NYPD Officers Turn Backs to de Blasio (VIDEO)

At London's Daily Mail, "Police officers turn their backs on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio as he is accused of having 'blood on his hands'."

Vicious Hatemonger @CassandraRules 'Spammed by Idiots' Calling Her Out for Her Violent Anti-Cop Agitation

She deserves to be mercilessly trolled for her vicious anti-police agitation, the scummy bitch.

.@CassandraRules has blood on her hands. She's been agitating vigilante anti-cop violence for months. @CFLancop @MarshallLocke @MsEBL

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 21, 2014

Does this mean I can't wear my FTP Santa hat today? #ColdMedsDanceParty pic.twitter.com/ovr4BCZh8i

— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) December 20, 2014

Every time a cop gets killed I get spammed like I did it. Wanting cops to stop killing people isn't the same as wishing anyone dead.

— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) December 21, 2014

Being spammed by idiots, have a cop telling me about when he killed someone, & I'm still loopy from cold meds. Twitter, I can't handle you.

— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) December 21, 2014

'Al Sharpton Got What He Wanted' — On CNN, Retired NYPD Detective Slams Obama's Race Huckster (VIDEO)

Detective Harry Houck pulls no punches, man.



PREVIOUSLY: "Two NYPD Officers Shot Dead — 'Execution Style — in 'Revenge' for Michael Brown and Eric Garner (VIDEO)."

Two NYPD Officers Shot Dead — 'Execution Style — in 'Revenge' for Michael Brown and Eric Garner (VIDEO)

The fruits of weeks of leftist violence, vandalism, and mayhem nationwide. I dare say this is just a beginning.

At the New York Post, "Gunman executes 2 NYPD cops as ‘revenge’ for Garner."

Two uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner — in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s ­assassination-style mission to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

“It’s an execution,” one law-enforcement source said of the 3 p.m. shooting.

The tragic heroes were working overtime as part of an anti-terrorism drill in Bedford-Stuyvesant when they were shot point-blank in the head by the lone gunman, identified by sources as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, who had addresses in Georgia and Brooklyn.

Moments after killing the two officers, he too was dead, having turned the gun on himself on a nearby subway platform as cops closed in.

“I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” a person believed to be the gunman wrote on Instagram in a message posted just three hours before the officers were shot.

“They Take 1 Of Ours…Let’s Take 2 of Theirs,” the post continued, signing off with, “This May Be My Final Post...”

Keep reading at Memeorandum.

Darleen Click has a tweet of the Instagram message, at Protein Wisdom, "Uh-oh."

More at Jawa Report, "Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley Murders Two NYC Police Officers."

Plus, at the New York Times, "Two Police Officers Fatally Shot in Brooklyn; Suspect Is Found Dead," and "Live Updates on Fatal Shooting of Two N.Y.P.D. Officers."

And of course, the far-left celebrations of the dead cops, at Twitchy, "‘Can they breathe?’ Execution-style killing of two NYPD officers celebrated; ‘Salute the shooter’," and "#PoliceLivesMatter: Michelle Malkin warned in columns of growing anti-police vigilantism."

My column last week on anti-police vigilantism across the country ==> http://t.co/ZNobzQz3Zk

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) December 20, 2014

Plunging Russian Ruble Puts Pressure on Putin

At WSJ, "Plunging Ruble Unsettles Russians, Poses Test for Putin: Russians Rush to Buy Big-Ticket Items and Foreign Currencies as Ruble Hits Record Low":

MOSCOW—As Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up the conflict with the West for most of the year, the economic fallout on ordinary Russians has been limited.

Suddenly, though, the plunging ruble is reawakening fears of rising prices and the kind of financial crisis Mr. Putin has sought to put behind his country. As the ruble hit a record low, falling as much as 20% against the dollar Tuesday, Moscow residents rushed to buy electronics and other big-ticket items and drained rubles from ATMs to swap them for dollars and euros—signaling a new feeling of vulnerability among Russians and a fresh challenge to their leader.

From St. Petersburg to Siberia, money changers ran out of foreign currency and were raising exchange rates. Sberbank , Russia’s state savings bank, and Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private lender, said they were experiencing a rush for dollars and euros.

“The demand is enormous. People are bringing piles, huge piles of cash. It is madness,” said Kamila Asmalova, a manager at a Moscow branch of Sberbank. The branch ran out of foreign currency by 2 p.m., she said.

Lanta Bank, a midsize Moscow lender, said its foreign counterparts would be unable to send foreign currency Wednesday as aircraft that typically transport cash are full.

