This reminds me of the good 'ol days of being a kid when, if you wanted bullets for your .22 rifle, you rode your bike up to the local Gibsons, went to the sporting goods department, and asked the fellow behind the counter for a box of .22s. He would ask you if you wanted them for a pistol or a rifle and you would answer: "rifle, sir" because, kids couldn't have pistols, only rifles.

Things have definitely gone downhill since then and I'm damned sure it has NOTHING to do with kids getting bullets for their .22s.

"The video, produced for the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, was marked "Official Use Only." It shows commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent reaction that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke."

Usually fear mongering is done by spreading fear throughout the population. These clever people are doing it by classifying it as official use only and NOT distributing it. How devious can you get?

B

These people are absolutely out of control..........the image of Douglas Feith having unlimited power to do any specific moronic thing that he desires is embedded in my mind................even though he's not involved with DHS.

Yeah, and you didn't wear a helment, knee pads, elbow pads, carry a cell phone, insurance card, blah, blah, blah . . .

We didn't need no steenkin' helments! . . . .

LOL!!

In the 60s, Austin was home to a strategic bomber wing...complete with nuclear weapons and B-52's sitting on alert. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that we were on the Soviet's "A" list.

Our house was about 4 miles from the AF base. I remember seeing movies of the bomb testing and thinking (while crouched under my desk at schoool) that, "if they go 5-10 miles from the bomb when they test it, we're history if the Russians actually ever toss one our way. Personally, I think it would be better to go in the first millisecond than live through the aftermath.

An accidental "leak" of information: precisely the way I'd do it for the most effect. But regardless of the effect or purpose, the fact remains that even the most basic information from the video is totally erroneous.

Hey Dee8go, as someone who is heading to DC to join DHS I take offense at that remark (wait until I am actually there before calling it the Dept of Homeland Stupidity) :rolleyes: Has anybody seen the video? I would not put it past the AP getting it wrong. Just giving my new employer the benefit of the doubt.

As far as "duck and cover" goes, I grew up in Suffern,NY. Suffern was a target of a Soviet missile as it was the home of a huge underground AT&T complex that handled all communications traffic for the East coast. My HS was about 2 miles away and had glass walls. Here we were cringing under the plate glass in the hallways while reciting the "duck and cover" mantra.
Talk about insanity. I was given detention and almost suspended for refusing to participate in a drill.

There are lots of internal gov docs labeled "for official use" that make it into the public domain. It's a dumb label that bureaucrats love to use for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it lends an aura of importance to a document. If you want to call attention to something, label it "Offical Use Only." Suddenly, everybody wants to read and comment on it.

Having been in the system for longer than I'd care to admit, I would suggest that this particular thing was probably "leaked" by a mid-level bureaucrat whose ambition exceeded his ability. I doubt you'll find any indication of a political hand in it. Usually political things are more blatantly so.

Politicians know that people don't really give a cold poopie about infrastructual security -- heck, they don't give a damned just so long as water comes from the tap and they get their MTV. Congress get's all heated-up over port security (for example) for a couple of weeks of mad thrashing during the political season and then they put it back on the shelf -- it really isn't as important as funding a bridge to an icy island in the middle of nowhere or performance art about menstruation.

B

Bingo!

It's not about anything other than sucking up and getting re-elected or saving your (the editorial 'your') bureaucratic ass ...over, and over, and over...ad nausaeum. Bride was in government for 20+ years (a performance auditor) and I've seen/heard all the tales of abuse.

So, I'm all for term limitation but, I also know that's a simplistic answer and that there's no good solution to the abuse of power from greed and egos.

I can only speculate as you have on why it was released, but I don't expect there's nothing political about it. Whether it's just a "reminder" of the danger we should all be in imminent fear of, or a leak in advance of some proposal to address it, or a means to justify some new government contracts, I find it more plausible the leak has a reason greater than some bureaucrat.

I guess I have a more jaundiced view of entrenched bureaucracy and a less cynical opinion of elected officers.

The problem with your theory is that it required a bureaucrat to do something.

Hey man. I used to buy 22 shells at the drug store, this in around '66.

Hey, Randy, is a "performance auditor" anything like a performance artist?

I just bought 550 rounds of Remington 22 LG. at Walmart for under $10 the other day. Can't beat the price!