it, we could have had another two months free from the systematic dismantling of our state and everything good about it.
 
As the noon local news keeps going on and on about the Pope's trip to Philadelphia, I wonder if some bottom-level TSA or ICE functionary would be stupid enough to try to deny him entry into the country. Or maybe some uber-teabagger Congressman proposing his arrest. It could happen.
 

Dave

Staff member
I think it would be hilarious if he were randomly chosen for extra scrutiny and checking. Of course, that won't happen because he's not brown.
 

Dave

Staff member
Have you ever seen the people who get "randomly" chosen at the TSA lines? Let's just say that it isn't so random.
 
Is a truly random screen the best method? I am super surprised that the government backed TSA is inept. Quite shocking.
Probably not, but what's "best" and what's "constitutionally legal" are not the same. And really, if we wanted to secure our airports, we'd have roadblocks to get in and out and have the inspections begin there. Israel starts it's sceening process like a mile from the terminal: you can't get in or out without being stopped something like 5 times. It's remarkably effective.
 
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