Apple Inc. said it halted online sales in the country because of the ruble’s volatility, and IKEA announced it would raise prices there.

The ruble’s continued fall despite the Russian central bank’s move to raise interest rates to 17% rippled across global markets Tuesday, fueling a selloff in emerging market currencies and stocks. In the U.S., the turbulence was more muted, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.7%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, a traditional haven, fell to 2.07%, its lowest closing level since May 2013.

Abroad, Russia’s crumbling currency—driven by sanctions and eroding oil prices—raises the threat of a currency market contagion, particularly for emerging economies facing headwinds, such as Turkey and Indonesia.

At home, economists say the Russian central bank’s rate gambit is certain to push the country’s faltering economy into recession by raising borrowing costs. Even before the rate increase, the central bank estimated the economy could contract as much as 4.7% next year if oil remains around $60 a barrel. On Tuesday, Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that the government would introduce some “regulatory measures” on the foreign-exchange market, but that it wasn’t discussing any capital-control measures.

The big question is whether Russia’s economic troubles will turn into a real political challenge for Mr. Putin, whose approval ratings remain above 80% and who retains tight control over politics and the economy...

Continue reading.

Democrat Party Thanks Stephen Colbert for Nearly 10-Years of Leftist Partisanship and Propaganda — Stalker-Troll Repsac3 Signs On!

John Hinderaker got some mileage out of this story, apparently, at Power Line, "DEMOCRATS TO COLBERT: THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!"

And what do you know?

AmPow's hate-addled stalking hate-troll Walter James Casper III totes signed the petition to "thank Stephen Colbert for 9 great years!"

I just signed the petition to thank Stephen Colbert for 9 great years! Add your name: http://t.co/GLQiwUW1KV

— Walter James Casper (@repsac3) December 18, 2014

Talk about moral bankruptcy and rank, brainless partisanship and ideological hatred.

But that's our own stalker troll "Hate-sac" for you, boasting about his corrupt media bias and institutional hackery.

FLASHBACK: From Robert Stacy McCain, "Portrait of a Stalker Troll: @Repsac3, Also Known as Walter James Casper III":

Among the significant characteristics of cyberstalkers is the disproportionality of their obsessions. Professor Douglas is not an academic celebrity or influential media personality. He’s a professor of political science at Long Beach City College in California. It is not as if he’s at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Yale or some other big-money “prestige” school, and yet the fact that Professor Douglas is (a) conservative and (b) a blogger is sufficient to justify in Casper’s sick mind the most insane forms of stalking behavior.

Another characteristic of cyberstalkers is their resort to psychological projection: They are not obsessed with you — no! — you are obsessed with them, and don’t you dare accuse them of harassing you — of course not! — you are instead harassing them.

Indeed, the hate-filled, morally bankrupt Repsac is universally reviled across the 'sphere: This kind of “accuse the accusers” tactic serves two purposes for the troll: First, it is a psychological rationalization by which he justifies his behavior and, second, it serves to obfuscate the situation in the eyes of law enforcement or other authorities.
Something else: The conflict between Casper and Professor Douglas is not about politics, nor is it about Professor Douglas.

That is to say, Casper’s espousal of left-wing political ideas is not the reason for his behavior, but simply a pretext, and if he weren’t harassing Professor Douglas, he’d be harassing some other target, selected more or less at random. There is, of course, a specific history to the conflict between them, but it is ultimately irrelevant. There are plenty of people every bit as left-wing as Casper who are not obsessive stalkers, and there are other conservative bloggers who might just as easily become targets for stalking, if ever they attracted the attention of such a grotesquely deformed personality as Casper.

Walter James Casper III has spent years smearing and harassing Professor Douglas, trying to get him fired from his job. This could (and in fact, often does) happen to any blogger who has a day job.

@rsmccain @repsac3 @AmPowerBlog Get a life, 3casper. Even your friends say you're obsessed. The whole world is not wrong and you are right

— The Mad Jewess™ (@MadJewessWoman) January 8, 2014

@repsac3 stirring the pot and spreading the H8…does that make you feel great? Loser. @AmPowerBlog @rsmccain @regularrightguy @instapundit

— Evi L. Bloggerlady (@MsEBL) November 16, 2014

Corruption, stalking, and spreading partisan hatred. Boy, Repsac sure knows how to win friends and influence people, not!

