Brain Droppings

Musings about life

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An open letter to Americans on Veteran’s Day

First of all, I appreciate your thanks to me and other veterans for your service. I appreciate that you recognize my service and that you honor those who gave more than I did, especially those who gave all.  

But you know what would be better for America on Veteran’s Day? It would be better if we had fewer veterans, fewer disabled veterans, and even fewer dead veterans to honor.  We can do this by getting out of wars and conflicts that are not really in the interest of peace or to preserve our freedom. Most, if not all, of the conflicts we are involved in today are done in the interest of corporations like the defense industry, the banks, and oil companies.

Open your eyes, think beyond all the rhetoric and flag waving, look at the results of our foreign policy over the past 20 years and ask yourself if we have achieved any of these goals that these politicians have been telling us.

I look forward to a Veteran’s Day when we do not have so many injured, disabled, and dead Veterans to honor.  

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How can we ever achieve anything good in this country when we keep settling for the lesser evil?

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How the NSA snooped on encrypted Internet traffic for a decade

Exploit against Cisco's PIX line of firewalls remotely extracted crypto keys.

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Leaked DNC Documents Show Plans To Reward Big Donors With Federal Appointments

Democratic National Committee documents recently released by WikiLeaks include spreadsheets and emails that appear to show party officials planning which donors and prominent fundraisers to provide with appointments to federal boards and commissions.

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25 Kids Who Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity

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Policing and Profit

In the late 1980s, Missouri became one of the first states to let private companies purchase the probation systems of local governments.  In these arrangements, municipalities impose debt on individuals through criminal proceedings and then sell this debt to private businesses, which pad the debt with fees and interest. This debt can stem from fines for offenses as minor as rolling through a stop sign or failing to enroll in the right trash collection service.

In Ferguson, residents who fall behind on fines and don’t appear in court after a warrant is issued for their arrest (or arrive in court after the courtroom doors close, which often happens just five minutes after the session is set to start for the day) are charged an additional $120 to $130 fine, along with a $50 fee for a new arrest warrant and 56 cents for each mile that police drive to serve it. Once arrested, everyone who can’t pay their fines or post bail (which is usually set to equal the amount of their total debt) is imprisoned until the next court session (which happens three days a month). Anyone who is imprisoned is charged $30 to $60 a night by the jail. If an arrestee owes fines in more than one of St. Louis County’s eighty-one municipal courts, they are passed from one jail to another to await hearings in each town.

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The main obstacle to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America is the strained relationship between young black men and police forces. The massive number of black men in prison stands as an ongoing and graphically resonant rebuke to all calls to “get past racism,” exhibit initiative, or stress optimism. And the primary reason for this massive number of black men in jail is the War on Drugs. Therefore, if the War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist. America would be a better place for all. The War on Drugs destroys black families. It has become a norm for black children to grow up in single-parent homes, their fathers away in prison for long spells and barely knowing them. In poor and working-class black America, a man and a woman raising their children together is, of all things, an unusual sight. The War on Drugs plays a large part in this. It must stop.

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Three California cops were caught on camera in a one-minute video (seen below) giving a 16-year old a devastating beating, cracking his legs with a baton and threatening the young man with a taser.

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10 million Android phones infected by all-powerful auto-rooting apps

First detected in November, Shedun/HummingBad infections are surging.

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Jason Brezler has become a cause celebre among some veterans and members of Congress.

A Marine Corps officer who has been locked in a legal battle with his service after self-reporting that he improperly disseminated classified information will use Hillary Clinton’s email case to fight his involuntary separation from the service, his lawyer said.

Maj. Jason Brezler’s case has been tied up in federal court since he sued the service in December 2014. He became a cause celebre among some members of Congress, Marine generals and military veterans after he sent a classified message using an unclassified Yahoo email account to warn fellow Marines in southern Afghanistan about a potentially corrupt Afghan police chief. A servant of that police official killed three Marines and severely wounded a fourth 17 days later, on Aug. 10, 2012, opening fire with a Kalashnikov rifle in an insider attack.

An attorney for Brezler, Michael J. Bowe, said that he intends to cite the treatment of Clinton “as one of the many, and most egregious examples” of how severely Brezler was punished. FBI Director James B. Comey announced Tuesday that he would not recommend the U.S. government pursue federal charges against Clinton, but he rebuked her “extremely careless” use of a private, unclassified email server while serving as secretary of state. The FBI found that 110 of her emails contained classified information.

Bowe said it is impossible to reconcile President Obama’s statement that Clinton’s intentional act of setting up a secret, unsecured email server did not detract “from her excellent ability to carry out her duties” while Brezler received a “completely opposite finding… involving infinitely less sensitive and limited information.”

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Sami al-Hajj: Remembering Guantanamo

Al Jazeera's Sami al-Hajj reflects on how the years he spent as a prisoner in the US detention camp changed his life.

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Kids hand him their suicide notes. Now this musician has 120 of their names tattooed on his arm

Several years ago, Robb Nash received an urgent phone call from a high school principal. One of the school’s students had killed herself and in her suicide note revealed that she and a friend had a suicide pact. She didn’t say who.

Nash, a Canadian musician was already becoming a popular motivational speaker for teens. He visited schools and performed his songs and shared stories about overcoming adversity. But now, the school asked if he could address suicide directly.

It was a subject Nash knew all too well.

Standing in front of that room of teenagers who were still reeling from the loss of their peer, he opened up about when he was suicidal. How, in his darkest moments, he had no longer wanted to live.

“I know someone in this room is having these feelings,” he said he told them, “You’re not alone.”

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