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I’m actually getting a bit frightened here, my own fault entirely, because I sat down and actually consumed some news. I should have watched something PG like “Frozen,” but those characters tend to annoy me in an entirely different way.

For those who have not been watching the news, the narrative is simple, the Russians did it. What did they do? Pretty much everything. If anything has gone wrong in your life, it’s probably because you have a little Russian troll following you around. I would suggest rubbing his fuzzy little head and asking him to go bring you a bucket of gold from the end of the rainbow, but that is just me.

Actually, I am not frightened by the little fuzzy heads, it is actually our own alphabet people who are scaring me, the lettered ones, CIA, FBI, NSA, the Men in Black. Like,  where is my safe space?! I am not feeling your protection, provision here, I am feeling, well, teh stoopid, also known as playing politics. Yes, a total no confidence vote. That’s kind of scary.

I just want to say a couple of things. “Hacking” is when you actually break into somebody’s computer and steal their stuff….or alter it. You can do this from far away sometimes. A leak is when someone inside of your circle just hands over incriminating documents or data. In the ultimate twist of irony, those so-called incriminating things are what you have said and communicated in your very own words. Another way of saying this is the truth as you know it to be. In the US apparently we call this “stealing an election.”

And people wonder why we don’t trust politicians.

So I hate to defend any Russian trolls or anything, they make such a delightful arch-enemy, but the email scandal we have just wasted all this time on is actually probably a leak, not a hack.

Anthony Weiner comes to mind every time I type the word “leak,” as in it wasn’t cat pictures he was leaking all about the intertoobz. That actually has nothing to do with “hacking,” as in one simply cannot release info on the intertoobz and then claim you were “hacked.” Well, you can, but it just doesn’t work that way. You simply got caught…revealing the truth about yourself. Sorry? Oops? What can I say, stuff happens?

I love a good conspiracy theory, I really do, but this narrative that suggests Russian hackers broke into the DNC and the RNC,  got the real scoop on our candidates, created multiple fake news sites, and then engaged in this elaborate psychological ploy to brainwash the American people, just borders on the ludicrous. I mean it’s delightful, it sounds like a John Grisham novel, but it is teetering on the edge of downright paranoid.

So when things are teetering on the edge of paranoia, I often look to our leaders, and to the Men in Black to sort things out. Instead of being the calm voice of reason, they are actually calling for general panic, hysteria, and Russian troll hunting. Ai yi yi.

As if that was not distressing enough, Barbara Boxer decided to just up and introduce a bill to eliminate the electoral college. Apparently she is not aware that See There’s This Thing Called the US Constitution… One does not simply pass a law and restructure the entire electoral system to suit one’s needs. That would require a constitutional amendment and ratification, a long and involved process. She needs to watch Schoolhouse Rock and start singing “I’m just a bill,” because that is how I learned these things. Since she gets paid so much more than I do, it would be nice if she would at least learn the lyrics.

Call me crazy, but I suspect our Russian trolls have just popped themselves some popcorn and are now  kicking back in their parent’s basement watching the show. Why actually work when our own leaders insist on providing so much free entertainment?

natasha