James Holmes' Parents Plead Against Death Penalty

At LAT, "James Holmes' parents plead for their son: 'He is not a monster'":

The parents of shooting suspect James Holmes pleaded for their son’s life in a letter sent Friday, arguing that the man accused in the deadly rampage at a suburban Denver movie theater is mentally ill and should be institutionalized for life instead of facing execution.

Holmes, 27, faces the death penalty if he is convicted of killing 12 people and injuring 70 in the 2012 attack on a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Jury selection is scheduled to start Jan. 20.

The case has reignited arguments over gun control, the death penalty and whether to execute people who are mentally ill. Holmes has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

In a letter sent to the Denver Post and emailed to journalists around the country, Robert and Arlene Holmes wrote: “We are always praying for everyone in Aurora. We wish that July 20, 2012, never happened.”

Of their son, they wrote, “We have read postings on the Internet that have likened him to a monster. He is not a monster. He is a human being gripped by a severe mental illness.”

It was Robert and Arlene Holmes’ first comments except for a brief statement immediately after the attack at the theater.

“Treatment in an institution would be best for our son,” they wrote. “We love our son, we have always loved him and we do not want him to be executed.”

There must be some significant doubt about that insanity plea. If the courts find him competent, the f-ker should fry.

More.

Less Than 25 Percent of Americans Satisfied with Direction of the Country

Following up on the previous post, "The Obama Administration May Represent the 'Peak Left' in American Politics."

Despite all the bullshit MSM hoopla about how Obama's going all 2.0 and such, bedrock Americans --- i.e., real Americans, not the treasonous bastard leftists --- continue to say the country's going to hell.

At Gallup, "Satisfaction With Direction of U.S. Continues to Languish."

Even though Americans are more positive about the economy than they have been in recent years, it still ranks at or near the top of their list of the most important problems facing the country. In addition to the economy, dissatisfaction with the government has also consistently ranked among the most important problems facing the country in the last two years. As a result, Americans' frustration with Washington's ability to address the country's major issues could be holding satisfaction down, as it likely did in 2006 and 2007 when the economy relatively good. With Republicans taking control of the Senate and the House in January, the prospects for greater cooperation in Washington are not bright.

Right.

And the idiot Obama continues to push for policies everything of which are besides the economy. Fucking Democrat morons.

The Obama Administration May Represent the 'Peak Left' in American Politics

Or, to put it another way, the high tide of leftist "progressive" perversion, deceit and moral decay.

From Walter Russell Mead, at the American Interest, "Next Up in America: The Liberal Leftist Retreat":

As the United States staggers toward the seventh year of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, a growing disquiet permeates the ranks of the American left. After six years of the most liberal President since Jimmy Carter, the nation doesn’t seem to be asking for a second helping. Even though the multiyear rollout of Obamacare was carefully crafted to put all the popular features up front, delaying less popular changes into the far future, the program remains unpopular. Trust in the fairness and competence of government is pushing toward new lows in the polls, even though the government is now in the hands of forward-looking, progressive Democrats rather than antediluvian Gopers.

For liberals, these are bleak times of hollow victories (Obamacare) and tipping points that don’t tip. For examples of the latter, think of Sandy Hook, the horrific massacre in Connecticut that Democrats and liberals everywhere believed would finally push the American public toward gun control. Two years later, polls show more Americans than ever before think it’s more important to protect gun access than to promote gun control.

Sandy Hook isn’t the only example. There was the latest 2014 IPCC report on climate change that was going to end the debate once and for all. The chances for legislative action on climate change in the new Congress: zero or less. There was Ferguson and the Garner videotape showing the fatal chokehold, both of which set off a wave of protests but seem unlikely to change public attitudes about the police. There was the Senate Intelligence Committee “torture report” that was going to settle the issue of treatment of detainees. Again, the polls are rolling in suggesting that the public remains exactly where it was: supportive of “torture” under certain circumstances. And of course there was the blockbuster Rolling Stone article on campus rape at UVA, the story that, before it abruptly collapsed, was going to cement public support for the Obama administration’s aggressive attempt to federalize the treatment of sexual harassment on campuses around the country.

In all of these cases, liberals got what, from a liberal perspective, appeared to be conclusive evidence that long cherished liberal policy ideas were as correct as liberals have always thought they were. In all of these cases the establishment media conformed to the liberal narrative, inundating the airwaves and flooding the cyberverse with the liberal line. Some of the stories, like the UVA rape story, collapsed. Some, like the Ferguson story, became so complex and nuanced that some of their initial political salience diminished. But even when, as with Ferguson, other follow-up stories seem to reinforce the initial liberal take (the Garner case, for example), the public still doesn’t seem to accept the liberal line or draw the inferences that liberals want it to draw. It’s becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that many Americans will continue to disagree with many liberal policy prescriptions no matter what.

Shell-shocked liberals are beginning to grasp some inconvenient truths. No gun massacre is horrible enough to change Americans’ ideas about gun control. No UN Climate Report will get a climate treaty through the U.S. Senate. No combination of anecdotal and statistical evidence will persuade Americans to end their longtime practice of giving police officers extremely wide discretion in the use of force. No “name and shame” report, however graphic, from the Senate Intelligence Committee staff will change the minds of the consistent majority of Americans who tell pollsters that they believe that torture is justifiable under at least some circumstances. No feminist campaign will convince enough voters that the presumption of innocence should not apply to those accused of rape.

These are not the only issues in which, from a left Democratic point of view, the country is overrun with zombies and vampires: policy ideas that Democrats thought had been killed but still restlessly roam the earth. The finale of the George W. Bush presidency was, for many Democrats, conclusive evidence that conservative ideas just don’t work. The post 9/11 Bush foreign policy led to two long and unhappy wars. America had lost the trust of its allies without defeating its enemies. At home, the Bush tax cuts led to an exploding deficit, and the orgy of deregulation (admittedly, much of it dating from the Clinton years) led to the greatest financial crash since World War II and the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression...

Still more, and be sure to click through for the links to polling data that show the public's repudiation of idiotic leftist policy positions down the line.

Meanwhile, little Scotty Lemieux, at Leftists, Losers and Perverts, mewls about how Obama's going to be the most "substantial" and "significant" president since LBJ and FDR. Heh, I know. The lulz. They hurt!

Obama Props Up Tyranny in Cuba

At Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Abnormalization."

Sony CEO Michael Lynton Responds to President Obama (VIDEO)

"We have not caved, we have not given in, we have persevered, and we have not backed down..."

See the Wrap, "Sony CEO Michael Lynton to President Obama: ‘We Have Not Caved’ (Video)."

And watch at CNN:



And ICYMI: "Obama Blames Sony After Failing to Defend Free Speech When it Mattered."

Nikki Finke Said to Be in Talks With Politico

Well, she's the master Hollywood gossip reporter (or she was), and she's sure be a nice fit at Politico, with its "win the morning" ethos.

See the New York Times, "Nikki Finke, Hollywood Chronicler, Said to Be in Talks With Politico":

Ms. Finke grew infamous in Los Angeles for aggressive coverage of the entertainment industry, which made her former website, Deadline Hollywood, into a draw for breaking industry news. Penske Media acquired the site in 2009. But in 2012 it purchased Variety, a competing Hollywood trade publication, which sparked a dispute that resulted in Ms. Finke’s leaving the company.

Ms. Finke and Penske recently came to settlement terms, which prohibited her from writing about the entertainment industry for another company. Writing about Washington might circumnavigate that agreement.

Yeah, her parting with Deadline must burn like a thousand suns. I wrote about that here, "Final Deadline for Nikke Finke?"

And best of luck to the lady.

Believing That Friendly U.S.-Cuba Relations Can Remake the Regime in Havana is the Worst Kind of American Exceptionalist Fantasy

From Gordon Adams, at Foreign Policy, "The Liberal Fallacy of the Cuba Deal":

When the New York Times decides to run a banner headline in virtually every one of its domestic and international editions, it usually means something big has just gone down. This week, it was the administration’s announcement that the United States is reversing the policy of the last 50-plus years, re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and advocating an end of the economic embargo of the island nation.

I would like to say that this policy change has emerged because non-recognition and the embargo were both stupid and self-defeating policies. And that may be part of it. But the debate that has begun to emerge around the Cuba policy announcement this week actually seems to be going in another direction. Instead of simply ending a policy that was always unworkable, we are at risk of embarking on another misleading debate about American exceptionalism: that somehow U.S. policy, in some way, will lead to the political and economic order that we (not the Cubans) want to see in Cuba...

More.

More Kate Upton 'Sexiest Woman'

Following up from yesterday, "Kate Upton: 'Sexiest Woman Alive'."

And see now this massive photo slideshow of Ms. Upton at the Los Angeles Times, "Kate Upton named 'Sexiest Woman Alive' by People magazine."

A Reply to Kim's Cyberterrorism

At the Wall Street Journal, "Financial sanctions squeezed the North before and could again":

President Obama vowed in his press conference Friday that the United States “will respond proportionally” to the cyberattack on Sony Pictures, “in a place and time and manner that we choose.” Since the FBI has now concluded the attack was orchestrated by North Korea, a forceful response is essential to deterring future attacks by the world’s rogues. Allow us to offer some suggestions as to what a “proportional” response might be.

As we noted Friday, one good place to start would be for the U.S. government to pay Sony Pictures for the rights to “The Interview” and release the movie for free into the public domain. The comedy, about an assassination attempt on Kim Jong Un, could then be seen by the world and translated into Korean, loaded on USB sticks, and floated into North Korea by balloons.

That would teach Pyongyang a useful lesson in the value the free world attaches to free speech. But the corpulent Korean despot also needs to learn a lesson about the costs of hacking and cyberterrorism, which caused Sony to cancel the movie’s scheduled Christmas release.

The easy place to start would be to once again place North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism—a list from which the Bush Administration unwisely removed it in 2008 in exchange for the late Kim Jong Il ’s fake promises of denuclearization. Putting the North back on the list would be an act of diplomatic hygiene, though it would probably not do much to hurt the Kim regime.

A tougher move would be to reprise the Treasury Department’s 2007 sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank that the U.S. accused of being a major money-launderer for Pyongyang. The Kim family is heavily dependent on drug dealing, contraband cigarettes, counterfeit dollars, arms smuggling and other illicit activity for its hard currency earnings, which it then uses as bribes to keep the North’s elite in line. The bank denies the allegations.

The sanctions froze Banco Delta Asia out of conducting dollar-denominated transactions, though their broader effect was to dissuade other banks from doing business with Pyongyang for fear of being similarly sanctioned. It was, by all accounts, the toughest blow the Kim family had ever sustained. “They were not able to pay for gyroscopes for their missile program,” Rep. Ed Royce, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told us Friday. “Their missile line just shut down. The dictator couldn’t pay his generals.”

The Kim regime squealed. In one of their worst diplomatic moves, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush ultimately relented, and it was back to North Korean business as usual. But at least the sanctions demonstrated how vulnerable the Kims were to having their personal finances squeezed. It can be done again...

Lone Wolf Terrorism is the New Nightmare

Once again, a penetrating analysis from Charles Krauthammer, at WaPo, "How to fight the lone wolf":

The lone wolf is the new nightmare, dramatized and amplified this week by the hostage-taking attack in Sydney. But there are two kinds of lone wolves — the crazy and the evil — and the distinction is important.

The real terrorists are rational. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, had been functioning as an Army doctor for years. Psychotics cannot carry that off. Hasan even had a business card listing his occupation as SoA (Soldier of Allah). He then went out and, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” shot dead 13 people, 12 of them fellow soldiers. To this day, Hasan speaks coherently and proudly of the massacre. That’s terrorism.

Sydney’s Man Haron Monis, on the other hand, was a marginal, alienated Iranian immigrant with a cauldron of psychopathologies. Described by his own former lawyer as “unhinged,” Monis was increasingly paranoid. He’d been charged as accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and convicted of sending threatening letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers.

His religiosity was both fanatical and confused. A Shiite recently converted to Sunni Islam, his Internet postings showed not just the zeal of the convert but a remarkable ignorance of Islam and Islamism. He even brought the wrong Islamic banner to the attack. He had to ask the authorities to provide him with an Islamic State flag.

Which led to a frantic search to find an Islamic State connection or conspiracy. But for the disturbed like Monis, the terror group does not provide instructions, it provides a script. It offers the disoriented and deranged a context, a purpose, a chance even at heroism.

I suspect this is the case with most of the recent cluster of lone-wolf terrorist incidents, from the beheading of a co-worker in Oklahoma to the Queens ax attack on New York City police. We fear these attackers because the psychopathological raw material is everywhere, in the interstices of every society. Normally in and out of mental hospitals, in and out of homelessness, some are now redirected to find a twisted redemption in terror.

Nonetheless, in the scheme of things, the crazies are limited in what they can carry out. They are too disorganized to do more than localized, small-scale damage. The larger danger is the Maj. Hasan with his mental faculties intact and his purpose unwavering.

The still greater threat is organized terror, as we were reminded just hours after Sydney by the Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed at least 148, mostly children...

Still more.

Pamela Geller on the Rick Amato Show: Jihad in Australia

At Atlas Shrugs, "The Faces of Jihad Terror: #SydneySiege hero victims, Young lawyer and mother-of-three died after ‘shielding pregnant friend’ from gunfire and the café manager, 34, shot dead as he tried to grab terrorist’s gun," and "#SydneySiege Jihadist wore headband bearing the war cry: “We are ready to sacrifice for you, O Muhammad”."

Just Finished 'The Hunger Games'

There was something about the latest film, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1," that piqued my interest more than usual. (The problem of totalitarianism really came out, especially at the conclusion.)

I took my kid to see it on the opening weekend. Impressed, I came home and picked up my older son's copy of the first volume in the series, "The Hunger Games."

A great gift item for Christmas, at Amazon, "The Hunger Games Box Set: Foil Edition."

America's Craven Capitulation to Terror

I'm posting this one FWIW, considering the significant doubts on the origins of the Sony hack.

From David Keyes, at the Daily Beast, "The Sony Hack and America’s Craven Capitulation to Terror":

Americans are giving in to North Korean blackmail — and it will only get worse.

If the noble experiment of American democracy is to mean anything, it is fidelity to the principle of freedom. It is to champion the idea that all men and women are endowed with certain unalienable rights—free to think our thoughts, speak our minds, associate with whom we want and express our feelings without fear that a tyrant will silence us. Slavery is not only the physical restraining of the body. It is also the imprisonment of the mind—the instinct to quiet one’s thoughts in the face of terror.

This is a degrading and shameful state which no man or woman should be forced to endure.

Yesterday, Americans not only endured it—they enabled it. Anonymous hackers, possibly associated with the North Korean regime, made unspecified threats to conduct a 9/11-style attack on theaters that showed “The Interview,” a feature comedy film which pokes fun at Kim Jong Un. Major theaters announced they would not show the movie and Sony pulled it.

On Christmas weekend, a North Korean tyrant has decided what American teenagers will see on the silver screen. Some sympathize with the theaters. Who can blame them? Why would any business expose their customers to potential terror?

This is wrong, dangerous and shameful.

By giving an artistic veto to a madman, we submit to the mindset of a slave. We are no longer sovereigns of our thoughts, comedy and art. If anything is worth fighting for, it is this...

Heh, a little dramatic (although not necessarily disagreeable).

More, at the New Republic (safe link), "Why Aren't We Retaliating Right Now for the Sony Cyberattack?"

More Questions on Who's Behind the Sony Hack?

The dissenting voices on NoKo's complicity are extremely compelling.

Recall Wired's piece from yesterday, "Who's Behind the Sony Hack Attack?"

Now here's Marc Rogers (via Dana Loesch), "Why the Sony hack is unlikely to be the work of North Korea":

Whoever did this is in it for revenge. The info and access they had could have easily been used to cash out, yet, instead, they are making every effort to burn Sony down. Just think what they could have done with passwords to all of Sony’s financial accounts? With the competitive intelligence in their business documents? From simple theft, to the sale of intellectual property, or even extortion – the attackers had many ways to become rich. Yet, instead, they chose to dump the data, rendering it useless. Likewise, I find it hard to believe that a “Nation State” which lives by propaganda would be so willing to just throw away such an unprecedented level of access to the beating heart of Hollywood itself....

Finally, blaming North Korea is the easy way out for a number of folks, including the security vendors and Sony management who are under the microscope for this. Let’s face it – most of today’s so-called “cutting edge” security defenses are either so specific, or so brittle, that they really don’t offer much meaningful protection against a sophisticated attacker or group of attackers. That doesn’t mean that we should let them off and give up every time someone plays the “APT” or “Sophisticated Attacker” card though. This is a significant area of weakness in the security industry – the truth is we are TERRIBLE at protecting against bespoke, unique attacks, let alone true zero days. There is some promising technology out there, but it’s clear that it just isn’t ready yet.

While we are on the subject, and ignoring the inability of traditional AntiVirus to detect bespoke malware, just how did whatever Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution that Sony uses miss terabytes of data flying out of their network? How did their sophisticated on-premise perimeter security appliances miss such huge anomalies in network traffic, machine usage or host relationships? How did they miss Sony’s own edge being hijacked and used as public bittorrent servers aiding the exfiltration of their data? ....

The reality is, as things stand, Sony has little choice but to burn everything down and start again. Every password, every key, every certificate is tainted now and that’s a terrifying place for an organization to find itself. This hack should be used as the definitive lesson in why security matters and just how bad things can get if you don’t take it seriously.

Keep reading.